Bullying

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

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Lesson goal
To improve students’understanding of bullying, the harm of
bullying, and strategies for responding to bullying.

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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

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Students will learn:
• What bullying is and crimes associated with bullying
• Harm that results from bullying
• What teens can do if they are being bullied
• What teens can do if they know someone being bullied
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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

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What is bullying?
Bullying is commonly defined as intentional, repeated harmful
acts, words, or other behavior, such as name calling,
threatening, and/or shunning, committed by one or more
children against another.
• The harmful acts or words are intentional.
• The acts or words are repeated.
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• The acts are harmful and they can include a range of acts,
words, and other behaviors.
• The acts are committed by one or more persons
against another.
• Bullying may be physical, verbal, or emotional in nature.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

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What is bullying? cont.
• Physical bullying includes punching, poking, strangling, hair
pulling, beating, biting, and excessive tickling.

• Verbal bullying includes such acts as hurtful name calling,

teasing, and gossip.
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• Emotional bullying includes behaviors such as rejecting,

extorting, humiliating, blackmailing, rating/ranking of personal
characteristics, manipulating friendships, isolating, ostracizing,
and peer pressure.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

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Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying, sometimes referred to as electronic bullying,
can involve:
• sending mean, vulgar, or threatening messages or images
• posting sensitive, private information about another person
• pretending to be someone else in order to make that person
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look bad
• intentionally excluding someone from an online group
Cyberbullying can be done using social media, e-mail, instant
messaging, text or digital imaging messages sent on cell phones, web
pages, blogs, and chat rooms.
OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
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Bullying and criminal behavior
The definition of bullying in the Code of Virginia is “any aggressive
and unwanted behavior that is intended to harm, intimidate, or
humiliate the victim; involves a real or perceived power imbalance
between the aggressor or aggressors and victim; and is repeated
over time or causes severe emotional trauma. ‘Bullying’ includes
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cyber bullying. ‘Bullying’ does not include ordinary teasing,
horseplay, argument, or peer conflict.” (Code of Virginia § 22.1-
276.01)

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

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Bullying and criminal behavior, cont.
Bullying is not considered a crime in the Code of Virginia.
However, the acts that are most often associated with bullying are
criminal offenses, including:

Threat Assault and Battery

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Harassment Robbery
Extortion Hazing

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

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Criminal acts associated with bullying
These criminal acts are most often associated with bullying:

• Threat: A communication that threatens to kill or do bodily

injury to a person or any member of his or her family and places
the person in reasonable fear of death or bodily injury.

• Harassment: To repeatedlySubhead
annoy or attack a person or group in
such a way as to cause anxiety or fear for safety. Several
different types of harassment are against Virginia law.

• Extortion: Obtaining property from another person by using or

threatening to use violence or other criminal means to cause
harm to a person, their reputation, or their property.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

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Criminal acts, cont.

• Assault and battery: Physical, harmful contact.

• Robbery: The taking, with intent to steal, of the personal

property of another, from his or her person or in his or her
presence, against his or her will, by violence or intimidation.
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• Hazing: To recklessly or intentionally endanger the health or
safety of a student or to inflict bodily injury on a student in
connection with admission into a group.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

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Harm from bullying

Bullying has often been dismissed as a normal part of growing up.

That isn’t the case. Bullying and the harm that it causes are
seriously underestimated.

Bullying is a big deal.

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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

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Harm from bullying, cont.
Effects on the victim:
• Grades may suffer because attention is drawn away from
learning.
• Fear may lead to absenteeism, truancy, or dropping out.
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• If the problem persists, victims sometimes feel compelled to take
drastic measures, such as vengeance in the form of fighting back,
bringing a weapon to school, or even suicide.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

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Harm from bullying, cont.

Effects on bystanders:
• May be afraid to associate with the victim for fear of lowering
their own status or for fear of retribution from the bully and
becoming victims themselves.
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• May fear reporting bullying incidents because they do not want
to be called a “snitch.”

• May experience feelings of guilt or helplessness for not standing

up to the bully on behalf of their classmate.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

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Harm from bullying, cont.

Effects on the bullies themselves:

• Studies have found that bullying in childhood may be an early
sign of the development of violent tendencies, delinquency, and
criminality.
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• One study found that boys identified as bullies in middle school
were four times as likely as their non-bullying classmates to
have three or more criminal convictions
by age 24.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

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School policies

• How is bullying defined in the student conduct policy?

• What penalties are imposed for bullying?

• What rules or procedures students should follow if they are

bullied or see bullying? Subhead

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

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Bullying survival tips

• Review “Bullying Survival Tips” handout.

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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

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Review and recap

You have learned:

• Although bullying itself is not considered a crime, it often
involves criminal behavior.

• Bullying is harmful to everyone involved – not just the person

being bullied. Subhead

• There are strategies you can use if either you or someone you
know is being bullied.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

 OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA • WWW.AG.VIRGINIA.GOV

For more information about Virginia laws that affect teens,

visit www.virginiarules.org

© Office of the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia