aiding and abetting
Helping commit crimes
Aiding and abetting is the legal term for helping someone commit a crime.
The aider provides assistance—a getaway car, a weapon, a lookout—while the abettor encourages or incites the act.
In practice, the phrase functions as a unit: She was charged with aiding and abetting the robbery.
Outside legal contexts, it describes any complicity in wrongdoing: You're aiding and abetting his bad habits.
- harboringConcealing or protecting someone
- complicityShared criminal involvement
- in cahootsSecretly cooperating dishonestly
- partner in crimeShared mischief companion
- collusionFraudulent secret cooperation
secondary liability · conspiracy · accessory · after the fact · getaway driver · criminality · criminal enterprise · incitement · solicitation · lending a hand · mens rea · facilitation · enabling · turning a blind eye · willful blindness · guilty knowledge · connivance · lookout
- crimesarson, burglary, robbery, kidnapping, vandalism
- criminal lawcrime, felony, misdemeanor, murder, robbery
- criminal complicityaccomplice, accessory, co-conspirator, complicity, conspirator
- war crimescrimes against humanity, Nuremberg, war crimes tribunals, prisoner abuse, war criminals
- tortstort, negligence, tortfeasor, torts, tort law
- inchoate crimesattempt, conspiracy, solicitation, incitement, criminal conspiracy
aiding and abettinginnocent bystander
Uninvolved person harmed incidentally
bystander · non-involvement · non-participation · innocence · standing aside
aiding and abettingpreventing
Stopping before occurrence
turning in · hindering · thwarting · whistleblowing · stopping
aiders, abetted, abetter, abetters, abettor, abettors, abetment