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The vigilante subgenre represents one of the more problematic trends in American action cinema, as it inherently boasts reactionary sentiments through the promotion of violence as an adequate means of asserting one's masculinity. As will be argued in this chapter, American vigilante films can be categorised into three distinct historical waves: the 1970s, the 2000s and the 2010s. The products of each wave present themes of masculinity relevant to their respective cultural period, specifically, anti-counterculture sentiments, post-9/11 anxieties and a growing cultural awareness of toxic masculinity. The third wave of vigilante films is particularly noteworthy in that it correlates with the prospective emergence of metamodernism, a cultural movement that, in contrast to postmodernism's use of apathy as response to trauma, opts for a cautiously optimistic return to metanarratives. Consequently, third wave vigilante films provide more deconstructive portrayals of vigilante figures through metamodernism's oscillation between irony and optimism. This chapter will outline the history of these three waves of vigilante cinema and provide textual analysis of Blue Ruin (2013) and You Were Never Really Here (2017), two third wave films that demonstrate self-reflexive portrayals of vigilante violence in correlation with metamodern masculinity. The results of these analyses indicate that vigilante films, and perhaps American action cinema in its entirety, are moving towards narratives that seek to challenge the more reactionary sentiments of films from years prior.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships between moral disengagement, individual differences (i.e. need for cognition (NFC), faith in intuition, legal authoritarianism) and responses to vigilantism.

US university students were surveyed.

NFC reduced support for vigilante justice while legal authoritarianism increased support for vigilante justice. Both relationships are mediated by moral disengagement, which also increases support for vigilante justice.

The present study provides a starting point for further research on individual differences and responses to vigilantism.

Results expand on the understanding of the function of individual differences in a morally charged decision-making task. Content has implications for academics and legal practitioners.

Vigilante justice is embedded within American culture. However, vigilantism is currently illegal, and recent instances of what might be considered vigilante justice (e.g. George Zimmerman, David Barajas) have highlighted the controversy surrounding such extralegal violence. Little research has focussed on the moral quandary posed by vigilantism.

Purpose – This is an examination of how border policies become intertwined with patriotic expressions that result in an atmosphere conducive to border vigilantism. We analyze how vigilantes target sources of immigrant employment, demonstrate at public buildings in attempting to put pressure on public officials, and speak and rally at educational institutions in order to disseminate their message.

Methodology – We use content analysis, broadly defined.

Findings – Brutalization theory helps understand how a militarized border policy shapes an environment in which violence becomes an acceptable and appropriate response to undocumented migration.

Value – This chapter provides insights on both recent vigilante activities along the border and also within the interior of the nation.

In Nigeria, vigilantism appears to be a common response to dissatisfaction about the state police in the recent time. Using survey data of residents in Lagos, Nigeria, the purpose of this paper, therefore, is to explore whether what is already known about perceptions of procedural (in) justice of state police also applies to self-help security groups in Nigeria. This is with a view to influencing community support for and satisfaction with non-state policing in the country.

The study adopted a case study approach. Lagos, Nigeria was stratified into the high, medium and low densities. Systematic sampling technique was used in selecting 1 out of every 20 buildings (5 percent) in each area. Household representative person on each floor of the selected building who had contact with vigilante corps in the last 12 months were targeted. Of 768 copies of questionnaires administered, a sample of 386 was effectively returned (representing 50 percent response rate). Six categories of variables were analyzed. These are procedural justice, distributive justice, vigilante corps’ performance, legitimacy, residents’ satisfaction with vigilante corps activities and socio-economic characteristics.

Results reveal that respondents are not primarily instrumental in their support for vigilantisms. Instead, their support is associated with their basic communal values. More than effectiveness in controlling crime, vigilantisms receive community support provided they use procedural justice in dealings with the public. Respondents who perceive vigilantisms use procedural justice also view them as legitimate, and as well satisfy with their activities and services. Besides, results show that support for and satisfaction with vigilantisms are associated with environmental, social and economic characteristics of the residents in the community they serve. The thesis supported in this research paper is that public support for and satisfaction with vigilantisms can be influenced significantly through policing strategies that builds legitimacy.

Vigilantism pervades contemporary policing strategies. It is supported by national crime prevention policies, according to the logic that the use of community self-help security strategies could contribute to sustainable crime prevention. This study extends research on legitimacy, with an empirical focus on Nigerian vigilantism. Understanding factors that shape public support for vigilantism may enhance safer communities.

In this chapter, the authors adopt a macrofoundations perspective to explore punishment within institutional theory. Institutional theorists have long focused on a single type of punishment – retribution – including the use of sanctions, fines, and incarceration to maintain conformity. The authors expand the types of punishment that work to uphold institutions, organized by visible and hidden, and formal and informal characteristics. The four types of punishment include (1) punishment-as-retribution; (2) punishment-as-charivari; (3) punishment-as-rehabilitation; and (4) punishment-as-vigilantism. The authors develop important connections between punishment-as-charivari, which relies on shaming efforts, and burgeoning interest in organizational stigma and social evaluations. The authors also point to informal types of punishment, including punishment-as-vigilantism, to expand the variety of actors that punish wrongdoing, including actors without the legal authority to do so. Finally, the authors detail a number of questions for each type of punishment as a means to generate a future research agenda.

The purpose of this paper is to examine youth literacy and writing practices in select, contemporary young adult literature (YAL), especially how and why literate activity is sponsored, negotiated or occluded by teachers and schools.

The authors position young adult fiction as case studies of youth composing in and out of school. Drawing on Stake's (1995) features of case study research in education, the authors present readings of Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero and The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy by Kate Hattemer that highlight particular problems and insights about youth literacy practices that are worth extended examination and reflection.

Both novels feature youth engaging in powerful literacy and writing practices across a range of modes to critically read and write their worlds. These particular texts – and other YAL featuring youth composing – offer teacher educators and pre-service teachers opportunities for critical reflection on their evolving stances on literacy instruction; identities as writing and literacy educators; and pedagogies that enable robust literate activity.

In the US educational context, teacher education programs are required to provide pre-service teachers numerous opportunities to observe and participate as teachers in public school classrooms. YAL offers a unique setting of experience that can be productively paired with more traditional field placements to complement pre-service writing teacher education. Reading YAL featuring youth composing can serve as a useful occasion of reflection on pedagogies that limit and/or make possible students’ meaningful engagement with words and the world.

Work on repression within the social movements literature has largely focused on state-based and coercive repression, despite both the empirical importance of private and non-coercive forms of protest control and the theoretical leverage studying other forms of protest control could offer. This paper argues that scholars should shift from studying repression, which as a terminology carries connotations about state-based and coercive action, and instead focus on the “social control of protest.” The paper then manufactures a literature on private forms of protest control, culling existing work from disparate fields and literatures. These works are organized using a previously published typology of repressive forms that covers such diverse actions as vigilantism and countermovement violence. This organization reveals that empirical research has been done on private protest control even if it has not been named as such or been connected to a coherent body of scholarship on the subject. The paper then examines possible directions for future research that could facilitate the growth of scholarship on private protest control.