A Pittsfield, Massachusetts woman pleaded guilty yesterday [Monday] to two counts of recklessly endangering a child. But prosecuting so-called “bystanders” to child abuse is not clear cut. According to the Northwest District Attorney’s office, Mackenzie Tarjick admitted to not contacting authorities after learning her former husband had repeatedly abused a young girl. Aaron Tarjick is currently serving a sentence of up to twenty-five years in state prison.

Janet Fine is executive director of the Massachusetts Office for Victim Assistance. She says issues of so-called bystanders to child abuse are best assessed on a case-by-case basis.

“There are some people that will be very overtly complicit, and that they may not be actually committing the child abuse but they’re facilitating it, there’s also people who may suspect it and not report it,” she says. “And then there are also people who by virtue of their own victimization, and by that I mean mothers who may also be being abused by the same offender, may be frozen in their ability to do something that seems to everybody else on the outside as an appropriate, protective stance.”

Fine says public awareness of cases of bystanders to abuse has risen significantly in recent years, and that the Bay State has a strong abuse response system in place in the Massachusetts Children’s Alliance, which coordinates the many services that are set in motion when a case of abuse is reported.

Mackenzie Tarjick is charged with two counts of child endangerment, each carrying a maximum sentence of two-and-a-half years. She is scheduled to be sentenced in Hampshire Superior Court in Northampton on Monday.