Stephen Jones Thesis (Final).pdf (2.26 MB)
'Sufficiently serious behaviour'? When should cyberbullying by children be subject to criminal law?
thesis
posted on 2023-02-23, 23:31 authored by Stephen Alwyn JonesCyberbullying is a term that is generally understood in the broader community. However, the term lacks a legal meaning. Because of this, there has been a tendency to shoehorn cyberbullying into existing criminal law provisions such as stalking or using communications technology to menace, harass or cause offence. The thesis examines the threshold at which cyberbullying by children is considered ‘sufficiently serious’ to warrant criminalisation and argues for significant reform to ensure that children (and the broader community) better understand the limits placed on bullying behaviour in all of its forms.