9 MA Cyberbullies Indicted For Causing Suicide 709
Raul654 writes "Massachusetts teenager Phoebe Prince committed suicide on January 14. After her death, it was revealed that she had been the target of cyberbullying for months (and that her teachers were aware of it and did nothing). Today, nine of her classmates were indicted on charges including harassment, stalking, civil rights violations, and statutory rape. Prince's suicide echoes the earlier case of Megan Meier, who committed suicide after being cyberbullied by a classmate's mother."
Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:4, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with Facebook, Flicker, FourSquare, Twitter, or any other Web 2.0 website. This happened at school, during school hours, and with the school having knowledge that that something was going on. This is a first round of charges, there could be more including some of the adults who could have taken action. Dating a senior football player and being the "new girl" led to her being teased and hated... leading to violence, leading to a situation where she saw no way out. This should have been cut off with detentions and suspensions long before it got this far.
I'm pretty sure the lawyers in this case are going to pull all the Web 2.0 content created by the students involved. If they go down this path and find something that can be treated as a confession, then it's "News for nerds." or "Stuff that matters." Until we see that, it's more like the 6pm news here in the Boston area.
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Informative)
And that changes ... what exactly?
Oh, the difference is that the whole world could see it instead of just everyone that knows her? Newsflash: THE WORLD DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT. Does anyone here (provided he doesn't know her) care whether she's called an Irish slut? Call her an Italian dyke for all I care.
That is in NO way different from "offline" bullying. Whether "the whole world" knows or just the people that know her does not change a thing. Except that in this case there's hard evidence of it happening, compared to the bullying and mobbing that went on when we went to school. If a teenager killed himself before the onset of the internet craze, it was easily blamed on something else and shifted on ... rock music or whatever was the applicable scapegoat. The school could easily claim they didn't have a clue and the bullies certainly didn't come forward.
The difference is not that it's now "world wide known". The difference is that there's evidence now. And I fear the reaction will be to attempt to eliminate that evidence rather than stop the bullying.
It's easier to do.
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Insightful)
You are viewing this in a much more practical way than a teenage girl or boy does.
If I read online that some girl is an "Irish whore", I'm going to jump thoughts of hot redheads with loose morals - a complement!
In reality, no one cares what someone says on the internet. But to a teen being bullied it is the difference between being beaten up in an alley
and being picked on in the high school quad in front of a jeering crowd.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Some other way" is so easy to say, and for males it unfortunately it usually means the victim tries to take others with him. You have to understand that the depressed mind only sees depressed options and that to them the positive ones seem unrealistic. This doesn't mean the person is irrational, and in medicine the term "depressive realism" is used to imply that the patient is actually better rooted in reality than their undiagnosed peers, it means the problem is very difficult.
In my opinion it is wrong to
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
and so's yer old man.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
HEY! Who let that Vogon in here?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The poor girl was PHYSICALLY beaten and raped; that didn't happen on FaceBook. What happened online was trivial, what happened at school was horrendous.
What I find most appalling about this whole mess was that the bullying took place at school and the school officials did nothing, yet none were charged or disciplined.
The principal shoulc be in jail with the kids. He let her down more than anybody. Hopefully this waste of tax dollars (the principal) will be economically castrated in a lawsuit by her parents.
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Informative)
OR rather this is why we should make laws and then stick to them when a case comes up. Unforutnately, it's a lot easier to push a sob story over a jury than appeal to the actual laws.
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:4, Informative)
Statutory rape and physical harrassment (scrubbing pictures, throwing items, knocking items) are more than name calling.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Insightful)
It does highlight something that really worries me about this case. As a kid I copped a bit of bullying myself, at least till I got big enough to fight back, but I came to the conclusion that kids are, well, shitheads, and that most hopefully grow out of it.
Whats disturbing, is that the adults did nothing to protect this poor girl when it should have been immediately obvious she was being victimized. Sometimes when your being bullied, simply having an older kid or adult take your side can be immensely comforting.
When I was around 25 I used to catch a public bus to work, and every morning this scruffy young kid would be on the bus being teased and taunted till I decided to intervene, picked up one of his tormentors and physically launched him off the bus then let the kid sit next to me from that point on. I told the bullies that I would hunt down and beat senselessly any kid that bullied my new little mate, and within a couple of weeks the kid stopped being bullied. I gave the kid a bit of friendship and kind of explained how to work on his goofy demeanor, and within a year he was a reasonably popular kid himself.
