In March 1964 in New York, Catherine Genovese, a 28 years old girl was raped and killed in front of her house. Many of her neighbors were watching that, but nobody tried to help her. Only after the seducer finished his job, neighbors called police and emergency, but it was too late, Catherine Geoneve died on the road to the hospital. That case shocked America and many articles has been written in New York Times about that. Social psychologists that phenomenon that many people are staying without try to give a help, or at least to react on some way, called „bystander effect“, or „Genovese syndrom“. Some of them made experiments in which they have shown that people usually do not react if they are in group, if there are many witnesses – it is in some way the diffusion of the responsibility. Anyway, that „bystander effect“, or „Genovese syndrom“, could play very important role in the prevention of the criminality. Because of that, experts, especially in the USA, work very much with ordinary people, who could be in the position of bystanders. In that sense, there are many projects, called „neighborhood watch“, or on some other, similar way, that has to prepare people to react on the adequate way if they notice some unacceptable behavior. The word is not only about murders, robberies, rapes, or similar offences, the word is also about the corruption in one enterprise, or some other economic crimes. The international organization of ombusmans, points out some of those problems. The author of this text talks here about the case of Catherine Genovese, about the „bystander effect“, about the „neighborhood watch“.Marta 1964. godine, Katarina Đenoveze, 28-godišnja devojka, bila je u Njujorku ispred svoje kuće silovana i ubijena. Taj događaj posmatralo je više njenih komšija, ali niko joj nije na bilo koji način pružio pomoć. Tek, nakon što se napasnik udaljio, komšije su pozvale policiju i hitnu medicinsku pomoć, ali bilo je kasno, Katarina Đenoveze je već bila mrtva. Slučaj je šokirao američku javnost, u „Njujork Tajmsu“ je veoma mnogo pisano o tome. Socijalni psiholozi su tada lansirali i pojam „Đenoveze sindrom“, odnosno „Bystander efekat“, gde se u stvari događa da što je veći broj prisutnih ljudi, kao slučajnih prolaznika – svedoka, to je manja verovatnoća da će neko od njih na odgovarajući način reagovati i pružiti pomoć. U vezi sa tim u SAD su se razvili mnogi projekti komšijskog nadgledanja, ili neki drugi slični projekti, koji imaju za cilj da što je veći broj ljudi, volontera, slučajnih prolaznika, običnih građana, bude uključen u poslove (samo)zaštite od kriminala, odnosno bude pripremljen da reaguje na pravi, adekvatan način. O tome se govori takođe i u međunarodnim organizacijama ombudsmana, koje pokušavaju da animiraju i aktiviraju što je veći broj slučajnih svedoka – očevidaca nekog koruptivnog ili sličnog ponašanja, da takve stvari na vreme prijavljuju i o tome obaveštavaju nadležne. O svemu tome autor govori u ovom tekstu
