Social Control and Criminal Deviance: Bullying
Darryl Gennie
Professor Catherine Terry
SOC 100
Augusta
17 August 2015
Strayer University
The most important step needed to analyze bullying is to review the existing knowledge. The literature review is a critical look at the existing research that is significant to the work you are trying prove including substantive findings as well as theoretical and methodical contributions to a particular topic. Get the facts and review them thoroughly before making a decision. Review existing knowledge means to look at the research that has already been done. It is a good way to start any research project because it avoids repeating procedures that someone else has already done. Reviewing literature will help you clarify and justify the focus of your planned research. This process will also reveal that you know and understand the context on the issue, giving credibility and authority to your hard work. Bullying has engrained in American society since the country’s founding. Bred from a capitalistic economy and competitive social hierarchy, bullying has remained a relevant issue through the years. School age children are learning skills and lessons from their teachers as well as through peer interactions. Although schools are great tools that children benefit from, there are some bad experiences, such as bullying, that may negatively affect and remain with these children for the rest of their lives. Some
Bullying has always been a very common issue in schools, but not easily recognized or taken care of. It was not until the increased number of s hootings in the 1900's and suicides that attention was brought into bullying in schools or “schoo l-bullying” (“School Bullying” 1). Today bullying impacts up to thirty percent of middle- to high-schoo l students (“School Bullying” 1). Whether or not bullying is more dominant in one’s life i s dependent on the age group: bulling general starts in early preteen years, but subsid es before adulthood.
Crime is defined by the Oxford dictionary as ‘an action or omission which constitutes an offence and is punishable by law.’ (Dictionary, 2015) Whereas deviance is failing to conform to the expectations held by society without necessarily breaking any laws. Criminal behaviour differs to deviant behaviour as a person can be deviant without committing a crime and vice versa, a person can be criminal without being deviant. For example, speeding is a criminal offense but is not considered abnormal or deviant behaviour as it is committed by the majority of people in society at some point. Likewise, if a man dresses as a woman in public they are considered to be deviating from society but are not breaking any laws and therefore are not criminal. This means that behaviour can be legal, without necessarily being acceptable in society. However, what is considered acceptable in society can change overtime as well as the removal and creation of certain laws. For example, over 50 years ago, homosexuality would have been stigmatised as well as illegal whereas nowadays it is legal and perfectly accepted by the majority in society although some homophobia does still exists. Social order is ‘the totality of structured human interrelationships in a society or a part of it.’ (Webster, 2015) These are the expectations of norms held by society that pressure people to behave in a certain way which keeps the peace within
This means that for people to show tendencies of bullying there are strong reasons and evidence either in their pasts or context of living that pushes them towards such tendencies. This means that when establishing the variables to research on in this topic,
School bullying and bullying as a whole has become a growing concern. The need for more intervention is more recognized, as incidents of bullying and inappropriate acts towards others occur in places outside of the classroom. This literature takes a closer look at bullying in schools. Olwesus (2013) states “the field of bullying research is to some extent plagued by problems, disagreements, and unresolved issues” (p.752). Whether if anyone will agree on the root of bullying, the fact remains that bullying has to be examined at its very core to remedy the matter before it becomes a bigger concern. There is a dire need for intervention based programs to be set in place to address the fact the act of bullying has lasting effects on the bully and the victim. When intervention programs are put into place to address bullying, the act of bullying decreases due to the gained understanding of the effects.
Bullying is defined as the prolonged malicious act of harming peers by abusing their own--or an existing imbalance of--power, and has become one of the most common sources of trauma among adolescents. One report shows that one of three children were victims of bullying during some point in their life, and that 10-14% of all adolescents were victims of chronic bullying for at least six months prior to participating in the survey. Children who were victims of bullying are also found to be at a higher risk of diagnoses for anxiety disorders and depression during young and middle adulthood. These victims are reported to be more likely to have lower levels of general/physical health, and lower educational acquirements than young and middle-aged adults who were not bullied (Wolke & Lereya, 2015). Because bullying is such a prominent problem, citizens, policymakers, and social scientists alike, should feel or have some social and moral obligation to address, and hopefully avert bullying. The state of bullying, and how it is enacted, is constantly changing and adapting to social frameworks. Because bullies can adapt to social changes and regulations, we, as a society, should be equally adaptive in how we perceive, address, prevent, and punish bullying.
Media attention has brought the issue of bullying to the forefront. America is suffering from a bullying epidemic. Bullying is a national issue that has cost many lives within the past few decades. More than 160,000 children refuse to attend school due to fears of falling victim to bullying. There are several types of bullying and they all have been the cause and effect of many lives. Bullying can go anywhere from a cyber-setting, verbal, and the one we all know the traditional physical bullying. Bullying is intimidating because there are so many different methods of bullying. Many victims cannot defend themselves and do not believe reporting bully actions will help them or keep them protected, because they worry about retaliation, shame or the reputation of “snitching”.
