by Chris Bodenner
Legal scholar Sarah Swan considers the argument that spectators should be held responsible for certain types of crimes:
One interesting student note [pdf] I encountered while researching this article [pdf] identifies a category of “audience-oriented crimes,” in which the presence of the audience profoundly affects the wrong, and thus participation through spectating may attract criminal liability or other penalties. For these audience-oriented wrongs, the “presence and reaction of the spectators” is a “motivating factor” that encourages the underlying activity. The author argues that drag racing and dog-fighting already fall into this category, and that gang rape or group sexual assaults should be included as well.
One Canadian province is taking the principle one step further – to the Internet, in the form of cyberbullying:
In the province of Alberta, new legislation [pdf] dictates that students must “refrain from, report, and not tolerate bullying or bullying behavior directed towards others in the school, whether or not it occurs within the school building, during the school day or by electronic means.” Failure to perform these obligations may result in penalties like suspension or expulsion. Currently, the “duty to report” piece of this legislation has received much critical attention, as has the fact that the legislation clearly extends to things that happen off school grounds and outside of school hours. But the duty to “not tolerate bullying” is pretty remarkable, too. Arguably, spectating is a form of tolerating, meaning that in addition to a duty to report, the legislation may also target the wrong of watching the bullying.
Some pushback on the legislation:
“It’s essentially saying that as adults, we’ve left the playground, and that it’s up to kids to police bullies on behalf of the school and parents,” says Peter Jon Mitchell [of the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada], the report’s author. “Certainly there might be room for bystanders’ (involvement), but I hope we’re not passing the buck to kids and saying, ‘Solve your own problems.'” …
Brenda Morrison, associate professor of criminology at Simon Fraser University, says the misstep with the new legislation is that it threatens students into reporting bullying rather than empowering them to do so – a strategy she believes exacerbates the problem. “These heavy sanctions actually create more of a culture of fear in schools,” says Morrison, a bullying expert. “We want kids to voluntarily step up for all the right reasons, because they’re good citizens.”
The Dish 