Đenoveze sindrom
Genovese Syndrom

Summary/Abstract: In March 1964 in New York, Catherine Genovese, a 28 years old girl was raped and killed in front of her house. Many of her neighbors were watching that, but nobody tried to help her. Only after the seducer finished his job, neighbors called police and emergency, but it was too late, Catherine Geoneve died on the road to the hospital. That case shocked America and many articles has been written in New York Times about that. Social psychologists that phenomenon that many people are staying without try to give a help, or at least to react on some way, called „bystander effect“, or „Genovese syndrom“. Some of them made experiments in which they have shown that people usually do not react if they are in group, if there are many witnesses – it is in some way the diffusion of the responsibility. Anyway, that „bystander effect“, or „Genovese syndrom“, could play very important role in the prevention of the criminality. Because of that, experts, especially in the USA, work very much with ordinary people, who could be in the position of bystanders. In that sense, there are many projects, called „neighborhood watch“, or on some other, similar way, that has to prepare people to react on the adequate way if they notice some unacceptable behavior. The word is not only about murders, roberies, rapes, or similar offences, the word is also about the corruption in one enterprise, or some other economic crimes. The international organization of ombusmans, points out some of those problems. The author of this text talks here about the case of Catherine Genovese, about the „bystander effect“, about the „neighborhood watch“.

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