Bullying in school has become increasingly problematic for teachers and administrators. There have been many highly-publicized incidents illustrating the serious psychological consequences bullying can have for victimized students, including higher rates of absenteeism and even suicide. However, the question of how to deal with bullying remains a vexing one. Schools must remain within the law and try to find programs that have a meaningful effect on bullying, even though victims and perpetrators alike often try to keep the bullying secret from adults.
The final article that I have chosen in discussing the topic of bullying in American Schools speaks on preventing bullying through positive behavioral interventions. The article addresses how bullying continues to be a growing public health concern in schools across the United States. It addresses how there are considerable gaps in the American understanding of effective approaches for addressing this seemingly intractable issue. It is important that we do not ignore the fact that bullying is a dangerous act that affects young individuals on a daily basis and there needs to be some form of action towards helping others that are experiencing any form of bullying. Through this article, it applies a public health approach to addressing bullying through the multitiered positive behavioral interventions and supports framework.
Bullying has become a major topic of discussion within the education field in our country. The number of national public service announcements that center around controlling/stopping bullying has undoubtedly been heightened in the United States. Now more than ever, United States citizens are witnessing a constant influx of news stories developing around the problems that associate with bullying. This is certainly no different for those living in Northwest Ohio as more and more instances of bullying are being exposed at all educational levels with our children via local media outlets as well. Bullying has even hit close to home for me as a single mother as my 6-year-old daughter. She has already been battling with bullying as early as her kindergarten year of school, which in large part provoked this article’s creation. Before
Bullying involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and is highly likely to be repeated behavior. A young person can be a perpetrator, a victim, or both (also known as a "bully/victim") (Cite). In order to study bullying in the United States, this paper will provide a thorough definition of bullying, which includes characteristics of bullies and those that are victims of bullying. This paper will also examine
Bullying has become a national epidemic. Although it was once considered a rite of passage; parents, and educators now see bullying as a behavior that is likely to produce emotional and social problems during the teen years and later in life for both the victim and the aggressor. Being a teenage bully can also be an indicator of future troubles. Bullying is a violation of human rights and is criminal, especially in cases when suicide is a result. State lawmakers are willing to criminalize bullying behavior. However, I believe that throwing bullies in jail might not be the best remedy. In doing so may not be effective in controlling the behavior of students or improve the school atmosphere. I believe both the bully's and the victim's parents
Our society is at the will of two fundamental forces: deviant behavior and social control. Behaviors that are not deemed as socially acceptable, or that do not fall in line with what society calls “normal”, are deviant. Social control aims to influence people’s behaviors and is a means of moderating, as well as preventing deviance. The two forms of social control are informal and formal social control. The former consists of “self-control” and “relational controls” (Owen, Fradella, Burke, & Joplin, 2012, p. 103) while the latter uses governmental resources to deter deviance in its citizens. In my opinion, informal social control is a better deterrent of criminal behavior since your own will and how you are raised can be the greatest forces driving a person to live a good life or choose to start one.
Bullying is defined as “verbal, physical, or psychological abuse or teasing accompanied by real or perceived imbalance of power” and is usually targets what children perceive as different (Olweus, 1993). Bullying is prevalent across the nation. It has devastating effects on students each day. Bullying is a problem for all students, regardless of race, gender or class. The National Education Association reports that 160,000 children are absent intentionally from school each day because they fear being bullied whether it is an attack or just intimidation by other students. This accounts for 15% of all school absenteeism (Hunter, 2012). Dan Olweus (1993) from the National School Safety Center tells us that bullying includes three parts: (1)
It is no secret that children begin to absorb what they are presented with very early on in their childhood. Any form of abuse during the elementary school years can be particularly harmful to a child’s confidence and outlook on life because it is when they are learning and growing their social circles the most. This is a serious matter and can result in the dropping of grades, long-term withdrawal from relationships and self hatred. The question we are presented with here is “What can be done to mitigate bullying in elementary schools?” There are a number of things that can be done to reduce the social problem of bullying early on, but to do this we need to be
Bullying has been engrained in American society since the country’s founding (Donegan, 2012). The word “bully” can be traced back as far as the 1530s (Harper, 2008). But historically, the most significant turning point for bullying took place in the mid 1970s. Dan Olweus, a research professor of psychology, was the first to conduct an intensive study on bullying among students using his own systematic researching methods (Koo, 2007 ). He created the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP), which had significant results in reducing school bullying (Hazelden Foundation, 2007). Olweus’s efforts contributed greatly to the fight against bullying because it brought awareness, initiated other professionals to conduct research, and vastly expanded the meaning of bullying (Koo, 2007). Olweus’s efforts have made a great impact on school violence and helped brought safety back into schools. Although this is the case, school violence has never ended. In fact, the consequences of bullying reached its peak when two teen boys shot and killed many of their classmates after allegedly being victims of bullying. In 1999, Columbine High School experienced one of the worst high school shootings in history. This is one of the history that have occurred which gave us all an awareness as to how