All it takes is someone to care about these kids. To give a damn about them. Show some genuine concern for these kids, and they'll shine. They always do
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Insightful)
What surprises me is that you weren't arrested for assault.
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm kind of surprised too, though I wish I wasn't. Sometimes the only way to deal with a shithead is to be the crap out of them
Holy existential typo batman!
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Insightful)
And you're exactly the reason so many bullies get away with this shit. The best way to treat a bully is with a dose of his own medicine. They won't "get it" that it's not ok to hurt someone smaller than them unless someone bigger still shows them how small they are in the scheme of things.
Had I been there I'd damn well have called the police - adults hitting children is not OK unless it's a case of self-defense.
He didn't hit the kid, he picked him up and tossed him. That usually won't hurt a child unless he trips or slips when he lands, and even if he had accidentally hurt the kid, kids heal fast. As long as the intention was an overwhelming display of power, and not an actual intention to cause harm, I'm a-ok with it. A safer response would have been to simply pick the kid up, hold him at eye level, and explain exactly what will happen the next time.
Bully's respond to overwhelming force, not bullshit "you be nice now" sissy crap. They are counting on that, because they know nobody will do anything to stop them. If someone does actually do something, the quit real quick, because being a bully isn't about taking risks.
Rather than being an adult and handling it right he simply beat up a child.
Part of being an adult is knowing when to talk and when to act. Bullies don't respond to talk, they never have, and they never will. A verbal reprimand without any physical force behind it is just letting them off the hook, and they damn well know it. For the most part, the GP did the right thing. A touch excessive, perhaps, and definitely put himself in a position where a sissy like you could have gotten him into serious trouble with the law, but it was better he do that than let that poor kid be victimized on his way to school every day, and potentially end up killing himself like the girl in TFA.
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:4, Interesting)
Having had enough this ongoing saga, I stood up and rather loudly shouted while staring them both down "You two shut up, else I'm going to beat the shit out of BOTH of you!". Looking back, this clearly must have looked comical. One kid half the size of these two older kids threatening them, yet the effect itself was what made this stick with me.
The rest of the bus went silent for a split second, then literally BURST out into both laughter and applause. Result? Amazingly the two kids in the main argument both sat down, shut up and remained quiet for the rest of the trip to the train station.
Sometimes even the perceived threat (however unlikely - a twelve year old kid beating up TWO fifteen year old kids heheh) is enough to stop a tirade.
Since then, I have never been afraid to step in when I see a kid getting picked on if they are outnumbered and clearly have their tail between their legs so to speak.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm going to have to agree with the parent. We used to share our school bus with different high school. I went to James Ruse, basically a selective school, where kids sit an entrance test to get in - think nerdy kids, essentially the top of their state (I was the exception *grins*, I was just lucky). Then the other school on the bus was Gilroy, a local independent Catholic school.
So we'd get tools on the bus, year 7 Gilroy kids who did stupid things like trip other people over, steal their wallets,
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A teacher of mine told a nice story about a wheelchair-bound friend of hers. The man was occasionally bullied by idiots (not quite kids anymore) and more than once did he do a little "trick" to such people. He said something like "come on, stop that, I dare you to shake my hand". At that point bullying idiots began to hesitate and he could ask how they could be too scared to shake his hand or if they did shake it, he could squeeze their until they screamed. Since he was in a wheelchair and had to use his ha
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes you have to take risks to do what is right.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yours is a deeply disturbing point of view. Yes, we all need to acquire some resilience, and we need to learn to get back up when the world knocks us down. But you are suggesting that we should accept even profoundly antisocial behaviors from both children and adults - that it is better for the meek to learn to deal with abuse than for the strong to be held to basic social standards of courtesy and respect - and you are absolutely wrong.
As a community and a society, we have a right to define and expect acce
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:4, Insightful)
basic social standards of courtesy and respect
Where I come from, those include defending those that aren't able to defend themselves.
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand your Darwinian point, and there's certainly an element of truth to it. The question is, how much do you value human life? You could, for example, send all your kids off to war, and indeed you will have "survival of the fittest." But you will also lose a lot of perfectly good future husbands and office workers, not to mention a lot of senseless, random deaths.
