Bullying: A State of Affairs

I. INTRODUCTION "We 've got to dispel the myth that bullying is just a normal rite of passage that it's some inevitable part of growing up. It's not. We have an obligation to ensure that our schools are safe for all of our kids. " President Barack Obama1 On January 14, 2010, in a tragic response to a series of intentional and mean-spirited events, 15-year-old Phoebe Prince chose to take her own life rather than to continue enduring the taunts and abuse of a group of her classmates.2 Nine students at the school were charged with crimes including violations of civil rights, criminal harassment, disturbance of a school assembly, and statutory rape.3 At the time of Ms. Prince's death, Massachusetts was among the minority of states that did not have a statute directed specifically at "bullying" among adolescent students.4 Ms. Prince's death has become a rallying cry around the country for groups hoping to introduce or expand anti-bullying statutes. In the aftermath of Ms. Prince's death, the state of Massachusetts passed its own anti-bullying legislation.5 Forty-five states now have anti-bullying laws, including two that have passed laws since the controversy surrounding Ms. Prince's death.6 Historically, school bullying has not received a great deal of attention from academic researchers, policy-makers or the general public.7 Recently however, the topic has seen a resurgence of attention from school personnel, researchers, policy-makers and the general public as several isolated cases of student suicide have garnered national media attention. Indeed, a strong argument can be (and has been) made that school bullying is a serious and pervasive problem.8 Recent research has indicated that bullying directly involved approximately 30 percent of school children within a single school semester.9 More specifically, the School Crime Supplement (SCS), a supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), collects self-reported data from students ages 12 through 18 and found that in 2007 nearly 32 percent of school students reported being bullied at school during the school year.10 While SCS has been collecting bullying data every two years since 1999, the bullying survey question has changed over time, limiting the years of data available to researchers looking for evidence of a clear trend.11 However, compared to 2007, a lower percentage of students reported having been the victim of bullying in 2005 (28.1 percent). 12 This suggests that, at least from 2005 to 2007, there was an increase in reported bullying incidents. The detailed breakdown of the self-reported data from 2007 elaborates on how "bullying" was defined for students.13 In 2007, 21 percent of students reported that they had been made fun of by others, that they had been called names, or had been insulted by others; 18 percent stated they had been the subject of rumors; 1 1 percent reported that they had been pushed, shoved, tripped or spit on; 6 percent said they had been threatened with harm; 5 percent felt they had been excluded from activities on purpose, and 4 percent reported that their property had been destroyed on purpose and that others had tried to make them do things they did not want to do.14 Next to in persona bullying, the best-known type of bullying is cyberbullying.15 The annual publication "Indicators of School Crime and Safety" published by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in collaboration with the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) provides data comparing bullying at school and cyber-bullying anywhere from the SCS in an easy to understand format.16 The latest report shows that in 2007, 4 percent of students ages 12 through 18 reported being cyber-bullied anywhere during the school year.17 Students who reported being cyber-bullied reported that hurtful information had been posted about them on the internet by others and that they felt harassed by unwanted contact on the internet.18 While 10 percent of students reported being bullied at school once or twice a week, 5 percent of students reported being cyber-bullied once or twice a week. …