In the early hours of the morning of March 14, 1964, a young woman named Kitty Genovese was attacked on her way home in Queens, New York. The unknown assailant made several separate attacks on her over a period of about forty minutes, and she finally died of the stabs he had inflicted on her. As the police subsequently ascertained, at least thirty-eight neighbors had heard her screams for help, some may have also seen her struggle, yet no one intervened – not even to call the police.

This example of neighborly inaction generated widespread discussion and analysis. Newspaper reporters made special reports of the incident.

The University of Chicago Law School sponsored a "Conference on the Good Samaritan and the Bad – the Law and Morality of Volunteering in Situations of Peril, or of Failing to Do So."

The American Psychological Association (in 1966) held a special session devoted to the problems of the "unconcerned bystander." Numerous studies, papers and articles were written with the Kitty Genovese incident as their point of departure.

Social scientists and legal scholars, philosophers and moralists have shown widespread interest and concern in learning how people really behave in situations which thrust them into the potential role of one's brother's keeper – and why.

Much time and effort have been invested in discovering how society, by the values it fosters and the code of behavior it sponsors, affects that behavior- allowing for indifference and actually cultivating a desire not to get involved, or, on the contrary, encouraging active intervention to assist a fellow human being in peril and thus transforming the unconcerned bystander into a Good Samaritan.