Why Do Individuals Resort to Private Retaliation: A Utility-Driven Analysis

Several criminology research addressed the criminal act, the mindset of the perpetrator and the criminal act motive through philosophical, psychological or social lens, which derived the theories that explain why the crime occurs, and why a criminal commits such act. Yet, there are other perspectives of the theory to be addressed, through different lens. A question that deserves research to be figured is why a person seeks to retaliate on his own, although there are state’s law enforcement bodies that exist for this function, e.g. police, prosecution, judicial bodies, etc. In fact, this question has two main aspects:

1. the behavioral motive of the person that drives him for committing a retaliatory crime, and
2. the role of the state’s bodies that possess the authority for investigating, prosecuting and punishing.

This question aims for exploring the behavioral drivers for the criminal that pushes him to commit a retaliation against another offender, despite knowing that they will be subject to punishment as a response to their act. Moreover, on the other side of the issue, there are functioning state’s authorities, responsible for enforcing law, and further judicial authorities, responsible for investigating, prosecuting crimes and imposing punishments. With this mission been emphasized, it sounds to be not trusted for the person under the phenomenon on which we are shedding the light.  

The straightforward hypothesis is a criminal who killed a child. As a response, the child’s father became grief-stricken, driven by wrath he wants to get the right back and achieve justice against such criminal. Although there may be an ongoing legal proceeding, a human desire may be at its max to retaliate and punish the wrongdoer by their own hands, which will serve justice and restore the right, in their view. While, on the other hand, the state and its authorities holds the legal power to serve justice and punishing the wrongdoer, pursuant to the applicable laws and a fair trial. The essence of the issue actually lays here; whilst the state follows the legal steps and requirements in an organized manner, the grieved person, who pursues to serve justice the soonest, has no worth waiting or following the legal path that may be prolonged for a reason or another, mainly for the issues that may cause delays in the justice system, with an uncertain legal result they are not predicting.

The principal literature in this topic at hand is Gollwitzer et al, when presented a central argument that revenge was more likely to produce satisfaction when offenders understood it as a response to their prior wrongdoing. Their central argument was that retaliating generates utility and satisfaction, which generates a justice restoration self-feeling. Their findings suggest that the perceived utility of revenge may extend beyond the offender’s suffering to include the communication of blame and the perceived restoration of retributive justice. 

Furthermore, previous literature examined the relationship between legal legitimacy and people’s abidance. Scholar Tom Tyler illustrated that adherence to law is influenced not merely by the threat of punishment, but also by individuals’ perceptions of the legitimacy of legal authorities and the fairness of legal procedures. When individuals perceive the justice system as procedurally unfair or its authorities as lacking legitimacy, their willingness to comply voluntarily may weaken. Applied to private retaliation, this perspective suggests that a perceived failure of the criminal justice system to deliver fair and legitimate justice may undermine an individual’s willingness to rely on state-administered punishment. In simple terms, the matter becomes very frustrating for those who, in their own experience, felt injustice. The climax is reached when the behavior shifts towards a disbelief in the justice, and distrust in the rule of law; overall belief that law enforcement mechanism is ineffective.  

In 1968, famous scholar Gary Becker examined such notion through economic lens. He emphasized, in quantitative methodology, the crime in the terms of expected utility, weighing potential gains against expected punishment. In simple terms, Becker’s model was as follows:

Expected Gain = Benefits – (Probability of Being Caught X Punishment Cost) 

Becker clarified, through his econometric model, that the perpetrator commits the act if the expected gain of the crime is bigger than the punishment probability. Similar to the explained theory, we argue that the perpetrator, in the retaliation scenarios, processes a rational calculation to calculate the outcome of the potential crime in sense of satisfaction and utility in achieving justice, particularly that the punishment (of revenging) will be executed by their hands. at the end, Becker looked at the crime as an action that generates a specific gain (utility) for the criminal, and analyzed it through an econometric model

