I do not believe that bullying can or should be made into
a criminal act. I think that there are already plenty of laws that could be used
against bullies when they commit overt acts.
For example,
if a bully is stealing from someone, they are already liable to being charged for
theft. If they are physically harming the person, they can be charged with
assault.
Once you go beyond things like that, the line
separating criminal and non-criminal acts is too blurry for my tastes. What would
constitute criminal bullying? Would it be simply making fun of other people? That
would be a really tough one for a school to enforce -- when is making fun of someone
bullying and when is it normal teenage behavior? It may seem easy to tell the
difference, but when we start talking about how to define bullying legally, it gets
pretty difficult.
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