Should bullying be a crime?

[FatStupidAmerican]

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?

I am not dismissing, I am asking.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I am not dismissing, I am asking.

The answer in simplest terms is "yes". Maybe you could have looked it up, since it took me all of 30 seconds, and it WAS your question. :facepalm:

IBS is a "diagnosis of exclusion", that is to say that it is a collection of symptoms that tend to come together, and tend to have several nonspecific causes, often including but not limited to psychological causes. So yes, the emotional trauma of bullying can cause physiological effects including IBS.

 

[kenandkids]

IBS is a "diagnosis of exclusion", that is to say that it is a collection of symptoms that tend to come together, and tend to have several nonspecific causes, often including but not limited to psychological causes. So yes, the emotional trauma of bullying can cause physiological effects including IBS.

Not to mention the well documented damage that violent blows tend to have on a bodies organs...

 

[Giliell]

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.

Hmmm, did I phrase my post so badly that it made anyone think I condoned violence?
But I highlighted a part in your post and I want to ask you a question: Where does it start? Have you never made a cruel joke? Will that be a criminal offense? What do you do with 10 kids of 12 who run behind 1 kid with glasses, laughing at that kid and calling them names? Make sure that their life is now ruined as well because they have a criminal record before they even start highschool?

I think the list Irkun posted is very helpful, although the latter part focusses more on the workplace: Would you make any of those a criminal offense and how do you define "repeated" and "constant"?

* 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

How would you make sure that such laws wouldn't be abused by other people to such an extend that people would start to believe that bullying wasn't real? Like a lot of people now think that ADHS isn't real but just a problem with badly raised kids and lazy parents. Already teachers are faced with quite a lot of troubles with angry parents who believe that their precious little darling is being bullied by the teacher because he graded their work with a D and gave them some extra homework?

And to answer your question: Because they are not adults. It doesn't make any difference for the victim, I agree, but we don't treat children and teenagers like adults because their ability to think and to reason does not equal that of an adult. That's why we don't give them the same rights as we give adults. We don't trust them enough to participate in an election, or to handle a bottle of whisky. Why should I then hold them fully responsible for the wrongs they do?

 

[ImprobableJoe]

But I highlighted a part in your post and I want to ask you a question: Where does it start? Have you never made a cruel joke? Will that be a criminal offense? What do you do with 10 kids of 12 who run behind 1 kid with glasses, laughing at that kid and calling them names? Make sure that their life is now ruined as well because they have a criminal record before they even start highschool?

Is it OK for children to ruin the lives of other children? Your concern should be primarily for the victims, not the little shitheads who make their peers into victims.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Not to mention the well documented damage that violent blows tend to have on a bodies organs...

Yes, but people who lack basic empathy have a hard time understanding emotional harm, but can occasionally understand physical harm. They might even agree that breaking someone's arm is bad, but beating a kid up and just threatening to break his arm while twisting his arm behind him until he screams is just "kids being kids".

 

[Giliell]

But I highlighted a part in your post and I want to ask you a question: Where does it start? Have you never made a cruel joke? Will that be a criminal offense? What do you do with 10 kids of 12 who run behind 1 kid with glasses, laughing at that kid and calling them names? Make sure that their life is now ruined as well because they have a criminal record before they even start highschool?

Is it OK for children to ruin the lives of other children? Your concern should be primarily for the victims, not the little shitheads who make their peers into victims.

I start to think that you're willfully missunderstanding me.
No, it is not OK, I have empathy with the victims (do you think being a fat girl for most of my life made me Miss Popular in highschool?), but I don't think that ruining a few more lives on the way who would in most cases become decent people will help the problem any further.
Can you really honestly say that you never did anything that might be considered bullying? Oh, maybe you only made that joke once, but 20 other people also made it only once.
And my questions still stand: Where's the line? What would be a criminal offense (which isn't allready one now) and what isn't?

I also think that making it a criminal offense might actually make the problem worse because schools couldn't do anything anymore themselves. They couldn't give somebody detention, get the social worker, talk to the parents. They would have to go to the police instead (who will most likely not care about what somebody wrote on the wall in the girls' restroom). Doesn't sound very practical to me.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I start to think that you're willfully missunderstanding me.
No, it is not OK, I have empathy with the victims (do you think being a fat girl for most of my life made me Miss Popular in highschool?), but I don't think that ruining a few more lives on the way who would in most cases become decent people will help the problem any further.
Can you really honestly say that you never did anything that might be considered bullying? Oh, maybe you only made that joke once, but 20 other people also made it only once.
And my questions still stand: Where's the line? What would be a criminal offense (which isn't allready one now) and what isn't?

I also think that making it a criminal offense might actually make the problem worse because schools couldn't do anything anymore themselves. They couldn't give somebody detention, get the social worker, talk to the parents. They would have to go to the police instead (who will most likely not care about what somebody wrote on the wall in the girls' restroom). Doesn't sound very practical to me.

