Schoolyard Bullies See Life From Behind Bars

Prosecutor James C. Backstrom slides an edge of steel into his voice and lays out one of the toughest juvenile justice policies in the nation: School bullies will go to jail.

Beat up another kid, intimidate, harass, pick a fight on the playground or the bus, “and you will be looking at a minimum of one night in detention,” he says. “Too many kids in this country do not go to school every day because they’re scared of bullies. That is unacceptable. We’re not going to accept it here.”

Bullies may find themselves sentenced to community service as well, forced to clean up a park or scrub the windows of their school. They may have to pen an apology to their victims. They may be required to attend counseling. But Backstrom wants those who are at least 13 years old to hear a cell door click behind them. To spend at least part of a weekend locked up, alone and--he hopes--remorseful.

“It can be a real clear wake-up call for offenders who think bullying is a big joke,” he says.

Margaret Gruenes, a longtime elementary school principal in nearby Apple Valley, backs him all the way: “As a society, we are guided by rules. And the earlier a child learns there are consequences, the better off he is,” she argues. “That’s what life is about.”

The jail-for-bullies policy has been in effect since last spring here in Dakota County, a fast-growing swath of suburbia marching south from the Twin Cities. In theory, all six juvenile court judges are on board. But implementation has been spotty because each judge can define bullying for himself.

Some judges have been quick to put any kid who lashes out in jail. Others find reasons to excuse schoolyard fights--the kid was provoked, he’s under stress, he forgot his medication--and hand down more traditional sentences of community service or counseling.

Public defenders can work the system to get the less punitive judges. And they are skilled in making the case that the mission of juvenile court is to rehabilitate, not punish. “In some [bullying] cases, [jail] is probably appropriate,” says Tricia Rettler, the chief defense attorney for juvenile court. “I just don’t know if it cures the kid.”

Precise numbers are tough to come by, because the county does not track bullying cases separately from other juvenile assaults. Prosecutors estimate that about a dozen bullies have done time behind bars since the program began. That works out to one jail sentence for every six or seven school-fight cases to reach the court.

And that’s enough to stir considerable controversy.

The suggestion that bullying may have been a factor in several high-profile school shootings has raised sensitivities among educators nationwide.

No one wants to write off taunting and fighting as an inevitable part of school life. Several states, including Oregon and Michigan, require school districts to develop anti-bullying policies; Nebraska and Washington are considering such measures this month. California has a new law that requires school districts to institute bullying prevention programs.

Yet putting teenagers in jail for behavior that one principal here described as “part of the middle school personality” strikes some as extreme.

“It seems to me there are deeper issues that many bullies have, and I’m not sure a night in jail is going to change them,” said Mary Montaigne, a Dakota County Public Health Department supervisor.

Middle school teacher Kristina Clark raises a less philosophical objection. Her concern is practical: Only physical assaults or serious threats end up before the court. That leaves out the verbal bullying that she finds far more common--and every bit as dangerous. “It’s a daily picking, relentless little comments making fun of someone’s clothes or hair, calling someone [names].” In her school, some students fall prey to such bullying all day. “It’s horrible,” Clark says.

It’s also pervasive. A study released this month by the National Crime Prevention Council found that 42% of teens see at least one bullying or taunting incident in school every day. An additional 26% see such episodes once a week.

The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that every day 160,000 students miss school because they fear harassment by bullies. That statistic rings true for Backstrom: His own daughter, now 13, was subjected to such merciless teasing last year that at times she was reluctant to go to school.

Much-publicized research from Norway, meanwhile, suggests that school bullies are significantly more likely than their peers to commit crimes as adults.

Motivated by the statistics and his daughter’s experience, Backstrom worked with county judges last year to develop the tough-line policy. Before it was implemented, most bullies were referred to a Peer Court, with high schoolers serving as jurors under a judge’s supervision. Typical sentences there included mandatory essays, early curfews or letters of apology. Backstrom, however, wanted more.

“We need to identify the behavior early, before it escalates,” Backstrom says. “We need to try to put a stop to it.”

