Pheobe Prince's bullies sentenced

[1]

Some context: Pheobe Prince was bullied extremely harshly by several girls at her school, then hanged herself one day, afternthey followed her home.

So, thoughts on the sentence? Too harsh? Too lenient?

Oooohh, they released the names. Good luck getting places in the world, girls. "Hey, are you that bitch who bullied that Phoebe girl to death?"

I feel they should have gotten harsher sentences. They drove a person to suicide.

Names and faces. People won't forget.

Those comments are really making me mad. People don't realize how horrible it is to get bullied. They should've gotten a harsher sentence. They should have at least had to do prison time.

Stiffer penalties but jail time no.

Going from the article they are getting of this far to easy.
What would a group performing a quite brutal murder get as a sentence? Because the case are if anything more than comparable.

Nah, what they got's about fair.

Even though it's really cruel, you can't get a terribly harsh sentence for driving someone to suicide unless you physically forced them to do it. These kids are asshats, but they didn't kill her; she killed herself. They can't be held responsible for killing her; they can only be held responsible for harassing her.

I am sorry but there is a whole swath of difference between harassment that led to suicide and group murdering an individual. There is nothing to compare other then a group and a person dies.

edited 6th May '11 6:32:09 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Yeah. They're cunts, but this ain't a legal matter, as far as I see it.

That said, were I running that school, they'd be out of there with my foot up their arse.

I say scientific examination for a bully gene.

Chalk me up with the folks who think there should have been some jail time. People take verbal/psychological abuse way, way too lightly.

Eh.

Whatever the justice system would do is not nearly as bad as what their conscience and society is gonna do to them.

That'd open up a whole can of worms regarding civil liberties and free speech; set a bad precedent, if you will.

I think there shouldn't be so much tolerance for abuse like that in institutional settings, though, especially where attendance is non-voluntary. This is why I endorse the abolishment of mandatory schooling.

edited 6th May '11 6:55:39 PM by MRDA1981

Free speech is both a good and bad thing. On one hand, you have, well, free speech, and on the other, the bullies and other dicks who hide behind free speech.

As is often said, the test of how much one values free speech is how one applies it to the dickheads.

As for these particular individuals being punished, yes they deserved it. Judging by some of the charges against them, at least one apparently actually beat the Prince girl.

As for punishing them because the Prince girl committed suicide, the very idea is preposterous. It's perfectly legitimate to punish one person because they harmed another, but to punish one person because another harmed themself is ridiculous.

There's a difference between free speech and deliberately verbally abusing someone to the point of snapping. Kind of like the classic example of how free speech doesn't protect you from getting punished for shouting "fire" in a theater when there actually isn't one.

I'm not one for revenge, per se, but probation and community service don't really convey to would-be bullies that, yo, these people pushed a girl into suicide here, and just because they didn't directly harm her doesn't mean they're not very, very culpable.

I think that's the crux of it, really. It's not a matter of dampening free speech, so much as it is closing the loophole of driving someone into death while being able to say, "Well, technically I didn't touch them."

edited 6th May '11 7:21:42 PM by Jeysie

I hope you're not pushing the "hate speech isn't free speech" meme.

Like I said, I find those girls contemptible, but people respond in many differing ways to insults, heckling and harrassment.

If passive-aggression were illegal, nations would be de facto penal colonies.

edited 6th May '11 7:24:41 PM by MRDA1981

Kinda hard to prove their goal was to push her until she snapped. For all we know the final straw was mom making waffles instead of pancakes.

I do feel they got off too light but jail time would not have had any reliable effect other then possibly making them worse. To start I would have had them doing thousands of community hours and longer probation. The one who assaulted her well that would be jail time. Bye bye baby. I would find some creative way to humiliate the others for their crime.

Sorry, I have a habit of coming up with thoughts after already posting, then editing them in. ^^; See my last paragraph for a better explanation of where I'm coming from.

edited 6th May '11 7:24:31 PM by Jeysie

"...just because they didn't directly harm her doesn't mean they're not very, very culpable. "

You're right in that it's perfectly possible to harm someone indirectly, and wrong in that these individuals did not cause Prince's suicide either directly or indirectly. She chose to do it herself, and it was her own responsibility.

I wonder how these girls will be able to look someone in the eye again...

No, they couldn't have predicted she'd have that specific reaction, but they certainly were making a concerted effort to hurt her badly mentally. And the fact that they get off so lightly for it just proves what I said in my initial post: We treat psychological abuse way too lightly compared to physical abuse.

I don't want to abrogate free speech in any way, but there has to be some way to also deal with someone causing severe mental harm, not just with severe physical harm. That doesn't amount to the same sort of slap on the wrist you'd get for a minor misdemeanor.

edited 6th May '11 7:29:01 PM by Jeysie

It's amazing that incidents like these are still happening, considering the number of court cases that had been made over similar case.