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Prosecution of Bullies

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Prosecution of Bullies Katherine Canales
Mrs. McCracken A2

The story begins “A cute Irish girl moves to a new town, South Hadley, Massachusetts and starts dating a popular football player. Other girls, alpha girls, get jealous. They taunt her, cross out her picture on a student-body poster, and fling abuse on Facebook. It goes on for months; her mother tries to get the school to do something. Finally, on Jan. 14, after a day when she was allegedly harassed in the library, in the hallways and on her way home from school--a canned drink thrown at her, and the words "You Irish slut, you Irish whore". Phoebe Prince went home, picked out a scarf her sister had given her for Christmas and hung herself in a stairwell. Her sister found her. The mean girls? They logged on and mocked her death.” (Gibbs, 2012) She is only one in many victims that could have been saved. “By words alone perpetrators of bullycide kill their victims without laying a hand on them.” (Wallace 2011) These girls should have been held responsible for their actions, yet they were not. Everyday many adolescents are being bullied to extreme measures, pushed to the verge of death, in most cases, by suicide. And just like the young Phoebe, nothing was done to help them. Is this the life we want our children to suffer through? Clearly no, but what’s the answer. Surely there has to be a way to stop this abominable act. It is clear that those who partake in bullying should be prosecuted for their incredulous actions. Bullying is a major contributing factor in actions of suicide and self-harm. Many studies show “Bullying victimization was significantly and positively associated with self-harm and suicidal ideation.”( Hay, Meldrum 2010) Victims of bullying are harming themselves to the point where they are hospitalized and are forced to miss school. This all because some people feel the need

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