Delinquency, corruption and vigilantism- Oh my!

My town has had a series of delinquent events occurring since I have been here. Several fires have occurred in the early hours of the morning, burning down a political building, a house with a cane roof, and another home. There have been robberies of motos and batteries (expensive batteries that run the inversors, giving houses and businesses electricity when there is no electricity, which is often. Some say that the ‘mafia’ that runs the electricity in this country are also investors of such goods as these batteries, who have an economic interest to keep the electricity problem from improving). There is a lot of drug activity in my town, nothing which I see with my own eyes but hear about. Apparently a group of delinquents (drug users, dealers, robbers, this is a term used to encompass them all) meets after midnight at different locales, usually banquitas or gambling joints along the main road.  The delinquency reached a high point a couple of weeks ago, when an 18 year old girl was violently murdered in the early morning, with the main suspect being her boyfriend who was supposedly deep into drugs, also a case of suspected domestic abuse. Nothing like this has happened before in the town. People die prematurely of motorcycle accidents by popping wheelies and doing tricks, racing, etc.- but never a murder like this.

The town has taken to meeting weekly to confront the problem. A town hall meeting was called last Saturday to see how they wanted to tackle the problem of delinquency. I could not make the meeting, but several community members filled me in. My neighbor told me this morning that the police rounded up suspected drug users the night. I told her that was great it should nip the problem right in the bud. She then informed me that after bribes to police officers and judges, they would be let free. She tells me a story about her brother. Basically one time her brother turned in youths that robbed his house, and they have since been released. Now they are threatening to kill him since he turned them in. He decided to no longer press charges for his own safety. She said that the town decided to take matters into their own hands, since the police wouldn’t do their job, and you cannot trust the authorities due to heavy corruption. How? Scare them by killing them. If they come into your house, don’t let them leave, deal with the problem yourself. Some people in the town believe they must resort to extreme measures, taking matters into their own hands to restore order- vigilantes. I countered with her that this is an extreme measure, that it is one thing to kill a person in self-defense but quite another to look them in the face and kill them to send a message to others. That is murder and a brutal crime. She counters that everyone in the town knows who the delinquents are, and no one says anything for fear. They do not turn them into the police because they don’t think anything good will come of it. The conversation ends with her telling me that they won’t exactly kill them themselves- no, no- they will HIRE someone else to do the dirty work, because there are people that do it for a living. Intense.

But this is one extreme view, as I learned of a more rational standpoint from a community leader. First, before taking matters into their own hands a la vigilantism, they are compiling a list of all the delinquents in town, a list that they will give to the police. That is where we are at as of now. He concluded by saying that if the police don’t do their job, the town will be forced to take matters into their own hands.  To be continued...