Should bullying be a crime?

[FatStupidAmerican]

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/04/phoebe-prince-should-bullying-be-a-crime.html?GT1=43002

It started with rumors, a love triangle, and a dirty look in a high-school bathroom. Soon jokes about an "Irish slut" cropped up on Facebook, and a girl's face was scribbled out of a class photo hanging up at school. One day, in the cafeteria, another girl marched in, pointed at her, and shouted "stay away from other people's men." A week later, as the girl walked home, a car full of students crept close. One kid hurled a crumpled soda can out the window, followed closely by shrieks of "whore!"

If your children had behaved like this, how would you want them punished? Certainly a proper grounding would be in order; computer privileges revoked. Detention, yes,maybe even suspension. Or what about 10 years in jail? Now what if we told you that the girl had gone home after the soda-can incident and killed herself,discovered by her little sister, hanging in a stairwell. Now which punishment fits the crime?

I have a hard time with this one.

I want to begin with saying don't quote me on this because I haven't really fully developed my thoughts on that matter.

I feel the "bullies" have some degree of responsibility. Even before the suicide they have rightfully earned their ass kicking. To make this a crime? I am not entirely sure making bullying illegal even in the case where someone commits suicide is the right course of action.

 

[quantumfireball2099]

I think, to a degree, the parents should be held responsible. I feel that the way your child acts reflects how he/she has been raised. They are just children/young adults and their brains are not fully developed, but I don't believe that to be a complete cop-out.

The parents need to be there to punish their children domestically and be punished legally, the teens are their responsibility up to 18 years of age. And I would hope that the thought that they might have contributed to the death of a classmate would be enough punishment for the kids (and if it's not, maybe they need to see a mental health professional). Maybe the parents should serve the time. Just a thought.

Though I would probably react differently if it were my child.

 

[Andiferous]

It certainly can be. From the recent story Shock at student's suicide over sex video:

There were also calls for the two students said to be responsible for the prank that went so wrong to face harsher charges than just invasion of privacy.

Prosecutors in New Jersey are looking at whether it is possible to bring charges under the state's hate crimes law.

I actually wasn't even aware of hate crimes laws in the States.

And yes, I take all of it very seriously.

 

[lrkun]

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/04/phoebe-prince-should-bullying-be-a-crime.html?GT1=43002

It started with rumors, a love triangle, and a dirty look in a high-school bathroom. Soon jokes about an "Irish slut" cropped up on Facebook, and a girl's face was scribbled out of a class photo hanging up at school. One day, in the cafeteria, another girl marched in, pointed at her, and shouted "stay away from other people's men." A week later, as the girl walked home, a car full of students crept close. One kid hurled a crumpled soda can out the window, followed closely by shrieks of "whore!"

If your children had behaved like this, how would you want them punished? Certainly a proper grounding would be in order; computer privileges revoked. Detention, yes,maybe even suspension. Or what about 10 years in jail? Now what if we told you that the girl had gone home after the soda-can incident and killed herself,discovered by her little sister, hanging in a stairwell. Now which punishment fits the crime?

I have a hard time with this one.

I want to begin with saying don't quote me on this because I haven't really fully developed my thoughts on that matter.

I feel the "bullies" have some degree of responsibility. Even before the suicide they have rightfully earned their ass kicking. To make this a crime? I am not entirely sure making bullying illegal even in the case where someone commits suicide is the right course of action.

Subject to existing laws, I think bullying should be a crime. Sure, it's fun to do at first, however, if you experienced a receiving end of bullying you'd tend to think differently. Imagine, in school, instead of wanting to learn or get educated, the only thought within your mind is getting out of there.

In the light of the subject matter, when a person is bullied, there is an unspoken rule in school, where if you tattle tale, you'll be subject to more bullying. To my mind, it is the job of the school to see none of these things happen. I mean, if one's child is in school, one will trust the administration that they are paying their money's worth; with the end in view that their child will learn something and be of value to society.

Sure, some might say that it is human nature to subdue others, because there must be a pecking order, but hey, how will the little guy show his stuff when every moment some bully will make fun of him.

Of course, this is my opinion. A child must be taught by his or her parents to fend off bullies. The movies tend to provide stupid ideas. It's never realistic. I guess, in the real world their will always be bullies, be it at work, at school, or in society. One must use his or her mind to survive, but there must be a guide to survival in these case. I hope that the law can provide the minimum protection.

A good video to represent this is karate kid - the recent one. Sure, it is fictional, one can argue such and convince others that it does not reflect reality, but the actors, if you see their point of view, you can relate that it hurts to be bullied. One might be traumatized and it will affect the rest of his or her life.

