by Krystal Paco

Guam - Bullying today is more than a bigger student taking your lunch money. Bullying has evolved with technology, making it harder to combat even with strong legislation.

The Judiciary of Guam and the Guam Department of Education have teamed up to host BASTA (Bullying Affects Students, Teachers and All), a three-day conference on bullying prevention. Today's participants learned that bullies come in all shapes and sizes. Executive director and founder of Community Matters, a non-profit organization that empowers youth to be peacemakers in their schools Rick Phillips told KUAM News, "When I was a little boy, a bully was a big aggressive male who wanted to take my lunch money. Now it can be a 10-year-old girl with just a press of a button who spreads a rumor about somebody."

Phillips adds that with today's technology, bullies have more outlets to mistreat others. "Bullying is younger, it's meaner, it's also harder to identify as young people learn to use social media, sexting, texting, YouTube, and all these variety of ways," he said.

Despite Guam legislation to combat bullying and cyberbullying in schools, Phillips says the ultimate solution is courage, to make it cool to be compassionate than it is to be cruel. "This epidemic that's growing across Guam and every other place about bullying is really about intolerance. You can't legislate it, you can't punish kids into being nice to each other. What it's really about is waking up the courage of young people to speak up when they see one of their friends say or do something unfair or unkind," he said.

Because bullying often goes unreported, Guam statistics are not yet available. According to Judiciary of Guam records, school bullies are three times more likely to enter into or have three or more criminal convictions by age 24. Tonight a special parent workshop is scheduled and the conference closes out tomorrow. To learn more about bullying prevention on Guam, visit the Guam Anti-Bullying Organization website at GuamABO.com.