The effect of prior victimization on bystander intervention into crime.

Abstract

Bystander intervention into crime can be of great importance for reducing the harm. Statistics reveal that approximately 25% of Dutch residents has been a victim of crime in 2018. Scientific research has shown that a victimization experience does have a lot of consequences for a lot of life domains. This study aims to find out how a prior victimization might influence one’s willingness to intervene into crime and which mechanisms might be at work. This leads to the following research question: “How does prior victimization influence someone’s willingness to intervene into crime?”. A distinction is made between two distinct pathways: indirect intervention (calling the police) and direct intervention (disrupting the scene yourself). Based on data from the LISS panel collected in the Netherlands in 2011 hypotheses were tested. Results demonstrated that victimization does have a significant direct effect on both direct as well as indirect intervention, but the expected mediating mechanisms of police satisfaction and guardianship were not significant. Further research does have to investigate which other mechanisms might be at work instead of these.