I'm looking for a favorable response to those who can change this sort of thing.

 

[Moky]

I think it should be a crime because we're taught from a young age to respect each other, they knew they were harming someone. If your action is directly harming someone, then I view it as a crime. I don't know if I could blame the parents however. Some people do everything right, but their spawn is still a little shit. Some parents don't realize how bad their children are until they are called to the principals office. Though, would bullying also be considered harassment?

I used to be bullied a lot when I was young, along with my brother. Guess how it stopped? I became an asshole and made some people cry with words, where as my brother kicked the kid who was beating him up in the jaw. The only way they will stop is if you fight back, unless you have the patience to not react. Not reacting is very frustrating to someone who is looking for a reaction.

 

[FatStupidAmerican]

The reason why I have a hard time siding idea with bullying is kinda like saying "its illegal because it might make me feel sad about myself."

I guess the question I have for those who think it should be illegal is do you want to make bullying illegal in general or bullying that results in something such as suicide illegal?

Again, I am still developing my thoughts on this matter.

 

[ArthurWilborn]

Are... you serious?

No! Absolutely not. There's a wide number of problems with this.

Firstly, bullying already tends to be ignored, the perpetrators out of view of official censure. If you add in criminal punishments it's going to create a situation where school officials are outright shielding the behavior.

Bullying at the level where someone dies tends to be a communal activity. Who are you going to punish? Will you toss the entire class into the youth penal system?

Take a moment to acquaint yourself with zero-tolerance policies, what they were intended to do, and who was actually subjected to them. Why do you this anti-bullying law you propose would end up any less horribly mangled?

Since most physical acts of bullying are already illegal, your law would fall squarely in the realm of limiting speech. That point I oppose just on general philosophical grounds.

 

[Anachronous Rex]

Since most physical acts of bullying are already illegal, your law would fall squarely in the realm of limiting speech. That point I oppose just on general philosophical grounds.

This. My understanding is that much of the 'bullying' described in the OP is already illegal under harassment and assault laws. It merely needs to be enforced therein, we do not need to add a superfluous layer of ambiguous law.

 

[australopithecus]

I'm having a hard time remaining objective with regards to the subject of bullying. I was bullied quite seriously throughout most of my schooling, both psychological and physical. My only response to any discussion on punishment for bullying is that they should be lined up against a wall and shot. Which is impractical and hypocritcal as I oppose capital punishment. Life's little contradictions...

 

[Giliell]

Hmmm, a very difficult topic
I have several problems with inventing a crime called "Bullying" and then dealing out punishment.

Sure, bullying exists. I had my share at school, most at the receiving end, but I'm sure at the perpetrating end as well. Those lttle cruelties you let slip out, or simply displaying your dislike for somebody plainly, regularly, loudly.
And bullying is too often ignored. Schools have busy schedules to run, to few teachers and social workers on site. And it's not easy to spot.
Let's take the OP:
-There were jokes on Facebook
How should teachers know? they can hardly check what their students are doing there
-A picture was changed, her face scribbled out
OK, that's something teachers can notice. But difficult to asses. Why was ist scribbled out? Who did it? Do you really inform a teenager's parents because somebody destroyed a photo?
-The cafeteria event
Most probably, there were teachers. Did they know anything about the photo so they could make a connection?
-The thrown can
The final straw. And of course an attack and clearly illegal already. But even if it hadn't led to the suicide, it was outside of school and probably no news of iot would ever have reached the staff-room.
For the girl, all those events were closely connected, pieces of a puzzle, all adding to her pain. But to the world outside, they were probably isolated, and if taken individually (with the exception of the final attack), rather harmless.

And I have a problem with criminalizing what is, sadly, part of normal teenager-behaviour. As pointed out above, the problem is not the single incident, but the mass of it, the constant repetition. And I can already see parents goi ng the police because their little girl is never invited to any birthday-parties. Where does it start, where does it stop? A very sensitive kid might commit suicide because nobody liked them, without having been bullied, just having been ignored for 3 years. Will we then outlaw not talking to people?

Ideally, schools would have more capacities to deal with bullies and their victims, giving counselling or doing anti-bullying projects. If perpetrators are caught, they schould be disciplined and get something like agression management classes.

But I think the most responsibility lies with parents. Not only to teach their kids that it is wrong to bully (but sadly, a lot of kids learn that kind of behaviour at daddy's knee), but also to have a close contact with their children. Here's a hint: If your kids never talks about school, friends or enjoys after school activities and meets with friends, something may be wrong. And just because you got the answer "fine" it doesn't mean it's true.

