To be honest, I didn’t have any idea what I wanted to write
about for my blog this time. I surfed the web and channel surfed until I ran
across a murder case that took place back in 1964. It was about a young woman
by the name of Catherine Susan “Kitty” Genovese that was living in New
York
One day she came home from work in the early
hours of the morning and she was approached by a man in the alley behind her apartment
complex. This man stabbed her numerous times before fleeing the scene. I know
this does not sound like a case out of the ordinary, but the story is not over.
After the
stabber fled the scene of the crime, Kitty crawled all the way into the actual apartment
building, trying to seek help and avoid further harm. Sadly neither of those
things happened. 20 minutes after the initial interaction between the two, the
stabber came back to the scene and found a struggling Kitty lying in a hallway.
For the next 30 minutes the criminal continued to stab Kitty; he also started
raping her, as well. During this entire tragic event, Kitty was screaming for
someone to help her, but no one ever came to the rescue. Hours later, the
police was eventually called and Kitty died on the way to the hospital. Later
on when the investigation was finalized the police found out that dozens of
Kitty’s neighbors heard her cries for help, but no one did anything because
they figured someone else would take the time to help her out.
The reason
I bring up this case is that as law enforcers and people in the criminal
justice field we have to understand diffusion of responsibility theory, which
is a very under-talked about concept in my opinion. Diffusion of responsibility
theory states that people are not as likely to help in situations where there
are a lot of witnesses because they figure other someone is going to do it.
With all
this talk about community-policing approaches, we have to bring up issues like
diffusion of responsibility and find ways to make sure that it does not become
a problem in our society. When we bring awareness to problems like these, our
best hope is that pointless deaths like that of Catherine Susan “Kitty”
Genovese can be avoided.
This short video shows why diffusion of responsibility can become very problematic in our society. There is dramatic scenes in this video including deaths, so do not watch it if you are squeamishness.
This is such an awful story and its actually really unbelievable. I think I actually heard about this case in another class, but I think this is an extremely unfortunate case and the fact that it was going on for so long and no one thought to contact the authorities is shocking to me. Even more shocking is that no one even thought to check on her or even come to see if she was okay, then they would have seen the horrible condition she was in. Hopefully nothing like this happens again, because it doesn’t take much at all to call for help for someone or to assist them.
ReplyDeleteThe title of the video is very powerful: No One Cares. What a great find to go along with the article. Like Keisha, I have heard of the Genovese case before and it is still hard to believe. As a criminal justice major, I like to hope those around me would be more inclined to help me in a time of need, but statistics do alot to dispute that. The bystander affect is familiar to me but I have never heard of the diffusion of responsibility theory. These two seem to parallel each other to make for a strong arguement. It is interesting to see most of the cases in the video happening in larger cities. I wonder if this is because smaller cities do not have cameras to catch the same behavior or because larger cities do indeed have less homogeny. Either way, videos and research like this will bring more light onto what is obviously an issue to be fixed.
ReplyDeleteThe video really blew my mind! What the heck are people doing?! In the beginning of the video, it showed a guy get stabbed for standing up for a women who was in danger. People saw blood and lifted his body up to see what was the deal and still none of those people called for help. He laid there dying as bystanders just passed all because they didn't want to get involved. Unbelievable! Society needs to realize others aren't always going to respond and maybe you need to be that guy!
ReplyDeleteI took a Social Psychology class last semester and when we were discussing the theories of social loafing and diffusion of responsibility this case was actually brought up by another CJS major in the class. I think that an issue here is that when many people think of diffusion of responsibility they only apply it to less drastic situations where the consequences of not intervening are of less importance, not necessarily cases involving life or death situations. The sad truth is that the issue does occur in these extreme situations as this case demonstrates. It just goes to show you can't take the measure of a person simply by their beliefs, it is their actions which are the most important. I feel as if we could end/minimize a great deal of issues in society if we had more individuals who were willing to take a stand and act on an issue instead of just stating an opinion on it.
ReplyDeleteI have heard of this theory in a class before and of a similar story, maybe it even was the same one. First of all it is shocking to me that the offender came back. You would think that after stabbing her numerous times and fleeing the scene he would assume (like the witnesses) that someone would have called the police. Then the fact that he had time to stab her repeatedly for a second time as well as rape her and still no call was made. It's hard to put yourself in a situation of overhearing something like this and trying to imagine what you would do. I personally think that if I heard something going on I would call and not just assume that someone else was going to do it. I think this theory is something that should be looked at more in criminal justice classes and that the public should also be aware of the theory. If that happened I would hope it would have an impact of situations like this in the future.
ReplyDeleteIn sociology there is a bystander effect, in which one is more likely to help someone if they are alone, as opposed to if others around. I believe this is exactly what happened to poor Kitty. Everyone assumed everyone else took responsibility. In a first aid class I took once, the instructor made a point of saying that if you are asking someone in the crowd to dial 9-1-1, make sure you point to an individual and make eye contact with them, making them feel more responsible and more connected with what is occurring. It is absolutely awful that Kitty was forced to suffer and not get any help after she bravely tried to call for it. As much as we can say people need to take more action, the reality is that many people won't change, even after reading stories such as Kitty's.
ReplyDeleteI know exactly what you are talking about when you talked about the diffusion of responsibility theory and I can honestly say that it's true. For example, I'm sure many people have done this at one point or another, I have driven on the interstate an seen a car in the ditch or something on a snowy day or something and not called for that same reason, because someone else probably did it already. It's not right to think that, but many people do which is why I have started to become more proactive during those types of events because worst case scenario they will just tell you that there are people already heading that way. This story was in Boondock Saints and so I'm going to borrow the minister's quote by saying that "all it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing".
ReplyDelete