Mob justice in Ghana

This article is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic. Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style. (April 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Mob justice is when a person suspected to be a criminal is beaten by a group of people or crowd with clubs, stones, machetes, or anything they can lay their hands on. In some cases the alleged criminal dies in the process due to excessive beating or they are set on fire using old car tires and fuel.^[1] Mob justice, also known as ‘instant justice’ or ‘jungle justice’, occurs in various towns and cities in Ghana. According to the laws of Ghana, this act is illegal and intolerable, but it occurs at an increasing rate. People who engage in this act are usually onlookers or people passing by or an organized group also known as "community vigilantes" whose aim is to protect the community from criminals.^{[citation needed]}

In Ghana, it is not only alleged criminals that sometimes face mob justice; people suspected to be witches, wizards, adulterers and homosexuals sometimes find themselves in such situations. Due to the lack of trust in the law enforcement system in Ghana people resort to taking the law into their own hands and deal with these alleged criminals their own way.