Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index In common law jurisdictions, a citizen's arrest is an arrest by a private citizen, as opposed to a law enforcement officer, for either: a public offence committed or attempted in his presence; a felony not committed in his presence, when he has reasonable cause for believing the person arrested has committed it. The prisoner should be handed over to the police as soon as possible. A wrongful citizen's arrest may constitute a tort of unlawful imprisonment. In the US ability to make a citizen's arrest is essential to bounty hunting. Citizen's arrest is also allowed in Canada provided the police are called immediately after the suspect is detained. Citizen's arrest is allowed in New Zealand under certain circumstances [1]. This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by fixing it. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.