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Forums: Legal, News, Suicide, Bullying, Phoebe Prince Injustice
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9 Teenagers Accused of Bullying That Led to Suicide

It is not clear what some students at South Hadley High School expected to achieve by subjecting a freshman to the relentless taunting described by a prosecutor and classmates.

.Not, certainly, her suicide. And not, certainly, the multiple felony indictments announced on Monday against several students at the Massachusetts school.

The prosecutor brought charges Monday against nine teenagers, saying their taunting and physical threats were beyond the pale and led the freshman, Phoebe Prince, to hang herself from a stairwell in January.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/us/30bully.html?hp

So we started out putting minors into the adult system for particularly offensive murders, but now we are doing it for bullying....only not charging them with what they actually did because through creative crime selection we can hit harder.

Why don't we cut to the chase, how about from now on we take every teen who does something we don't like over to Davids house for target practice? It would be the definition of win/win.

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Type: Discussion • Score: 9 • Views: 9,148 • Replies: 133

I don't think any teenager should be charged as an adult for anything.

But seriously, what do you think should be done about this kind of bullying?

2 Replies

@boomerang,

Quote:

But seriously, what do you think should be done about this kind of bullying?

My first answer is that we need to grow teenagers who both are confident enough about themselves that they will push back against aggression and who also feel that belittling of others is something that has limits.

We are in societal breakdown trying to patch the holes with laws and prisons. We already know that this will not work. It is possible that some use of the law was justified here, but the majority of the response should be with counseling as well as follow up monitoring of these individuals.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Oh please.

Bullying is nothing new, kids just have more avenues to bully with the internet.

In Perfect World kids are "confident enough about themselves that they will push back against aggression and also who also feel that belittling of others is something that has limits".

Perfect World has never existed and it never will.

And since it won't, we have to do something about this mean kids.

2 Replies

@boomerang,

I agree. I just don't know what that something is.

0 Replies

@boomerang,

Quote:

And since it won't, we have to do something about this mean kids.

As I said. We also need to figure out why the teen suicide rate is so high in general, as well as why the victims of bullying decide to off themselves. we had plenty of bullying when I was in school, and I knew some of the victims rather well, however none of them took the hostility so seriously that they considered ending their life, so far as I know. what has changed I think is that so many of these kids are not grounded anywhere today. In my day even the worst victims had friends and family that they thought they could count on.

2 Replies

@hawkeye10,

I don't know how old you are but when I was in school bullying was pretty much limited to school time.

Now bullying goes on and on and on via the internet. It's incredibly public. Once a kid is targeted it steamrolls.

I completely understand why these kids might just say "**** it" and kill themselves.

I don't know what should happen to bullies but I think it should be serious.

Honestly I think it's a parenting failure. Maybe they need to fine the crap out of the bully's parents. Maybe they need to say no more free public education for your little darling -- find a school that will accept them if you can and pay for them to go there.

Maybe they need to say -- you got caught being a bully - no drivers license for you until you're 25.

Maybe it needs to keep these bullies from getting in to choice colleges.

Maybe they need to be put into foster care.

I don't know. I do know that I absolutely HATE bullies.

2 Replies

@boomerang,

Quote:

I don't know. I do know that I absolutely HATE bullies.

me as well, but the best answer to the problem is for the victim to refuse to be a victim, to stand up to the aggression. You continue to say not one word about doing something to help that to happen.

I do agree that when I was a kid (60's/70's) that no matter what happened at school the victims usually still had their longtime friends in the neighborhood. You could come home and be with friends and family and not need to deal with the situation till the next school day. This is a big difference from now.

0 Replies

@hawkeye10,

You are totally off base here Hawkeye.

The "bullying" charges include stalking and physical assault. If someone treated you (or any adult) this way, they would get jail time. It is crazy that kids are supposed to put up with this crap (when adults are protected).

Not only the kids should be punished (as Juveniles which lessens the penalties)... it seems in a just world, the adults in charge of the school would be strongly penalized.

Kids at least should have the same avenues to protect themselves that we, as adults, make sure we have.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

another thing too....I think when I was a kid we cared about more important stuff than these kids today do, and that it is the entire villages fault that they are so shallow.

As story: one of my daughters is a senior in HS. She has been with the group for about two years, to various degrees and with a membership that is in flux but runs about 20 kids. One day the queen bee came onto a room an rudely demanded that my daughter give her her seat, and move to another. My daughter, having been raised to have self respect and thus not necessarily willing to do as she is told by those who think that they are better than her, decided to say no this time. This was three months ago, and to this day, after lots of trying to patch things up without apologizing cause she does not think she is wrong, my daughter is still mostly on the outs. With the entire group except for a couple who will associate with her sometimes.

I don't remember us caring about homage rituals this much. To be cool, or loyal, or able to get good drugs, or have a great record collection, or funny was always enough to keep us in the group, even if we did get uppity from time to time.

0 Replies

@ebrown p,

Quote:

The "bullying" charges include stalking and physical assault

that could mean that they followed her down the hall and threw a empty milk carton at her at lunch. I don't know, as the definitions of these words are now so large and so vague that it is impossible to know if one should take such charges seriously without a full detailed report of what happened. It certainly appears that the prosecution has gone shopping for charges.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Hawkeye... I think you have leapt to judgement without understanding the facts of the case.

This involved threats of violence backed with physical attacks which included striking her and throwing drink bottles at her. These actions are illegal for adults. An adult would have had legal means to stop the abuse and punish her attackers.

This is combined with the fact that a 15 year old kid is trapped in school-- there aren't very many options available for a kid being abused. The schools has a responsibility to provide a safe environment.

