Members of the public the world over are taking up arms against the criminals and wrong-doers who make their lives a misery. Their weapon of choice? The common or garden camcorder.

Video Vigilantes, made exclusively for Bravo, is a fast paced, hard-hitting collection of some of the most heinous crimes and shocking behaviour ever recorded on tape. Every kind of misdemeanour is exposed, from police brutality (South African cops setting attack dogs on shoplifters) to love cheats (a US bride captured in flagrant with her best man) to antisocial behaviour (a neighbourhood bully whose victim places a closed circuit camera over his front door). Then there’s the downright bizarre, including a pair of enterprising British bobbies who join in on the set of a pornographic film while on duty. Cue some bad (very bad) truncheon jokes. One of the contributors with the best claim to the title of Video Vigilante is former marketing manager Mark Bates, who spends upwards of five hours a day trying to catch prostitutes and their clients in the act.

As well as amateur footage obtained by members of the public, the show features high-speed pursuits filmed by police helicopters and secret films taken by daring journos. These intrepid individuals don disguises and go into deep cover, risking life and limb for a scoop. Video Vigilantes also shows us the shadowy worlds of Islamic extremism, drug trafficking, street gangs and more. Some of the featur1ed clips are pure entertainment but, unlike a human witness, the camera cannot lie, and other clips have resulted in successful convictions. The state has used CCTV for years, but now big brother has a little brother in the fight against crime: the camcorder-wielding heroes celebrated on Video Vigilantes.