Proposal for criminalization of cyberbullying among children

The chapter has been written against the background of a widespread phenomenon of social network violence among young adults and of the difficulties encountered by all strata of the legal system in identifying, indicting, and convicting minors of such behaviours. With this in mind, the present article seeks to foreground harmful behavioural phenomena among male and female children which takes place on social networks and to present a rethinking of existing law. The authors seek to offer a new model for handling the phenomenon of online violence among young adults centred on the formulation of three "aggravating categories," that would facilitate the examination of violent online acts as acts justifying criminalization. These would be the harmful communication's extent of sexuality, degree of intensity, and extent of violence, with one of the three sufficing for the application of the criminal offense. The aggravating categories are meant for distinguishing between anti-social behaviours which should not be criminalized and which require extra-criminal, and even extra-legal handling, and anti-social behaviours that constitute severe and substantial violations of social values and thus necessitate criminal regulation.