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The bullies win again[W710; 739]

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I was 14 when I was bullied, and if I had had to cope with it at night, if it had been amplified by the net, if I could not escape it by changing schools......who knows? Frankly, I had suicidal ideas even with just the way things were.

I was a foster child and had no adult to protect me. There are millions of kids now like me, and even those with good parents cannot look to them to "make it stop", as no one can control the net. You think "O, I'll homeschool", and expect that will work. Well, even if you can quit your job and perform well as a teacher for your child, that will not keep the net and people with net access out of his life -- and so, your kid will be in almost as much pain as before.

When this is one kid bullying another, with no threats of violence, I say let the schools and parents handle it. But when it's an adult bullying a child, or a gang of kids doing it, I say we need to criminalize these behaviors and start furnishing bullying victims with JUSTICE.
 
Pinkie said:
I was 14 when I was bullied, and if I had had to cope with it at night, if it had been amplified by the net, if I could not escape it by changing schools......who knows? Frankly, I had suicidal ideas even with just the way things were.

I was a foster child and had no adult to protect me. There are millions of kids now like me, and even those with good parents cannot look to them to "make it stop", as no one can control the net. You think "O, I'll homeschool", and expect that will work. Well, even if you can quit your job and perform well as a teacher for your child, that will not keep the net and people with net access out of his life -- and so, your kid will be in almost as much pain as before.

When this is one kid bullying another, with no threats of violence, I say let the schools and parents handle it. But when it's an adult bullying a child, or a gang of kids doing it, I say we need to criminalize these behaviors and start furnishing bullying victims with JUSTICE.
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Glad you made it thru it, Pinkie. Bullying can terrify and crush adolescents and young teens in very real and psychological ways. It also can be so embarassing they can't tell anyone or have no one to really tell who would or could do anything about. Whether or not foster parents, natural or adoptive, millions and millions of children do not have attentive parents and even with perfect parents there is only so much a parent can do anyway.

Bullying should be treated very harshly by schools and authorities. It also should be addressed civilly. If a parent should have pay MILLIONS of dollars for their kid downloading pirated music, should parents be liable for the children using a computer to threaten and bully others.

WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN is that internet companies should have the SAME civil liabilities and any other publication medium. The bizarre exemption allows anyone to anonymously post any liable, slander and threats against anyone without even a way to force that material to be removed. This is SO extreme, that is someone hide a video camera in your house making a totally illegal video of you having sex, there are websites they could annoymously put it on, email links to everyone you know they could find, and it would be essentially impossible to have the video removed or even find out who did it.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Right on target, Anda. Whatever she did, she did as a result of her turmoil. Here's a fun fact. Many rape/molestation survivors become extremely promiscuous after their rape/molestation. Why? Logic would seem to dictate that after such an act, one would avoid sexual contact... and many do. Both, what others "learned" from their experience is that their bodies were not theirs and were not worth protecting. This was all they were worth, so they keep doing it. OR, they have lots of sex in order to psychologically reestablish control over the act, a way to prove to themselves that a trauma like that could not happen again.

This is why anyone who presented this girls promiscuity as part of her responsibility in what happened has no knowledge of mental illness.
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I actually have some personal experience with this phenomenon. When I was in my early 20's, I dated a fetish model for a few months. She was extremely open to sex with numerous people (male and female) and of course the nature of her work was inherently sexual. She had also been raised in a religious cult (literally) and had been repeatedly raped by several of the men in charge of the organization over a period of several years (when she was between the ages of 12-15; after that she ran away). It was pretty clear to me even then that she was interested in the sorts of things she was interested in - and did the sort of work that she did - as a direct outgrowth of years of systematic abuse. Obviously that's not true of all sex workers (I've known a few who really don't fit that mold at all), but in her case, it was a textbook example of what you're talking about here.
 
I agree. Someone needs to hold bullies responsible for their actions. I was also a foster child in a similar situation and know I barely survived. I actually thought the pain would kill me if I didn't kill myself first. And sometimes dying may be a natural reaction to what someone is going through.
Pinkie said:
I was 14 when I was bullied, and if I had had to cope with it at night, if it had been amplified by the net, if I could not escape it by changing schools......who knows? Frankly, I had suicidal ideas even with just the way things were.

I was a foster child and had no adult to protect me. There are millions of kids now like me, and even those with good parents cannot look to them to "make it stop", as no one can control the net. You think "O, I'll homeschool", and expect that will work. Well, even if you can quit your job and perform well as a teacher for your child, that will not keep the net and people with net access out of his life -- and so, your kid will be in almost as much pain as before.

