Kitty Genovese was murdered in an alley in New York while at least 38 witnesses made no attempt to help her (Darley & Lata e,1968). Genovese was stabbed multiple times by the assailant and died 30 minutes later (Levine & Collins, 2007). Her screams were heard by many bystanders but all of them remained idle. The bystanders had reportedly seen lights from other apartments and knew others were watching and listening. Words such as moral decay, dehumanization, alienation, and anomie arouse after this incident to reason the fact no action was taken by these bystanders (Darley & Latane, 1968).
A Critique of Martin Gansberg’s “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police” In Martin Gansberg’s essay “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call The Police,” he tell us the story of a young New York City woman named Miss Genovese who is murdered by Winston Mosley while thirty-eight of her neighbor see this happen and yet do not call the police. Gansberg takes us step by step through how the murder took place that fateful night, and also shows us how the neighbors reacted as it was happening. Later in the article, Gansberg gives us interviews with the neighbors on why they didn’t call the police. Gansberg argues what could have happened if the neighbors had called the police as soon as the attack took place. One of the reasons Gansberg argues what could have happened if the police had been called as soon as the attack happened is that Miss Genovese could have been saved.
The body of the victim was found with pills in hand and on the table in front of her, a laptop open with an apparent suicide note on screen. The victim’s home was in disarray when she was found which tends to be a sign of a struggle. With that being said, there were no markings on the victim’s body that leads me to believe that there was a struggle. Although the victim’s sister claims she was a neat freak, which doesn’t rule out the thought of a struggle. The neighbor claims that he saw the victim’s boyfriend speeding out of her driveway two days prior to her body being discovered.
Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call The Police In the essay “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call The Police”, the writer Gansberg wrote about a woman, Ms. Catherine Genovese, who was murdered in her neighborhood that had occurred in the 1990’s. The murder occurred in a middle class area where there were witnesses who saw the murder and didn’t call the police. In paragraph thirty-one in the essay, the writer informed readers that the only time the witnesses came out was when the murder had occurred after the body was taken. Gansberg expresses a type of personal anger towards the entire situation because it could have been prevented. Pertaining to the essay, humans are naturally selfish.
Although, There was a tremendous amount of damning evidence against Pickton that the jurors deciding his fate did not hear during his year-long trial in 2007, including an allegation from a sex-trade worker that he nearly stabbed her to death. A series of behind-the-scenes legal rulings meant explosive Crown evidence was kept from the jury, which ultimately found Pickton not guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of six women, but guilty of the lesser charge of second-degree murder. Whether the six murders Pickton was convicted of committing were sex crimes was never debated during the trail, because the victim’s remains did not provide the evidence. When prosecutor Michael Petire told the jury at the end of the prosecution‘s case on August 13, 2007 that he was “satisfied the evidence the Crown should be calling has been called, “what he surely meant was that he had called the evidence he was allowed by the law to reveal to the jury. Some of the information such as most of the evidence pertaining to the other 20 victims was held back from the jury after the judge ruled in August 2006 that Pickton should face two separate trials; the first one on six counts, and the second one on 20 counts.
It was DNA evidence that led to a conviction in the 1998 murder case of 10-year-old Anna Palmer who was attacked and killed outside of her own front door in Salt Lake City. The crime was heinous, and included multiple stab wounds to her body, but following the crime, investigators had no witnesses, little evidence, and no apparent suspects, the news station reports. However, in 2009, forensic analysts were called in to assist in the case, and they decided to examine the girl’s fingernails for DNA samples. Using visible and alternative light sources to look for DNA not belonging to the girl, they made a hit, and matched it to a man named Matthew Brock, who had lived a block away at the time of the her murder and was age nineteen then. Brock was already in prison serving a ten year sentence for a sex related crime with a child, and he pled guilty in 2011 to an aggravated murder charge in the death of Anna Palmer and is now in prison for life.
Bystander effect is a social psychological phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to offer help during an emergency situation when there are other individuals present. As means to get an understanding of why individuals do less when they are in the presence of others, social psychologists John Darley, then at NYU and Bibb Latané at Columbia university conducted a study titled “Bystander Intervention in Emergencies: Diffusing Responsibility”. The original study done by Darley and Latané was sparked by the Kitty Genovese incident in which Genovese was stabbed to death over a period of thirty minutes and none of the thirty-eight witnesses present called for help. The purpose of the study was to figure out why there is less action taken during an emergency when there are more people present. One would think that more people present would be equivalent to more 911 calls or acts of intervention and aid but that is not the case.
Kitty Genovese – The ‘Bystander Affect’/Genovese Syndrome Case Study and Summary Case Study; Catherine Susan Genovese (July 7, 1935 – March 13, 1964), commonly known as Kitty Genovese, was a New York City woman who was stabbed to death near her home in the Kew Gardens section of Queens, New York on March 13, 1964. The circumstances of her murder and the lack of reaction of numerous neighbours were reported by a newspaper article published two weeks later; the common portrayal of neighbours being fully aware but completely nonresponsive has later been criticized as inaccurate. Nonetheless, it prompted investigation into the social psychological phenomenon that has become known as the bystander effect (or "Genovese syndrome") and especially diffusion of responsibility. Genovese had driven home from her job working as a bar manager early in the morning of March 13, 1964. Arriving home at about 3:15 a.m. she parked in the Long Island Rail Road parking lot about 100 feet (30 m) from her apartment's door, located in an alley way at the rear of the building.
Reading this states that all murder and rape victims are chosen, and all terrorism victims are random. If this were true, then the victim of rape I took care of as a nurse didn’t exist. We can call her Michelle, she was raped after a break in at her home, her assailant, admitted he picked her house at random, intended to just rob the house then leave. Upon seeing her alone in bed, decided to rape on the spot. Not planned, didn’t know her, never seen her before, just walked up to her house.
The bystander effect, also known as Genovese syndrome, is a concept of social psychology that describes the behavior of a bystander to an emergency situation depending on whether or not other bystanders are present. According to the concept of the bystander effect, a person who witnesses another person in an emergency situation is slower and less likely to help when there are other witnesses to the situation (Garcia). The basic idea is that if there are more people present in the situation, the chances of an individual helping decreases. One of the causes of the bystander effect is a process of social influence known as diffusion of responsibility, meaning each bystander present in the situation expects that someone else will help the person is distress (Garcia). This diffusion of responsibility increases as the number of bystanders increases.