Kids do need to learn how to stick up for themselves, but in this case you had a 15-year-old who didn't know how. That's a failure of education. Nobody took her aside to explain that there was a legitimate (i.e. non-suicidal) way out.
There is also an element of gang assault here that is criminal. And it's completely inappropriate that 17-18 year olds were involved in this kind of immaturity.
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, we had some bullying back in my day, but it never got further than name calling, etc...no one was heard to commit suicide over being teased or bullied...?
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Insightful)
True, and that is probably the reason many people do not intervene these days. If you do the right thing and step in then you have to be careful you don't open yourself to some legal liability. It happens all the time in our school system and so all we are left with is apathetic teachers and officials who will not take the appropriate actions.
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was a kid, nothing disillusioned me about authority figures more than the misguided attempts of school administrators to interfere when I was being bullied. Keep in mind that I went to great lengths to avoid being bullied (sometimes by groups of kids) and sometimes this meant breaking school rules (like going through a hole in the fence around the school during lunch when I was being chased). The school administrators came out against me all too often. Once one principle even brought out boxing gloves and told us we had better fight it out with gloves on.
Looking back at it, I can see where the administrators were coming from but that doesn't make them any less wrong. I don't even really appreciate the attempts by some teachers to bribe one of the worst of the bullies with candy bars (so that he wouldn't bully me).
The further sad fact is that nobody can address bullying effectively when it happens, say, when the kid is walking home from school. So what are you gonna do? I did well because I had parents who were willing to discuss the matter with me and provide proper role models. But generally they didn't go to the teachers or administrators about the problems, which was a good thing given how bad of a mess the school officials generally made of things when they got involved.
The solution here is parenting. And while I find the lack of action by school officials disturbing, I wonder if they would have made things worse by getting involved. In reality they probably should have gotten in touch with the girl's parents proactively and discussed the situation.
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Depends (Score:5, Interesting)
This kind of bullying is not just an issue in the US. I have lived and gone to school in three different countries and the same behaviour was on display in all three. This is just how kids act.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you think that grownups in the workplace act any differently?
It's just called "office politics"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure you've heard the quote along the lines that "All evil needs to win is for good men to do nothing."
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Insightful)
So go tell your teacher friend to go fuck herself, she is just as responsible as every other jerk who walks by someone in trouble and doesn't do crap. Job, no job, she is a bad bad person. Its a frigen CHILD beating hit by another child. Who the hell lets that happen?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Times have changed. When I was in middle school, two girls decided to start a fist fight. The gym teacher grabbed one of them and restrained her and another large male teacher grabbed the other similarly. The fight ended. There was no standing around and talking in a comforting voice...
Nowadays they both would have been up on charges, and there'd be a hue and cry in the news. And not for the reason you think, either. There's one more little tidbit that would have been all the news talked about, even t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In a literal sense that is easy, but on the other hand it requires you to opt out of what tends to be a fairly normal part of socialising for kids these days and doings so would reinforce the ostracisation rather than alleviate it. I could just as easily suggest that you too had an "easy" escape, you could have simply never left home, however it's a solution which has it's own problems.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What are you fucking stupid?
Red Bull, standard can; 250 mL of water (basically)or 250 grams.
9 MM hollow point, 115 grains is about 7 grams.
Throwing a can of Red Bull at someone and hitting carries approximately the same energy as a fast ball pitch. (Baseball 149 grams at 90 mph vs Red Bull 250 grams 60 mph or so.)
That's assault. And, people have been killed with the right hit in the right place with that force.
You know shit about physics and bullets.
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:5, Insightful)
If I say to you "let's see if we can get Bill to say bad and inaccurate things about someone", am I guilty of conspiracy to libel?
I think as soon as Bill agrees to do what you suggest, you have a textbook conspiracy [wikipedia.org] on your hands.
As sad as her death is, she's the one who chose to take that path
Then it follows that an arsonist is not guilty of murder because people had to jump from the top floor of a tall building. Right?
In real life, though, there are only so many paths to take. Even if she chose a wrong path, bullies are still responsible because they forced the choice onto the victim. See the concept of "felony murder". Also consider that children are not in control of their life; they can't quit school, they can't sue bullies, they can't leave town... and people who may do something simply ignored the problem. Your objections would be far more valid if an adult is involved.
