genovese effect on bystanders

524 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How does the media promote stereotyping

Forty-nine years ago Kitty, Genovese was stabbed to death outside her apartment. Her death brought New York to the attention of the world as a city that doesn’t care. Thirty-eight people heard the young woman screaming, and chose to ignore her. One man when questioned, he commented “I didn’t want to get involved.” One neighbor called other neighbors to ask what he should do. If he had called 911, her life may have been saved. Kitty Genovese is the icon of the callousness of her fellow man.
Over the years, movies, short stories, novels, and songs have written talking about the crime and the cold heartedness of the people ignoring it. This is an excerpt from Pete Ochs song:
Oh, look outside the window
There's a woman being grabbed
They've dragged her to the bushes
And now she's being stabbed
Maybe we should call the cops
And try to stop the pain
But Monopoly is so much fun
I'd hate to blow the game
And I'm sure
It wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends
Of course, Kitty Genovese’s case is not the only one where people see the crime but do nothing about it.
Ilan...

Show More
Related

  • Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace

    847 Words  | 2 Pages

    Today's world is filled with both great tragedy and abundant joy. In a densely populated metropolis like New York City, on a quick walk down a street you encounter homeless people walking among the most prosperous. Unfortunately, nine times out of ten the prosperous person will trudge straight past the one in need without a second thought. A serious problem arises when this happens continually. The problem worsens when you enter a different neighborhood and the well-to-do are far from sight. Many neighborhoods are inhabited only by the most hopeless of poverty - ridden people while others downtown or across the park do not care, or are glad to be separated from them. Such is the problem in New York City today and in Mott Haven in Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace. I have lived in New York City all my life and I had no idea that these problems were going on so close to home. If I live about three miles away from Mott Haven and I am not aware of the situation there, then who is?

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Paralyzed Witnesses: The Murder They Heard

    1111 Words  | 3 Pages

    If an individual is familiar with their surrounding “they are more likely to help” (Altruism and Helping Behavior. Print). In the essay, the authors state “the scene of the crime, the streets, in middle class society “represents all the vulgar and perilous in life” (Milgram, Stanley, and Paul Hollander. Paralyzed Witnesses: The Murder They Heard. Print.). In society, the streets, especially at night, represents the dangerous and negative sides of society due to the crimes and chaos that occur on the streets (gangs, drive-by shootings, robberies, murders, large crowds walking, etc.). The crimes and dangers of the streets cause many people to fear being on the streets alone which leads to external conflicts. When the murder was occurring, the witnesses’ attitudes of the streets prevented them from calling the police due to the fear of the streets and since the witnesses were middle-class, they believed that Genovese was poor, a criminal, or someone who has nothing else to do and was expecting for the=is to eventually

    Read More

  • In Cold Blood Book Analysis

    1053 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Cold Blood, a novel written by Truman Capote and published in 1966, is, though written like fiction, a true account of the murder of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas in 1959. This evocative story illuminates new insights into the minds of criminals, and how society tends to act as a whole, and achieves its purpose by utilizing many of the techniques presented in Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor. In In Cold Blood, Capote uses symbols of escape and American values, and recurring themes of egotism and family to provide a new perspective on crime and illustrate an in-depth look at why people do the things they do.

    Read More

  • Psychological Trauma in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

    903 Words  | 2 Pages

    Brian Conniff's article, "Psychological Accidents: In Cold Blood and Ritual Sacrifice," explains how Truman Capote's nonfiction novel demonstrates the psychological trauma that the murderers and the townspeople of Holcomb face after the murders of the Clutter family. Conniff begins his article by stating that in the last twenty-five years imprisonment and execution has reached an all-time high level of obsession among the American public. Since this type of violence has been so normalized it is rarely properly understood (1). With this in mind, prison literature has continually suggested that "the most fortified barriers are not the physical walls and fences between the prison, and the outside world; the most fortified barriers are the psychological walls between the preoccupations of everyday life . . .and the conscious realization that punishment is the most self-destructive kind of national addiction" (Conniff 1).

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Edward Jones's 'Young Lions'

    1080 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 2013, just shy of my 17th birthday, I planned a day trip with two of my friends to see The Phantom of the Opera in New York. At this point in my life, I was entirely unaccustomed to large cities, such as New York City, and felt excited to experience the bustle I expected. While in the city, a woman informed me about methods to avoid the crime so intertwined with life in the city and introduced me to the concept that, just as New York City held many attractions for tourists, it also held some dangers as well. This idea takes pride of place in Edward Jones’ short story, “Young Lions” and its discussion of Caesar Matthews. As I learned a few years ago, the city truly contains amazement for those experiencing it, but, like all things in life,

    Read More

  • Criminal Justice Concepts in 12 Angry Men

    910 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the course of our class we have encountered plenty of important topics and vital information that is essential to the field of the Criminal Justice system. Such as; Crime and justice including laws, Victimization and Criminal behavior, Laws, Police officers and Law enforcement and the criminal justice system in itself. These topics are daily situations yet individuals are oblivious to what's going on and that in it can be a major problem to the community. On that note this paper will express the ignorance and selfish values of twelve individuals by fully explaining the movie "Twelve Angry Men"

