vigilante group
Self-appointed law enforcers
A vigilante group is an organized body of citizens who take law enforcement into their own hands, typically when they believe official authorities are absent, ineffective, or corrupt.
Such groups range from neighborhood watch organizations to armed posses pursuing criminals.
The term often carries negative connotations of mob justice and extrajudicial violence: Vigilante groups patrolled the streets after the riots.
Historically associated with frontier justice in the American West, modern usage extends to any self-appointed enforcers operating outside legal channels.
- mobDisorderly, aggressive crowd
- mob justiceExtralegal punishment by crowds
- posseArmed group pursuing fugitives
- lynchMob killing, typically hanging
- militiaNon-professional armed force
justice · revenge · masked · patrol · neighborhood · streets · outlaws · punisher · torch · rope · hunting · citizens · armed · citizen patrol · night · pursuit · lawless · frontier
- vigilantismvigilantism, lynch mob, lynching, mob justice, frontier justice
- armed groupsmilitia, guerrillas, insurgents, paramilitary, militias
- militiamilitia, citizen soldier, colonial militia, citizen soldiers, state militias
- public orderriot, public order, breach of peace, disorderly conduct, unlawful assembly
vigilante grouppolice
Civil law enforcement
law enforcement · police force · police department · state police · federal agents
vigilante groupcourt system
Network of tribunals
judiciary · tribunal · due process · criminal justice system · legal proceedings
vigilante, vigilantes, vigilant, vigilance, vigilantly, vigil, vigils, group, groups