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9 MA Cyberbullies Indicted For Causing Suicide
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."
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.
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.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
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....
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.
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.
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Since when has statutory rape been part of cyber bullying?
It sounds like cyber bullying was the least of her problems.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
"For months, community anger simmered that no punishment had befallen Phoebe's bullies. Petitions were signed and town hall meetings held." Not only do these students need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but so should the school administrators for gross negligence of their duties. How on earth can you let school bullying get to the point of requiring town hall meetings and still sit back and do nothing about it?
These girls were not joking. Boys beat the crap out of each other. Girls are a hell of a lot meaner.
...
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 could not start it. Funny thing is with boy bullies, beating the crap out of them usually stops them from ever bothering you again.
Some victims, seeing that nobody will bother to help them, take up weapons and go to school to kill as many as possible (the source of their suffering) until being killed by the police or committing suicide. It would be so easy to avoid this by exemplary punish the bullies, but I see that the culture of schools is to encourage the bullies ...
How many victims will be necessary before a bullie be punished for harming someone?
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
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.
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.
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.
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In Massachusetts, anyone having sex with a 16-year-old is guilty of statutory rape. If two 15-year-olds have sex, both are guilty. The sentencing though can depend on the age difference (if it's greater than 10 years or if the victim was much younger, there is a 10 year minimum sentence, but in a case like this there might ordinarily be little or no jail time, though I'd worry these kids might get a heavier sentence somehow because of the suicide).
While in many cases, I feel like statutory rape laws are a bad idea when applied to other teenagers only a few years older (and obviously the MA law has a lot of potential for abuse), in this case I can't help but think that maybe this is exactly the sort of taking advantage of the young and emotionally vulnerable that the statutory rape law was meant to stop.
On the contrary, it's *very* easy to escape: don't log in.
When I was 9 I had to face a bad case of bullying by a kid that was 11 and had judo classes. Luckily, I managed to fix that by breaking his nose. Once, when he grabbed me from the back in a judo grip, I realized that his face was right behind my head, so I hit his nose with the back of my head. He was so ashamed that he never admitted to anyone that I had done it, he claimed he tripped and fell.
Compared to that kind of physical abuse, cyber bullying is nothing, just ignore it. You cannot ignore being held from the back in a judo grip by someone who is two years older and way bigger than you are.
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.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
that coin has two sides.. I was raised in eastern Europe and I have to say, kids here are spoiled brats with entitlement issues. Teachers are not respected, many parents blame the school for their children's poor academic records and don't bother to actually lend a hand. Back home, bullying was never as bad as it seems to be here.Why? because over there children were taught that they depended on each other. You did not pick your classes. You did not pick you peers. In high school you had all the same classes with the same people, and most of you were friends by the fourth year. As a matter of fact classes had rivalries going on if I a student from a different class tried to bully you, your classmates would defend you no matter how popular you were. I'm astonished every time I hear about bullying in North America. In different cultures it's much less common. Could it be the culture here?
Actually, if you RTFA, one of the guys being charged with statutory rape is 17 (the girl was 15). The 18 year old I could see being charged depending on local law, but there's no case against the 17 year old since he's still a minor and extremely close in age with the girl.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
On how the reprimand is applied, its intensity, and so on. If there is a real concern from the school board, I'd say it would make a difference. Problem is, most of the times the people responsible see bullying as a nuisance, not as a serious problem that has to be dealt with. They don't want to go to the hassle of educating the bullies on why bullying is bad. Rather, they see the bullied kids as incompetent since they can't deal with it themselves. And the kids do noticed that, which only enhances their despair - bullied kids are usually already lonesome, being seen as a loser by adults that are supposed to be helping them might trigger powerful feelings in the more fragile ones. That said, I think this kind of overly open bullying is a facet of American society, so ultra competitive that it categorizes people as either losers or popular since they are small kids (I am not American, so I might be talking out of my ass here, but that is the impression we got from news such as these).
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
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?
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 (revenge) straightaway.
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?
"...my ex-Marine uncle..."
I may be nit picking, but there's no such thing as an ex-Marine.
Humans are terrible replicators of Godly things.
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?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
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 scale.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS