Community Serf-Defense Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer Citizen involvement in law enforcement is an American tradition. A mericans have responded to recent law enforcement problems through increased fear, estrangement from one's neighbors, avoidance behavior, increased receptivity to law-and-order politics, and~as the rising fortunes of the private security industry suggest~increased purchases of protective devices such as better locks, alarms, and weapons. These responses are primarily passive, defensive, indirect, and individual. Other more active, agressive, and direct group responses may also be seen. American society has always placed a heavy emphasis on voluntary action and masculinity. It is not surprising that the country's populist self-help ethos should have spawned a large number of citi- zen policing groups (e.g., the Defenders, the Louisiana Deacons, Anthony Imperiale's North Ward Citizens' Com- mitts, the Watts Community Alert Patrol, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, and the Jewish Defense League) which represent an organizational response of victims or people who see themselves and their communities as poten- tial victims. Perceived victimization can be expanded to include the actions of authorities as well as actions of those elements engaged in traditional crime and disorder. Community Police Patrols When public institutions fail to meet felt needs, a number of recurring responses on the part of the communities pre- sumably being serviced may result. These responses vary from passive resignation or withdrawal to reformist and radi- cal politics to efforts to set up new institutions outside the traditional system. Citizen involvement in law enforcement is not new to America. Counting only those groups which have taken the law into their own hands, a recent account lists 326 vigilante movements during the past two centuries of American history. We can distinguish two types of vigilantism in America. The first type appeared prior m 1856 in areas where settle- ment preceded effective law enforcement. The targets of this type of vigilantism were primarily horse thieves, counterfeit- ers, and outlaws; the goal of this vigilante activity was the enforcement of consensually formulated standards of peace and law. The emergence of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee in 1856, however, gave rise to a second form of citizen mobilization. Unlike the earlier type this movement victimized Catholics, Jews, immigrants, blacks, union men and labor leaders, political radicals, and proponents of civil liberties. While the first type of vigilantism filled or attemp- ted to fill a discernible void, the second generally emerged where the regular police and legal systems were already functioning, but where alien groups were seen to threaten the established order. Rather than simply enforcing the law, the second type frequently involved political struggles for power, racism, attempts to terrorize would-be criminals, and even the desire to spare the public the costs of the conven- tional judicial process. Recent self-defense groups differ from more classic vig- ilante groups: they have generally not killed or taken the law into their own hands. Their primary functions have been surveying and protecting their own communities, often as an ancillary group to the regular police. Thus they more closely resemble the early anti-" bad man" societies which amplified law enforcement through pursuit and capture, but did not administer summary punishments. Recent groups have per- formed largely deterrent functions and have not usually held street trials or meted out alley justice. But the fact that private citizens have chosen to become involved in police work has meant that the issue, if not often the substance, of vigilantism has reoccurred with them. 38 SOCI ETY