Carrot & Stick

Once again teachers, anybody but the parent of the bully, must do something & be accountable. Can no one see what impossible nonsense this is? Schools have anti bullying strategies which quite rightly focus on trying to get to the bottom of why kids bully and sort out the problem, more often than not successfully. But in any population there is always a hard core who refuse to respond- and I mean 'refuse'. It is not the methods, dedication, psychology or what have you that fail. We don't want to admit it but some people are just determined to be bad. To capture their attention we need to stop using human rights in the way that was never intended i.e by protecting the perpetrator rather than the victim. Teachers property has been vandalised and they have been beaten & even killed intervening in bullying incidents. Parents of bullies threaten teachers - one even drove his car at a teacher. No one, let alone a teacher, is allowed to use the force that is necessary to restrain the determined bully. For a minority of thugs we need to bring back corporal punishment. They might then be receptive to rehabilitation. Right now they see the 'punishment' that we are allowed to dish out as a joke and an ASBO as a medal. Before anybody gets too excited at this such evidence as there is suggests that only something like 5% of young offenders would need this hardline. It is the gesture of last resort but it should be there.
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