Buur, Lars, and Steffen Jensen. "Vigilantism and the policing of everyday life in South Africa". African Studies, Vol.63, No.2 (2010): 139-152.

Buur, Lars, and Steffen Jensen. "Vigilantism and the policing of everyday life in South Africa". African Studies, Vol.63, No.2 (2010): 139-152.

• In 1996, two major vigilante groups emerged in South Africa, People Against Gangsterism And Drugs (PAGAD) which emerged as a muslim-led group in Cape Town attacking gangsters and drug lords, and Mapogo a Mathamaga, a salaried paramilitary founded by a prominent businessman in Limpopo after a series of prominent murders (139, 148).
• Media and scholarship have tended to decry these groups as anachronistic mobs, whereas police have employed various methods of dealing with vigilantes, from attempting to fight them, as Cape Town police did against PAGAD, to working alongside vigilantes to enforce law and order (139-140).
• Source mine for definitions of vigilantism on page 141. Unlike some other definitions of vigilantism, South African groups are popular, operate outside of the law, and use violence to construct and enforce norms of morality (141).
• There are multiple understandings and perceptions of vigilante groups in South Africa. In the 1970s onward, vigilantism was associated with political manipulation and government support of 'popular' pro-apartheid groups, now perceived to be supported by shadowy business or criminal elements. There is also the idea of vigilantes as a mob, particularly due to mob rule during anti-apartheid protests during the 1980s (142).
• Vigilante groups developed in post-apartheid South Africa because of a lack of capacity or will on the part of the police force to protect basic human or economic rights. In the face of threats to personal security, people formed their own law enforcement organizations in the form of vigilantes (144).
• The boundaries between state and non-state forces are unclear in the case of South African vigilantes, despite the fact that they emerge from state incompetence. Police officers can become vigilantes, and vigilantes occasionally have access to state resources (145).
• Vigilantes frequently extract money from territories they control. This can be viewed as a malign form of racketeering or a benign compensation for the security and policing they provide to communities (146).
• Vigilantes not only combat generally accepted notions of crime, but also target other forms of social disorder or immoral behavior deemed criminal by the community or vigilante leadership. Crimes perceived by vigilantes do not necessarily match the legal status of crimes, as some legal crimes may be overlooked while non-crimes, such as witchcraft or homosexuality, may be punished (147).