When this is one kid bullying another, with no threats of violence, I say let the schools and parents handle it. But when it's an adult bullying a child, or a gang of kids doing it, I say we need to criminalize these behaviors and start furnishing bullying victims with JUSTICE.
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joko104 said:
Glad you made it thru it, Pinkie. Bullying can terrify and crush adolescents and young teens in very real and psychological ways. It also can be so embarassing they can't tell anyone or have no one to really tell who would or could do anything about. Whether or not foster parents, natural or adoptive, millions and millions of children do not have attentive parents and even with perfect parents there is only so much a parent can do anyway.

Bullying should be treated very harshly by schools and authorities. It also should be addressed civilly. If a parent should have pay MILLIONS of dollars for their kid downloading pirated music, should parents be liable for the children using a computer to threaten and bully others.

WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN is that internet companies should have the SAME civil liabilities and any other publication medium. The bizarre exemption allows anyone to anonymously post any liable, slander and threats against anyone without even a way to force that material to be removed. This is SO extreme, that is someone hide a video camera in your house making a totally illegal video of you having sex, there are websites they could annoymously put it on, email links to everyone you know they could find, and it would be essentially impossible to have the video removed or even find out who did it.
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I'm just not a huge fan of creating new civil remedies -- I'm not opposed to it, of course, but these behaviors seem criminal to me, and crime is better deterred by a prison sentence than a lawsuit. If the first priority is to stop the behavior and protect the child, a lawsuit is a poor substitute for an arrest.

That said, these social networking sites that allow kids on -- facebook will allow a kid as young as 13 to join -- in my mind owe a duty to the children they attract, to protect them. We all know they don't -- none of the major social networking sites will ban a member for harrassment. The owners of these companies need to feel it in the pocketbook when they design staffing and coding plans that create an unreasonable risk.

But for me, the bottom line is, these predatory adults should be sent to prison.
 
Chelsea said:
I agree. Someone needs to hold bullies responsible for their actions. I was also a foster child in a similar situation and know I barely survived. I actually thought the pain would kill me if I didn't kill myself first. And sometimes dying may be a natural reaction to what someone is going through.
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My pain was not wall to wall, and I could make it stop -- I ran away, and when I turned up again, they moved me to a new foster home, which necessitated a change in schools. I knew that would happen and it was the only reason I ran away.

I ran away 11 times in 4 years; once to avoiding bullying at school, 10 times to escape a foster father who wanted to commit all manner of sex crimes on me. It's a nine days' wonder I wasn't harmed whilst on the street; I'd usually stay away 3 or 4 days, and I spent those nights between parked cars, to stay warm. As problem-solving techniques go, running away from home sucks, but it did work -- I made it to 18 with a HS diploma and no one had harmed me.

Now, sad as all that is, obviously the average kid is not in foster care. BUT -- you parents need to realize that you cannot control what is said to your child or about your child on the net, and that without support for new criminal laws, people with bad intentions can do almost anything they want to YOUR kid.
 
Aderleth said:
I actually have some personal experience with this phenomenon. When I was in my early 20's, I dated a fetish model for a few months. She was extremely open to sex with numerous people (male and female) and of course the nature of her work was inherently sexual. She had also been raised in a religious cult (literally) and had been repeatedly raped by several of the men in charge of the organization over a period of several years (when she was between the ages of 12-15; after that she ran away). It was pretty clear to me even then that she was interested in the sorts of things she was interested in - and did the sort of work that she did - as a direct outgrowth of years of systematic abuse. Obviously that's not true of all sex workers (I've known a few who really don't fit that mold at all), but in her case, it was a textbook example of what you're talking about here.
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When a child is sexually abused, the brain wiring is changed. The degree of the change is dependent on how severe the abuse was and what the aftermath was -- but kids who've suffered long term incest etc. need tremendous help as adults to reorder their entire lives, most especially their sex lives.

I think it's almost like murder: if the kid is very young and the abuse is unrelenting, it's entirely possible to watch that kid disappear. One foster father I had was abusing his own bio 4 year old daughter, who in turn was constantly trying to murder her 2 year old brother. I told the social worker -- but believing me was out of the question. I think about those kids a lot, even now.

Like the victims of the sex abuse by nuns I lived with in the orphanage, I'd be shocked to learn they had survived even to age 18.

I can marshal enough rage to light up NYC if I dwell on this, and remaining passive in the face of a new threat to kids is completely out of the question for me.
 
Were you a foster child in Ohio? I ask because I was and some of your stories preach to the choir. My foatster mom would have us stand with our knees locked and hands on our ankles in a stretching position.I stood there.for 5 hours once, but moving would've been much worse. I did the same thing, ran away again and again, knowing Id escape to a new type of hell each time. I'm wondering if Ohios foster system needs a good looking at.
 
