On the Actual Risk of Bystander Intervention: A Statistical Study Based on Naturally Occurring Violent Emergencies

Abstract

Objectives: Bystander studies have rarely considered the victimization risk associated with intervention into violent, dangerous emergencies. To address this gap, we aim to identify factors that influence bystanders' risk of being physically victimized. Methods:We observed bystander behavior from video surveillance footage of naturally occurring violence in night-time economy settings, and data was analyzed with a logistic regression model. Results: Data shows that approximately one out of six interventions results in some type of victimization, typically with a relatively low degree of severity. The bystander's social group membership, the setting of the emergency, and the bystander's intervention type are estimated as risk factors for victimization. Conclusions: Previous research suggests that a bystander's social group membership with victims promotes intervention behavior. Our results expand the role of social group membership as being a factor that also influences whether the intervening bystander is victimized.

Capturing violence in the night-time economy: A review of established and emerging methodologies

“…Qualitative interviews, by comparison, tend to be conducted in a more open-ended, typically semistructured manner, that allows finer-grained explorative accounts of experiences (Lindegaard, Bernasco, & Jacques, 2015;Wellington & Szczerbinski, 2007). Qualitative interviews may be obtained from secondary sources, e.g., victim and offender statements in police case files (Liebst, Heinskou, & Ejbye-Ernst, 2018;Weenink, 2014), but are mainly conducted by the academic scholars themselves. Such interviews have been utilized to examine the conflict experiences of all social roles in the NTE, including perpetrators (Graham & Wells, 2003;Hochstetler, Copes, & Forsyth, 2014), victims (Nicholls, 2017), bystanders (Levine et al, 2012), NTE staff (Hobbs, O'Brien, & Westmarland, 2007), and key NTE informants (e.g, the police, liquor licensees, council workers; Miller et al, 2012).…”

“…In order to investigate naturally occurring behavior of individuals during NTE mid-violent events, and to partially address the ecological validity concerns of experimental studies and the reliability issues of self-reported studies, some scholars have advocated for naturalistic observations of NTE violence (Graham et al, 2006;Levine et al, 2011;Liebst, Heinskou, et al, 2018;Philpot, 2017).…”

“…Video-based analysis also holds the prospect of creating a new crime prevention evidence base that so far has been absent. Previously, because of the non-application of video approaches, very little was known about the actual risk posed to bystanders when intervening in public space conflicts (Liebst, Heinskou, et al, 2018). Given this vacuum, some crime prevention councils have been reluctant, for good reason, to provide recommendations on whether bystanders should intervene in NTE violence.…”

“…Like on-site observation, researchers using CCTV footage are also restricted in what they can see (e.g., due to resolution, awkward filming angles, poor focus) and whether they have complete capture of the episode of interest (see Nassauer & Legewie, 2018). Thus, depending on the specific video inclusion criteria, researchers may exclude between half (Liebst, Heinskou, et al, 2018) and three-quarters (Levine et al, 2011) of their sampled raw clips. Furthermore, as surveillance cameras are installed and maintained by bodies external to the researchers (e.g., a city council, police force, or proprietor), there are large variations in data accessibility and a risk that data is over-edited, incomplete, or selected on unknown, biased criteria.…”

Bystander Intervention in Street Violence: Current Evidence and Implications for Practice

“…Alongside the meta-analytical work highlighting the importance of danger for bystander intervention, studies more recently examine bystander involvement in the dangerous setting of real-life public violence. Here, the methods employed include assessments of police case file descriptions of public violent assaults , interviews with bystanders (Levine, Lowe, Best, & Heim, 2012), on-site observations of bystander involvement (Parks, Osgood, Felson, Wells, & Graham, 2013), and video observations of street violence using surveillance camera footage (Levine, Taylor, & Best, 2011;Liebst, Heinskou, & Ejbye-Ernst, 2018;Philpot, 2017). The latter video-based method, offers a unique possibility to systematically study how violent interactions unfold chronologically and how bystanders shape the ongoing situation .…”