Criminal conflict as collective punishment

While political conflicts have been extensively studied by political scientists, criminal conflicts have received much less attention, especially by theorists in the field. Focusing on the latter type of conflict, we address why an individual crime across an ethnic or tribal border often leads to large-scale violence. Building on rational choice theory, we present three hypothetical mechanisms which may account for criminal conflicts: (i) Avengers penalize any suspects in the culprit’s social group because they cannot identify the culprit; (ii) Avengers inflict a vicarious punishment on the culprit’s significant others because such vicarious punishment can be more severe for the culprit than a mere penalty on the culprit himself; (iii) By demanding collective responsibilities, avengers urge the target group to police its fellows and to suppress deviant behavior against outsiders. Historical incidents and recent case studies suggest the third is most compelling.