Vigilantism and Institutions: Understanding Attitudes toward Lynching in Brazil

Abstract

Why do people support extrajudicial violence? In two survey experiments with respondents in Brazil, we examine which characteristics of lynching scenarios garner greater support for lynching and whether providing different types of information about lynching reduces support for it. We find that people often do support community members to take vengeance. In particular, our analysis finds that people strongly support the use of extrajudicial violence by families of victims against men who sexually assault and murder women and children. We also find that criminal punishment and the threat of vendettas reduce support, but appeals to the human rights of victims have zero effect on support for lynchings. Unlike the U.S. experience with lynchings, race was not observed to play an important role in how respondents answered the survey.