[Jtsummers]

> I once saw in a developing country with no reliable police this sign: "Thief found, thief hanged". I asked the person driving me around and he said "yeah, they mean it". So I think in your experiment the people who would suffer most would be the real criminals.

And then you have lynchings like with Ahmaud Arbery. Not a thief, still shot and killed. Vigilante "justice" is often not just.

Though you may be right, an increase in lynchings may overall reduce crime (as presently defined, and excepting lynchings). It will also probably have a lot more false positives than the existing system, increasing paranoia with respect to outsiders and "others". So crime in a community may go down, safety for outsiders will likely go down, and for insiders may go up.