Why Neighbors Don’t Report the Abuser Next Door

Domestic violence remains an insidious, invisible epidemic, experienced within every geographic area and population, impacting victims from every demographic background. Despite its ubiquity, however, domestic violence is underreported by victims and witnesses alike. This is true despite the red flags and signs of abuse that are observed by people within a victim's professional or social circle because they consider domestic conflict to be a “private” family matter, or otherwise believe it to be none of their business.

But because bystander intervention is often an important, effective method of stopping the violence, the question remains, why aren’t more cases reported? Research has some possible answers.

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Neighborhood Watch Includes Listening

Many domestic violence cases I have prosecuted over the years involve 911 calls made not by victims, but neighbors. Especially in neighborhoods where residents live in close proximity, interpersonal violence is audible, and often unmistakable. Ear witnesses can hear loud voices, breaking glass, screams, or other signs of violence. But not everyone who hears something says something. What explains the reluctance to become involved, and how does the level of familiarity with the parties involved impact this analysis?

Friends Don’t Report Friends

Camilla Gleeson Mead and Sally F. Kelty investigated this question in “Violence next Door” (2021).[i] They begin by noting the worldwide impact of intimate partner violence (IPV), and recognize that friends of perpetrators may be uniquely positioned to affect change. So the question becomes, how do relationships impact willingness to become involved?

Mead and Kelty discuss social identity theory as involving ingroup bias that causes ingroup perpetrators of violence to be regarded as less personally responsible than perpetrators who belong to an outgroup. They sought to extend the research to examine the impact of friendship with a perpetrator on potential responses to IPV, looking specifically at possible attributions of social rejection and causality.

They provided study participants with a fictional fact pattern depicting IPV perpetrated by either a friend or a stranger. Participants attributed a high amount of blame to the perpetrator, regardless of their relationship. However, the perpetrator’s friends were significantly more likely to attribute the cause of the violence to external factors than were strangers. They were also likely to continue the friendship, although social rejection was significantly more likely with a perpetrator to whom was attributed “high blame and internal causality.”

Mead and Kelty also found, however, that ingroup bias was not consistent across every outcome, which they note as evidence of the complexity of IPV and social relationships. Their findings suggest “expectancy based on past behavior may influence attributions for violence in existing relationships.”

The Benefit of the Doubt

There are other factors that make friends and neighbors reluctant to report a suspected crime or attribute blame beyond friendship. Without a history of violence, many witnesses cite uncertainty as one of the reasons they decided not to come forward. Beyond believing what goes on behind closed doors is none of their business, they also want to make sure they do not report a crime that did not occur.

Familiarity with, and affinity for a next-door neighbor complicates this analysis, especially when a loud argument is coming from a home where the parties seem outwardly to have a very respectful, loving relationship. Unfortunately, appearances can be deceiving.

Just the Facts

Many neighbors feel more comfortable making a police report or calling 911 after considering the fact that crime reporting does not involve bringing charges or jumping to legal conclusions. It only involves sharing sensory perceptions regarding evidence that was observed or overheard, which can be used in connection with other evidence to piece together a potential crime scene.

Neighborhood Watch only occurs if neighbors are watching, but they should also be listening. Bystander intervention helps interrupt crime, and in some cases, can save lives.