Forty-five
years ago, Americans were shocked by the rape and murder of Kitty
Genovese. According to the media at the
time, Ms Genovese was attacked multiple times over 30 minutes while 38 men and
women saw the assault and did nothing to help. The incident captured the
country’s attention and launched a massive public inquiry into how caring
people could watch an attack yet remain helplessly inactive. Last week, her murderer, Winston Moseley died in
prison at the age of 81.
After the
Genovese case, social scientists Latane and Daley (1969) published their
groundbreaking research about “bystander apathy.” They concluded that to take
any significant action, a bystander must see what is going on, decide that the
situation is serious, and then decide to get involved. The bystander must then
choose an action and feel that they can perform it. For many bystanders these
five steps present an overwhelming sequence of decisions and the result is
doing nothing.
More recent
research has shown that the story of people watching the rape and murder and
doing nothing is just not true. If the
true story is told, then we can learn more about the factors that led some
people to call out the window “Leave that girl alone” and at least temporarily
stop the attack. Or others who called
the police, but when the screaming stopped, they had nothing to report. As Americans, we seem to be fascinated with
the story that no one did anything to help.
I can’t help but wonder if our willingness to intervene would be changed
if we saw the examples of where someone did reach out to help.
Yet this
feeling of helplessness is often echoed in the workshops I have led on this
topic. Someone almost always asks the
question, “I saw a young woman being harassed on the bus/subway/street… what
should I do?” or “I saw a parent yelling and hitting their child on the
playground/supermarket/street… what should I do?” In every case, I ask, what did you do? And through that question, I often hear of
the myriad of options that occurred – almost all of them meaning that some
action was taken. It might have been to
talk with the store manager, or offer some help, or determine that the
situation may become violent and call the police or other official in most
cases people did take some action. And
if that is the case, then one needs to ask, what actions were effective?
Effectiveness
of a bystander approach is currently being evaluated at the college, high
school and middle school levels. Well
known programs with promising results include: Bringing in the Bystander, Green
Dot, Coaching Boys into Men and many others.
When exploring bystander prevention models, and I encourage everyone to
do so, I believe that sex offender treatment providers have invaluable insights
and perspectives few people possess.
That perspective includes how to have a conversation with another adult,
adolescent or child when there is some concern about their behavior. While these conversations may be a part of
daily treatment programs, how to bring up the topic, how to talk about
behaviors without immediate accusations, how to follow-up on the conversations,
etc. all are a simple part of a treatment providers work. But to the general public, confronting
behaviors, voicing concerns, holding someone accountable for their behaviors
are ALL important skills that treatment providers can teach in their
communities.
Joan Tabachnick, MBA
Joan Tabachnick, MBA
Resources:
Engaging
Bystanders in Sexual Abuse Prevention by Joan Tabachnick:
Bringing in
the Bystander: http://cola.unh.edu/prevention-innovations/bystander-prevention
Green Dot
Program: https://www.livethegreendot.com/
The Nationals
Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) developed an excellent overview of
programs: http://www.nsvrc.org/bystander-intervention-campaigns-and-programs
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