overview

studies

abusers

institutions

e-kids

e-workers

Aust law

cases 1

cases 2

damages

responses

elsewhere

landmarks






















related:

Australian
Law

Human
rights

Discrimination

Messaging

Defamation

Stalking

Suicide

Blogging

Censorship

Security

     overview

This note considers bullying, in particular cyber-bullying (harassment of people via the net, SMS or other digital media). That harassment may have a lasting psychological impact. It is often associated with physical assaults.

The note covers -

• this introduction
• studies - academic studies, government report and primers regarding bullying
• abusers, victims, bystanders - making sense of bullying
• institutions - questions about culture and bullying in police forces, the military and religious institutions
• e-kids - digital bullying of students and teachers
• e-workers - bullying in the electronic workplace
• Aust law - criminal law, common law, occupational health & safety, discrimination law and other Australian law regarding bullying
• cases 1 - selected Australian litigation regarding school and workplace bullying
• cases 2 - further Australian bullying cases
• damages - an indication of damages awarded in Australian bullying litigation
• responses - Australian responses to bullying, including sacking of bullies
• elsewhere - litigation and anti-bullying developments in the UK, Canada, New Zealand and other countries
• landmarks in Australian bullying litigation.

It supplements discussion elsewhere on this site regarding stalking, discrimination, defamation, messaging, security and the shape of Australian law.

     orientation

People have been nasty to each other as long as there has been recorded history. Bullying is not a new phenomenon. It is evident in accounts of schools in mediaeval Europe and China, workplace initiations in Renaissance Florence and 1920s Chicago, bastardization in Pharaonic Egypt and in Australia's Royal Military Academy during the 1960s and 1990s, university common rooms in the 1850s and 1980s, and courts over the past two millennia.

It may involve an individual or a group. It has variously been characterised as bullying, mobbing, harassment and even psychoterror.

It has been addressed through a range of law, including workplace safety, criminal, anti-discrimination, employment and common law, on occasion with substantial penalties for perpetrators and organisations that have permitted mistreatment of an individual.

Digital technology allows bullies new opportunities to "mess with your head", through SMS texts, instant messaging, defamatory web pages and comments in online social fora.

It has been argued that digital harassment is particularly potent because -

• it is pervasive (an issue for what has been dubbed the "always on generation") and
• pseudonymity - or merely the relaxation of inhibitions associated with much virtual contact - allows bullies to express themselves with a vehemence that might be tempered in face to face contact in the playground, office or factory.

The following pages explore cyberbullying in Australian schools (and of students or teachers outside the playground or classroom) and worplaces.

They highlight day by day responses, which for some victims have involved abandonment of communication tools such as mobile phones, and questions about legal frameworks.

They also highlight selected Australian litigation before considering overseas experience.

     concept

There are few statutory definitions of bullying.

As the following pages indicate it has often been conceptualised -

• in terms of particular outcomes (setting fire to an apprentice for example being treated as a criminal act) or
• in terms of particular enactments and common law (for example regarding stalking, discrimination, hate-speech, occupational health & safety, defamation and misuse of telecommunication networks).

Characterisation in Australian law is discussed here.

Perceptions of what is bullying and what is socially (and legally) acceptable 'rough play' or institutional discipline have changed over time. The Law Society of NSW offers one definition of workplace bullying -

Unreasonable and inappropriate workplace behaviour includes bullying, which comprises behaviour which intimidates, offends, degrades, insults or humiliates an employee possibly in front of co-workers, clients or customers and which includes physical or psychological behaviour.

Bill Belsey characterised cyber-bullying as using -

information and communication technologies such as e-mail, cell phone and pager text messages, instant messaging, defamatory personal Web sites, blogs, online games and defamatory online personal polling Web sites, to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others.

Key elements of bullying are behaviour that is unreasonable and that both -

• intimidates, offends or humiliates
• places someone's physical or psychological welfare at risk.

That behaviour usually involves repeated and persistent action.

It may be passive or active, by an individual or a group, in private or in a public space such as a meeting-room, schoolyard or online forum. It may involve threats and coercive behaviour such as seizure of the target's property, sarcasm or unreasonable teasing. It may involve physical isolation or ignoring the target.

Bullying may be direct or indirect, physical or psychological. It is shrugged off by some targets. Other people experience lasting hurt. It is an area of disagreement, with some observers claiming that it is pervasive and serious, other observers warning against a contemporary moral panic or efforts to wrap children in cotton wool.




   next page  (studies)