Book Review: The culture of capital punishment in Japan by D. T. Johnson

Abstract

ena. Other early chapters focusing on the entertainment/digilantism nexus have more immediate and obvious relevance: Favarel-Garrigues’s exploration of the criticism of “moral policing” in Moscow, for example, assesses online community responses to offline vigilante action, using the internet as a barometer to gauge public reactions to traditional, physical forms of deviance. While these chapters could inform criminal justice research (and, to a lesser extent, praxis) in some respect, scholars in this discipline will be particularly interested in later chapters. Specifically, Dekker and Meijer’s work highlights the interaction between European police and digital vigilantes who involve themselves in ongoing investigations and the tensions this often triggers (pp. 281–306). Further, Young’s work focuses on the rhetoric of mediated mugshots in which she explores whether the routine posting of offender photographs online is truly for crime prevention reasons or if it has devolved into something more akin to trolling—a term with a somewhat amorphous meaning that (broadly) refers to making offensive comments online at someone else’s expense (pp. 307–330). The implications of both of these chapters for criminal justice scholars and practitioners are clear and should prompt a reexamination of current ways of operation. In all, Introducing Vigilant Audiences is a collection that provides interdisciplinary coverage of an area of shared importance to scholars of the media, technology, sociology, and criminal justice (among others). The online world will continue to evolve and, as such, the specific examples here may age with time, giving the collection a natural shelf life. That said, Introducing Vigilant Audiences should not be seen as a mere collection of case studies; instead, it is a framework for understanding digilantism as “an extension of public and pre-digital gatherings” (p. 3) that is nevertheless a reflection of the internet aiding a type of vigilantism that has always existed in some form or another. In doing so, it not only tells us what digilantism “looks like” in the contemporary but also provides direction that allows readers to extrapolate and recognize potential challenges (and solutions) for the future. Introducing Vigilant Audiences will be of interest to policymakers and practitioners seeking to understand emerging online behaviors better. Beyond this, as mentioned, it provides an accessible entry point for undergraduates and graduates interested in crime and sociological phenomenon in the emerging online space, especially a work drawing from multiple academic perspectives. The interdisciplinary scope of Introducing Vigilant Audiences may even be beneficial for more experienced scholars, potentially offering new insights on familiar topics.