As I was reading Punishing Criminals by Ernest van den Haag I was caught off guard by the following passage.
When the settlers in the American West deemed their legal authorities too weak to protect their property, they resorrted to “lynch justice” to punish, without the formalities of a trial, individuals thought to be guilty of cattle rustling or of other acts the settlers wanted to curb and for which they wanted retribution…Ineluctably, some sort of lynch system will appear, or reappear, wherever the legal system of the community is not effectively enforced. (Footnote: Vigilantes and informal rule-enforcing groups also may appear when the legal system enforces rules alien to the communal sense of justice. thus, the original Sicilian Mafia and the legendary Robin Hood.) In the United States lynch justice is as yet a fantasy. (Footnote: In the movie Death Wish [released in 1974], the hero, finding the law ineffective, becomes a one-man avenger of crime.)
That’s right, in plain text in the second footnote on page 13 Haag references Death Wish!!!
Maybe that is because Charles Bronson was a man among men, and it rubs off a little on those who cite his work. (Note: If you are female, citing Charles Bronson may result in your being raped and/or murdered, with the late Mr. Bronson no longer in a position to avenge you.)