NORTH TONAWANDA, N.Y. — Victoria Crago saw bullying affect her family for the first time on May 8.

The mother of five was leaving a dollar store when a boy approached her 13-year-old son.

"The young man sucker punched him right in the face and I was hysterical," Crago said.

Crago said her son had previously gone to school with the other boy before the young man was expelled.

She called police, filed a report and spoke to a juvenile detective.

"The more I learned about how the hands of the school officials and the law enforcement officials are tied when it comes to minors, I thought that we needed to have some kind of local community group to help affect some changes in those areas."

So she started the North Tonawanda Coalition for Safe Schools & Streets.

Crago says since the group started, she has heard from countless parents and community members about their experiences, and 40 to 50 people now go to monthly meetings.

She says she didn't realize the anti-bullying law was on the table until recently, but is optimistic about what it can accomplish.

"It gives our law enforcement, it gives our city attorney a little bit of bite when it comes to these repeat offenders who we have tried to offer some services to them, to their families time and time again and they have not been accessed, they've been refused, the kids have been brought home after curfew multiple times," Crago said.

Pamela Schuetze is a psychology professor at Buffalo State.

She says there hasn't been much research on laws like these because there aren't many on the books.

She says while it doesn't hurt to try something like this, she doesn't believe it will prove effective.

"I think it's definitely something that should be looked at. One of the things though that we know about children and their brains are that they're not necessarily thinking about the consequences of their actions all the time,” Schuetze said. “They can be impulsive, so something that is going to punish their parents is probably not going to be the best deterrent for the child. But again, it might impact how the parents approach these behaviors."

Amanda Nickerson is the Director of the Alberti Center for Bullying Abuse Prevention at the University at Buffalo.

She says that jailing or fining parents won't give them skills that are needed to control their children's behavior.

Nickerson says there are a few key questions for parents to ask if they are worried about their child being a bully.

"Why is this behavior occurring? What's the function? Is it that your child him or herself has been bullied and they're lashing out? Has it been modeled for them? Are they trying to get something with it... peer attention, something else, and then work so they can get those things in better ways," Nickerson said.

Nickerson also says it’s important to instill empathy and show kids there are consequences for their actions.