Synopsis Vigilante

When Kim Ji Yong was a child, his mother was beaten to death in the street. The culprit only received three and half years in prison. Kim Ji Yong—now an adult—sees that his mother’s killer hasn’t changed at all. Ji Yong takes matters into his own hands and beats him brutally.

Subsequently, Kim Ji Yong begins living two entirely different lives. On weekdays, he’s a model student at the police university. During the weekends, he punishes criminals who’d recieved light sentences and continue to commit criminal acts. Now called Vigilante, Ji Yong receives help from admirer Cho Kang Ok. Meanwhile, Detective Cho Heon chases after the man called Vigilante.

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Rurmors...

Why is vigilantism so rare?

We all know the courts are seriously flawed and people get away with murder and other terrible crimes often enough it's not even a surprise anymore. A while back I read a true crime story about a parent killing their child's murderer in court and it made me wonder why that's as rare as it is. Is it that people are more afraid of being punished or do people believe that the law should be followed or what? (Not saying lack of vigilantism is a bad thing, just seems surprising there isn't more.)

For two reasons. First, it’s very difficult for most people to take another human life. We have deep societal taboos ingrained into us around that. Second, it’s a crime, and a serious one. Between the difficulty of taking a human life and the serious penalties for doing so, most people just won’t.

First, it’s very difficult for most people to take another human life.

Many people fail to realize that part. Even among cops, who are trained to kill deadly threats, not all of them can, and many police have been killed without ever firing their weapon because they couldn't bring themselves to do it.

I had to put down a cat because it was suffering and loudly and slowly dying and I was 18 and went out with a .22 and after I killed It I felt incredibly guilty like maybe I could Of saved the cat which would of been impossible

But I think murder is like that but times 100x

If you read some crime studies on revenge you will see its not as rare as you might think. Areas where you have poor case clear rates you see spikes in revenge killings.

This happens because judges are people too, and are as vain and as pridefull as you and me.
How dare you try to go above them and do justice yourself? How dare you decide that their word is not final or their judgment was incorrect?
At that point it's personal for them, while the original crime was just another monday.
I think that's one part of it but to play the devil's advocate, it may also have to do with the nature of the crimes. Revenge killings are almost always premeditated; there is a motive, a plan and preparations, which would make it "murder". Whereas the original criminal may have done something "less punishable" from a legal standpoint, aka rape, manslaughter, a "crime of passion" etc. Since first degree murder is one of the worst crimes you can commit, it would (unfortunately) be expected that many "avengers" get worse punishments than the "original criminals".

Doesn’t make sense If the system is there to rehabilitate or remove bad elements from the general population.
A hot head who commits random crime when they’re angry is a danger to society. A vigilante who just goes off on criminals, usually that the system is I’ll equipped to handle because of bureaucracy or corruption, is only a danger to the elements of society we’d like to think twice more often.
That said, if vigilantism was common, there’d be a lot of escalating violence over misunderstandings. Specifically the people in power. Search anyone powerful, there will be convincing one sided documentaries making them seem surely like an evil the system can’t deal with, in need of a vigilante. This is probably why it’s a good idea to make examples of vigilantes in court, even if the sentencing ends up being greatly reduced later for whatever reasons
I don't think that's the case. If there was reasonable self defense, the prosecutor wouldn't waste resources on even trying. I bet that in a lot of those cases you'd find the person defending themselves actually escalated the situation, at which point "self-defense" becomes much harder to argue. You don't get to stand there and run your mouth and escalate it to a fight and then codon self defense. But some states do have mutual combat laws you might be able to invoke.

It's geographical. Here in the USA, that is definitely frowned upon and punished severely. In LATAM, specifically Colombia, one of my favorite pastimes was to watch thieves, rapists get the living hell beaten out of them by the community. Their are videos all over the internet about this. It mostly happens because they know that their justice system is a joke so they take matters into their own hands. Many times it would end up with a lynching or burning of the criminal. If they got off easy, it would include getting their clothes ripped off and tied to a post.

When gang members kill members of other gangs in retaliation for the killing of one of their own I would say that's a kind of vigilantism. They don't wait for Law enforcement to arrest and try the offenders. It happens almost daily in cities all across the US.