While reading Jane Jacobs’s “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, I became skeptical of her argument that with a greater presence on a street, then the less likely a crime will generally occur. While intuitavely it may seem obvious that more activity in a region will deter crime, in practice, this may not work out. I instantly thought of the Bystander Effect, or known as “Genovese syndrome”, after the murder of Kitty Genovese right here in Queens, NY during 1964.

Genovese was brutally attacked right outside her home in Kew Gardens, and although over “38 witnesses saw or heard the attack” according to the New York Times, no one had called the police. The indifference of the bystanders had caused the innocent death of Genovese.

There was a lot of psychological research done further about the Bystander Effect, and two social psychologists,  John M. Darley and Bibb Latané, had come to the conclusion that paradoxically the “larger numbers of bystanders decrease the likelihood that someone will step forward and help a victim.” While there can be many reasons for this phenomena, I think the most compelling reason would be that if no one person takes action, then others will not as well. I think by nature humans have been taught to follow rather than to lead, so that in such a situation, if no one person decides to step up, then the group collectively will follow and not take action as well.