Banditry is a type of organized crime committed by outlaws typically involving the threat or use of violence. A person who engages in banditry is known as a bandit and primarily commits crimes such as extortion, robbery, and murder, either as an individual or in groups. Banditry is a vague concept of criminality and in modern usage can be synonymous for gangsterism, brigandage, marauding, terrorism, piracy and thievery.
Carmine Crocco's lieutenant Agostino Sacchitiello and members of his band from Bisaccia, Campania photographed in 1862
Members of the Dalton Gang on display following the Battle of Coffeyville in 1892 – left to right: Bill Power, Bob Dalton, Grat Dalton, and Dick Broadwell
An outlaw, in its original and legal meaning, is a person declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so anyone was legally empowered to persecute or kill them. Outlawry was thus one of the harshest penalties in the legal system. In early Germanic law, the death penalty is conspicuously absent, and outlawing is the most extreme punishment, presumably amounting to a death sentence in practice. The concept is known from Roman law, as the status of homo sacer, and persisted throughout the Middle Ages.
A statue of Robin Hood, a heroic outlaw in English folklore
Henry Danvers, Earl of Danby, was outlawed in 1597 by a coroner's court for the murder of Henry Long. He went to France and joined the French army; two years later, he was pardoned by Queen Elizabeth and returned to England.
Napoleon on the Bellerophon. Napoleon Bonaparte on HMS Bellerophon after his surrender to the British in 1815