Harassment has become a major problem facing the United States today. The American Psychological Association reports that approximately 40 to 80 percent of children are involved in bullying at some level while in school. (APA, 2014) The scale of the problem can be seen in the statistics. In the United States, a total of 4,080,879 children ages five to 18 were victims of bullying, compared to 3,892,199 who reported bullying someone else. Additionally, 851,755 people reported being both victims and bullies. That's 8,824,833 people in the United States who have been involved in bullying behavior on one level or another. (High, B., 2000 Census) Before we can effectively identify and understand bullying trends, we must first understand what bullying is. The most common definition of bullying is intentionally and habitually causing physical or emotional harm or pain to another. There is a major flaw in this definition. Pain is subjective, therefore the pain, or the extent of it, cannot be seen directly, nor be felt by anyone other than the person feeling it. Therefore, simply defining bullying as “causing pain” leaves it up to individual interpretation as to what constitutes bullying or not. Perhaps a better definition would be any act, physical, verbal, or otherwise, that a person perceives as a threat to their physical, emotional, or psychological well-being. This definition is not flawless either. This is admittedly a fairly broad definition and could probably lead to a rather vague use of the term “bullying”. However, in order to accurately define what constitutes and does not constitute bullying, we must judge each...... middle of paper ...... http://www.bullypolice.orgBullying at school. (nd) Retrieved from http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_bullyingBolton, Jose. & Grave, Stan. (2005). No Room for Bullies: From the Classroom to Cyberspace. Boys Town, Nebraska: Boys Town Press. Office of Statistics and Programming, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC using WISQARS™. (2010). Top 10 causes of death by age group, United States-2010. CDC.gov. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/leadingcauses.htmlBullying Statistics, Stop Bullying, Harassment and Anti-Bully in School/Work. (2013) Bullying and suicide. Retrieved from http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/bullying-and-suicide.htmBully Police USA: A watchdog organization, advocating for bullied children and reporting on national anti-bullying laws (2012). Retrieved from http://www.bullypolice.org