Re:Your rights OFFLINE! (Score:4, Insightful)
Harassment is a crime in some jurisdictions.
Sure, but what's that got to do with the price of egss?
Because that may be what was happening here. Not a case I am following, so don't rightly know. You said, in the post I replied to, that they were "arresting people for saying mean things" and that the "nanny state" was overstepping it's bounds. I am pointing out that there exist laws, to charge people with crimes, for behavior that you may just define as "being mean" or "saying mean things".
If you do not care for those laws, I suggest you take it up with various local, state, and federal authorities, to get the law changed, instead of making up new crimes on slashdot.
So is contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Equally irrelevant, but even more so when the "suspects" are themselves minors.
They will likely get charged as adults for the other crimes, that may well follow for this one as well.
Stalking.
Not an issue here.
Really, says who? I don't know all the facts of the case, but if the girl tried to get away from them, say blocking them on her pages or what not, and they found ways around them, that is stalking.
Hell, if the kids said to each other, online or otherwise, "lets try to get her to kill herself" then you can bump up to conspiracy to commit murder.
How so? If I say to you "let's see if we can get Bill to say bad and inaccurate things about someone", am I guilty of conspiracy to libel?
Conspiracy to commit libel is not a crime.
I know you, and half of slashdot and the internet at large, what this to be a vast conspiracy to criminalize free speech. Maybe the way the DA is going about this case will do so, I don't know. But there are plenty of ways to apply current law, laws that have been upheld by the SCOTUS.
If someone sent you 100 postal letters per day, or organized friends to stand outside your house yelling at you, this would get the attention of law enforcement.
Once again, that's not the issue here. This isn't a case of one person constantly sending her harassing messages - it's a case of many people exercising their free-speech rights. Some of their other actions are certainly illegal, and should be prosecuted, but let's not invent new "crimes" to charge them with.
I agree there should not be new crimes invented. That's why I was pointing out the laws that already exist, for crimes that have been tested already in other case, that could be applied to this case. As I said, conspiracy to commit murder is a crime, there are laws against it. Your straw-man of conspiracy to commit libel is just that, a made up "new crime" that you are using to justify other "new crimes" you think are being created here.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The article is on topic. This incident is a follow up to the Lori Drew case that was previous covered on Slashdot. The slope has been greased up and we're sliding. Everything us liberty minded folks warned would happen as a result of the precedent set by that case is indeed happening.
Cyberbullies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Reading the article, you can't really pigeonhole this as a cyberbullying incident -- it seems way more accurate to call this an instance of *comprehensive* asshole behavior. I mean, when I was a kid the bullies knew how to operate the phone, but nobody called that telebullying.
Don't get me wrong, this is distressing stuff, but reading between the lines it seems awfully simplistic to try and just pass this entire affair off as being a simple result of these kids using the internets in order to torment this girl into killing herself. Really, the most disturbing thing to me in the article is the lack of remorse these girls displayed after the fact. I understand that high school is messed up, but who the hell makes jerk comments on a memorial page? That seems pretty damn sociopathic even by the standards of high school.
Re:Cyberbullies? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cyberbullies? (Score:5, Insightful)
The two guys, 17 and 18, were charged with statutory rape.
Not to split hairs, but that's a pretty significant difference -- you go to any high school in America and you'll find people having sex with folks two years older than they are. Assuming the sex was otherwise consensual, it sucks that these guys are getting charged with such a serious crime in what amounts to a prosecutorial attempt to close the barn door after the cows are out.
Re: (Score:2)
Fortunately if they didn't brag about having sex with her, it's unlikely they'll be convicted; she can't testify against them and they can't be required to testify against themselves.
Unfortunately, they're teenaged boys, so....
Re:Cyberbullies? (Score:4, Informative)
The hearsay rule does not apply if the defendant is the declarant.
In other words, "Bill told me the defendant and the victim had sex" doesn't fly, it gets tossed. However, "The defendant told me the defendant and the victim had sex" stands. If it came straight from the defendant, it isn't inadmissible by hearsay.
