The term abet means to assist or help someone in doing something that is considered a crime. Whether a person helps another to make a plan to commit a crime or help during its course, it is considered abetting. Abetting is as punishable as the crime itself.
Abetting may take place by encouraging, ordering, or counseling someone to commit a crime. For example, the manager of a store fails to turn the alarm system on as he knows that his friends will be looting the store. The manager is an abettor.