No Jail Time in Prince Case

Given that Bazelon’s exceptional reporting on the subject convinced me that the prosecutions that followed in the wake of Phoebe Prince’s suicide ranged from “dubious” to “outrageous,” it’s almost certainly a good thing that none of the six people charged will be going to jail.   The Prince case does bring up important issues about the effects of bullying and sexist double standards, but I remain unconvinced that on this particular set of facts criminal law was the right remedy.   Not having a “kids will be kids” attitude toward bullying is a great thing; trying to send people to jail for writing mildly unkind things about people on a third party’s Facebook wall really isn’t.

…since I’m being criticized in comments for things I didn’t say in this post and specifically contradict in my more extensive writing on the subject conveniently linked in the first sentence above, allow me to link again.