Sticks & Stones

Eight months ago, Phoebe Prince emigrated from Ireland to the United States. Five months later, she committed suicide. Initially, it appeared as though Prince was well-adapted to her new surroundings - she was well liked by he classmates and (briefly) romantically involved with a senior on the football team. However, her romantic success had inspired a backlash and other students (among them a girl who had also dated the football player) targeted her through name-calling and threats of violence. The bullying escalated until Prince was found dead after a particularly harsh day on January 14, 2010. The media latched onto Prince's suicide as an example of the recent transformation of bullying. The proliferation of cell phones, instant messaging, and social networking sites has provided adolescents with larger audiences, thereby giving their taunts a more severe bite. Now instead of privately excluding peers from cliques and the customary face-to-face disparagements, students can post their disparagements for the whole world to see, and to pile on to. And for those bullied, the comments never disappear - they just become archived.

Prince's unfortunate suicide was not the typical reaction, however bullying is still a problem that demands greater attention. Unfortunately, like many issues, the attention comes in fits and starts as a particularly sad story ignites a media firestorm. The recent prosecution of 6 of Prince's classmates demonstrates one approach to remedying the bullying problem, bringing law enforcement and criminal sanctions into schools. Though criminalizing certain offenses can deter some behavior, the logic of general deterrence is stretched too thin when applied to school aged children and the specific offense of bullying.

Criminalization will not Deter the Bullying

The desire to deter bullies through criminal prosecution is misguided. As an initial matter, the reaction of the media seems necessary for charges to be pressed - therefore a student wouldn't have to fear criminal sanction unless the subject of his taunting actually commits suicide. But more pressingly, "bullying" is a relatively amorphous term. It implies some coordinated assault, but does it reach purely verbal incidents? Does bullying require an actual physical threat? Some states have created a specific criminal offense of bullying in order to expressly delineate the conduct to be deterred.

Even if criminalizing "bullying" removes the stigma from being bullied (from "sissy" to "crime victim"), students are still unlikely to report the incidents. Bullying is primarily about isolating the victim from the social group, and while calling down authority might make the bullying less overt, it often ends up only widening the social gulf. For this reason, it is difficult for school officials and parents to evaluate the severity of the bullying until tragedies like Prince's occur. Assuming that children are capable of the cost-benefit analysis that the deterrence theory requires, there is no incentive for them to change their behavior as the likelihood of being criminally punished is low. The punishment might be greater than the satisfaction they retain from bullying however if they are unlikely to be caught, that analysis has no meaning.

Steps to a Solution

Rather than allow politicians to use bullying as fodder for their campaign speeches, the government should focus on prevention of those initial harms. The first step towards a solution should be to specifically define proscribed "bullying". To a certain extent, the non-physical "meanness" experienced in school prepares students for future rejection in life and provides an impetus for finding self-worth internally - beyond the words and treatment of others. However, the level of torment experienced by Prince and students across the country need to be addressed and limited. The final concrete definition of bullying should take into consideration the learning experience that a certain amount of adversity supplies.

It also may be prudent to diagnose bullying through its less dramatic effects. Bullied children often try to avoid school in order to avoid their harasser. They do so by pretending to be sick in order to stay home or through frequent visits to the school nurse's office. School policy could be geared towards carefully monitoring students who frequently ask to see the nurse, epidemiological evidence of overly abusive interpersonal relationships with their classmates. This is somewhat similar to the approach taken by Professor Dan Olweus's bullying prevention program. Olweus uses a community approach to dealing with bullying in schools. The program calls for teachers, administrators, cafeteria personnel, janitors, and parents to join students in the attempt to curb bullying on campus. The program attempts to treat the symptoms through vigilant attention, and the cause through education of both students and adults concerning what kinds of behavior are unacceptable. Though Professor Olweus’ definition of bullying may be overly inclusive, his methods have found success.

Adults may be better situated to respond to physical bullying, but students are more capable of detecting verbal and social bullying. Bullying works to isolate its target. It makes the mark feel less self-worth because of his inability to integrate with the greater group. Programs that help students to identify bullying and encourage them to intervene on behalf of their classmates mitigate the abuse and negate the isolation felt by the victim. A private school in Northern New Jersey has successfully put this principle into action by instituting a "safe room" connected to the guidance department where students are not allowed to bully one another. If a student is going through a problem, they can find support from their classmates or administers. Implementing policies like this is a step towards alleviating the effects of bullying in school settings.

Conclusion

Bullying became more severe over the years but criminalizing the actors will not dull its power. Lawmakers need to direct their attention to schools in order to have real preventative impact to save the potential Phoebe Princes.

So here's what I've got. I'm still not fully comfortable with the first paragraph after "Criminalization will not Deter bullying" - it feels like we're attacking the short term problems of the approach, when most would agree it has a long horizon. I left the paragraph in, but in all honesty I feel you should cut it - maybe add a short line about the difficulties in determining what is "over the line" into the next paragraph. Also, I made a few small line edits I think I should explain - I removed your reference to retribution because, from what I've read, most parents don't feel vindicated when the bully instrumental to their child's suicide is arrested - they seem to have the same problem you have, that this is just a show without impact. Also, I inserted janitors into your list of school staff that help out students - mostly because the janitors were almost always my favorite adults in the schools. I liked the stark nature of your opening, but I tried to humanize the incident a bit more - keep in the shock, but with more context for people who aren't familiar. Your analysis of the Cost-Benefit analysis can be left in if you believe it, but I don't think you do and I don't see a need to lie if you don't. From our conversation, it seemed like your bigger issue isn't that bullies need to realize that the fun isn't worth the (attenuated and unlikely) harm to themselves but rather that their actions have consequences and their pleasure isn't worth the harm directly inflicted on the other student. Oh yeah, and I'm a fan of the Oxford comma, so I used it. "To my parents, Ayn Rand and God."

I tried to provide you with a good platform for whichever direction you decide you're most interested in - media response, cyber bullying, etc. I didn't find out more about the NJ school, but if you're attempting to propose it as an effective solution, I think you need some more analysis of it. Even just a line about how it seems to be working. I think your analysis of bullying as isolation was a brilliant move - it really helps show why the highly individual focus of criminalization isn't going to be effective, and why it's necessary to have a "community approach".

If you've got any other thoughts, let me know. This paper has a point, and that's something I can get into.

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