If five people come forward and say the same exact thing, then the defendant doesn't have a leg to stand on in arguing that he never said it. All he can argue is that he never actually did it, which will damn him one way or another - though less so if he didn't actually commit statutory rape.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearsay_in_United_States_law#Admission_by_party-opponent [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Rules change when you turn 18. The 17 year old though should be different. Unless the age of consent is 16 by law there, the 17 year old should walk away all charges dropped. If he did force her into it. Then he is a rapist and should be charged. The age of consent matters.
The 18 year old might be screwed (pun intended). If they have the four years of age rule he might be OK, if not he is done.
Re:Cyberbullies? (Score:5, Insightful)
It might be leverage. From what I read, there seems to be a major lack of remorse/guilt by the group of students who are alleged to be behind this incident. They apparently were still disparaging her after her death. If the rape charges are true, then it's not something that the males can easily avoid. The prosecutor has discretion to charge the males and she has.
Re:Cyberbullies? (Score:4, Insightful)
I actually agree with you. Too bad you were modded down. But then I was modded down for another comment.
The idea that we prosecute 17 year olds for having sex with 15 year olds strikes me as a very perverse approach to our age of consent rules. This is nothing more than "let's make it look like we are doing something to make sure no teenage girl ever commits suicide again!"
It's like the sexting case in PA: Let's prosecute children and sentence them to some time in jail plus being designated as a sex offender for life in order to keep them safe! Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. It;s a good thing I am not from that county or I would give the DA's office an earfull.
Re:Cyberbullies? (Score:5, Funny)
First they came for the sexually-active, but I didn't speak up because I'm a nerd.
Re:Cyberbullies? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's been scientifically shown that teenagers have poor impulse control. Their brains aren't yet fully developed.
There's a difference between sleeping with someone to hurt them, and doing something wrong on the spur of the moment.
In addition...maybe they didn't know she was under age. Can *you* tell the difference between a 15 year old and a 16 year old?
Re:Cyberbullies? (Score:4, Insightful)
Having sex is a barbaric action?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Only if it involves a beard.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's because it's easier to blame outside entities like technology, rather than take responsibility for your actions, or more importantly for your child's actions. If there's anyone that should be blamed (other than the kids who did the bullying), it's their parents for failing to instill any kind of morality or decency. The parents are, in internet terms, epic fail.
Re:Cyberbullies? (Score:4, Interesting)
The other unfortunate thing is that parent of so-called popular kids think that this kind of behavior is acceptable. Equally unfortunate is that unpopular kids do not feel empowered to do something to solve the mean-kid problem, up to talking to the ones parents. Tell them what is happening, and ask for help. Since their is a cyber element, that is documentation. Show it, report it. If administration want to protect the popular kids, escalate. For instance, I recall in elementary there were a couple kids who harassed everyone, the stupid 5th grade teacher could not believe that these christians could do this. By the end of the year it became obvious that these kids were playing her. This is almost a similar simplistic case in which adults clearly have documentation, but, clearly, the parents of the criminals refuse to do anything about it. Parent should have access to their kids communications, and failure to monitor and stop criminal activity makes them accomplices.
Kids do need to figure out how to interact with peers. However, when we as adults are victims of a crime, we do not usually solve the problems ourselves. We call in help. We do need to teach our kids to the same, and when there is documentation like a twitter message, to show in, and force adults to act on it. This is not snitching, this is civilized behavior. We see this with the current crop of right wing wackos. A video on you tube threatening and elected official has landed someone in jail. Kids need to learn this lesson as well, before they actual take the it to the level of physical assault.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
this guy [failblog.org], for one. Yeah, I shudder at just how big a dick somebody can be online too.
Throw the book at them and the school. (Score:5, Insightful)
The daughter of a neighbor experienced a similar problem some time ago. Fortunately a vice-principal at the school did not ignore the reports from teachers and took disciplinary action against the people involved.
The harassment was vicious, nasty and designed to humiliate and hurt. I understand that the bullies were unrepentant - they felt they had a "right" to hurt someone who didn't kowtow to them.
I am thankful that these sorts of issues were pretty much unknown when I went to school. I think I'll home-school my kids....
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I am thankful that these sorts of issues were pretty much unknown when I went to school. I think I'll home-school my kids....
