Diffusion of responsibility, NIMBYism and deciding to be someone in support of a free society

Scenarios

In 1964 New York City, Kitty Genovese is repeatedly attacked over the course of a half hour in the courtyard encircled by several apartment buildings. No one calls police. 

In your typical baseball game, a high fly ball is falling in shallow centre. The 2^nd baseman has tracked back while the centre fielder as ranged forward. At the last moment, both stop and the ball drops between the two millionaire professional baseball players.

In a standard social psychology textbook, these are examples of what is called “diffusion of responsibility.” And, in the case against Luka Magnotta (born Eric Newman), diffusion of responsibility can't impose upon jury availability if we want justice, but who is going to want to view the video evidence of the murder, indignities and dismemberment of Jun Lin?

Diffusion of responsibility

When a group of individuals is faced with an action that must be taken by someone within the group, any individual is likely to assume “someone else will do it” — they will diffuse the responsibility out across the entire group; of course, if each individual within the group diffuses responsibility to “someone else,” then no one ends up doing it. In 1964 New York City, the actual events did not quite transpire as the eventual myth surrounding the tragedy would evolve, but the case has become a classical real-world working illustration in support of the then fledgling discipline of social psychology, that branch of psychology that emerged to recognize, examine and attempt to make sense of the intricate manner in which an environment can influence decision-making. 

It appeared that everyone who witnessed the attack also saw other people witnessing the attack and assumed “someone will call the police” (the specific phenomenon in this case is referred to as “bystander effect”). In the baseball game, the second baseman heard the centre fielder calling for it, and the centre fielder saw the second baseman tracking it…so they both stopped to let the other guy catch it. 

In a twist on this concept, social progress can often be hindered and hampered by the conflict of individual rights vs. the common good. If civil planning calls for a new highway and the plans cut across “my property,” I might be inclined to show up at the zoning town hall meeting to cry out “Progress is great and everything — just, Not In My Back Yard!” This is another way of saying “someone else will contribute to this progress.”

Who holds the hot potato?

The topic of diffusion of responsibility came up during a recent conversation with someone close to me (who shall remain nameless to protect his identity) about Luka Magnotta. There is a video on the internet that allegedly was posted by him, purporting to record in gruesome, graphic detail the ice pick murder of his gay ex-lover Jun Lin, followed by the sexual desecration and dismemberment of the body. I’ve read tweets and comments on the internet of people wondering how anyone would want to look at the video — who would hold on to that hot potato? 

I asked, during that recent conversation, whether that person would be willing to accept a call to jury duty that naturally would require having to view that video along with whatever other evidence would be submitted in the process of trying the defendant; before I could finish the question, the answer came back most abruptly, “Nope.” So, then I asked* “If the court failed to find a jury, would you be okay with the defendant being set free to walk the streets?” 

*If you are a lawyer or savvy with law, don’t write to say “that’s not how it works,” unless you’re going to share how it does work. I’m not a lawyer, I just believe there needs to be more engagement of the workings of due process at the level of the common person in order to better understand the society in which we live, and perhaps provide clarity that will debunk right wing propaganda criticizing what they refer to as a lenient justice system that favours criminals, which I believe to be a poor conclusion based on a lack of understanding “the system”.

The system of free society

Anyway, the point is, a person is innocent until found guilty by a jury of peers in a court of law (which is the topic I’ll be exploring in an upcoming series). If there is no jury, how can we get a conviction? And, if we cannot get a conviction, isn’t an innocent person free to go? And thus we consider diffusion of responsibility.

One of the reasons we have a jury of peers is to increase the likelihood of getting a fair trial by having your case decided by “people like you.” This system is, therefore, biased in favour of the innocent, reducing the incidence of sending innocent people to prison. If we can’t find people to willingly participate in this process, we are in danger of giving up that protective mechanism, with the increased risk of one day being charged with a crime we did not commit and then finding ourselves before a jury of people who are unlike us, who can’t see things from our perspective, and who will take away our rights and freedoms unjustly.

The inherent thrust of a “free society” concept is that we don’t just take away people’s rights and freedoms without exertion, effort, and expense. Free, innocent people have rights, one of which is that an arduous process must determine guilt, not gut feelings and whims magnified by misinformation, speculation and conjecture. 

Yes, we acknowledge that, in the pursuit of that arduous process, certain rights are diminished, such as the right to move freely while being detained during the course of due process, etc. However, we concede the give-and-take of handling the complex implications of the free society concept: someone who is “still innocent” has some rights curtailed, while someone who has been convicted still retains some rights as dignified human beings (and, there are other systems that treat convicted criminals with far more dignity and “kid gloves” than even lenient Canada, and find that they get better results in terms of reduced recidivism and real rehabilitative achievement by focusing on the reality that the punishment for breaking the law is the loss of freedom, not the loss of dignity nor the endurance of excessive cruelty while surrendering freedom to pay for a crime).

