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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."
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.
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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.
FTA: "According to students, Phoebe was called 'Irish slut' and 'whore' on Twitter, Craigslist, Facebook and Formspring."
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?
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?
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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
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
"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?
What surprises me is that you weren't arrested for assault.
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One the prime reasons that cyber bullying is of particular focus now is that you simply can't escape it. The old style 'give me your lunch money' bully had very little presence at home. If said bully did try to take it home, it was generally in ways that annoyed the parents just as much as the kid (crank calls and the like), which often lead to more action on their part. Now, cyber bullying allows them to hit you even at home, and in ways that can often go unnoticed by the parents, not only of the victim, but of the bully's parents. Not sure what we can do about it, but I wouldn't equate this to a typical school yard bullying situation.
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?
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I can understand what you're trying to say, but the teachers saw kids hit the girl in the hallways. It doesn't matter if it's constant bullying or a one time incident, how does that go on without any sort of reprimand?
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.
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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?
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
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Sometimes you have to take risks to do what is right.
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.
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.
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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?
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
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.
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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.
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?
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 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.
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.
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