RT Article
T1 Crime witness accounts
JF Theoretical criminology
VO 25
IS 4
SP 663
OP 681
A1 Weiss, Karen G.
LA English
YR 2021
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1778198651
AB Contrary to the social expectation that good citizens should help others in need, persons who witness crime do not always intervene to help, or see it as their responsibility to do so. This study explores the reasons why witnesses choose not to call police or help in other ways by elucidating the accounts that nonintervening witnesses use to convince others and themselves that intervention was not necessary or appropriate. Drawing from open-ended survey responses, five neutralizing accounts are identified, two that deny the intervenability of crime (by denying harm or blaming victims), and three that deny responsibility to help (by denying capability, asserting risk, or rejecting a guardianship role). Identifying the accounts that normalize crime and make it easier for witnesses to “do nothing” contributes to a more nuanced understanding of witness decision making and nonintervening responses that, in turn, can contribute to the persistence of crime.
K1 Zeugenaussage
K1 Verbrechen
K1 Zeuge
K1 Victim blaming
K1 Reporting to police
K1 Neutralization
K1 Crime witnessing
K1 Capable guardianship
K1 Accounts
DO 10.1177/1362480620918326