One of the hopes of this post, and the series that will follow, is to raise the sense of value we have for the notion – in all its implications – of freedom. I believe that the valuation of freedom is the greatest deterrent against crime, for those of sound mind to grasp it. Mental, psychological and emotional ill-health are all very real factors that can hinder one’s capability of understanding freedom to the degree that it can function as a deterrent. 

Lesson from my hockey-officiating career

I spent a year officiating hockey as a level-2 certified referee, and I learned a lot, not just about hockey, but about life. One thing that struck me, having played hockey at a high competitive level (triple-A), is that no one ever taught us kids the rules while we were playing. Sure, we learned enough to move the puck from here to there, and left it to the refs to blow the whistle when they didn’t like something. One of the hallmarks of junior hockey is the unfortunate phenomenon of “hockey parents” in the stands fighting and yelling at the coach, the other coach, the players, other parents…and definitely at the officials, and one of the reasons for all the fighting is that people simple do not know the rules.

We played the game, but we had little idea of the details of how the game works, insofar as complex rules are concerned. I’m sure the same could be said of the finer nuances of baseball (what exactly IS a “strike zone”?) or basketball (was that a foul or an offensive charge?)

And such is the case with life. There are many rules, but a limited degree to which people will learn everything they need to function productively in society. There’s a lot required to support a free society concept and, for all those who think this concept is bad, or that it’s not worth fighting for, take some time out to seriously consider the alternative – a society in which someone is assumed guilty without due process is a society in which

• people disappear in the middle of the night, never to be seen again; or

• you may bump into someone while riding the city bus, be charged with assault and awarded a criminal conviction, social stigma, lost wages and employability without ever getting an opportunity to say “hey, the bus hit a pot hole, it could have happened to anybody;” or

• writing an article that criticizes the mayor, the chief of police, or the local librarian could get you fired, or convicted of treason.

If we want safe streets, and we want criminals “put away,” it’s going to take people who are willing to get their hands dirty and, in the truest sense of democracy, actively participate in the process, and not diffuse that responsibility to someone else because, to someone else, I am “someone else.”

While studies show that diffusion of responsibility does happen, studies also show that assumption of responsibility also happens. If a person in a situation perceives herself to be “the only one who can do something,” she is more likely to do something. When people find themselves thinking “somebody’s got to do something,” they tend to decide that they’ve got to be that someone.

A free society concept assumes that each individual wants the responsibility of bearing a fair share of the burden inherent in the concept. Government “of the people, for the people, by the people” includes me among “the people.” If I take that seriously, then I will be less likely to dump my responsibility off on “someone else.”

Jury duty

In the meantime, somebody viciously murdered Lin, cut his body into pieces and then mailed some of those pieces to various government offices. A person capable of doing such things to another human being is someone we need off the streets. We’ve got a suspect in custody, and a trial hopefully will ensue as soon as possible without a rush to judgment that cuts corners and threatens to set him free on technicalities.

Twelve citizens are going to have to watch that video and agree that it points to the accused as the perpetrator of such vile and heinous acts, so we want to make sure we’ve got the right person; that the evidence is presented in a manner that clearly points to the right person, and that the jury is capable of returning the right verdict.

Statistically, sure, for 99.99999% of the population of Ontario, “someone else will do it” is reality (a jury is twelve people with alternates standing by, out of a provincial population of 12.8 million people is an infinitesimal portion). However, generally speaking, let’s be mindful that when diffusion of responsibility is permitted to permeate a process, we end up standing around while dropping the ball in our midst.

Shafia verdict a finding of legal guilt; not moral, ethnic or religious judgment

The recent guilty verdicts on all counts in the Shafia trial sends a strong message to cultures that either endorse or accommodate “honour killing” – "it may be acceptable in your home country, but it’s not acceptable here in Canada." However, it’s important, at this time of national celebration that “justice has been done,” to pause, just a tick, and consider the implications of recognizing that courts are interested in law, not morals.

[My thoughts are rather hastily tossed together here, so if you read anything that's factually incorrect, or otherwise off the mark, feel free to comment.]

The Shafia family were convicted because the evidence proves what they did was against the law Now, some may run with this snippet and say “Ought Thoughts says honour killings are not wrong”, but that’s not what I’m saying. What I am saying is that the court of law is not concerned with what’s right or wrong, it is concerned with what’s against the law or not, and the two are not the same. In other words, the courts are enforcing law, not morality.

In other cultures, or sub-cultures within other cultures, honour killing may indeed be honourable, moral. And we, as a society, recognize all kinds of scenarios where killing is accepted, and even deemed honourable. We honour our war heroes, and put medals on soldiers who set records for “confirmed kills”, whether snipers or fighter pilots. We recognize police officers who are, sadly, forced to execute a death sentence before a conviction, or even a trial, when a hostage negotiation breaks down. We would exonerate a police officer who, in the process of a high speed chase, causes an accident in which an innocent bystander is killed (provided whatever rules that apply to a high speed chase were observed).

Canadian laws accommodate all of these, and we don’t make moral judgments of them because the law has established these actions as "understandably okay". But, the law is only talking about law.

