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Fernando Marquez

Prof. Fitzgerald

English One

5 April 2017

People do not Denunciation

The voice is a powerful and magnificent tool. For this reason, everybody should know

that voice is an instrument that allows us to express our feelings, points of view and to fight for

the injustices that happen around us. With the passage of the times many historic heroes have

fought for our rights of freedom of expression and freedom to express our points of view. But

unfortunately, these fights were apparently in vain, because in this century our voice has been

losing power. As result, we have regressed to past times where expressing our feelings and ideas

was practically impossible. Nowadays, the people prefer to maintain distance or do not report

crimes and inappropriate acts, even they refuse to help people who need support. Although, they

have their reason why do not act when are witnesses of these crimes or injustices. Clearly,

eyewitness should know that do not report to authorities about this actions can make that the

witnesses are part of the crime, even if they have their reasons to do not report it. These are

several reasons why people do not help when needed and they did not denounce their abuse or

crimes that they suffered or are witnesses.

The first reason people remain silent is because some member of their family is involved

in a problem or crime. Also, they usually do not want to report their family member to the

authorities, because they do not want to see their relative in prison or paying for their crimes.

Moreover, the victims or witnesses sometimes could be threatened by the family offender that if
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they denounce the family member to the authorities, the delinquent could retaliate against to the

complainant. So, they choose to remain silent, and they act as if nothing had happened. A clear

example of this situation is when a woman, and her children suffer domestic violence. They

usually do not denounce it to the authorities, and they tolerate this situation. Although, they

believe that they help their husbands by not denouncing them or their husbands will not continue

to do this crime again, they must know that for not denouncing their husbands this situation can

have serious consequences even death. In addition, a large percentage of these women do not

report their husbands, because they think the crime is part of their privacy, and they do not want

to let police know their problems. According to the article called "Nearly 3.4 million violent

crimes per year went unreported to police from 2006 to 2010" posted on the web site HT Media

Ltd written by Lynn Langton, Marcus Berzofsky, Christopher Krebs, and Hope Smiley-

McDonald. The authors mentioned that several crimes of 2006-2010 are not reported to the

police for many situations. In these situations, the most relevant is that victim suffered abuse or

crime of a member of his family and he or she do not report to police. Therefore, the offender

does not receive a punishment. Unfortunately, this is a very common problem in our society and

we must end with this.

Second, fear of reprisals or fear of being attacked by an offender is a reason why

witnesses do not help the victims, or victims do not report to the authorities the crime that they

suffered. Almost always in these cases the victims are attacked in public and are not rescued by

anyone. Currently, we can watch hundreds of videos on internet where people prefer to record

instead of helping the person who is in trouble. An example, could be someone who is being hit

by a gang, and does not receive help or a homosexual person who is being offended and people

do not protect him or do not call to police. This is an obvious example that people are coward
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and we preferred to keep silent or record this terrible actions in order to obtain more views on

our social network's profiles. In accordance with the author Martin Gansberg who wrote the

article called "Thirty-eight Who Saw Murder Did Not Call Police". The author tells us how a

woman is stabbed three times and her neighbors do nothing to help her. The neighbors decided

to call police until they saw the lady died. In other hand, the author mentioned that police

questioned to people why did not call before, and they responded for fear of reprisals. This an

excellent example about that we keep quiet when we are witnesses of these crimes. In other

hand, if we will leave aside our fear, we can do many things, even save a person's life.

Another reason why people keep silent when see injustices is because they are afraid or

respect to authorities. Particularly, People do not denounce facts where authority is involved,

because they are afraid that authority will use his power to take revenge on them or the authority

get mad with them. For this reason, people avoid to have problems with them. In addition, the

people never contradict to authorities even if they are misguided. Because, the people know that

they always have a disadvantage with the police. In other words, the authority will always

believe the police more than the citizens. For instance, we have seen several videos on internet

and television when police kill, shoot or use their power against to innocent people. In many of

those videos people try to speak up or defy authority and they sometimes are killed. Plus, the

police sometimes are not punished, even if they have acted inhumanly against the civilian. This

is one reason why people are afraid to authorities. According to the article called "The Perils of

Obedience" written by Stanley Milgram. The author explains us that many people who

participated in the Milgrams experiment tried to refuse to continue with the project. When the

interrogated started to suffer with the electrical shock, the participants tried to stop the project

because they did not want to hurt anyone. Finally, Milgram as authority in the experiment
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convinced them to continue with the project, and they obeyed him without questioned.

Definitely, the Milgram experiment explains that people always obey authority, and as a social

example people always obey the police, because the police are one of the highest authorities in

society.

Finally, conformism may be a reason why people are so willing to remain silent. This

type of problem affects people who are victims of various crimes and abuses. They regularly do

not report to offenders to the authorities because they do not want have problems or lose time

denouncing criminals. Moreover, they are conformists and adapt to the situation where they are

living. For this reason, this is a common problem in our society. A clear example is the kids who

suffer harassment in school, they conform to the abuse that they suffer. Then, they do not report

that activity and they do nothing to stop the harassment. Another example of this situation could

be the robbery. Nowadays, many people are victims of robbery and they do not denounce

because they believe that they lose time denouncing. In addition, they think that crime is not of

great importance, so they conform to the situation and decide not to report the offender.

According to the article called "The history of the Stanford experiment, the psychological study

that ended in horror" which appears in the web site Phoneia Technology & entertainment posted

by Javier Lacort. The author explains how some students raised the voice, because they were

suffering violence psychological and physical by their fellow experimenters. But others partners

had accepted the abuse they suffered and they accepted to live on inhuman conditions. Plus,

prisoners had been conforming for this situation because they knew it was a temporary job. This

is a sad reason why people are able to withstand so much harassment without doing anything.

In conclusion, I believe these are common reasons that prevent people from reporting

criminal acts and as a result of not reporting those crimes the offenders do not pay for their
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crimes. In other hand, although people have many reasons why they are silent about the

injustices and they do not do nothing to help to people who need help. I think that we should not

be cowards, should raise our voices, and should fight for all the injustices we see. As Clint Smith

said in his Teds conference Silence is the residue of fear, and it is to bite your tongue ". In other

words, keep on speaking and do not be afraid. Therefore, if we could change this way of thinking

and acting before injustices or crimes in which we are witnesses. As a result, we could improve

the situation we currently have in our country and we would save lives or help more people who

are in trouble.
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Works Cited

Gansberg, Martin. Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police. Thirty-Eight Who

Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police, 27 Mar. 1964.

Milgram, Stanley. "The Perils of Obedience." Harper's, Dec. 1973, p.62. lbcc.instructure.com.
Accessed 18 Apr. 2017.

"NEARLY 3.4 MILLION VIOLENT CRIMES PER YEAR WENT UNREPORTED TO

POLICE FROM 2006 TO 2010." US Fed News Service, Including US State NewsAug 11
2012. ProQuest. Web. 15 Apr. 2017 .

Phoneia. "The history of the Stanford experiment, the psychological study that ended in horror."

Phoneia. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2017

Smith, Clint. "The Danger Of Silence". Ted.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 26 Apr. 2017.