The recent approval of a reform in the Salta Contraventional Code has ignited a debate that transcends provincial borders. The regulations, promoted to combat bullying, establish sanctions ranging from financial fines to arrest for those parents or guardians whose children are involved in bullying situations and who, after being notified, do not demonstrate “collaboration” to resolve the conflict. Under the argument of combating violence in the classrooms, this measure installs a logic that generates more questions than solutions: Is punitive law the way to rebuild school coexistence?
There are times when the law seems to act faster than it can reflect. Faced with complex social phenomena, the temptation to offer immediate answers usually prevails over the need – less visible but more urgent – to understand what is really happening. The decision to sanction parents for situations of school bullying carried out by their children once again brings to light that tension between regulatory speed and institutional depth.
The problem of bullying is undeniable. It hurts, worries and demands state intervention. But recognizing the seriousness of a phenomenon does not authorize any type of legal response. On the contrary, the more sensitive the conflicts involving girls, boys and adolescents are, the greater care should be taken regarding the law when intervening.
The initiative is based on a seemingly simple premise: if children commit violence, parents must respond. Logic is intuitive and, precisely for that reason, dangerous. Because transforms a relational phenomenon, built in multiple social spaces, into an individual responsibility susceptible to sanction. Where a collective problem appears, the law looks for a specific recipient for the reproach.
However, bullying is not born in a vacuum nor can it be explained solely by parental failures. It is a complex expression that involves school dynamics, social conditions, contemporary modes of connection and also the institutional limitations themselves to build coexistence. Reducing this plot to an infraction attributable to responsible adults implies simplifying what precisely requires a comprehensive view.
The appeal to “cooperation” between family and school as the basis for the sanction introduces another paradox. Cooperation cannot arise under threat. The bond between educational institutions and families is strengthened through trust, support and co-responsibility, not through preventive suspicion or eventual punishment. When the law enters this space from a punitive logic, it modifies the nature of the bond it claims to protect: it no longer calls for participation, but rather warns of possible consequences.
The displacement is deep although not very visible. Parental responsibility stops being thought of as a care function accompanied by public policies and begins to be configured as a duty whose effectiveness is measured by the absence of conflict. The problem is that parenting – like any human experience – does not allow absolute guarantees. Pretending otherwise means attributing to families a control that not even the State itself is able to exercise within its institutions.
Added to this is a tension that is difficult to resolve: If responsibility for parenting is shared, how is the penalty distributed? What happens in contexts of fragmented care, economic inequality or family ties crossed by multiple vulnerabilities? Contravention law offers simple answers because it is designed for simple conflicts. But contemporary family life is not.
Thus, the risk consists of displacing towards families what actually challenges the entire social system. The more complex the structural intervention is, the more attractive the sanctioning solution seems. Punishment produces an immediate sensation of state action, even when its transformative capacity is limited.
The most effective experiences against school violence show another path: interdisciplinary approaches, restorative practices, sustained construction of coexistence and real support for students and responsible adults. It is not about the absence of law, but about a different intervention, aimed at rebuilding ties rather than individualizing blame.
Law achieves its greatest legitimacy when it resists the pressure to offer easy answers to difficult problems. Because expanding the scope of punishment may generate momentary relief, but it rarely modifies the conditions that give rise to conflicts.Perhaps the time has come to remember that protecting is not about punishing more, but about understanding better. Because law that simplifies complexity can offer quick answers, but it rarely offers justice.
