Laws are put in place to punish harassment, despite the many overlaps of similarities it has with bullying. According to the Grab a Bully by the Horns website, an anonymous admin writes that bullying and harassment have different motivations behind their acts. Bullying can be subtle while harassment is much more identifiable and therefore, more noticeable and dealt with accordingly. In my opinion, bullying seems to be on par or even worse than harassment. Commonly found in a workplace environment, laws protect them from being subject to harassment. Unfortunately, bullying is not officially punishable by law, and the victims are commonly children. Children who are most likely not as well adjusted as the average adult. I want to argue that bullying should be punishable by law. While not as extreme as serving jail time, a law should be put in place to protect children at school as it does for adults in the work place.
The reasons why bullying should be punishable by law is due to its similarities of nature with harassment. The two seem deeply rooted with each other and it is not a far stretch to say that harassers can commit acts of bullying. People who fall subject to harassment can usually walk away from the incident without any type of emotional scarring. This cannot be said the same with victims of bullying. According to the Bullying Statistics website, the consideration of suicide is higher within bully victims. Suicide that is motivated by being a victim of bullying is termed bullycide. Just as there are actions made to prevent suicide; there are actions to prevent bullying. While there are laws put in place to prevent bullying, these laws do not necessarily punish the bully or bullies. Offenders of harassment are commonly placed into a type of probationary period and to attend an awareness seminar on their offense. This would be the type of punishment that not only should be for the bully, but for the parents of the bully offender as well. In