Ask Lemmy

I'm ex-police (did 13 years - UK).

In 13 years of active patrol, (if you're not counting stopping someone suspicious, searching them and finding some drugs/weapon) I probably stumbled on a crime in progress maybe two or three times. Only one of those was what you'd call serious and that was a kid threatening another kid with a knife as i happened to walk round the corner.

And a couple of shop lifters whilst I was in the security office having a cup of tea with the shop manager.

The hardest part about being a vigilante is actually finding the crime in the first place.

The second hardest part would be actually detaining them without any real authority. The knife lad dropped the knife immediately when I shouted at him. As a masked vigilante you wouldn't have that authority. You don't have any backup or anyone to call. And you dont have anywhere to take your captured criminal once you've detained them.

Finding it in the first place would be hard, and getting there faster than evenly-distributed squad cars would be even harder.

Then once they get there, more often than not beating an individual person up isn't the solution - even if it's a domestic, the victims have a way of sticking up for the abuser. Or maybe it's a dispute and you're not sure who the bad guy is, and you'd need some kind of court system to work it out anyway.

In real life where those problems can't be written out, you've basically taken everything the police are criticised for and amplified it.

Depends entirely on how successful the media wanted him to be. He could be a just, moral and enlightened force for good, but if the he wasn't dancing to the tune of certain corporations the public could very easily be made to hate him.

Fighting street crime is tough, hard to find and it leaves little evidence. White collar crime OTH often leaves a paper trail. They don’t wear capes, but investigative journalists use these paper trails to uncover such crimes.

Allow me to introduce you to Phoenix Jones

Ask Phoenix Jones. He did exactly that for three years, although he never actually tried to conceal his identity. He retired from superheroing to be an MMA fighter.

Not very. The list of real-world obstacles is long, but there are a few top ones that leave super-heroes firmly in the world of fantasy. (Outside of a few edge-cases that others have listed here, people who really seem to have done small-time stunts for attention rather than a real effort to "fight crime.")

• Guns. The biggest obstacle in the US at least would be the high likelihood that the criminals you try to beat up, people already willing to break the law and victimize others, will just pull out a gun and shoot you in the face because you seem insane and threatening. Body armor may help with some shots from some angles and some calibers, but most likely you will go down even if it stops the bullet.

• Getting your ass beat. I studied and taught self-defense and martial arts for well over a decade. The biggest lesson I learned from it is to NEVER get into a fight if you can at all help it. It doesn't matter how big and tough you are, if you're looking for a fight on the streets, you WILL get hurt. You will lose teeth, you will get maimed, you will get cut and stabbed, you will face off two people and one will trip you and you will end up with every rib in your body shattered. Every street fight ends up rolling around on the ground, do YOU want to end up on the ground with multiple people trying to kick your teeth in?

• Finding a crime. If you're really lucky you might see a hollywood-style crime in progress once in your life. The "group of robbers hijacking an armored car" type crimes are vastly outweighed by the "ex boyfriend uses his key and slips in while everyone is gone and takes the playstation and perfumes" type crimes. The vast majority of ALL crimes are between people who know each other or family members, how tf you gonna find that shit going down?

• Cops. Their success rate at catching perpetrators and suspects is much lower than media would like you to believe, but they're generally going to be better armed, more organized and more capable of finding and arresting your ass. They don't take kindly to nutcases on the street upstaging them or causing public disturbances.

Let's say you prepare. Let's say you train and be the best fighter in the world. Let's say you get money or investors who help you develop the highest-level meta-material alloy armors and weapons and electronics. A million dollars in advanced optics, ballistic armor that lets you move freely, drones that fly around and scout for you, machine-gun tasers or knockout-gas bombs and rope-bola launchers that let you trip up bad guys before they even get close... you still trip on a curb and get your ass beat and your gear stolen, because running around the streets in the dark is fucking hard and you are still always just going to be a lone human made of squishy meat and with limited capabilities.

It happens, and they aren't as impactful as they are represented in movies, TV, and comics.

I first learned about this phenomenon when Phoenix Jones was arrested for using pepper spray to break up a street fight. That's when I learned that there are a handful of people all over the world that don a mask to confront crime. There's a list on Wikipedia.

unless they have powers, they will end like luigi, weeks or months. unless you are cognizant enough to hit a different area/person every time.

Hopefully they'd be arrested quickly. Crime isn't some big force in the night you csn just go out and fight. It's people doing things until the thing they do is illegal. It's hidden usually. That person would probably beat up a lot of people who can't be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and they're likely to just get picked up for acting suspicious

Real life would probably lean more toward a detective gathering evidence v getting into fights.

Using OSINT techniques to find convicted people for the bounty is a fairly safe way to fight crime.

Allow me to introduce you all to Angle Grinder Man.

Pre-19th century: would literally make out like a bandit, assuming they knew how to fight & had supernatural powers

20th century: would make out like gangbusters until the invention and widespread use of CCTV

21st century: without active electronic/optics countermeasures, it's all over, anonymity of secret identity impossible to keep

Same scenario goes for villains, who were previously able to simply outrun/outwit pursuit by authorities, often within the same country. Wire services made this more difficult, depending on the pursuers in question, then moreso with radio, then moreso with telephony & TV broadcasts, then moreso with the advent of the internet. Current tech can analyze recording of subjects and lift face shots, as well as highly specific information like gait (now sometimes touted in the same way as debunked "bite mark analysis" circa the 1980's courts/justice system). A hoodie would be workable only under the loosest conditions, the second that anyone pulled off the hood, or the subject in question were photographed both with/without it on, it's all over.