October is Bullying Prevention Awareness Month

Last week during my Truancy Court Program (TCP) session at Walter P. Carter Elementary/Middle School I met a third grader who had recently been bullied.  She said that a boy in her class had been teasing her lately and had even spit on her.  She said that she told her teachers but that one of them did nothing.  This immediately sparked anger inside of me.  I thought back to the previous week when I had first met this elementary school student and remembered that she had been smiling and telling stories.  Just one week later she was depressed and quiet.

Right after my TCP session I read the news about 15-year-old Amanda Todd, another teen who took her life after being bullied. The teen posted a YouTube video, "My story: Struggling, bullying, suicide, self harm," on September 7 and was found dead in her home town of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, just over a month later.  Bullying also made headlines in Maryland this week when a 15-year-old in Frederick County was charged with assault after his act of bullying was caught on camera. 

It is fitting that October, 2012, is Bullying Prevention Awareness Month.  It should be brought to everyone’s attention that studies have shown that children who have been identified as a bully by age eight are six times more likely to have a criminal conviction by age 24. Children who are bullies may continue to be bullies as adults, and are more prone to becoming child and spouse abusers.  Thus, it becomes even more apparent that bullying needs to be stopped so that cycles like these can be stopped.
I hope by the time I see my third grader from TCP next week that her situation has been addressed and that the bullying has been stopped.  Baltimore City schools do have a system in place for bullying; that is, the parent can first call and report it to the school verbally, followed by filing a Bullying & Harassment Form.  If the parent is still unsatisfied, they can then contact the Office of Student Support through the Safety Hotline at 410-396-SAFE, which ensures that the incident is investigated within 2 school days.

Last week Baltimore held the Third Annual Bullying Prevention Conference where participants discussed the latest research and worked to develop solutions to tackle bullying in local schools.  I hope that throughout this month communities all over the country meet to discuss how they can best address the issues that bullying presents.  It may be helpful to look at the bullying situation through a therapeutic jurisprudence lens.  TJ looks at the law itself as a social force that can produce therapeutic or anti-therapeutic consequences.  By looking at bullying with a therapeutic jurisprudence perspective, insight might be shed on how to best implement anti-bullying tactics.  That is, it may be helpful to look at the bullying policies and rules in different schools and see how each one affects the students and the rates of bullying.  Through Therapeutic Jurisprudence it would be possible to analyze the different bullying laws utilized by each school and see how they may be affecting the children’s psyche in a negative or positive way, and how each rule effectively works to prevent bullying.

Bullying: Moving from Exposure to Elimination

Last year, several high-profile bullying incidents led children to consider or commit suicide, including the Baltimore City girl who made the news after she tried to jump out of her elementary school window.

Since then, there has been a major push to expose this serious issue, highlighted by a “Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week” in Maryland last May and the designation of October as National Bullying Prevention Month. On our Facebook page, we have linked to a photo of Maryland’s First Lady (who also volunteers as a Truancy Court Program judge) speaking about bullying.

Recently, the Baltimore Sun featured an article on its front page showing the positive effects of this exposure, as well as the pervasiveness of bullying. Reports of bullying incidents more than doubled in Maryland. Officials attributed this increase to greater sensitivity to and reporting of incidents that were previously shrugged off as “kids being kids.” For example, reporting in Baltimore City increased from 231 reports of bullying two years ago to 541 last year, a 150% increase. State-wide, 3,800 reports of bullying were made last year, an increase of more than 2,000 reports from the previous year.

The Truancy Court Program (TCP) has tackled a number of bullying incidents, as well as the rise of cyber-bullying and the impact of Facebook. We have seen students refuse to attend school because of a compromising picture of them that was posted on Facebook, and we have seen the pain they feel when placed back with their peers.

We at CFCC hope that the spotlight will remain on this important issue and on approaches that identify and curb bullying. Some TCP schools have established “circles,” where a small group of students work with a guidance counselor or social worker to talk about their interpersonal dynamics when they appear unhealthy. Other programs, like the TCP, can help uncover and address bullying when a red flag is raised by attendance or academic problems.

It is important to advocate for and enforce strong anti-bullying policies within schools and disseminate best practices widely so that all teachers, administrators, peers, community members, and parents are equipped to effectively recognize and address bullying at an early stage.

The Rising Issue of Cyber-Bullying

Due to the rise in popularity of social networks over the past ten years, cyber-bullying has been on the increase, and some social scientists believe bullying may be one of the most prevalent causes of teen suicide. As a result of cyber-bullying, teens’ personal, private situations are becoming public for the world to see, and some teens see no other way out. Imagine being a fifteen years old and your friends have been collecting pictures of you on the weekends. One evening the pictures are posted to Facebook and every picture displays you making intimate physical contact with male classmates. Each friend comments under the pictures making references about your sexual reputation. At fifteen this would be extremely embarrassing. The thought of showing your face in school Monday morning would be impossible. Your private, extra-curricular conduct is now the talk of the school. Seemingly, the only way out at such a vulnerable age is suicide.

Recently, Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers University, took his own life after his roommate streamed a video on the internet revealing an intimate encounter between Tyler and another man. As a result of the video being leaked onto the internet, Clementi took his own life by jumping off the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River. This story, sadly, is one of many.

In a recent class discussion, one of the CFCC Student Fellows mentioned that one of the Truancy Court Program participants was being bullied by her fellow peers, and the school seemed to brush off the situation. When situations like this occur, the school needs to play an active role in extinguishing the problem as soon as it is presented. The bully needs to be reprimanded for his or her actions, because if the problem persists, the bully will soon realize he or she can continue to bully his or her peers, fulfilling a sense of power and entitlement.

Bullying has been around for ages. It is nothing new; however, with the rise of social networks, the scope of bullying has broadened from merely in-school, to out of school, and children and young adults are being affected in a whole new way. This reaction may be due to a lag between school policies and new technology. Education begins with the students. Teens need to be educated on what is and what is not appropriate for the internet. The internet is a very powerful tool. Teen girls might not think the consequences a Myspace hoax played on their thirteen year old friend would ultimately lead to her taking her own life. Teenagers need to be supervised both at home, in the neighborhood, and at school. Parents need to get involved and speak to their children about both how to deal with a bully and the consequences of bullying. Schools need to implement strict policies on how to deal with bullying, including counseling sessions, providing protection for the victims of bullying, and providing for sanctions for bullies, whether or not their conduct falls within the scope of their education.