Vigilantism is justified when the justice system fails to enforce the law.

Helenwood, Tennessee. Everybody in this small mountain community knew that Timothy Chandler had been arrested on child pornography charges. It was in the newspaper and all over the TV news. Two of Chandler's neighbors decided to do something about it. Those same neighbors set fire to his home. While Chandler managed to escape from the flames, his wife was killed in what authorities were calling an example, an act of vigilante justice. Associate professor of law Lloyd R. Cohen explains "Vigilantes exist because they believe that justice is far better served by their methods." While the ideals and values of justice were the intent of these neighbors, they committed another crime. Today I will be negating the resolution, "Vigilantism is justified when the justice system fails to enforce the law." Since this resolution does not supply a specific form of a governmental judicial system, I will assume the world's most popular form of government, which is Republican. Vigilantism is socially incorrect. Law is defined as a social concept. However, vigilantes act in self-preservation, and they also take the law into their own hands. This no longer makes the law a social concept. By taking the law into their own hands and dismantling its social purpose, they are not just someone taking the law into their own hands, but somebody deciding what is the law. While acting in self-preservation, they do not apply or even consider community-preservation, like our justice system does. This puts the public at a significantly greater risk and leads to more crime and more vigilantists. This further leads to the destabilization of a country and, ultimately, its downfall. Vigilantes are dangerous, because they often do not have the proper training of weapons and legal protocol to make informed deacons of a suspected criminal. Black's Law Dictionary defines vigilantism as, "The act of a citizen who takes the law into his or her own hands by apprehending and punishing suspected criminals." By not having proper training, they can hugely outweigh a punishment over a crime, which they are not legally qualified to do anyways. They can also mishandle a weapon, to cause abuse of the suspect, injury, or death to the suspect, or an innocent individual. They are more apt to violate basic human rights than the legal system, because of their emotional motivation and lack of infrastructure. When someone decides to become a vigilantist, they declare themselves the judge, jury and executioner, and since the Affirmative cannot prove definitely whether or not each individual of vigilantism will act in a Utopian manner, they cannot make the claim that vigilantism are any better than the failing government. It has been proved in more cases than not that acts of vigilantism were carried out to an extremity, since most acts are motivated by revenge and not for justice. If potential vigilantists truly are interested in justice, they can attain a bounty hunter license. They receive proper training and work with the justice system, because they pursue criminals found guilty by a jury of their peers. The justice system is far better than vigilantism. Vigilantes, no matter what definition we operate under, are not interested in fixing the root problem of the governmental error, and the justice system was designed to reform to the specific needs of the people to better serve justice. You cannot reform, modify, or improve vigilantism. Vigilantist do not act in a constructive manner by reforming themselves or the government and can therefore, no matter under what circumstances, act in best interest of everyone. A citizen in Pennsylvania stated, "I can't see anywhere it says anything even remotely close to trying the person in question. How are you deterring crime if you punish a person that is potentially innocent?" The justice system is better also because its procedures allow it to remain consistent, which vigilantism does not and therefore makes it an unstable, unpredictable, and dangerous solution. When they act, sometimes in groups like my story, they create anarchy. While they claim to uphold justice, there is no official justice in anarchy. They create a paradox and cannot logically enforce any law but what the specific vigilantist perceives. Also, vigilantism, according to Ron Levi, is "one of the least developed topics in criminology." In conclusion, vigilantism is socially incorrect, dangerous, and inferior to the current justice system even when it fails, because of the reasons and points I have presented. I will now rest my argumentation and allow the Affirmation to speak, with this ending quote, by Edward Feser, I would rather live with law that sometimes fails than with no law at all. It's morally acceptable-but the problem is that it's subjective" I thank my partner and my opponents for what I am sure is going to be an interesting and well fought debate.