Do you know what to do if you see someone being harassed in the street?

Social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley were some of the first to try to understand the bystander effect after the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese in New York City. The 28-year-old was stabbed to death outside her apartment, but while dozens of neighbours heard the attack and her cries for help, it was reported that none intervened.

Latané and Darley found two main factors explain the bystander effect: a perceived “diffusion of responsibility” and pluralistic ignorance.

Diffusion of responsibility suggests that the more people or bystanders there are around, the less personal responsibility an individual feels to act. Pluralistic ignorance describes a kind of collective truth. If everyone around you is ignoring conflict or harassment, you might believe that the situation is not an emergency or doesn’t warrant action.

You might also be scared, embarrassed or worried about your own safety – just as my friend was. “This is the most unsafe I’ve ever felt in Brisbane,” she told me.

Shaan Ross-Smith, a violence prevention advocate and director of The Be There Group, says individuals have more power than they think to become “active bystanders”, whether that’s in the home, a workplace, or on the street. She teaches a program based on the “Be There Bystander Framework”, which empowers individuals to recognise, respond to, and prevent harmful behaviours in a way that prioritises safety and accountability.

Intervening can take many forms. “Be There Now” can look like challenging a behaviour as it is happening. If you witness a middle-aged man aggressively yelling at a young woman, you might choose to step in and say, “That’s not OK.”

Ross-Smith says people often struggle with this approach out of fear of reprisal or that their safety might be compromised. In those instances, offering support to the person affected can be just as impactful: “Be There Later”.

That could involve approaching someone after an incident to ask if they are OK, asking other people to help you confront problematic behaviour, or moving between people involved in a situation. You can also move next to a person being harassed or start a conversation.

“I always say you need to send two messages as a bystander: one is a message of support to the person affected, and the other is a message of accountability to the person causing harm,” Ross-Smith says.

I’ve done this before, on a Gold Coast tram. I noticed a man staring at a young woman throughout the journey, but I wasn’t really sure what to do or say. Worried he was going to follow her, I decided I would get off at her stop and, if needed, pretend to be an acquaintance.

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He didn’t follow her, thankfully, so the gesture only played out in my head. But I can think of plenty of times when I’ve frozen instead of thought on my feet. Ross-Smith says diffusing the situation by creating a circuit breaker can be a useful and low-risk way to intervene: “Be The Switch”.

“I will use the switch technique first, every time,” she says. “If there’s an altercation happening publicly, I might step in with something like, ‘Sorry to interrupt, but does anyone have the time?’ That’s my go-to – and why I never wear a watch.

“Then once I’m in that space, I could say something like, ‘Oh, sorry to interrupt. Is everything OK here?’ It invites people to a conversation, but it’s non-confrontational.”

I think most bystanders care and want to help, but knowing how is the barrier.

“We always say to people, what a perpetrator chooses to do is not on you. We all have a social responsibility to shift and create the culture that we want to live in,” Ross-Smith says.

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