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?
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! ;)
like i mentioned above, every element of bullying already IS a crime on the books. so you are correct that existing laws should be used.
i'm curious--what "other ways" to address the problem do you think would actually be successful? asking because in every case that's hit the news thus far, bullies prove they don't care to change their stripes. they only show remorse or act scared when the authorities actually come down on them. counseling, community service-type punishments, detention, suspension, explusion from school--none of it matters to them. IF arrested, dragged into court or even charged, they may show crocodile tears or produce a faked apology for the victim and/or their families (see: Kayla Narey, Molly Wei). some don't even do that (see: Sean Mulveyhill, Flannery Mullins, Dharun Ravi).
tl, dr: nothing that i've seen put into action actually makes these little sociopaths wake up and take responsibility/stop the behavior. is there an idea you have that schools haven't tried yet?
I don't think that most kids who bully are "little sociopaths." I think a lot of kids who bully are just regular, normal kids. A lot of them get swept up in bullying that perhaps is orchestrated by one particularly vicious student, but trying to address this with some kind of anti-bullying law would likely catch a lot of kids who simply didn't have the confidence to stand up to bullies of their own
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i'm not buying into any "media depiction"--and TBH, the "media depiction" is largely the truth in a lot of cases anyway; they're simply bringing it to light after decades of victims being forced to sit down, shut up and suffer in silence
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i'm curious--what "other ways" to address the problem do you think would actually be successful? asking because in every case that's hit the news thus far, bullies prove they don't care to change their stripes. they only show remorse or act scared when the authorities actually come down on them. counseling, community service-type punishments, detention, suspension, explusion from school--none of it matters to them. IF arrested, dragged into court or even charged, they may show crocodile tears or produce a faked apology for the victim and/or their families (see: Kayla Narey, Molly Wei). some don't even do that (see: Sean Mulveyhill, Flannery Mullins, Dharun Ravi).
tl, dr: nothing that i've seen put into action actually makes these little sociopaths wake up and take responsibility/stop the behavior. is there an idea you have that schools haven't tried yet?
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