Chelsea said:
Were you a foster child in Ohio? I ask because I was and some of your stories preach to the choir. My foatster mom would have us stand with our knees locked and hands on our ankles in a stretching position.I stood there.for 5 hours once, but moving would've been much worse. I did the same thing, ran away again and again, knowing Id escape to a new type of hell each time. I'm wondering if Ohios foster system needs a good looking at.
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No, I was in Rochester, New York, but the foster care system in this country is appalling. Even then (this happened in the 1950's and 1960's), lazy, dysfunctional, evil intended adults would take in foster kids -- especially teenaged girls -- for the huge paycheck from social services, and to exploit that kid. I even had one foster mother who had a pimp actually living in her home! And when I told the social worker -- that woman had an 8 year old bio daughter, and I wanted her made safe -- once again, I was not believed.

If I had it in my power, I would outlaw the entire system and put kids in group homes, holding less than 10 kids, located in the community and staffed by 3 sets of adults: weekends, week days and week nights. It'd be far cheaper, more stable and there'd be far less abuse.

I'd also cut kids loose to be adopted. I never was, even though my parents died when I was five. My father's family wouldn't take me in but wasn't willing to bear the shame of allowing me to be adopted out -- even though my parents' best friends wanted us and we lived with them after my parents died for several months. They were not Catholic, and to the immigrants I am related to, allowing a child out of the RCC was unthinkable -- so I was sent to the orphanage.

Orphans are far and few between; most kids are in the system because their parents are neglectful or abusive or incarcerated. Those kids deserve a decent life, and adoption at the earliest possible time is almost always in the best interests of the child.

WTH else should matter?
 
Pinkie said:
I was 14 when I was bullied, and if I had had to cope with it at night, if it had been amplified by the net, if I could not escape it by changing schools......who knows? Frankly, I had suicidal ideas even with just the way things were.
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Uhh...

There is this little thing called "Delete Account" in facebook.

One can escape it if they want to.
 
Yeah I think the safest I ever was, was in a mental health facility acting as my "group home" until a foster home opened up. The rules were unfair a bit because I was there for running away not behavioral issues like most of the other kids, but I wasn't starved, beaten, or raped.
 
Caine said:
Uhh...

There is this little thing called "Delete Account" in facebook.

One can escape it if they want to.
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I understand you're having difficulty grasping how this actually works, Caine. It's okay with me that you are confused as long as you keep trying.

* The Megan Meier case amply demonstrates that the abuse is not always unpleasant at first, and when the worm turns, the kid is so shocked and injured, they cannot disengage.

* If a kid were wise enough to get off the site, the site's coding usually does not permit deletion. Facebook, MySpace, etc. do have "backdoors" that allow an account to be deleted, but only an IT professional knows this. All most people will be able to do is deactivate -- and if you use a bookmark to navigate to DP, for instance, you know how long that prompt will show up. I haven't posted to one website for at least 6 months, maybe longer -- and Google still displays it as "recently visited" every time I open my browser.

* If a kid is able to delete his account and never checks to see what's being said about him (such self-control and wisdom is rare in an adult, and likely as not, virtually impossible for a 9 or 12 year old), their peers almost certainly know about the interaction, talk about it and will create a cloud of hate to surround the child, wall-to-wall, 24/7/365. This is exactly what happened to Amanda Knox, the girl in the Op of this thread.

Blaming the child is inappropriate because no one -- not even the president of the USA -- can control the net. IMO, the best solution is to arrest and imprison the adult who is harrassing the child.

 
Chelsea said:
Yeah I think the safest I ever was, was in a mental health facility acting as my "group home" until a foster home opened up. The rules were unfair a bit because I was there for running away not behavioral issues like most of the other kids, but I wasn't starved, beaten, or raped.
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I really hate any locked down setting for kids -- the community has to see the kids every day in order for them to be safe. Just like nursing homes, any institutional setting that houses kids will have a helluva time keeping sadists off the payroll.

That said, almost anything would be better than paying Betty the Boozer $24,000 a year to abuse a foster child.
 
Pinkie said:
I really hate any locked down setting for kids -- the community has to see the kids every day in order for them to be safe. Just like nursing homes, any institutional setting that houses kids will have a helluva time keeping sadists off the payroll

That said, almost anything would be better than paying Betty the Boozer $24,000 a year to abuse a foster child.
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And people wonder why the world is so messed up. It seems you and I have turned out fine considering our circumstances, but how many millions of kids are in the system today that will emancipate out to a life of crime and poverty. I know most of my foster sisters didn't graduate high school, much less college, and most either have kids by multiple fathers or a criminal record now.For our kids being the future there isn't alot of real concern as to their well being.
 