It is all relative. More then anything it depends on the specific area that you live in and the actual teachers and administration (Principal, VP...) that are in that school. The real big change is that we all hear about the really bad cases whereas before we would not have heard if it was not in out local school.
This is a terrible situation but sometimes it feels like observers are too sensationalistic [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What makes the problem greater these days is that attacking someone through a website lacks the human feed back. it doesn't feel like a person you attacking it's a faceless computer. a recent study of road rage showed the reason people get so angry at other people on the road is because their anger is directed at a car not a person. when the people driving could see the other persons fac
Newsflash: (Score:2, Insightful)
The world has some assholes in it. They are mean to people for no good reason.
Altho for some reason we put up with them and work around them instead of throwing them down a deep dark hole and moving on.
bullying not entirely enigmatic (Score:5, Interesting)
People acting like assholes happens for actual reasons. Don't wave away the effort of figuring it out. That will just make you less able to cope.
Want insight? Here's a great starter: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200910/big-bad-bully [psychologytoday.com]
Re:bullying not entirely enigmatic (Score:4, Insightful)
Reads like some special kind of bullshit to me. 'we should put up with assholes because.....'
Look. life is an unfair bitch. everyone has problems. MOST of us dont take it out on other people.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
People acting like assholes happens for actual reasons. Don't wave away the effort of figuring it out. That will just make you less able to cope.
I think one of the biggest things to realize about this situation is that there is a component of social mania/"hysteria" going on here. Everyone fed upon everyone else. "Oh, everyone is doing X, so, let's try doing X+1..." Or "I got away with doing X, so let's try X+1".
It's relatively easy for a social group to exploit emotional influences to whip themselves up into a group performing evil actions. This is similar to the group think that led to the holocaust by the Nazis, just on a very much smaller sc
Her teachers were aware of it and did nothing... (Score:5, Insightful)
This has been the teacher and administrator MO since I was in school in the 60s. Actually it's worse than that. The teacher/administrator just wants the problem to go away so they tend to persecute and isolate the *victim* rather than the perpetrator (Johny gets bullied by a group of 5 kids on the playground so we'll keep *Johny* inside while all the kids go out to play). This usually ostracizes the victim further by pointing him/her out as the weak odd kid.
In my experience, the most culpable individuals are spineless teachers followed by spineless administrators. Children can't really be blamed. They know no better. Adults do, or should.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I used to get jabbed and punched every day one year during middle school after lunch, when we all lined up to leave the cafeteria. Teachers knew it. Administrators knew it. And when I finally fought back, I got sent to the principal's office and got detention for fighting. As if I was picking fights with a group of 4 kids all of whom were twice the size of my short, skinny frame. Like you said, this is how it's always been.
Re:Her teachers were aware of it and did nothing.. (Score:5, Interesting)
You can look a little further and look for why you get spineless teachers and spineless administrators. Those with spine tend to get prosecuted when they attempt disciplinary actions by overzealous parents that most of the time won't do their part in their children's education, leaving all the burden to school.
Interesting paradox, isn't it?
Re:Her teachers were aware of it and did nothing.. (Score:5, Insightful)
How many victims will be necessary before a bullie be punished for harming someone?
Re:Her teachers were aware of it and did nothing.. (Score:4, Interesting)
At least in our school district, the school adminstration has always met the problem head on. There was a Russian kid who got bullied, he filed a complaint. The administration took action, called the papers, set up school assemblies and had sessions for the kids. No news on kids who did it, but I guess that they got some serious counselling.
Something similar happened to my daughter; she's a jock and walks like a lumberjack. This kid has bigger arms than most boys her age. So some girls started to make fun of her; she took it to the administration and the behavior stopped immediately.
So not all districts are like that. Only the bad ones make the headlines.
Spineless teachers? (Score:5, Informative)
More like spineless principal and above. Teachers can't even get a student kicked out of school let alone their classroom when the student HITS them. Parents are allowed to disrupt their classes and yell at the teachers. Teachers are not even allowed to fail students anymore, let alone kick them out.
Blame the no child is left behind and the principals on up in the chain, not the teachers. They may act like they have no spine, because they can't do anything. Granted they should say something, but teachers learn just saying things is worse when they can never back it up, because their "power" is imaginary, and once that illusion is gone, teachers have nothing.