Through this perspective, the retaliator believes that he gets certain utility and inner satisfaction from punishing the offender by their hands. As Jeffery Osgood indicated in his research, this responds to the associated issues with the legal enforcement, with the existing delays, difference of justice outcomes, and other concerns surrounding justice delay, and accordingly deepen the grievance of the victim. Sometimes, the proceedings take so long that it may exceed dozens of years till the punishment execution. Statistics demonstrate that poisoners sentenced to death in the United States of America spent more than a decade in the death-row waiting for their execution. This gives an example of how prolonged justice seems till the final enforcement. Conversely, the time the justice takes to be served does align with another aspect, which is the human right to equality before courts and tribunals. The outcome of the investigations and trials may result into acquittal or conviction of the criminal. The issue lays when the victim feels unsatisfied with the result, and hence shifts to the retaliatory response against the offender, under the belief that this is the proper justice.

A remarkable precedent for the idea we are discussing is the 1981 courtroom shooting, in Lübeck, Germany, which is famously known as Marianne Bachmeier case. Bachmeier shot and killed Klaus Grabowski while he was standing trial for the murder of her seven-year-old daughter, Anna. The incident provoked intense public debate over whether personal grief could justify taking justice into one’s own hands. In 1983, Bachmeier was convicted of manslaughter and unlawful possession of a firearm, receiving a prison sentence of six-year, with a post-incident debate of the justice meaning and human behavior. Following her crime in the courtroom, she demonstrated that her objective was ensuring that the offender is killed at sight. Later in years, and during an interview by the German Public Broadcaster SWR that was made with her, she expressed she did not regret her act a single time. 

Bachmeier’s case, alongside other instances of vigilantism, illustrates this phenomenon in its starkest form. From a critical perspective, however, a crime does not cease to be a crime merely because it is committed in response to a perceived injustice, personal grievance, or intense anger. Such motives may help explain the offender’s conduct, but they do not justify it. Private retaliation risks perpetuating violence, transforming an individual act of vengeance into an escalating cycle of bloodshed.

The consequences of private retaliation extend far beyond a victim and offender. One of the clearest applications for the private retaliation is the blood crimes in Upper-Egypt (south territory of Egypt) which is also known as (tha’r). This criminal practice demonstrates how an unlawful killing can create a succession of retaliatory acts, transforming an individual grievance into an intergenerational conflict. The resulting violence may therefore punish people who was not involved in the original offence and create chain of blood that never ends. In this respect, National research was conducted in Egypt on the blood crimes in Upper-Egypt, in which it was found that a strong correlation exists between the chain of crimes occur there, and the utility-based motive that drives a grieved person to kill whom they believed an offender.

It should not be gone unnoticed that the criminal is a normal human that seeks a maximization of his utility and pleasure. Being an economic-driven creature, thinks in a rational economic manner (homo economicus), pursue to maximize the payoffs, and keep his utility and pleasure, and in the event of deep grievance, especially when associated with justice-related issues, a one cannot help but restoring his utility through retaliation, driven by wrath and the desire to restore to take revenge, which pleases him at the moment.

The risk of the private retaliation in the manner we explained is very critical. It opens a door for a chain of crimes and blood, all inspired by achieving justice and getting the offender punished immediately and by their hands, which is a wrongdoing per se. This criminal practice highlights a severe risk on all levels; primarily it keeps the grieved ones who seek retaliation above the law, which affects, on one side, the rule of law notion and the justice mechanism that shall be performed through the state. On the other side, the crimes rate in the society will be multiplicated several times; each homicide crimes will be followed by another one as a response to the first, which creates a non-stop chain.

This analysis leads to a further recommendation: the state should establish sorts of support and assistance for victims’ families and other individuals affected by serious crime. Such support may include psychological counselling and financial assistance. The objective is to ensure that victims’ families do not feel abandoned in the aftermath of their loss, that their suffering is acknowledged and addressed through legitimate institutional channels, and that they are not left to seek retribution as a means of obtaining recognition or redress. A relevant part also is the ongoing awareness conducted in the sense of legal abidance and the prohibition of retaliatory crimes and revenge.

 By providing meaningful support and demonstrating that the state takes victims’ suffering seriously, such measures may help reduce the social and psychological pressures that can contribute to retaliatory violence, while reinforcing the principle that criminal accountability must remain within the rule of law and justice.