Dismissed but still reappearing... The Never-Ending Well of School Violence

School Violence - Discipline - Measures - Vicious Cycle of School Violence
Limitations in Proving and Investigating Past School Violence
Recently Evolved into Cyber Violence
Firm Punishment Needed for Eradication

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Dong-hoon] The 'school violence Me too (Me too·I was also a victim)' movement, which began in the sports world, is spreading to the entertainment industry and even to the general public.

The controversy over school violence perpetrators, starting with female professional volleyball players Lee Jae-young and Lee Da-young, shows no signs of dying down. After their past school violence records were exposed on online communities on the 10th, they have faced social condemnation. On the 15th, they received severe disciplinary actions, including indefinite suspension and disqualification, from their teams and the national team. This controversy has spread to male professional volleyball players Song Myung-geun and Shim Kyung-seop of OK Financial Group, with further revelations of school violence victimization, including claims of surgery during their first year of high school. The school violence Me too movement has extended from the sports world to the general public, with ongoing school violence allegations against airline employees, children of education superintendents, and taekwondo gym directors circulating mainly on online communities.

The vicious cycle of school violence, disciplinary actions, countermeasures, and then school violence repeats itself. Various sectors such as education and sports issue countermeasures whenever school violence controversies arise, but it remains difficult to provide evidence and verify past school violence, making it challenging to establish grounds for disciplinary actions.

School violence leaves lifelong trauma (psychological scars) for victims. Some victims suffer from trauma to the extent that they make extreme choices. The fact that victims come forward with school violence Me too allegations even after becoming adults shows how deeply the pain of school violence during their school years remains as a severe wound.

Recently, violence in schools has decreased overall, but cases of group bullying and cyberbullying have relatively increased. According to the '2020 School Violence Survey' conducted by the Ministry of Education from September to October last year, targeting about 3.57 million students from 4th grade elementary to 2nd grade high school nationwide, the types of victimization were highest in verbal violence (33.6%), group bullying (26.0%), and cyber violence (12.3%). Among these, group bullying increased by 2.8 percentage points and cyber violence by 3.4 percentage points compared to the previous year. The proportion of the other six types of victimization, including verbal violence, all decreased. Although physical violence declined due to COVID-19, violence still ran rampant online.

As school violence controversies continue, calls for firm punishment and thorough investigation rather than a lukewarm attitude or treating it as a thing of the past are gaining strength. Seung Jae-hyun, a research fellow at the Korea Institute of Criminology and Justice, emphasized, "Recent school violence has become more sophisticated and organized, often comparable in severity to adult violence. In such cases, it should be treated as a criminal case with active intervention by public authorities. Timely measures against perpetrators when violence occurs are the way to prevent secondary damage such as trauma."