You want teachers to have some responsibility? make it so they can kick kids out of their classroom and school.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
True. But my understanding from a Criminal Justice class years ago, is that the victim is accepted as is. So if you rob a bank and the teller has a heart attack and dies because of a congenital heart defect, you're still on the hook. You undertook an illegal act and are repsonsible for the consequences, even if they are not immediately forseeable.
Re:Her teachers were aware of it and did nothing.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me say it again: Suicide Is Irrational. Without extreme methods, you simply can't drive a mentally healthy person to suicide.
I ask this honestly, not to flame or troll, but seriously. Were you bullied in school? Like, serious, concerted bullying efforts? Because let me tell you, that qualifies. It's a systematic alienation of a human being, and destruction of their self-image. It's the causing of a mentally healthy person to become unhealthy. When I was in school, I actually saw some of my friends wither and change due to bullying. They were absolutely not the same people they were at the end of the school year as at the start. In fact, one of my friends who ended up dead (not suicide, but a lifestyle next best thing to it) probably could have traced his problems back to bullying. Unfortunately, his biggest bully was his stepfather, making it not a directly analogous case.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Being physically and verbally assaulted daily for long periods of time tends to damage mental health, especially when the authority figures you're supposed to look up to and count on consistently look the other way. Ever heard of PTSD?
Re:Her teachers were aware of it and did nothing.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Statutory rape? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when has statutory rape been part of cyber bullying?
It sounds like cyber bullying was the least of her problems.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Look at "Statutory Rape". I don't think it means what you think it means.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Eh... this isn't real rape. If it was, they'd go for that.
They're only using the 'statutory' version because the sex was so clearly consensual that it's the only thing that'll stick.
Sickens the hell out of me, it does.
This sends a terrible message to victims (Score:5, Interesting)
The authorities have made it plain by their actions that there's no way to get justice and stay alive. This is just going to make suicide look like a more attractive option to targets of bullying.
The problem also runs deeper than the conduct of the high school authorities. What are the odds that the conscienceless perpetrators didn't present any warning signs in grade school and middle school?
Re:This sends a terrible message to victims (Score:5, Insightful)
The authorities have made it plain by their actions that there's no way to get justice and stay alive. This is just going to make suicide look like a more attractive option to targets of bullying.
Suicide *or* Columbine-style retaliation.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it makes the victims dead (usually). The difference is huge, from the perspective of the killer, which is why killing is quite attractive.
What the wider community thinks about a columbine type incident has little impact on the material rewards for the killer (and therefore on the probability of an incident). The killer knows that the bullies will be viewed as victims, but it doesn't matter as he gets something a lot better (
Broken Record (Score:2)
Here is the standard post, thought I'd help get it out of the way:
WHERE THE HELL WERE THE PARENTS!??!? *arrggghhh!*
If you're going to allow your children to use the Internet, understand that its misuse has the potential to cause serious psychological trauma. If your child is pre-disposed to suicidal thoughts to begin with, allowing unsupervised access to the Internet is potentially dangerous. Kind of like leaving your loaded gun within reach. What were the guardian's of this girl doing after the repeated ha
Just as a prominent warning (Score:2)
I know most people, including even myself, have the reading style of letting our brains pick out the interesting bits and ignoring everything else, but it's important to point out that this isn't one of those cyberbullying vs free speech type of cases. Specifically:
The sweeping charges ... include statutory rape, violation of civil rights with bodily injury...
This isn't about the internet at all.
Prosecute the school administrators, too (Score:5, Insightful)
This needs to be fixed (Score:5, Interesting)
But it won't be without a comprehensive solution. Simply kicking the bad kids out of school doesn't help, it requires the action of the parents as well, but frequently the parents have the "not my kid" or "it's not a big deal" attitude. And once you have to get the cops involved it's gone too far.
A big part of the problem is that the rewards for being a bully are simply too great, vs. any punishment a school can hand out.
On the other hand there is a fuzzy line between mostly harmless teasing (which learning to deal with builds character) and bullying, although in this case it was clearly so far over the line that there is no question.
What we don't need is yet another zero tolerance policy. As I stated above, there needs to be a comprehensive solution where the bad kids are held accountable in a material way, and the parents of the bad kids are likewise held responsible. At the same time, the victims need to be to learn that the bullies just don't matter. Unfortunately, society rewards the "cool" kids and punishes the dorks.