If I punch someone in the face as hard as I can, and my life is ruined because of the penalties, then I ruined my own life. If sociopathic children ruin their lives because of their behavior, it is their own fault as well... no one forced them to be a bully. Why is it that only the victim should suffer, while their torturers should be shielded from negative outcomes?

I've done some shitty things in my life, and I don't hide from it. I don't think I should have gotten away with it, and if I had continued to escalate, there should have been legal consequences. We can debate where the exact line is, but as far as I'm concerned just establishing that there should be a line is a positive first step. Letting junior psychopaths know that there are real consequences might actually be a deterrent.

 

[Giliell]

If I punch someone in the face as hard as I can, and my life is ruined because of the penalties, then I ruined my own life. If sociopathic children ruin their lives because of their behavior, it is their own fault as well... no one forced them to be a bully. Why is it that only the victim should suffer, while their torturers should be shielded from negative outcomes?

Well, now I'm convinced that you're willfully missunderstanding me.

First: I don't talk about violence
Second: Do you think children are fully responsible for their deeds?
Third: When did I say that there shouldn't be consequences? I only think that a criminal record isn't the best solution to the problem.
My 3-year-old has lately taken to pushing her one year old sister over. Poor baby hits her head on the floor. Do you think I should turn her in? Would a year or two in prison teach her a lesson? There is a lot of room between just looking away and not doing anything and painting someone as a criminal.

I've done some shitty things in my life, and I don't hide from it. I don't think I should have gotten away with it, and if I had continued to escalate, there should have been legal consequences. We can debate where the exact line is, but as far as I'm concerned just establishing that there should be a line is a positive first step. Letting junior psychopaths know that there are real consequences might actually be a deterrent.

Again, I agree there should be consequences. Only that most of them aren't junior psychopaths. They're kids and they will do stupid and wrong things. They will make cruel jokes, exclude somebody from activities and also hate with all their heart. With propper consequences, attention and education, most of them turn out fine. And there are lines already. Beating people is illegal, harrassing people is illegal, too.
But I'm still waiting to hear your proposal of where to draw that line.
What should be a criminal offense that isn't one already?

 

[Zetetic]

But I highlighted a part in your post and I want to ask you a question: Where does it start? Have you never made a cruel joke? Will that be a criminal offense? What do you do with 10 kids of 12 who run behind 1 kid with glasses, laughing at that kid and calling them names? Make sure that their life is now ruined as well because they have a criminal record before they even start highschool?

Is it OK for children to ruin the lives of other children? Your concern should be primarily for the victims, not the little shitheads who make their peers into victims.

I think that a huge part of the problem is the school system. I hope that with new interactive methods and guaranteed internet access we can achieve a much better effect with a more anarchic approach. It would be my hope that parents can get together and form home schooling communities, divide labor and use interactive software as the primary teaching device. I think it quite likely that we could develop very powerful tutoring software in the relatively near future. It is my hope that this software along with the initiatives of parents can provide a better atmosphere where the authority figures are known and respected and know and care for the students.

Hypothesis:

The school system behaves too much like a prison dynamic; especially considering a huge component of school, at least in America, is geared toward social re-education including instilling the willingness to take orders from authority figures and not to contradict blatantly false claims when they happen to crop up (the latter being more accidental than not, but is still a consequence of this system). To cope with their frustration with the prison dynamic, students form cliques and vent frustration on to out-groups. Anyone who has broken away from their in-group becomes fair game. People with no in-group are fair game as well, but I don't think that the impetus to attack them is as strong as contact is often limited to the superficial.

Does anyone have a better hypothesis? Despite problems in my hypothesis, I am more and more convinced each day that much more can be achieved and much pain can be avoided in a more decentralized communal homeschooling environment. It might even provide a way for communities to re-form the bonds that once formed naturally due to interdependence of its citizens.

 

[dav37777777]

bullying is only a crime when its not done right, i mean if your going to bully someone you gotta bully them all the way into the ground or else they might get up on their feet and become a problem again.

 

[lrkun]

bullying is only a crime when its not done right, i mean if your going to bully someone you gotta bully them all the way into the ground or else they might get up on their feet and become a problem again.

:facepalm:


Bullies are a problem. There is no right way to bully. The advice you gave is not helpful nor related to the issue of the thread.

 

[dav37777777]

sometimes it is necessary for power to be demonstrated. its like when two males of a species fight for a female only the strongest survive. its the survival of the fittest. this is an ugly and brutal fact of nature.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Bullies are a problem. There is no right way to bully. The advice you gave is not helpful nor related to the issue of the thread.

He's a troll, just ignore his stupidity.

 

[dav37777777]

its not pretty ...but if you think i am lying about this or have made some false statements than i will be happy to hear your argument. what i tell you i believe to be a true and a fact of nature. we must face the truth no matter how ugly it may appear. people will never stop bullying because it shapes our social structures and hierarchies. if you watch closely enough you will even see it happening in chatrooms and forums with name calling and labeling.

