Abstract

Vigilante violence tends to take place in areas or situations in which the state is unable or unwilling to provide for the safety of certain groups. Crime control vigilantism can be understood as an alternative means of controlling crime and providing security where the state does not. The violent punishment inherent in vigilante activity is generally with the ultimate goal of providing safety and security, and thus should theoretically “fit the crime” and not be excessive. However, in many acts of vigilante violence this is not the case, and vigilantism takes on an extraordinarily violent character. This article examines vigilante violence in three South African townships through the micro-sociological perspective of violence developed by Randall Collins, “forward panic.” Forward panic is a process whereby the tension and fear marking most potentially violent conflict situations is suddenly released, bringing about extraordinary acts of violence. Based on data from eighteen interviews gathered from the Johannesburg townships of Diepsloot, Freedom Park, and Protea South, I analyze respondents’ accounts and experiences with vigilante violence using the framework of forward panic. The data confirm that many acts of vigilante violence in South Africa’s townships can be clearly categorized as episodes of forward panic and that although Collins’s conception of forward panic focuses on the individual, the conditions that create the emotional potential for forward panic in an individual can be structural and thus create the potential for forward panic in entire groups or parts of communities.