Bullying Should Be Considered a Criminal Act

Would you be able to lead a normal life, if someone kills every ounce of self-confidence which you have? How much time would it take for you to recover from such a situation? These might seem like hypothetical questions for you, but they are real life scenarios, for victims of bullying. In most of the cases, bullying just attracts a normal verbal warning in our colleges and schools and the bully is let off. However, the mental trauma through which the victim goes through can shake the entire foundation of the victim.

It is high time our society considers, bullying as an actual crime and starts punishing the offenders. As per a report by National Center for Educational Statistics, dated 2015, at least 22% [1] of the students in colleges and schools, have been victims of bullying at some point of time or the other.

These statistics sadly reflect the plight of a large portion of the student community. The courage for bullying stems from the fact that more than half of the victims would never report bullying to the authorities and even if it is reported, the offenders are let off with a warning.

When bullying is treated on par with a crime, more and more such cases would be reported as there would be proper legal framework with which these cases can be dealt with and therefore, the victims would also be aware regarding the way in which they can report these incidents.

Once, bullying is treated as a crime, there would be increased awareness among the people who are its victims and therefore, the percentage of victims who actually report it would be higher as well.

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Many people argue that if legal punishment is given for bullying then many among the younger generation would lose right to education and would face very harsh punishments for something which they have done jokingly. While, it may be true that most of the people who bully others in schools and colleges might do so not knowing the repercussions but that does not mean that the repercussions are less harsh. For the person who is the victim, sometimes, the entire life is destroyed and opts out of the education system as well due to the fear of being bullied. Moreover, if the self-confidence of the individual is shattered at such a young age, it becomes difficult to develop it back. We need to ask ourselves are we willing to let the victims of bullying suffer silently for the fear of harsh punishment being meted out to those who are offenders of this grave act, if not then it is time to make bullying a criminal act.