Dakota County already was coming down tough on other juvenile offenders. There is a curfew for all kids every night of the week, varying by age. (The penalty is $55 for the first violation and goes up from there.) And teens who so much as attempt to purchase alcohol may have their driver’s license confiscated. Backstrom recently started designating all crimes on school campuses as priority cases; his prosecutors must file charges within 36 hours of any incident, compared with the month it used to take. His office also has started urging incarceration for any students who tussle with their teachers.

Jailing bullies seemed a logical next step.

Which is how Brad Krueger ended up in court last spring.

Krueger, a high school senior, does not consider himself a bully. Yes, he and his friends jumped a kid last year on the front steps of Lakeville High. Yes, they beat him so severely that he had to go to the hospital. But the way Krueger tells it, the lopsided fight was justified: “He was mouthing off. We ended it.”

Prosecutors were not so understanding. They hauled Krueger into juvenile court on disorderly conduct charges. The judge took one look at the facts--several brawny buddies pounding a lone victim bloody--and pronounced Krueger ripe for a night or two in jail.

“It was outrageous,” Krueger says.

His public defender thought so too, and advised Krueger to plead not guilty. When the pretrial hearing rolled around a few weeks later, a different judge was on the juvenile bench. This one was less eager to put bullies behind bars. Instead, he sentenced Krueger to apologize to his victim and to put in 25 hours of community service, which turned out to involve scrubbing every window of the school and shampooing all the carpets.

“I thought it was a lot of punishment for a whole two punches I got in,” Krueger grumbles. Sobered by the threat of jail, however, he vowed to stay out of trouble.

So when another kid talked trash to him last month, Krueger reminded himself not to throw punches. “I wasn’t going to go to jail,” he says. Trouble was, he wasn’t going to walk away, either--so he grabbed his tormentor by the throat and held on tight. Once again, it was an uneven fight. The victim was much smaller. And Krueger found himself charged with fifth-degree assault.

But he had turned 18 just a few weeks before that fight and was no longer subject to juvenile court. Instead of facing detention, he wound up with a $240 fine. He’s looking for a job to help pay that debt. And he’s vowing, again, to stay clean.

He insists at first, with a swagger, that his renewed effort to maintain self-control has nothing to do with his brushes with the law. “I wouldn’t say this has taught me a lesson,” he scoffs. “I’m not going to get in any more fights, but it’s not because I’m afraid I’m going to get into trouble.” Then he stops. “Well, maybe it is.”

That’s the theory behind the Dakota County program. Even if most bullies manage to avoid incarceration, the hope is that by dangling a very public threat of jail time, the court will scare aggressors straight.

“We gave notice to the public [about this new policy], and it’s our hope that the notice itself will be a deterrent,” says Judge Richard Spicer, who chairs the county’s juvenile court. He has heard no complaints so far from parents of teenagers who have been incarcerated. Nor has he heard any glowing stories of bullies who emerge from a night in jail transformed.

“Is it working? I don’t know,” he says. “Will it work? I don’t know.”

The uncertainty reflects the novelty of Dakota County’s approach. Several national experts said they didn’t know of any similar programs.

The one that perhaps comes closest is in Pueblo, Colo., 110 miles south of Denver. There, Dist. Atty. Gus Sandstrom has for several years been sending shoplifters, pot smokers and other juvenile offenders to jail for a weekend if he deems them at risk of committing other crimes. The program is not aimed specifically at bullies, but teens convicted of assailing peers have found themselves locked up.

Sandstrom has not tracked recidivism rates. Yet he’s convinced his “shock treatment” works. “These kids tend to come out thinking, ‘That’s not a place I want to be.’ ”

Critics, however, liken the incarceration policy to the “scared straight” fad of the 1960s and ‘70s, when at-risk kids took field trips to prisons to listen to terrifying firsthand accounts of life behind bars. Most such programs later were abandoned as ineffective.

“I understand the rationale . . . , but [incarceration] is a fairly big stick,” says Susan Limber, a bullying expert at Clemson University. “You can get the same payoff with a lot less drastic measures.”