Did you just assume every state had laws against bullying? Its not the case! On March 19th 2012, South Dakota became the 49th state to pass an Anti-Bullying Law. Only one state left, Montana, that has no bullying policies at all. Some laws are more comprehensive than others. Bully Police has given grades to the effectiveness of the law ranging from "A++" a perfect grade to an F (Looking at you Montana). You can see the list of rankings here.
In Yesterday's NYTimes Schoolbook, the article Should Cyber Bullying be a Crime? they address the Dignity for all Students Act. The bill states that school districts must report instances of bullying to the state Education Department. It also requires schools to adopt programs to counter bullying. The 2010 legislation and will be effective in New York starting July 1st.
- One state senator senator introduced a bill to raise the punishment of cyber bullying to a felony resulting in prison time if the threat was sent on school grounds. The bill was an attempt to make cyber bullying eligible for prosecution as a hate crime. The Senate Bull has 17 co-sponsors.
- Critics of criminalizing cyberbullying believe that acts such as the Dignity for all students will be much more effective. That bill would just criminalize teens instead of educating them.
And also this week: Legislation to help schools deal with cyberbullying has passed in the Delaware Senate!
I think it is great to have all these anti-bullying laws and policies put into place. However, who is going to enforce these policies. It appears to me that bullying is still going strong especially against the LGBT community youth. It just appears that all of these legislations and policies are for the heterosexual community and is rarely enforced in either community. So my question would be, now that these policies are passed, what does it really mean? What punishments are in place if any?
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