Sadly, this also means that those most in need of a bit of parental control and those in need of a bit of parental care, who are the most likely to be bully and victim, fall through.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I don't know why people would be so against or afraid of making things illegal and dropping real penalties on the perpetrators. I think it is part of a larger societal sickness, where we all sort of say "not my problem, doesn't affect me so nothing needs to be done, and maybe I want to ignore a couple of laws too" and so we do nothing. Worse than nothing in this case, because silent acceptance of bullying and blaming the victim combine to give bullies the green light to continue their behavior and ratchet it up even worse. Whenever anyone says that this is "normal behavior" they are giving approval of it, and actively participating in the mental defect of our age.

I don't know what the fuck has gone wrong with the world since I was in high school, because this level of bullying is NOT normal behavior. This is not "kids being kids" as much as it is kids learning to be sociopaths, often with the help of their parents and teachers. If there's a place for zero tolerance policies, it needs to exist for the psychological and physical torture of bullying. If an adult did these things to a kid, you'd lock the adult up for-fucking-ever. Do you think it is any less damaging to the victim if the torture is committed by a peer, or is it possibly worse? At least kids know if an adult abuses them they can call the cops. There's no real answer if someone is "just" bullying you.

 

[australopithecus]

And I have a problem with criminalizing what is, sadly, part of normal teenager-behaviour. As pointed out above, the problem is not the single incident, but the mass of it, the constant repetition. And I can already see parents goi ng the police because their little girl is never invited to any birthday-parties. Where does it start, where does it stop? A very sensitive kid might commit suicide because nobody liked them, without having been bullied, just having been ignored for 3 years. Will we then outlaw not talking to people?

I can only speak from experience of course, but being beat with a belt so hard it leaves scars on your back doesn't strike me as 'normal' teenage behaviour. I know different people will be effected by differing degrees to things of a psychological nature, but once people start geting physically hurt, then that's a criminal offence and anyone commiting that crime should be punished, which sadly, again in my experience, just doesn't happen. Even when you point out to the police that a crime as essentially been committed.

Bullying was, and continues to be, swept under the rug because people juust don't take it seriously and so long as that happens kids will keep paying the price for that apathy.

 

[lrkun]

Let us define what bullying is.

Let us illustrate it and give our reason why it should be punished.

If we can do this, maybe we can make a concrete definition of bullying wherein we can suggest the following to our respective representatives in the community.

Basic Information About the Topic

What is bullying?

* constant nit-picking, fault-finding and criticism of a trivial nature - the triviality, regularity and frequency betray bullying; often there is a grain of truth (but only a grain) in the criticism to fool you into believing the criticism has validity, which it does not; often, the criticism is based on distortion, misrepresentation or fabrication
* simultaneous with the criticism, a constant refusal to acknowledge you and your contributions and achievements or to recognise your existence and value
* constant attempts to undermine you and your position, status, worth, value and potential
* where you are in a group (eg at work), being singled out and treated differently; for instance, everyone else can get away with murder but the moment you put a foot wrong - however trivial - action is taken against you
* being isolated and separated from colleagues, excluded from what's going on, marginalized, overruled, ignored, sidelined, frozen out, sent to Coventry
* being belittled, demeaned and patronised, especially in front of others
* being humiliated, shouted at and threatened, often in front of others
* being overloaded with work, or having all your work taken away and replaced with either menial tasks (filing, photocopying, minute taking) or with no work at all
* finding that your work - and the credit for it - is stolen and plagiarised
* having your responsibility increased but your authority taken away
* having annual leave, sickness leave, and - especially - compassionate leave refused
* being denied training necessary for you to fulfil your duties
* having unrealistic goals set, which change as you approach them
* ditto deadlines which are changed at short notice - or no notice - and without you being informed until it's too late
* finding that everything you say and do is twisted, distorted and misrepresented
* being subjected to disciplinary procedures with verbal or written warnings imposed for trivial or fabricated reasons and without proper investigation
* being coerced into leaving through no fault of your own, constructive dismissal, early or ill-health retirement, etc

 

[FatStupidAmerican]

Irkun

About the page. Do you think this is a bit of a stretch?

What does bullying do to my health?

Bullying causes injury to health and makes you ill. How many of these symptoms do you have?