Canadian law does not accept “honour killing” as it is interpreted by the cultural communities that bring their ideas from their home countries. The culture clash at play here is that these communities are acting on cultural norms that may exist - whether legally or illegally – where they come from, it may not be “wrong.”

Killing as a protector of culture

Are there western sub-cultures that utilize killing as a way to protect the system? Organized crime follows codes – cross them and what happens is not mysterious. From the Mafia to motorcycle gangs to inner-city street gangsters, there are rules of the street that are well-known, and a “morality” develops within these criminal sub-cultures that inform what is “right and wrong” in a very different way than wider society would.

Sub-cultural interpretations of "right" vs. "wrong"

A simple point of departure between wider society and sub-culture is the issue of “speaking up.” 

After a homicide, police often ask members of the community to come forward and share information they may have that could lead to identifying and/or apprehending a suspect. In the wider society, the “right thing to do” is to talk. 

In the sub-culture of organized crime, however, keeping your mouth shut garners respect, and those who shut up and do their time are honoured when they get out. Those who break “omerta” and talk are called names - “stoolie, snitch, rat”, and in all likelihood, eventually “whacked.” 

Appeals to some higher morality are moot. The courts are concerned about the lowest common denominator upon which all people – especially in a country of diversity – agree to hold, as the glue that holds the nation together as one.

Local priority

A few weeks ago, a court in Iran handed down a guilty verdict on journalist Saeed Malekpour, and the sentence is death. They are a sovereign nation with their own laws and, in the context of their notions of law (which do indeed reflect a religion of state, and hence a moral posture), and insofar as they feel this law protects their national culture, a death sentence is just fine. Naturally, we disagree, just as they might disagree with decisions we make. The global appeal to Iran to rescind the sentence has thus far not moved Iran to do so.

What they do in their sovereign nation is their business. What we do in ours, is ours; and we are not going to allow some other country to dictate to us what we should have done in the Shafia case any more than Iran is going to allow us to dictate to them what to do in that case.

Separating issues

Iran is a country. While its political leaders are clerics who presume to represent an interpretation of Islam (a religion with adherents around the globe), local leaders in the Islamic community are denouncing any implication that this case was about Muslim expression. In a CBC article, 

"Samira Kanji, president of the Noor Cultural Centre in Toronto, warned on Monday against "focusing unduly" on the purported honour-killing motive, saying that "honour or not, it's a murder and it's going to be treated as murder" by the courts. 

"She also called the murders a breach of religious ethics, and took issue with the judge who presided over the trial for saying the verdict sends a clear message about "Canadian values." 

"I don't think the value of life is uniquely Canadian or uniquely Western — I think it's a universal value," Kanji said. "To that extent, his putting it in those terms was problematic."

And this is why it seemed appropriate to make clear the distinction between morality and law, so that we're judging the legal actions and not the morals behind the motives, whatever they may be.

This tragedy, and the verdict that followed, should not fan any flames of anti-Muslim sentiment; these were the heinous actions of a few individuals who did not act in representation of any religious or ethnic community. 

Yes, there are tenets of Muslim belief and culture that are difficult to understand; and a growing tension between them and interpretations of a free society as evidenced by burqa bans, turban talks and similar discussions. And these conversations must continue, as Canada's landscape changes.

Canadian cultural outlook

By 2017, visible minorities will make up 53% of the population of Canada’s three biggest cities (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver); immigration accounts for an ever-increasing share of population growth. 

As the face of Canada changes, a healthy, open dialog about culture and diversity is going to be increasingly important, to avoid generalization and stigmatization due to lack of understanding.

Criminal minds

In returning a verdict of guilt, this family (what's left of them) are now convicted criminals. The sentence is handed down for a number of reasons which may miss several of the the objectives:

• prevention - they likely would not have any more family to repeat such acts against;

• rehabilitation - criminals get out of jail all the time, only to return to the life they never really left. Defiant, they will not accept the verdict as applicable to them, and will never change their views

• deterrent - other groups and individuals who wish to embrace some interpretation of "honour killing" may not be deterred by this sentence. They may try harder to get away with it, while society tries harder to anticipate and reduce the likelihood of similar crimes being committed.

The verdict does, however, bring awareness (the attention to this trial was international in scope); increase dialog and discourse, and forge new relationships as people from diverse backgrounds come together to understand the circumstances and wider implications.

Bottom line

We believe that our laws are based on good human rights values, and we believe these values are shared amongst the wider global community. We hope that people, in coming to Canada, will either bring shared values of human rights with them, or be willing to re-evaluate their worldviews and let go of those ideas that may not meet the values of human rights as we understand them, and represent them in our laws. Clearly, the Shafia family was unable to do this, resulting in conflict and, ultimately, tragedy.

Western ideals that might help prevent future similar tragedies include freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. We can get together and foster open dialog about these issues, share ideas and forge a common understanding of the concepts of human rights we embrace as a society, and want to share across all the diverse cultures of the people and families who will call Canada "home.