Her attackers are old enough to be culpable. Violent threats are illegal. Physical violence is illegal. I hope they are punished firmly (but fairly).

2 Replies

@ebrown p,

Quote:

Hawkeye... I think you have leapt to judgment without understanding the facts of the case.

the line for me is this: would these youth have faced these charges if the girl had not killed herself? If the answer is no then they should not be charged. No matter they certainly should not be charged in adult court.

I am interested in hearing the facts of the case, but considering that we have the appearance of charge shopping, and the fact that we have no manslaughter charge, I am assuming that when the facts come out they will fall on the side of that they would not have been charged without the girl offing herself, and thus the legal system has been misapplied here.

the school staff was very aware with what was happening, and did nothing it seems. If something worthy of reasonable felony charges for the teens did happen then some adults would need to be up on charges for neglect as well.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:

9 Teenagers Accused of Bullying That Led to Suicide

It is not clear what some students at South Hadley High School expected to achieve by subjecting a freshman to the relentless taunting described by a prosecutor and classmates.

.Not, certainly, her suicide. And not, certainly, the multiple felony indictments announced on Monday against several students at the Massachusetts school.

The prosecutor brought charges Monday against nine teenagers, saying their taunting and physical threats were beyond the pale and led the freshman, Phoebe Prince, to hang herself from a stairwell in January.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/us/30bully.html?hp

So we started out putting minors into the adult system for particularly offensive murders, but now we are doing it for bullying....only not charging them with what they actually did because through creative crime selection we can hit harder.

Why don't we cut to the chase, how about from now on we take every teen who does something we don't like
over to Davids house for target practice? It would be the definition of win/win.

OK, but gimme a chance to put in a gunnery range; soundproofing.
Truth be told, I don 't ofen entertain bullies.
I shoud get some snacks n soft drinks. I 'm kinda new at this.

Thomas Jefferson believed that gunnery practice was good for character development.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

Truth be told, I don 't ofen entertain bullies.
I shoud get some snacks n soft drinks. I 'm kinda new at this

You're funnin me right? The idea is that the vermin would be the targets. We dont seem to place any value on them producing productive lives, as quick as we are to load them up with charges and lock them away,we might as well get some use out of their existence.

Obviously I am not serious in the literal sense, but I am serious in asking wtf is the point of childhood if mistakes made in childhood are routinely allowed to ruin their soon to be adult lives.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

David wrote:

Truth be told, I don 't ofen entertain bullies.
I shoud get some snacks n soft drinks. I 'm kinda new at this

hawkeye10 wrote:

You're funnin me right? The idea is that the vermin would be the targets.

Jeez, I dunno, Hawk.
U sure about the legality of that?
Lemme check the Penal Law; Article 125, as I remember.

0 Replies

From the artical

Quote:

It was particularly alarming, the district attorney said, that some teachers, administrators and other staff members at the school were aware of the harassment but did not stop it. “The actions or inactions of some adults at the school were troublesome,”

1 Reply

@ebrown p,

Quote:

Hawkeye... I think you have leapt to judgement without understanding the facts of the case. This involved threats of violence backed with physical attacks which included striking her and throwing drink bottles at her. These actions are illegal for adults. An adult would have had legal means to stop the abuse and punish her attackers. This is combined with the fact that a 15 year old kid is trapped in school-- there aren't very many options available for a kid being abused. The schools has a responsibility to provide a safe environment. Her attackers are old enough to be culpable. Violent threats are illegal. Physical violence is illegal. I hope they are punished firmly (but fairly).

The other fact of the case that I think you're forgetting Hawkeye is that this girl had moved into this environment from another country only six months before she killed herself.

She didn't have an established or familiar group of friends who she could turn to to help support her or help her feel better about her situation in or out of school.
She was in a strange place surrounded by hostile or uninterested strangers. Even the people who were supposed to be there to help her apparently showed no interest in helping her.
And yet you can ask, 'Why didn't she have the tools or confidence to overcome this 'mob' - only nine people were charged - extrapolate that to think about how many actually threw stones -either verbally or literally and physically - every single day of the last six months of this poor girl's life.

Get a clue.

There are some people on this earth who make it their mission to make other peoples' lives on this earth a living hell. Each and every day. And those people, because actually THEY'RE the weak ones - band together and find their strength in numbers.

If I had a child who'd been involved in something like this in any small way - I'd find it hard to ever speak to my kid again-forget about prison.
Sorry - I know that's not a motherly thing to say - but it's the truth. I can't abide mean people.

If this had happened to my daughter - you probably would have ended up imprisoning me for my response to these people. And think about what you'd do to these people if they did this to your child- honestly- stop acting like this girl is some sort of abstraction.

But yeah - maybe it's cultural - because my two kids came to England at the ages of twelve and sixteen and the kids here were nothing but kind to them and pretty much embraced them like they were two American rock stars.

There is something sick and sad about this. And the people who were involved need more than a slap on the wrist.

And the teachers who ignored her situation should never be allowed to forget that- when the next 'different' kid walks through the door of their school.

Maybe you should think about your ability to objectify this girl as a 'case'- and her response an example of 'weakness'.

This is a person these people made it their mission to destroy.
I pray she's found some sort of peace.

1 Reply

@dadpad,

dadpad wrote:

From the artical

Quote:
It was particularly alarming, the district attorney said, that some teachers, administrators and other staff members at the school were aware of the harassment but did not stop it. “The actions or inactions of some adults at the school were troublesome,”

What occurs beyond the school is none of their business.

David

0 Replies

The police shoud have been summoned to attend to all violence
and threats thereof.

David

1 Reply

OK, we have now bested the lunacy of sexting charges

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