The killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, while a stark reflection of frustration with the American health insurance industry, also highlights a longstanding and contradictory cultural fascination in the United States with street justice and punitive criminal justice.
The elevation of lawbreakers to folk-hero status is not new in American culture.
During the Wild West era, outlaws like Jesse James were venerated in newspapers and dime-store novels. James’s body was even displayed on tour, allowing curious Americans to pose with the infamous figure, who some framed as resisting corrupt railroad companies and banks. Decades later, Bonnie and Clyde similarly entered American folklore, captivating audiences to this day.
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Understanding crime and justice
Yet alongside this cultural celebration of vigilante figures, America’s criminal justice system remains one of the world’s most punitive, with more people behind bars than in any other country.
Though shifting in recent years, Americans generally support harsh punishments, including capital punishment. How can these seemingly contradictory attitudes co-exist?
Criminologists offer insights into the tensions between punitive justice and the valorization of outlaws. Beyond studying causes and consequences of crime, criminology also examines justice’s definitions and implementations.
Crime itself is socially constructed, defined by those in power. This creates a system where profoundly unethical actions may not be legally criminalized, while other arguably just actions are punished. Furthermore, the state’s monopoly on legitimate violence complicates public reactions to illegal acts like the CEO killing.
This contradiction can be partially explained by distinguishing between formal and informal social control. Formal social control consists of laws and state-enforced criminal justice, while informal control manifests in interpersonal or community-level responses, often referred to as “self-help” justice or “street justice.”
Both forms of justice address public desires for accountability, often in the realms of distributive, procedural and retributive justice.
Justice and the CEO Killing
Distributive justice is particularly relevant in this case, as the alleged killer’s perceived motive relates to inequities in the distribution of health care — a critical need for all Americans.
In theory, formal systems like the courts address such inequities through procedural justice (for example, fair trials and due process). Yet, procedural remedies can often feel inaccessible or ineffective, exacerbating public frustration.
Retributive justice, on the other hand, appeals to the desire for proportionate responses to wrongdoing. Research links retributive justice to acts of street justice, which are often glorified in American popular media. From films like John Q (where a father fights health insurers) to the timeless legend of Robin Hood, these narratives valorize street justice as a response to systemic failures.
The CEO killing has already been likened to these stories, framing accused killer Luigi Mangione, who hails from a wealthy Maryland family, as a modern-day Robin Hood figure acting on behalf of the common person. Notably, many accounts of Robin Hood describe him as a onetime nobleman.
But because the state holds a monopoly on violence, individual attempts to enact justice are formally delegitimized, even as they evoke admiration from segments of the public.
This tension is amplified by the criminal justice system’s disproportionate focus on street-level crime versus corporate crime. While working-class people face incarceration for minor offences, corporate figures often escape significant consequences for substantial misdeeds, intensifying public frustration and fuelling sympathy for vigilante actions.
Class, populism and media framing
Today, social media provides a much more accessible and shared format than the print newspapers and dime-store novels of the past, offering global platforms for collective sentiment. A combination of populist frustrations, real material inequalities and widespread media access creates fertile ground for Mangione’s valorization.
Platforms like X (formerly Twitter), podcasts and livestreams have drawn partisan battle lines. American commentators such as Hasan Piker and Ben Shapiro frame the event through ideological lenses, with left-leaning voices casting Mangione as a hero of the oppressed and right-leaning pundits decrying the act as lawlessness.
This partisanship also emerges around other recent events, such as the acquittal of former U.S. Marine Daniel Penny for killing a homeless man on the New York subway. Penny later appeared at a college football game with President-elect Donald Trump, offering further legitimization of his act.
Many on the right celebrated him as a hero while Mangione emerged as a parallel figure for some on the left. Such narratives highlight the polarized nature of contemporary American society and suggest partisanship may stymie any broader class-conscious reckoning.
A broken system
Ultimately, the CEO killing raises broader questions about systemic failure in American health care.
Though it’s too early to assess Mangione’s specific experiences with health insurance, the incident underscores a deeper truth: even people perceived as upper class struggle within a broken system. If health-care inequities can inspire such extreme responses, it reflects a systemic issue far beyond individual grievances.
Criminologists have long sought to understand crime in its structural context. Acts of vigilante justice, however shocking, often expose profound societal failures — failures that formal systems are either unwilling or unable to resolve.
The American cultural fascination with both street and punitive justice, though seemingly contradictory, reveals a shared desire for accountability in a system where justice often feels elusive.
Steven Downing does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
