Bullying Is Not a New Phenomenon in Essay

Bullying is not a new phenomenon in the social lives of school-aged children but in recent years a great deal more attention has been paid to bullying because of the apparent rise in the number of publicized incidents. Teachers, parents, school administrators, community leaders and social scientists are on the alert not just for bullies, but also for methods of prevention. This paper uses scholarly research articles to review and critique the current problems related to bullying.

The Literature on Bullying

A peer-reviewed article in the journal Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health reports that there is a strong link between those children who act out bullying behaviors in early childhood and their later involved with the criminal justice system. In other words, young people who engage in bullying others may well expect to be on the wrong side of law enforcement later in life. The outcome of the authors' research shows that "The hazard of criminal offence for bullies is 1.9 times…that of non-bullies" (Jiang, et al., 2011, p. 128). Moreover, the authors assert, the criminal convictions for individuals that were bullies in their youth "…were nearly twice as high as for non-bullies up to the child's 18th birthday" (Jiang, 128).

The authors of this research paper (using a court order) accessed the criminal records of 260 bullies and of those, 9.2% had at lease one "official criminal conviction" before the age of 18. Those 260 were selected because earlier in their educational careers they had been part of an "evidence-based program" called "STOP NOW AND PLAN" (SNAP).In other words, the authors compared those individuals (who had been found to be bullies) with records of involvement with law enforcement (in this case the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services) to come up with the results showing the link between bullies and the criminal justice system. The 9.2% (of 260 bullies) were charged with a number of criminal activities, including "…assault, breaking and entering, theft, weapon, mischief and drug offences" (Jiang, 132). Within the research strategy there were 689 "non-bullies" also evaluated within the same rubric, and of those, just 5.1% were found to have had a criminal record prior to age 18 (Jiang, 132).

Three authors writing in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business report a research project in which 100 children (half boys, half girls), 100 parents (59 fathers, 41 mothers) and 100 teachers (57 female and 43 male) were sent a questionnaire on responses to bullying. In the tallying of those questionnaires, the authors reported that: a) children were "largely sympathetic towards victims"; b) most parents were "largely sympathetic towards victims" and they were supportive of needed interventions but "less understanding towards bullies"; and c) teachers indicated the "best understanding" regarding victims, interventions, and bullies (Hanif, et al., 2011, p. 1055).

On page 1057 the authors note that there is no surprise that children, teachers and parents are very sympathetic towards the victims of bullying; and there is no surprise in the findings that.....