Bullying in Schools

By Sampson, Rana

Excerpt
Excerpt: About the Guide Series: The Problem-Oriented Guides for Police summarize knowledge about how police can reduce the harm caused by specific crime and disorder problems. They are guides to prevention and to improving the overall response to incidents, not to investigating offenses or handling specific incidents. The guides are written for police–of whatever rank or assignment–who must address the specific problem the guides cover. The guides will be most useful to officers who // Understand basic problem-oriented policing principles and methods. The guides are not primers in problem-oriented policing. They deal only briefly with the initial decision to focus on a particular problem, methods to analyze the problem, and means to assess the results of a problemoriented policing project. They are designed to help police decide how best to analyze and address a problem they have already identified. (An assessment guide has been produced as a companion to this series and the COPS Office has also published an introductory guide to problem analysis. For those who want to learn more about the principles and methods of problem-oriented policing, the assessment and analysis guides, along with other recommended readings, are listed at the back of this guide.)

Table of Contents
Contents About the Guide Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v The Problem of Bullying in Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Definition of Bullying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Related Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Extent of the Bullying Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 A Threshold Problem: The Reluctance To Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Bullying Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Bullies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Incidents of Bullying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Victims of Bullying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Consequences of Bullying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Chronic Victims of Bullying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Understanding Your Local Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Asking the Right Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 The School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Offenders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Victims and Victimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Locations Where Bullying Occurs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Measuring Your Effectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Responses to the Problem of Bullying in Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 General Requirements for an Effective Strategy To Counter Bullying in Schools . 19 Specific Responses To Reduce Bullying in Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Responses With Limited Effectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23