This brief article in The Atlantic makes what to my mind is a curious argument. To wit: In the Central African Republic the most common crime for people to be accused of is witchcraft. Yet for reasons that should be fairly obvious, witchcraft is a rather difficult charge to prove, which does not make convictions for it any less rare. Nonetheless, the author Graeme Wood seems to imply, and others argue, we should still be fine with people being charged of witchcraft despite these self-evident issues because otherwise street justice would prevail.
Color me unimpressed with this rationale. Find a way to address the threat of vigilantism. Don’t charge and convict people of a crime that someone just (ahem) conjured out of thin air.
