What motivates bystanders to intervene in an attack?

Issue 30: Understanding why bystanders intervene; new research on COVID-19 and on criminal justice reform; and a review of 'The Power of Us' from a young neighbor

This weekend, the New York Times reported yet another story about bystanders failing to intervene as they witnessed a woman being sexually assaulted on a train outside Philadelphia.

In this highly disturbing case, several riders apparently observed an attack lasting about eight minutes during which a man assaulted and raped a woman sitting in their car. A police officer ran onto the train and caught the man. But people were horrified at the lack of assistance from bystanders who had done nothing to help the woman—and who allegedly recorded the attack on their phones.

“I’m appalled by those who did nothing to help this woman,” Timothy Bernhardt the superintendent of the Upper Darby Township Police Department, said on Sunday. “Anybody that was on that train has to look in the mirror and ask why they didn’t intervene or why they didn’t do something.”

He added that investigators had received reports of some passengers recording the attack on their phones but that the police had not confirme…