Professor Reynolds Gets It Right

If you don't read Instapundit, you're missing something.  Today, he gets it exactly right, while talking about the relationship between police and the criminal class.

Burglars would be hung from lampposts, and shoplifters would be beaten and tossed into the gutter if there were no police, as in fact happens in countries where there isn’t a reliable justice system and a civil-society culture that restrains vigilantism. Reminder to the criminal class: Ultimately, we’re not stuck in this country with you. You’re stuck in this country with us.

Police tend to restrain good people from acting on their baser instincts.  Instead of  hanging a burglar or a child molester from the nearest convenient tree, a civil society calls the police.