Why is it in our society that the victim of bullying is required to change instead of the bully?

Take any crime you may well imagine - rape; murder; assault; robbery; etc. - and you will find that our society as a whole is intolerant of it, as indicted by the fact that we have a justice system set up to punish those that transgress.

In all of these crimes some form of harm is being done to the victim. Yet when it comes to bullying a strange thing is seen, instead of a perpetrator (the bully) being subjected to a system of where by they are required to 'pay back' their debt, we see that it is in fact the victim of the bullying that is required to change. Society in effect turns its back on the victim in favour of protecting the perpetrators right to free speech and act, even if that right is used to cause harm to another.

Now the detrimental effects of bullying are well known from anecdotal sources and psychological studies of both children in school and adults in the workplace. Bullying is linked to stress, low self esteem, physical and medical complications, injuries and illness caused by physical abuse and has even been linked as a major contributing factor to teenage suicide. Please see http://www.bullyoffline.org/workbully/index.htm and http://www.beyondblue.org.au/index.aspx?link_id=69... (fact sheet 17) for more info, but this is by no means the only sources out there.

So bearing in mind that our society is intolerant of actions that cause harm to other individuals, as evidenced by the fact that there is a justice system in place (its record of getting it right is not at issue here), why is it that our society in general expects a victim of bullying to change thier actions and does nothing to alter the behaviour of the bully?