Neighborhood Watch: Peru Edition

Over the past few months, Peru has seen a marked rise in vigilante episodes. Perceptions of police and judicial impotence have pushed citizens to take responsibility for their security into their own hands, often with bloody consequences. The vigilante movement has rallied behind the slogan “Chapa tu Choro,” Peruvian slang for “catch your thief.” This trend comes at a crucial time for Peruvian politics as campaigns for next year’s election have begun. The trend arose from journalist and businesswoman Cecilia García Rodríguez’s personal experience with Peru’s judicial system. After helping her neighbor subdue a knife-wielding burglar and turn him over to police custody, Ms. Rodríguez was outraged to learn the would-be thief was released within an hour. Channeling her frustration into action, she created a Facebook page called “Chapo tu choro” to encourage others to take responsibility for their own security. Copycat pages and a Twitter account quickly began sprouting around the Internet, with some versions even calling for the “Choro” to be lynched, massacred, or bathed in blood.

Candidates in Peru’s 2016 presidential election have seized on the theme. Mr. Fujimori’s daughter, Keiko Fujimori, and other right-wing candidates have capitalized on the underlying themes of the vigilante upswing to criticize the current leftist president Ollanta Humala for ineffectively managing the country’s internal security. Ms. Rodríguez has even been criticized for creating the “Chapo” movement for political reasons, especially given her past support for former president Alberto Fujimori.

The current administration has so far only attempted to condemn, rather than pursue, the civilians behind the movement’s extrajudicial sentencing. Some ministers have gone so far as to request that the vigilantes begin coordinating with the police.

The Peruvian public has rallied behind “Chapa tu choro,” which has spawned its own song on YouTube.  Recent polls show that 72 percent of Peruvians support the movement, while another poll reveals that a majority of the public does not trust the police, and an even higher percentage distrusts the judiciary. In Lima, 90 percent of people reported feeling unsafe walking around the capital at night.

“Chapo’s” viral success in Peru has led vigilantism and mob justice to spread across Latin America. Mexico has experienced the phenomenon on an even larger scale, as bands of citizen-militias roam rural areas fighting the cartels. Public lynching has become commonplace in Brazil and Bolivia as well, where other instances of ineffective police forces resulted in citizen-inspired justice. At present, no Latin American country with vigilantism has been able to quell either the movements themselves or address their underlying issues. Whether it will spawn long-needed reform also remains to be seen.