States push for cyberbully controls

    Abbott Koloff writes an article for USA Today about how many states are trying to put an end to cyber bullying.  The article gives examples students that were being bullied online and they ended their own lives because of it.  Now a number of states are trying to impose laws that will either give local law enforcement agencies or school districts more control to prevent this type of violence from occurring.  Some officials are leery of passing any laws because they feel that it will impose on free speech. 

            I feel that cyber bullying is a very important issue and needs to be taken very seriously.  Not only are kids made fun of at school, but now there are so many ways they can be misrepresented and made a joke of outside of school.  The expanded use of technology has given kids the ability to say things about someone anonymously, which will cause a problem when it comes time to punish them.  I feel that law enforcement agencies are the ones who need to be in control of this problem since they are the group responsible for controlling any type of harassment anyway.  They can work with the schools to get names, find circles of friends, and use the school to find the actual kids to punish.  I have found that most kids are not necessarily scared of their teachers or principals, but are scared of a police officer.  I hope that the major social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace work together with law enforcement to allow them to patrol private messages and conversations from kids that have been found to pose an issue.  The most important role in this problem is parental involvement.  If parents talk to their children about peer pressure and respecting others’ feelings, that will catch most of the problems before they begin.