Bullying in schools: It's not a crime - is it?

The nature and prevalence of school bullying, and the detrimental and serious impact that it has upon its victims, has been the focus of research and debate since the early 1980s. Where a response is made to incidents of bullying, this is typically seen as the domain of the school, which has a powerful role to play in terms of socialising and disciplining its pupils. From the perspective of the victims of bullying, I argue that despite the existence of school disciplinary mechanisms, intervention by those working within the criminal justice arena is appropriate in two situations. First are situations where school measures are ineffective and the school is unable or unwilling to tackle the bullying. Second are situations that are too serious to be dealt with by the school alone. This issue is rarely discussed in literature on bullying. Using Lacey's metaphor of a set of lenses, I examine the 'criminalisation' of bullying, both at a formal level and at a practical level. I draw upon research that has studied the attitudes of adults and children to crime generally, as well as a qualitative survey of teachers, in order to explore the social construction of bullying as a crime and barriers to this.