Slashdot Mirror
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....
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.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
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.
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?
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.
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
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?
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
"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?
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 still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
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.
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
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.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
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?
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.
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.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
You cannot educate bullies because, unless they are psychopaths, they already know what they are doing in causing harm. That is the reasons they are doing it - it makes them feel powerful. The only way to get them to stop is to make it not worth the reward they get. Giving people detention is usually not effective because its a very weak deterrent. I would suggest - involve their parents - and have them stand up in front of the entire school and explain their behaviour and what they have done. To make it effective you basically have to embarrass them publicly.
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.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
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?