School yard mentality

With what occurred at Penn State and people turning their heads I refer to this as our school yard mentality.

I have experienced this in the work place for years. People who do not come forward they see a wrong being done because they do not want to be a "rat" or to be known as a taddle tale.
Ridiculous, right?
But it happens every day.
I guess I have to think back to where does this come from, why do people not speak up?
I think you have to go back to elementary school and how children learn at an early age that if they go against the gang or who seem to be in control they are ridiculed and made fun of. You learn to just shut up or it will be turned against you.
 Thus I call it the school yard mentality.
My first real lesson in this in the work place was when I managed a retail store. I was 22 and still learning that not all people could be trusted, I know naive right.
I had a assistant manager who when I went home I thought he conducted business in the same manner as when I was there.
Wrong.
I was not until the store had an audit that we realized that merchandise was walking out the front door.
After a very short investigation we found that the assistant manager was giving away the merchandise to his friends and worse yet was actually selling illegal drugs from the store.
I had no idea.
It was not until we let him go that other employees came forth with stories of what they had witnessed.
I was besides myself on why and how they did not report anything earlier.
They all said that they did not want to be known as "that guy" that told on others.
OMG...that was first lesson that all though I was working with adults, people still thought like kids.
How else would you explain it.
Now these accusations at Penn State are much more severe and ugly but the main story is the same...how in the world and why would people not come forward to report a wrong?
In our inner city high schools where kids belong to gangs one of the worse things a kid can do is "rat" on someone. They can witness killings and beatings but they dare not say anything or they will be killed or beaten.
How did we get here and how do we start to get back to find our moral compass?