Probably the best current solution is teaching your kids how to beat the living shit out of a bully and to deal with the repercussions of that action.
I didn't have to deal with this too much when I was in school, probably had something to do with being 6'2" / 160 in 8th grade. It seems to me that most bullies grow up to be extroverted assholes selling cars - just desserts.
I went through this kind of shit (Score:4, Interesting)
A couple of kids on the school bus decided they had it in for me. It was pretty constant physical harassment, 45 minutes each way, 5 days a week.
I was only 11 at the time and had no ability to deal with this on any level. I came home in tears every day. My mom called the school; my mom called the kids' parents; nothing changed.
After a couple of months, I basically said I wasn't riding the bus any more. That made it my mother's problem. She went to my father and made it his problem. My father went to the principal and made it the principal's problem. I don't know what the principal did. My guess is he called in the two kids and told them to stop it. After that, they restricted themselves to verbal harassment, which I could more or less deal with.
When one of my own kids was 10, he started reporting harassment at school. We had a few discussions with his teachers, but the harassment continued. So we pulled him from the town school and sent him to a nearby charter school for the duration of Junior High. He was not harassed at the charter school.
In our state, the per-pupil funding for a student follows the student when they go to a charter school. So for the next 4 years, I got occasional letters from the town school extolling the quality of their faculty and curriculum, asking me to respond to surveys, and even inviting me to attend focus groups (I am not making this up) that they were conducting to try to figure out what they needed to do to hold onto students (and their per-pupil funding).
I always responded to these, in writing, explaining exactly why we had pulled our son. I never received any response, let alone any indication that school might actually protect my children from harassment.
Even when their own funding is on the line, town schools are unable(?) unwilling(?) (take your pick) to protect students from harassment.
Would it be legal to do this to an adult? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me that a lot of activities which are described as "bullying" when done to high school kids, would be legally defined as "assault" if it were done to an adult. I understand the idea of granting minors some leniency in punishment, but I don't understand the downgrading the action simply because of the age of the victim. If those kids threw a full soda can at some 93 year old women, or pushed her down, or knocked her purse out of her hands - wouldn't that be assault, complete with arrest and pressing charges and all that?
Shouldn't it be easy to teach the bullies? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:it's more than just cyberbullying (Score:5, Informative)
No, statutory rape (that is, usually-consensual sex with someone who it isn't legal to have sex with). And nothing in TFA suggests that the two charged with statutory rape had anything to do with the bullying (cyber or otherwise); they aren't charged with the other stuff.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The 17yo was. From http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/03/holding_for_pho.html [boston.com]:
Scheibel's office released this list of those being charged, and the charges they face.
I'm surprised that "disturbance of a school assembly" is a crime. Do school assemblies really need statutory protection?
Re: (Score:2)
Reading the article more closely, one can see that it was "statutory rape." Personally I'm having trouble understanding how a 17-year-old can commit statutory rape against a 15-year-old. I could have sworn such laws explicitly allow sex between any two people within two years of age.
I'm guessing that's the only charge they could muster against the male participants. All of the charges, against both the male and female students, seem pretty weak.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Girls and boys are different. For boys, the best way to stop the bully is to actually fight him. If you win or even draw, the bully usually stops. if you lose, you are no worse off. With girls, they use much more complex and often meaner methods then boys do.
I bled every school day for 8 months from bullies. I was not allowed to fight by my parents. I was more afraid of my parents then the bullies. When I arrived home with a stick shoved in one cheek and out the other, I was now allowed to fight back. I cou
Re:Now we will see (Score:5, Insightful)
That was me. I was also raised as a Quaker (which meant I was expected by my parents to respond nonviolently).
But years later, the father of the worst of the bullies was indicted for sexually abusing a minor. Looking back on things this many years later, there is a realization that although I had it rough, I am willing to bet that I had it easy compared to those who were bullying me.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No one made her do it, she chose to do it on her own accord.
The premise behind this thinking has been more or less held invalid since the invention of theaters that may or may not be on fire. Saying something with the intention of causing other people to react in ways that cause harm to themselves or others is generally unacceptable.
acknowledging that people are responsible for their actions.
People are responsible for their actions but inhuman assholes get off scot-free?