Another symptom

I recently read about people organizing to be on the streets in NYC to try to help prevent a serial killer from targeting his victims of choice—prostitutes—rather than waiting on the police to solve the crime.

I am of two minds on this issue:

I think it demonstrates one of the finer traits of our culture in this nation that strangers are willing and eager to organize to protect those who are most in danger. It shows just how much the death of one affects us all, whether or not we are a preferred target of a madman. (I'm also glad to see that people are thinking of their own safety, as well as that of others, in a more proactive way than just waiting on someone else to save them.)

On the other hand, it demonstrates a dangerous lack of trust in our society's justice system.

I may not trust the judicial system, but I like to think I have reason not to—not only did my home county not prosecute my abuser, they refused to even investigate him because he was a pillar of the community that would never do that to any child, much less his own. Personally, I like cops as individuals—but hate the institution because there is no justice in it much of the time.

If naïve, idealistic, young people, most of whom haven't had a traumatic experience with the justice system ignoring the evil happening to them, don't trust the cops and judges to do what they're supposed to do to find bad guys and put them away…we're on the verge of something horrible.

We have got to put our foot down. And if our judges don't want to take responsibility and if they want to keep letting these people loose, then you know what, you're going to have more vigilante going on. You're going to have a lot of problems in this community and in this world if they keep letting these guys out. It's not getting better.—Judy Cornett

Think about the repercussions of how the average citizen would read "put[ting] our foot down." Do you think you could simply watch, be present and obvious about watching, call the cops and be a witness? Do you think it will matter? Or do you think that, since the madman is likely to get paroled and released in fifteen years (or less, depending on overcrowding), you'd be more likely to do something about it yourself?

Once the majority lose trust in the institution—whatever that institution may be—it collapses. If that happens to be our legal system…