Rethinking Bystander Nonintervention: Social Categorization and the Evidence of Witnesses at the James Bulger Murder Trial

Bystander apathy is a long establishedphenomenon in social psychology which has yet to betranslated into practical strategies for increasingbystander intervention. This paper argues that thetraditional paradigm is hampered by a focus on the physicalco-presence of others rather than an analysis of thesocial meanings inherent in (non)intervention. Thetestimony provided by 38 bystanders at the trial of two 10-year-old boys for the murder of2-and-a-half-year-old James Bulger is analyzed. It isargued that their failure to intervene can be attributedto the fact that they assumed — or were told— that the three boys were brothers. The way in whichthis category of the family served toprohibit or deflect intervention is analyzed. Thisapproach is contrasted with a traditional bystanderapathy account of the bystanders' actions in the Bulger case.It is argued that bystander (non)intervention phenomenonshould be analyzed in terms of the construction ofsocial categories in local contexts.