    Read More

  • Understanding the Bystander Effect: A Psychological Analysis

    883 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kitty Genovese case led to the development of the 911 emergency call system and inspired a long line of research led by psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley around the time of 1970 into what circumstances lead bystanders to help someone in need. They discovered that, the more people available to help, the less likely any individual person would help—a phenomenon they called the “bystander effect.” If you are the only one around when an elderly person stumbles and falls, the responsibility to help is yours alone, but, with more people present, your obligation is less clear. Latané and Darley called this the “diffusion of responsibility” (CSI). A more recent case of the bystander effect was when assault victim Marques Gains laid motionless in the street due to by a hit-and-run; traffic whizzed past along with a few people stopped and seemed to stand over Gaines, who was crumpled near the curb on North State Street. No one tried to lift him from the pavement or block traffic. The lack of action by passers-by cost the hotel cocktail server his life after a cab turned the corner and drove over him. Experts says that a traumatic or odd event occurring in a public setting triggers an array of social and cultural cues and, combined with human nature, often leads to the lack of action by witnesses

    Read More

  • Good Samaritan Law: The Kitty Genovese Case

    192 Words  | 1 Pages

    Base on this reading the Kitty Genovese case, it is sad how know one report this incident to the police it is said that thirty-eight witnesses, supposedly heard the attack and know what was happening. It is hard to have a side in the Good Samaritan Law, because helping other it has to be to the person not a obligation to do so, because it can be harsh to those who don’t want to help because probably they are afraid for revenge of the criminal. This is why not all the people have the strange to help some one because they are afraid or they had been in a position that something bad happens to them. I don’t agree that they need to be punished someone that don’t report the moment of the incident and someone die. But in my case I would do it I

    Read More

  • The Triangle Factory Fire Essay

    894 Words  | 2 Pages

    The sight of women jumping out of a building, due to a lack of fire escapes and locked doors, resonated with the American public. Across the country reporters and every day citizens questioned the business practices in place, and waited to see who would be to blame for such a terrible incident. Headlines of leading newspapers such as William Hearst’s the American read, “City Officials Blamed For Fire Tragedy,” and he devoted several days of front-page stories to this event. (Von Drehle, 187). Angry citizens took notice, and reform subsequently began.

    Read More

  • Different Ways To Humanize The Killers In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

    1485 Words  | 3 Pages

    Truman Capote finds different ways to humanize the killers throughout his novel In Cold Blood. He begins this novel by explaining the town of Holcomb and the Clutter family. He makes them an honest, loving, wholesome family that play a central role in the town. They play a prominent role in everyone’s lives to create better well-being and opportunity. Capote ends his beginning explanation of the plot by saying, “The suffering. The horror. They were dead. A whole family. Gentle, kindly people, people I knew --- murdered. You had to believe it, because it was really true” (Capote 66). Despite their kindness to the town, someone had the mental drive to murder them. Only a monster could do such a thing --- a mindless beast. However,

    Read More

  • Smooth Criminal

    1843 Words  | 4 Pages

    The world was made with humans, humans as created by God are flawed and make decisions that may not be the best for that and/or another individual(s). One of the mistakes that humans make is crime on others. Some crime is more dangerous than others. Many authors have a theme of some type of crime because of how heavily it is impacting our society and people living in it. F. Scott Fitzgerald beautifully illustrates organized crime during the 1920s, in his novel The Great Gatsby and how it was a key influential factor during the Jazz Age.

    Read More

  • The Murder of JonBenet Ramsey

    1811 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Following Footsteps of a Killer.” New York Post (Nov. 2002): 124: Proquest. Web. The Web.

    Read More

  • Review of Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City

    1523 Words  | 4 Pages

    Anderson, Elijah 1999, Code of the Street: decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city, W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

    Read More

  • How the Media Uses an Ideal Victim in Portrayals of Crime

    1988 Words  | 4 Pages

    In recent years, the subject of crime has become an increasingly important theme of political, academic, and public debate. In particular, the media today is more focused on victims than it has ever been before. Through media representations of the ‘ideal victim’, this essay will subsequently show how the media are able to construct and re-affirm pre-existing traditional ideologies within the public realm. In effect, this assignment will critically assess the concept of an ‘ideal victim’ and show how the media have used this when describing crime.

    Read More

  • Bystander Effect

    1076 Words  | 3 Pages

    Bystander effect, (Darley & Latane, 1970) refers to decrease in helping response when there are bystanders around relative to no bystanders. Referring to previous study stating that there are some cases of which group size may promote helping instead of hindering it (Fischer et al., 2011). Researchers then speculate the possibility of positive influences from bystanders by taking public self-awareness into consideration. Researchers proposed that high public self-awareness would reverse the bystander effect in this study with 2 independent variables which are bystander and presence on the forum. They are defined as number of bystanders (absent vs present) and salience of name (salient vs non-salient) respectively. 86 students are randomly assigned to one of the four conditions in the experiment. Response of participants in the online forum is the operational definition for the dependent variable of helping behavior. The result shows that number of response increases with respect to increase in bystanders when public self-awareness is enhanced by using accountability cue (Bommel et al., 2012). Participants were asked to rate how notable they were from their view afterwards as a manipulation check.

    Read More

More about genovese effect on bystanders

Open Document