* constant high levels of stress and anxiety
* frequent illness such as viral infections especially flu and glandular fever, colds, coughs, chest, ear, nose and throat infections (stress plays havoc with your immune system)
* aches and pains in the joints and muscles with no obvious cause; also back pain with no obvious cause and which won't go away or respond to treatment
* headaches and migraines
* tiredness, exhaustion, constant fatigue
* sleeplessness, nightmares, waking early, waking up more tired than when you went to bed
* flashbacks and replays, obsessiveness, can't get the bullying out of your mind
* irritable bowel syndrome
* skin problems such as eczema, psoriasis, athlete's foot, ulcers, shingles, urticaria
* poor concentration, can't concentrate on anything for long
* bad or intermittently-functioning memory, forgetfulness, especially with trivial day-to-day things
* sweating, trembling, shaking, palpitations, panic attacks
* tearfulness, bursting into tears regularly and over trivial things
* uncharacteristic irritability and angry outbursts
* hypervigilance (feels like but is not paranoia), being constantly on edge
* hypersensitivity, fragility, isolation, withdrawal
* reactive depression, a feeling of woebegoneness, lethargy, hopelessness, anger, futility and more
* shattered self-confidence, low self-worth, low self-esteem, loss of self-love, etc

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Irkun

About the page. Do you think this is a bit of a stretch?

Why do you think it is a stretch?

 

[kenandkids]

Bullying is a difficult topic. It has so many variables and stages that I don't see it as possible to actually make some over-riding, expansive law that wouldn't simply be restating some laws while criminalising many normal behaviours. The fact of the matter is that quite a bit of bullying is children trying to find out "where they fit" in their society. Teaching your children simple concepts like empathy or caring for others is proven to cut down on the negative behaviours involved.

Like many, I was bullied. There were days that I was terrified to go to school. At some points I honestly feared for my life and/or safety. It ended when I made a friend who had no problem fighting back and I learned that I could to. It didn't end immediately, but it didn't take long.

I like Montaigne's view of laws: "This number [of laws] bears no proportion to the infinite diversity of human actions. ... There is little relation between our actions, which are in perpetual mutation, and fixed and immutable laws." (Of Experience)

I can't conceive of any method to craft a law that would actually cover every aspect, or even most aspects, of bullying. Instead the laws would criminalise perfectly innocent behaviours, such as children being suspended from school for holding hands (sexual harassment laws/rules), expelled for possessing one inch G.I.Joe guns (no tolerance weapons rules), and suspended for wearing certain coloured clothing (anti-gang dress code rules). Each of these examples happened to young 3rd and 4th graders at my daughters grade school.

There are laws in place that protect against most of the dangerous bullying. Instead of making new laws, there needs to be some enforcement of the current ones. Sadly, far too many parents and "educators" will not admit the problems or hold children accountable for their actions. I do think that, at some point, parents need to be held accountable when their children are violent and/or chronic bullies.

 

[FatStupidAmerican]

Irkun

About the page. Do you think this is a bit of a stretch?

Why do you think it is a stretch?

I am no doctor, or bioologist, but * irritable bowel syndrome, really?

Has there been a case where bullying has caused irritable bowel syndrome?

 

[Divergedwoods]

Of course that the degree of bulling is a very big factor in here, since it can vary widely from name calling, harassment, to physical abuse that has in occasions lead to direct death.
I think that as long as bulling does not go as far as to cause physical injury (which as far as I'm concerned could be grounds for civil action at the very least, if not criminal, depending on the degree of injury) then bulling is nothing more than annoying, inappropriate and discriminatory behavior and specially in minors should only be held to disciplinary actions, both on the side of the parents and on that of the school.
I think that only way to lower the incidence of bulling (I don't think is possible to stop it as a whole) is trough education and tougher disciplinary actions from the schools (that don't have a negative effect on academical performance, like suspension or expulsion)
When it leads to suicide, first of all, it is completely impossible to establish a direct causality that lead to the suicide, you can only establish correlation, in the case mentioned, even though she was bullied and it is rather obvious that it contributed to het suicide, it is not provable that bulling caused it, and I don't think the bullies should be held responsible for the suicide itself

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I am no doctor, or bioologist, but * irritable bowel syndrome, really?

Has there been a case where bullying has caused irritable bowel syndrome?

Since you're not an expert, what gives you the authority to engage in smirking dismissal? Other than the same bully-enabling attitude that I mentioned previously?

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Let me reiterate here for the empathy-free folks who might be reading this thread: if an activity would be considered criminal child abuse if done to a child by an adult, then why wouldn't it be just as harmful if done by one child to another? If a 14 year old child is beaten up on a regular basis by an adult, does it suddenly stop being assault if the adult is replaced by a classmate? If it is assault either way, then why is emotional or psychological abuse any less harmful if the guilty parties are a bunch of children instead of a single adult?