Saturday, outside the Richmond (California) High School gym where students were attending a homecoming dance a fifteen year old student was gang raped by as many as ten people, some of whom were students or former students while as many as ten other people watched the rape. The rape took place, reportedly, over a period of two and a half hours and no one reported it to the police. Five people are currently in custody–two adults and three juveniles. More arrests are expected.

Three questions are raised. First why did so did so many people observed the crime but not report it? Second, can the observers be prosecuted? Third, what is the responsibility of the school?

One thing is clear and that is that we still know very little about what happened at Richmond High School Saturday night and as more facts become known anything we say may have to be modified. Apparently the girl left the dance with plans of meeting her father and going home around 9:30. She met a friend who took her to a secluded area on campus where students were drinking. At some point a group of male students and their adult friends started raping the girl. Apparently members of the group went in and out of the dance, telling people inside the gym about the rape. Some of the people in the dance came out at times to observe the rape. But no one called the police or told the police officers and the chaperons who were inside the gym. Later, after a call to the police, she was found, unconscious, under a bench on the campus. She is hospitalized with non-fatal injuries.

Some experts have pointed to the “bystander effect” or the Genovese Syndrome. Under the bystander effect the larger the number of observers the less likely that the crime will be reported. People do not want to get involved and assume that someone else will or has reported it. Furthermore, people think that if its okay for the other observers not to report it then they do not have to report the rape. The bystander effect was first publicized after Kitty Genovese was stabbed on the street in front of her Queens, New York apartment building in 1964. After she made her way into the building the attacked came back and raped her. She died on the way to the hospital. A dozen people heard her screaming but did nothing. She may have lived if someone called the police.

The “bystander effect” is based upon research showing a “diffusion of responsibility.” The research shows that if three or fewer people observe a crime each is likely to report it but when the crime is viewed by ten or more people it is unlikely that anyone will report it.

I suspect that many of the observers knew the rapists who were fellow students at Richmond High School and that they did not want to report their friends or to be snitches. They may have been afraid of retribution if they called the police or brought the event to the attention of the chaperons and the police inside the gym.

Generally in the United States there is no law mandating that people report a crime. California does have a law mandating the reporting of crimes where the victim in fourteen or younger but in this case the victim is fifteen.

However non-participants in the rape could be arresting for aiding and abetting the rape. But convictions are hard to get for aiding and abetting. It is necessary to show that the individual accused of aiding and abetting did so with the intent to assist the rapists. For example the observers probably cannot be arresting for forming a circle around the victim while she was being raped. However if it can be proved that the observers intentionally made the circle in order to prevent the victim from escaping her attackers they could be found guilty of aiding and abetting the crime.

The school board may be civilly liable to the victim. Apparently the school has a history of violent acts and they took insufficient efforts to protect students arriving and leaving the dance. I suspect the victim will be able to prove that school officials violated their own rules by not surveilling the area around the gym.