This mentality is very prevalent in the "hang 'em high" type of people.
When it comes to especially deviant groups, such as drug users, pedophiles, deadbeat dads, or any other group that society really hates, I always hear people express severe contempt and even wishes of violence towards them.
These types of people would cheer in glee at the sight of a drug user receiving 8 years in prison for simple drug possession, or a pedophile being tortured to death in a slow, agonizing and painful manner.
This type of "hang 'em high" mentality seems to be really popular nowadays. So much so that I often find myself playing the Devil's Advocate in these cases.
Because while I don't like the concepts of hard drug addiction, pedophilia, etc., I feel like most people sadistically "look forward" to violence and they just use the fact that these people are deviants as an excuse to frame it as righteous moral punishment, when in reality it is just sadistic pleasure at seeing someone get hurt.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that those who commit violent crimes need to be punished for their actions. I believe that if someone takes a life, they deserve to have their life ended as well. But from my view this is still a tragedy, that not only one (the victim), but two peoples' lives (victim + executee) had to be lost from this incident.
Sometimes when a murderer kills somebody, and that murderer is executed, the victim's family will say that the execution brought them "closure." As if the tragic loss of their beloved's life was somehow softened by the loss of another life. It seems like they desired the killer to be put to death more than they desired to have their loved one back. They just wanted to see violence.
Violence is at the heart of almost all of society's problems, and people with this "hang 'em high" mentality are just as violent themselves - the only difference is that their lust for violence has (what is widely viewed as) a moral backing. It would be nice if we could get rid of this mentality altogether.