Do you think that bullying should be treated as a crime in the legal system? If so, would you include verbal and emotional bullying or just physical? What age would you consider old enough to to face legal charges?
think that the people who try to excuse it as "kids will be kids" were bullies in school when they were younger. They can't admit that what they did was wrong to themselves, and if they acknowledge that it's wrong in today's kids, they'll be acknowledging that they were wrong when they were kids.
this, and the only exceptions are those who were popular themselves so they have ZERO concept of what suffering it is like (see: my mother).
To make a long story short.... The adults who know about it and do nothing are, in my opinion, just as bad, if not WORSE than the bullies themselves and they NEED to be held accountable.
agreed. that's why i think a federal law needs to be passed to hold the schools accountable. if school administrators are forced to have their cushy jobs at risk, they'll be more inclined to get off their asses.
I think some acts of bullying can be (and are) criminal. The difficulty with this sort of thing is drawing lines. The law, while sometimes flexible and interpretable, needs to have a certain degree of definition to be able to function. If it's too broad, "hurting someone's feelings" becomes a crime. Too narrow, and the law is useless and can rarely be applied
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Thank you for articulating this so well. I keep thinking that bullying is hard to define, but everyone knows it when they see it (a la pornography), so the very first thing needed is a clear and concise definition, as you said.
I really enjoy thinking about stuff like this... I'm a PhD student in Criminal Justice, so my entire academic life is basically about what's illegal, why it became illegal and how, why people do illegal things, the unintended consequences of laws, and the long-term impacts of victimization AND arrest/prosecution/incarceration. If I take away nothing else from this degree, at least I have a healthy skepticism of the ability of criminalization to solve a damn thing! ;)
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this, and the only exceptions are those who were popular themselves so they have ZERO concept of what suffering it is like (see: my mother).
To make a long story short.... The adults who know about it and do nothing are, in my opinion, just as bad, if not WORSE than the bullies themselves and they NEED to be held accountable.
agreed. that's why i think a federal law needs to be passed to hold the schools accountable. if school administrators are forced to have their cushy jobs at risk, they'll be more inclined to get off their asses.
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