World News:
You're probably aware that an Islamic terrorist group in Nigeria called Boko Haram have kidnapped almost 300 schoolgirls.Well the villagers of the attacked areas are fighting back: forming vigilante groups that are going out and attacking Boko Haram -- apparently 'scores' of terrorists have been killed (when I was a kid a score was 20, so it must be a fair few).
The media make out that this is a good thing: the people fighting back against evil. It's the same in Batman: an unknown person starts dishing out healthy doses of justice, and putting the world right.
But that isn't the whole story.
The thing about vigilantes is that they aren't legal. They take it on themselves to protect the innocent, and judge the guilty without any authority. It usually happens when the existing law enforcers are ineffective (like in Nigeria) or corrupt (like in Gotham City).
But the problem with this is, who decides who's guilty
and who's innocent?
In the world of the police, that's decided by the courts. It's the job of the police to arrest people who they suspect are guilty, and the job of the courts to decide on their guilt and punish them accordingly.
But in the world of vigilantes, they are literally judge, jury and executioner. They do the punishing as well as the arresting, and that makes it so much easier to abuse the powers they have.
Or to get it wrong. In November 2013, a 44 year-old man in Bristol was wrongly accused of being a paedophile. He was kicked and stamped on until he died, and then his body was set on fire. Let's get the important point here: he was innocent. His only crime was... nothing. And that leaves us with the question, what's the difference between a vigilante and a murderer?
It's different in Nigeria, because there is a feeling that the government have failed to act; and it's different in Gotham because it's not real.
Who cleans up the mess after a vigilante? The tax payer, that's who. Which means the awesome explosions come at a personal cost (almost as expensive as a baby)