Chelsea said:
And people wonder why the world is so messed up. It seems you and I have turned out fine considering our circumstances, but how many millions of kids are in the system today that will emancipate out to a life of crime and poverty. I know most of my foster sisters didn't graduate high school, much less college, and most either have kids by multiple fathers or a criminal record now.For our kids being the future there isn't alot of real concern as to their well being.
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We don't give a rat's ass about children in this country. We care about the kids in OUR family, and occassionally, about some pretty white girl in a news story, like Jaycee Dugard, but the rest can blow themselves to Kingdom Come.

There are about 300,000+ kids being sex trafficked today in the US, most of them natural born citizens, and we can't find the backbone or the money to rescue them and send their abusers to prison.

I knew when I was 5 years old, we Americans are perfectly capable of throwing a child away like trash. Anyone who thinks the US is a haven for children is delusional.
 
PirateMk1 said:
Honestly? No. I take that back. Possible but very very unlikely. Its much more likely there is an underlying stability issue. We have all had ups and down and even contimplated it half heartedly. But when you start to take action, there is most likely a chemical imbalance, or a mental disorder at the heart of it I believe. Its one of the reasons I want better statistics so I can drill down and determine if that is in fact as I suspect it is.
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Pirate, I sent my kid an email and asked her if she could link me to the statistics you asked for. If I have not heard back from her by Sunday, I'll go see if I can find some on my own.

I'm sorry I forgot about this all day; I think it's great that you want to know more.

 
KevinKohler said:
Man, this has really gotten heated. So it seems some would protect verbal abuse as freedom of speech. Ever hear of harassment? I can't follow you around all day, yelling at you, saying means things, or threatening you, even if you are in public space. It's called harassment, and rightly so, it's illegal.
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Uhhh...yeah. That's harassment.

Why make bullying a new crime?
 
OldWorldOrder said:
Uhhh...yeah. That's harassment.

Why make bullying a new crime?
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An excellent question.

The answer is, in every case we have discussed, the law does not now exist that would permit a prosecution, except that we could charge the 9 year who took a photo of her naked classmate with child pornography.

Stalking, harrassment, terroristic threats, etc. -- these laws do sometimes get used to prosecute cyber-bullying, but they are most useful on the least dangerous types: peer to peer bullying. Law enforcement and criminal justice need another tool in the tool bag to get the adults who target children on the net -- something that criminalizes speech they know is directed at a child and is reasonably foreseeably creating a risk of grave harm to the child.
 
OldWorldOrder said:
Uhhh...yeah. That's harassment.

Why make bullying a new crime?
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kind of agree here. Bullying in itself is realisticallly a systematic harassment/torture system which engages in multiple criminal activities. For instance, physical bullies engage in assault, battery, extortion, and other variants of those physical abuse statues. Mental abusers engage in but not limited to' extortion, blackmail, harassement, voyeurism, (in this case, child porn), statutory sex offenses, (civil) willful mental anguish, etc.

I don't think we get anywhere by making bullying a seperate crime, but rather by enforcing and re-enforcing criminal statutes under all circumstances to hold bullys accountable for their actions.
 
Pinkie said:
An excellent question.

The answer is, in every case we have discussed, the law does not now exist that would permit a prosecution, except that we could charge the 9 year who took a photo of her naked classmate with child pornography.

Stalking, harrassment, terroristic threats, etc. -- these laws do sometimes get used to prosecute cyber-bullying, but they are most useful on the least dangerous types: peer to peer bullying. Law enforcement and criminal justice need another tool in the tool bag to get the adults who target children on the net -- something that criminalizes speech they know is directed at a child and is reasonably foreseeably creating a risk of grave harm to the child.
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Malicious intent is the key word. If an adult willfully engages in behaviors that endanger a child's well being they can be charged accordingly, including negligence, physical abuse, mental abuse, or indifference. All crimes in the 50 states punishable by law.
 
LaMidRighter said:
Malicious intent is the key word. If an adult willfully engages in behaviors that endanger a child's well being they can be charged accordingly, including negligence, physical abuse, mental abuse, or indifference. All crimes in the 50 states punishable by law.
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No, not as we sit here today. Not if the adult uses the internet to torture the child -- but that's the law I want.

What we call the crime, how severely we punish it, that's something I'd be very flexible about, because I think if Lori Drew had had to do even 6 months in the city jail, the deterrent on other adults would be significant.
 
Pinkie said:
No, not as we sit here today. Not if the adult uses the internet to torture the child -- but that's the law I want.

What we call the crime, how severely we punish it, that's something I'd be very flexible about, because I think if Lori Drew had had to do even 6 months in the city jail, the deterrent on other adults would be significant.
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I dunno, to me internet speech is still speech. The things done to this particular girl are not protected, any judge that would differentiate internet publication from say, running an ad with the girl's breasts and personal information is a moron. So far we have child porn, harassment, defamation, and seemingly extortion, I don't know how an extra law puts any more weight on existing ones but am willing to hear what more we can do.
 
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