Responding to bullying

One of my best friend's little brother just recently entered high school and has said that he is being subject to intense bullying, mostly verbal but sometimes physical (shoving and the like). The school's official policy is "Zero Tolerance" of violence of any kind -- including fighting in self-defense. I think this is crap and have told them as much in the past. (So far as I know, most schools have such a policy).

From personal experience, I've found that violence really is the most effective solution to dealing with bullies. They are mostly rational creatures: they only want to lord themselves over people who will easily submit to them, which is why bullies tend to form packs and pick on smaller, weaker kids. They always seek to maximize their rewards: if a kid fights back, then the reward for bullying is smaller compared to the effort put into it, and so the bully will move on to a more submissive target to again maximize the rewards for bullying. Obviously this is not efficient, but in the absence of a concerned and involved school administration, it's the only chance a victim of bullying really has.

The problem, of course, comes in with enforcing any other possible policy. If there were no Zero Tolerance policy, then the administrators would have to judge each instance of violence on a case-by-case basis to determine who started it and who was merely acting in self-defense. Of course, unless there's an administrator around at all times (and if there were, there'd be no bullying), they will have to rely on eyewitness accounts. As public schools are fetid pig ruts of conformity, nearby folks will almost always provide unbalanced accounts of what happened. The end result might be that either justice is not served or that administrators wind up having to enforce a zero-tolerance policy, anyway. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine how any fair and equitable system to deal with bullying could work.

Should schools keep or drop Zero Tolerance policies? If they should drop it, how should instances of bullying be treated by the school administration?

 

the bullied should go to the bathroom and punch himself on the arm hard enough to leave a bruise, it shouldn't hurt to bad to create the required effect. Then tell the zero tolerance school administration said bully and friends attacked him. Since it's zero tolerance this has to be treated as a full on assault. and then said bullied laughs at his intellectual handling of the situation. And the bullies get beat by their likely already abusive parents..

 

What causes a person to become a bullie? I can answer the question,
but not right now, and to me a Bullie is a lot of mouth with a bad
behavior problem. Myself I dislike punks who think they was bad azzes,
and to me I do not see the purpose of a internet bullie or one in
reality.

Most Bullies wants attention from people who can't be impressed.
Thereforth the bullie wants to acted a damn fool to get attention,
but most of the time people do ignore a clown like that, and all
bullies knows who to mess with or not mess with.

When I was a Moderator on another server I learned why some
sign into a chatroom or message board to start mess.
What I discovered is when a person signs online she or he is
fist free. Fist free means to be able to talk chit without getting
busted in the face for saying the wrong thing.

Some call it the freedom of speech, but I call it harrassment
online, and I do have the rights (That's what the terms of
service is about) to be protected against online intimindation.
I look at bullies as lonely person with nothing else better to
do, and to talk about bullies behavior only makes the bullie
acted up that much more.