How would an anarchist society deal with crimes like rape or serial murder?

Question

I'm personally a anarcho-syndicalist; but, this is something that perplexes me often. I don't see how a mutualistic society could intern people, without state backing.

And you hardly want private police, like the *cough* anarcho-capitalists.

Thanks! Btw.

Comments

First, a crime is something that is illegal. Second, it would probably depend on the community.

Answer 1

^Like Veranasi said, it depends. On the situation, the area, the people, etc. In an Anarchist society, people would have to be more responsible. There's no more running to the police when you get scared. When you no longer have that false sense of security, you will begin to develop a new, real sense of security and how things should be handled.

If someone was killed in a community, the area would obviously go on high alert. I imagine people would be split and have multiple ideas but that could be managed and that's a topic for later. I think generally, people would take up arms and take responsibility into their own hands.

Comments

I have to say something here, I registered just for this reason, it is NEVER the responsibility of a potential victim to prevent any kind of assault. Specifically in the case of rape, I have gotten tired of hearing again and again how it's apparently my fault for being out too late, or alone, or just locking the door instead of having 5 locks, an electric fence and a gun cabinet. I'm sorry that some asshole decided to break into my house, and beat me till I couldn't fight back anymore. No, I don't think the police did any good there, but saying that "people would have to be more responsible" isn't a sensible response at all to this sort of question.

Answer 2

There are so many clarifying questions/objections required by your casual statement... For an anarchist to use a term like "crime" is automatically a problem; such a concept is meaningless in a context where deviant (non-normative) behavior is dealt with by the affected individuals making up a community/commune/affinity group (or whatever other meaningful level of social organization you like). That's commonly called Direct Action. "Crime" is a legal category, requiring an institutionalized system of allegedly neutral conflict resolution to take the place of what the statists see as their purview alone: retaliation, retribution, vengeance (the pretense to rehabilitation should be, by now, completely discredited). This usually takes the form of arrest, trial, and incarceration. In short, punishment for behaving outside the parameters decided by those who run the State. By taking the response to deviance out of the hands of those directly affected, the legal authorities are merely delegitimizing (and making it a crime!) the autonomy and cohesion of any meaningful level of social organization.

What would happen in an anarchist society to deal with rape and murder would probably look a lot like what happens in other non-statist cultures when someone does something particularly nasty: the survivor, the family and friends decide how to proceed, whether it's one or more of the following. Public shaming or beating; concern coupled with compassion and care; expulsion; execution -- and a million other possibilities in between. All options are on the table, unlike what happens in statist cultures, where the authorities decide the punishment in a sham neutrality for the good of "the people."