Teen Violence in America by Joseph Kolb

Author:Joseph Kolb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hatherleigh Press
Published: 2019-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

BULLYING UNDER THE LAW

As if being bullied by a peer isn’t bad enough, the introduction of adults into the fray has demonstrated another brick out of place in the social foundation of America. In 2008, Lori Drew, 49, was convicted in federal court on misdemeanor charges related to the relentless cyberbullying which led thirteen-year-old Meghan Meier to hang herself. Drew fabricated a social media page of a sixteen-year-old boy, whom Meghan communicated with until the “boy” sent her a message saying, “The world would be a better place without you.” Meghan hung herself with a belt in her bedroom15. The motive behind the deadly scheme, which included Drew’s thirteen-year-old daughter, was not revealed.

In a case that didn’t have any statutes to back up a stiffer charge, the fact that Drew conducted her activities with her daughter should have at least elicited a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor or other similar charge. Yet law makers are still barely catching up with technology in their efforts to address the prevalence of cyberbullying. Every state has some semblance of an anti-bullying law or policy; the sanctions range from merely symbolic in some areas; all states except New Mexico, Wyoming, Nebraska, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Maine, have legal sanctions if convicted.16

In some areas, the school districts themselves are responsible for setting a policy. Yet suspensions and expulsions, a school’s primary disciplinary recourse, are no consolation for the long-term pain this behavior creates for the victim and their family. Many of the charges should fall under harassment or harassment communications. In Arizona, for instance, the individual would face harassment under subsection A, a class 1 misdemeanor (harassment under subsection B is a class 5 felony).

Where the laws fall short, the parents of bullied victims who ultimately committed suicide are taking to the civil courts to hold parents accountable for the actions of their children. In 2017, the parents of twelve-year-old Mallory Grossman, a New Jersey middle school student who killed herself due to bullying, sued their school district for allegedly doing nothing to intervene in the cyberbullying campaign against their daughter, which included messages urging her to kill herself, despite repeated attempts to bring it to their attention. Similar to the arrogance displayed by the parents of the girls who tormented Rebecca Sedwick, the night before Mallory died a parent coldly told Mallory’s mother that, “It was just a big joke, and that [she] really shouldn’t worry about it”17.

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