I considered something like this earlier this year when I was robbed. See, the section I was at is both on the way to a rehab clinic and on the way from a jail. So there's always shady people, sometime asking for money, sometimes robbing people.
So I though I could adopt an identity, and just keep watch on the area. Not to fight people or anything like that. Just vigilance. But I am a coward, in no fighting condition, and kind off too poor to buy most serious protection gear. In the end, I figured having a huge dog would be the wisest tactic, as a huge dog would be a smarter, stronger, braver extension of my will. But I didn't have the means to have a huge dog, so I dropped the idea altogether.
I do not believe going out and punching gang members would solve things, but at least where I live, It would make a difference if some third party would vigil the less secure areas. Over here, crime's become kind of the rule rather than the exception in some places. A local drug lord sets up shop in a hamlet and thus he "owns it". Buys the silence of the hamlet with free washing machines and bicycle for the kids. Little boys grow up wanting to be Drug Lords and little girls grow up wanting to be a drug lord's wife. And it's become normal, so when someone's son, or daughter is slain on the street, we just let out our sighty catchphrase and move on, never acknowledging the source of things.
So even if people aren't gonna be, you know, hunting Tony Zucco down dressed in a Domino mask, it's never bad that folks in the civil society are outraged and bothered by crime, even if it manifests in ridiculous uses of spandex. It's better than apathy, right?
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