Latin America

Globe Latin America United Kingdom

‘Para-justice’ or vigilante justice in Colombia

The citizens’ weariness with street thieves naturalised revenge and punishment as instruments of a kind of dangerously vindictive “para-justice”.   German Ayala Osorio*   Every day, videos are posted on social media showing citizens, particularly men, subjecting thieves to violent punishments they call “paloterapia” (lynching), cognitive recalibration, therapeutic massages (punching […]