ABSTRACT
Chapter 7, Informal Justice: Digilantism, Victim Participation and Recognition, explores online forms of vigilantism and ‘informal justice’ seeking. Vigilantism is a contested concept within criminology, and yet digital vigilantism (or ‘digilantism’) is arguably an important feature of cultures and practices of justice-seeking in digital society. There are many such examples from victim-survivors of partner or sexual violence, to democratically-motivated ‘hacktivism’, to the public naming and shaming of suspected and/or convicted offenders or even the dispersed harassment of those who perpetrate a social (rather than criminal) infraction. In this chapter, we examine such examples and consider what it means to seek informal justice and to engage in digilantism; both in terms of the experiences of individuals, and the broader implications for crime and justice in digital society. Though there are many challenges, and potential harms, associated with digilantism and informal justice-seeking, we argue that the meanings, cultures and practices of justice are increasingly multiplicitous in digital society and, as such, require a multiplicitous or ‘rhizomatic’ conceptualisation of justice.