 

[Zetetic]

sometimes it is necessary for power to be demonstrated. its like when two males of a species fight for a female only the strongest survive. its the survival of the fittest. this is an ugly and brutal fact of nature.

Hypothesis:

This isn't analogous to mating disputes. It is not any individual showing power, it is the ostracizing of a single individual by smaller actions of many individuals. It is almost a form of banishment or excommunication. The person commits an action that threatens someone who either has higher status or is opportunistic and a rumor mill begins. The students, already in a prison environment adopt a sort of mob or gang mentality. They view out group members as objects and if a person has no in group or violates the dynamics of their in group it results in them becoming an object of hate. Frustrations of the students and the social pressure to agree to avoid similar punishment are projected on to the sacrificial lamb, until it is replaced and forgotten.

The student is forced to find an in group that has an acceptable dynamic. If they fail to find such an in group, they are in a prison without a gang. Essentially this makes them fair game.

The fact of the matter is that when someone violates the order of their particular social sphere, they open themselves up for attack. If they did not intentionally violate their social sphere, they will likely have no good way to cope with the attacks. The larger their profile, the greater the response.

 

[australopithecus]

bullying is only a crime when its not done right, i mean if your going to bully someone you gotta bully them all the way into the ground or else they might get up on their feet and become a problem again.

sometimes it is necessary for power to be demonstrated. its like when two males of a species fight for a female only the strongest survive. its the survival of the fittest. this is an ugly and brutal fact of nature.

Yeah, newflash. Kids psychologically and physically harding other kids is not fucking natural selection and nor is it a 'public service' that is provided to ensure the 'weak' are culled. Your engenic-like approach to what is essentially children harming one another is, frankly, sickening.

Put simply: Stop being an fucking idiot.

(Note to any mods who may or may not take exception at me calling the guy a fucking idiot: As I stated I have a very personal vested interest in this topic, and to be honest I don't take kindly to obvious trolls (and come on, he obviously is) talking shit. While I know and except personal insults are frowned upon, in this instance I don't actually care. Sometimes a spade needs to be called a moron.)

 

[Unwardil]

Well, it's like this.

Bullies aren't smart, but they are resourceful. The second you make certain things a crime, they find another way to do the same thing. Why is there more psychological bullying now? Because most schools have a no tolerance violence policy. If you're caught being violent on school or even off school, you get suspended. So they don't beat kids up any more, they find other equally malicious ways.

And the targets are alone, isolated without a friend in the world because the bullies will subvert the authority to work for them.

They can either find a way to fight back, be broken or simply suck it up and wait it out. It's horrible and it's depressing and some people aren't strong enough and opt out early, but there's no stupid anti bullying law that'll do anything to stop it. Some people become stronger for it, others remain doormats their entire lives, but we are barely evolved apes and in order for there to be a top ape, there needs to be a bottom ape. Those who are not top apes and know they are not top apes will side with the obvious top ape simply to avoid becoming the bottom ape because you do not want to be the bottom ape. We all know what we do to HIM after all.

I would argue that this is not something in human nature that we should wish to remove. People need leaders and they need scape goats. They need to feel better than someone and as much as it sucks to be the one that at the bottom of that hierarchy, if you're never given the opportunity to deal with that kind of thing in school where it doesn't really matter, what the hell are you going to do later in life? That goes just as much for the people who go along with the bullies because they're weak willed terrified sheep as well.

 

[nasher168]

bullying is only a crime when its not done right, i mean if your going to bully someone you gotta bully them all the way into the ground or else they might get up on their feet and become a problem again.

You're not helping your reputation here, y'know.

You might have noticed that in the case being discussed, they did not "get up on their feet and become a problem again" because they committed suicide.

Perhaps you should check the "general tips" part of the rules thread. The comment you made there was excessively crude.

 

[Squawk]

Buggered if I know what my opinion is on this.

On the one hand bullying is terrible. I've been on the receiving end of it, when I was much younger. On the other, I defend passionately the right to free speech. I have made the argument a number of times that you do not have the right not to be offended.

I suppose that then boils down to criticism of a person vs criticism of their ideas, and that is one seriously blurry line when it comes to real life. I try to enforce it here on the forum and in the chat, attack the idea not the person. If someone wants to go and shout "wanker" when the pope passes by I'd call them uncouth, but I wouldn't say they have done anything wrong. Want to call him a bald headed git, fine. How many here have laughed at pictures of the pope made out to be the Emperor?

I am, lets say, follicley challenged. I get comments most days from people about being a baldy (it's receeding a bit). Is this bullying? In a way it is, but it's also people poking fun, knowing that my sense of humour gets the joke. Where is the line? Fuck knows.

Physical violence is easier, it's assault, it's criminal, prosecute away. I'd argue in favour of policies preventing personal attacks in institutions (ie schools), but I do not think you do anything in law. It's too much of a restriction of freedom of speech, sad as the consequences are. What exactly have peopled died for in countless wars if not to protect liberty, to protect freedom of speech?