Bullying

1. OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Bullying

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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Lesson goal
BULLYING
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
Students will learn:
BULLYING
• 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
What is bullying?
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.
• 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.

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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
What is bullying? cont.
BULLYING
• 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.
• Emotional bullying includes behaviors such as rejecting,
extorting, humiliating, blackmailing, rating/ranking of
personal characteristics, manipulating friendships,
isolating, ostracizing, and peer pressure.

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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Cyberbullying
BULLYING
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 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.

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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Bullying and criminal behavior
BULLYING
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 cyber bullying. ‘Bullying’ does not
include ordinary teasing, horseplay, argument, or peer
conflict.” (Code of Virginia § 22.1-276.01)

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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Bullying and criminal behavior,
cont.
BULLYING
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
Harassment Robbery
Extortion Hazing

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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Criminal acts associated with
bullying
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 repeatedly 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.

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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Criminal acts, cont.
BULLYING
• 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.
• 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.

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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Harm from bullying
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
Harm from bullying, cont.
BULLYING
Effects on the victim:
• Grades may suffer because attention is drawn away from
learning.
• Fear may lead to absenteeism, truancy, or dropping out.
• 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.

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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Harm from bullying, cont.
BULLYING
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.
• 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.

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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Harm from bullying, cont.
BULLYING
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.
• 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.

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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
School policies
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• 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?

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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Bullying survival tips
BULLYING
• Review “Bullying Survival Tips” handout.

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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL • COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Review and recap
BULLYING
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.
• There are strategies you can use if either you or someone you
know is being bullied.

18. 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