The Promise of a Bystander Approach to Violence Prevention

Bystander intervention has provided a new way to approach sexual and relationship violence prevention. It gives everyone a role to play in prevention that is appealing and that potentially reduces defensiveness to prevention messages. This chapter provides an introduction to bystander focused prevention for sexual and relationship violence. Definitions of key terms including bystanders, prevention, and violence concepts are provided. Support for the importance of bystanders to the topic of sexual and relationship abuse comes from a variety of theories about the causes of sexual and relationship violence and research on risk and protective factors. Theories and research across all levels of the social ecological model are briefly reviewed to make the case for the utility of using a bystander approach to violence prevention.