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| Fri, 10-30-2009 - 9:07am |
Homecoming rape: When do bystanders become accomplices?
By Michael B. Farrell | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the October 29, 2009 edition
San Francisco - The case of a 15-year-old girl who was raped outside her high school homecoming dance last weekend is likely to raise legal questions about who was merely a witness and who was an accomplice.
Four teenagers were arraigned in Richmond, Calif., Thursday. Three of the suspects are juveniles, and one is a 19-year-old man. All have been charged as adults. A 21-year-old man has also been arrested but not officially charged in the rape.
The assault has shocked Bay Area residents not only because as many as two dozen people apparently witnessed it but because the attack went on for more than two hours without anyone reporting or stopping it.
A former Richmond High School student, who heard about the rape secondhand, eventually alerted Richmond Police, who expect to make more arrests in the case.
Some experts have attributed the witness inaction to the so-called bystander effect, which posits that witnesses are less likely to intervene if other bystanders aren't stepping in to stop the crime.
Drew Carberry of the National Council on Crime Prevention told CNN: "If you are in a crowd and you look and see that everyone is doing nothing, then doing nothing becomes the norm."
Early reports indicate that some bystanders recorded the rape on cellphones and others cheered. If that's correct, those individuals could be charged as accomplices under California law even if they didn't physically assault the victim.
Accomplice liability is applicable to someone who aides and abets a crime, says Kara Dansky, executive director at the Stanford Criminal Justice Center. If a bystander verbally encouraged a crime, they can face the same level of punishment as those who actually carry it out, she says.
For his part, Richmond Police Lt. Mark Gagen told CNN that police "do not have the ability to arrest people who witnessed the crime and did nothing.... The law can be very rigid. We don't have the authority to make an arrest."
But Professor Dansky suspects the question of accomplice liability will become a key issue in the prosecution's case.
Answering the question of what amounts to aiding and abetting, however, will require "intensive fact investigation on the part of the police and difficult line-drawing on the part of the prosecutors," she notes on her blog.
This story has left me with very little to say. What can you possibly say about people with so little moral fiber?


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I think it is just a depiction of how backwards our society has become over the years.
The Jodie Foster movie is The Accused.
I think the difference is that nowdays there are cell phones with cameras and email features and people have no qualms about recording these incidents and posting them on-line or sharing them with others. There is some mental disconnect, that has happened, to people, that they have just become videographers, with no personal responsibility. Their only responsibility is to witness, record and distribute what they see and hear.
I was struck today by a comment, on another board, on a thread about employers using Facebook to check out employees. Someone stated, to paraphrase "they would just have to live their lives "in complete secrecy" then, if they didn't want their emplyers to know things about their personal life." So some people have taken in this mentality that, everything should be out there, and there should be no recourse
Good points. I think we have also developed a me-first attitude and are losing the ability to empathize with the situation of others.
I don't think we can blame outside influences such as video games, movies, etc.
Wouldn't you know it. I'm in the top 10% and it has nothing to do with money.
I'm so glad so many people worked together to help out at your son's accident. Makes you feel good when people come together for a common cause to help others, doesn't it?
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The Romans were an extremely voyeuristic culture. Nothing was sacred or secret to them. We're very much the same. People don't mind being on national television and telling every lurid detail about their lives.
I agree with you on so many levels. I have abeautiful young daughter. I am really, making the effort to raise her with an understanding that being "liberated," doesen't mean being on display or sexually exploiting oneself. I wonder how that message got so screwed up. If one chooses to display or sexually exploit oneself, then, please, DEEPLY consider the ramifications to herself and other young women when doing it.
Her dad and I just got into a bit of a tiff. He had gone to a male friends house. The friend had hired a young woman to clean house that wears lingerie while doing so. I guess my SO was rude to her, and his friend told him the woman said my SO "was mean." I asked "why were you rude to her?" He told me "because what she is doing and what she is wearing,
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