Should cyberbullying be a crime? Canadian teachers seem to think so. Delegates at a meeting of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation conference recently voted to urges the government to change the Criminal Code to make cyberbullying an offence.

According to the federation, a survey of Canadians showed 34 per cent know a student who was a victim online. Twenty per cent know of a teacher who has been a victim.

While these numbers certainly do show there is a problem, some wonder if making cyberbullying a crime will be effective. A McGill University professor argues an educational campaign would be more effective than legislation that will leave a young person with a criminal record. An editorial in the Calgary Herald states the Criminal Code has all of the laws needed to handle cyberbullies.

What do you think? Is a separate cyberbullying law needed? Is something that would leave a teen with a criminal record for something like this too much?

Robin

This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 9:56 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.