Phoebe Prince

I saw an article in the New York Times yesterday that 9 teens have been charged with a variety of felony charges in the suicide case of Phoebe Prince, a 15-year-old high school student who hung herself in January after being subjected to serious harassment by her classmates. Apparently Phoebe had just transferred to the school (in Massachusetts) from Ireland that fall, and after briefly dating a popular senior at the school, several students started taunting her, threatening her, and spreading rumors about her. The day of her suicide was particularly bad, with a car of students following her home, calling her names, and even throwing a soda can at her. From what I heard around the actual time of her death, the students involved didn’t even show any remorse when interviewed about her death by the police.

I, for one, am glad that legal action is being taken. I understand that there are a lot of issues to deal with here (free speech vs. harassment, etc.), but I think someone needs to take responsibility for the actions those students took – and apparently their parents were either unaware or unconcerned with their behavior. The article also mentions that there were several teachers/administrators aware of the situation at the school, but nobody reported anything or tried to do anything about it.

It should be noted that much of the harassment was in the form of text messaging, which again makes me wonder if these kids were being monitored at all by their parents (I don’t have kids, so I’m unaware of how involved parents generally are in the texting/social network lives of their children). The NYT article also links to another article, where it is reported that the average American teenager sends and receives approximately 80 text messages a day. I just can’t imagine anything terrible good can come from teenagers spending that much time texting.

Anyway, as far as the Phoebe Prince case goes, I’m pleased that a precedent is being set for legal action in these cases of extreme bullying in schools. I think it was probably a necessary step to take now that bullying doesn’t necessarily just take place at school, but now, with texting and social networking, can literally be inescapable.

Link to the DA’s statement on Phoebe’s Death