U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 

What Is Bullying?

Bullying among children encompasses a variety of negative acts

carried out repeatedly over time. It involves a real or perceived

imbalance of power, with the more powerful child or group attacking those who are less powerful. Bullying can take three

forms: physical (hitting, kicking, spitting, pushing, taking personal belongings); verbal (taunting, malicious teasing, name calling,

making threats); and psychological (spreading rumors, manipulating social relationships, or engaging in social exclusion, extortion,

or intimidation).

The NICHD survey found that males tend to bully and be bullied

more frequently than females. For males, experiencing physical

and verbal bullying is most common; for females, verbal bullying

(both taunting and insults of a sexual nature) and spreading rumors are most common. Bullying generally begins in the elementary grades, peaks in the sixth through eighth grades, and persists

into high school.

The Effects of Bullying

The NICHD study found that bullying has long-term and shortterm psychological effects on both those who bully and those who

are bullied. Victims experienced loneliness and reported having

trouble making social and emotional adjustments, difficulty making friends, and poor relationships with classmates. Victims of

bullying often suffer humiliation, insecurity, and a loss of selfesteem, and they may develop a fear of going to school. The impact of frequent bullying often accompanies these victims into

adulthood; they are at greater risk of suffering from depression

and other mental health problems, including schizophrenia. In

rare cases, they may commit suicide.

Bullying behavior has been linked to other forms of antisocial

behavior, such as vandalism, shoplifting, skipping and dropping

out of school, fighting, and the use of drugs and alcohol. Pioneering research by Professor Dan Olweus in Norway and Sweden

suggests that bullying can lead to criminal behavior later in life:

60 percent of males who were bullies in grades 6 through 9 were

Addressing the Problem

of Juvenile Bullying

by Nels Ericson

Bullying, a form of violence among children, is common on

school playgrounds, in neighborhoods, and in homes throughout

the United States and around the world. Often occurring out of

the presence of adults or in front of adults who fail to intercede,

bullying has long been considered an inevitable and, in some

ways, uncontrollable part of growing up. School bullying has

come under intense public and media scrutiny recently amid

reports that it may have been a contributing factor in shootings at

Columbine High School in Littleton, CO, in 1999 and Santana

High School in Santee, CA, in early 2001 and in other acts of

juvenile violence including suicide. Bullying can affect the social

environment of a school, creating a climate of fear among students, inhibiting their ability to learn, and leading to other antisocial behavior. Nevertheless, through research and evaluation,

successful programs to recognize, prevent, and effectively intervene in bullying behavior have been developed and replicated in

schools across the country. These schools send the message that

bullying behavior is not tolerated and, as a result, have improved

safety and created a more inclusive learning environment. 

A recently published report by the National Institute of Child

Health and Human Development (NICHD) on the U.S. contribution to the World Health Organization’s Health Behavior in

School-Aged Children survey found that 17 percent of the respondents had been bullied “sometimes” or “weekly,” 19 percent

had bullied others sometimes or weekly, and 6 percent had both

bullied others and been bullied. The researchers estimated that

1.6 million children in grades 6 through 10 in the United States

are bullied at least once a week and 1.7 million children bully

others as frequently. The survey, the first nationwide research on

the problem in this country, questioned 15,686 public and private

school students, grades 6 through 10, on their experiences with

bullying. In a study of 6,500 middle school students in rural

South Carolina, 23 percent said they had been bullied regularly

during the previous 3 months and 20 percent admitted bullying

another child regularly during that time (Olweus and Limber,

1999).

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convicted of at least one crime as adults, compared with 23 percent of males who did not bully; 35 to 40 percent of these former

bullies had three or more convictions by age 24, compared with

10 percent of those who did not bully.

The NICHD study found that those who bully and are bullied

appear to be at greatest risk of experiencing the following: loneliness, trouble making friends, lack of success in school, and involvement in problem behaviors such as smoking and drinking.

Addressing the Problem

A perpetrator’s bullying behavior does not exist in isolation.

Rather, it may indicate the beginning of a generally antisocial and

rule-breaking behavior pattern that can extend into adulthood.

Programs to address the problem, therefore, must reduce opportunities and rewards for bullying behavior. The Olweus Bullying

Prevention Program, developed, refined, and systematically evaluated in Bergen, Norway, in the mid-1980s, is the best-known initiative designed to reduce bullying among elementary, middle,

and junior high school children (Olweus and Limber, 1999). The

strategy behind the program is to involve school staff, students,

and parents in efforts to raise awareness about bullying, improve

peer relations, intervene to stop intimidation, develop clear rules

against bullying behavior, and support and protect victims. The

program intervenes on three levels:

◆ School: Faculty and staff survey students anonymously to

determine the nature and prevalence of the school’s bullying

problem, increase supervision of students during breaks, and

conduct schoolwide assemblies to discuss the issue. Teachers

receive inservice training on how to implement the program.

◆ Classroom: Teachers and/or other school personnel introduce

and enforce classroom rules against bullying, hold regular

classroom meetings with students to discuss bullying, and

meet with parents to encourage their participation.

◆ Individual: Staff intervene with bullies, victims, and their

parents to ensure that the bullying stops. 

The Bergen research showed that the program was highly effective

among students in elementary, middle, and junior high schools:

Bullying dropped by 50 percent or more during the program’s

2 years. Behavioral changes were more pronounced the longer the

program was in effect. The school climate improved, and the rate

of antisocial behavior, such as theft, vandalism, and truancy,

declined during the 2-year period.

For Further Information

For more information on the Bullying Prevention Program, contact

Susan P. Limber, Ph.D., Institute on Family and Neighborhood

Life, Clemson University, 158 Poole Agricultural Center, Clemson, SC 29634–5205; 864–656–6271; 864–656–6281 (fax); 

http://virtual.clemson.edu/groups/ifnl/index.htm.

For information on the Blueprints for Violence Prevention series,

contact Delbert S. Elliot, Ph.D., Director, Center for the Study

and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Campus Box 439, Boulder, CO

80309–0439; 303–492–8465; 303–443–3297 (fax); 

www.colorado.edu/cspv/blueprints/index.html.

For additional information on bullying and conflict resolution,

visit the following Web sites: Communities In Schools (www.

cisnet.org), the National Center for Conflict Resolution Education (www.nccre.org), the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (www.nwrel.org), and the Office of Juvenile Justice and

Delinquency Prevention (www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org).

Reference

Olweus, D., and Limber, S. 1999. Blueprints for Violence Prevention: Bullying Prevention Program (Book Nine). Boulder, CO:

University of Colorado at Boulder, Institute of Behavioral

Science, Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence.

Nels Ericson is a Senior Writer-Editor with the Office of Juvenile Justice

and Delinquency Prevention.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is a component 

of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice

Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice,

and the Office for Victims of Crime.

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