Treating bullying as everyone's problem reduces incidence in primary schools

I always found it really frustrating that a "zero tolerance" policy to bullying seemed to disproportionately affect people who eventually fight back.

I would guess it's a combination of "nobody sees the first hit" (since your attention is elsewhere, of course) and that bullies get quite good at testing boundaries and thus know how to avoid detection.

But, really, it's truly frustrating that as I child I was bullied relentlessly, and when I finally took my parents advice and stood my ground, I was expelled from school (due to zero tolerance). Those bullies continued to torment some other kids, of course.

This is far from an uncommon situation, over the years I've heard many more scenarios like this.

Total agree. It’s the growing problem of actively exploited code of conduct schemes. See the topic of “reactive abuse“. The original abusers win, since they are the experts in violence and know how to leave no evidence. The victims who use violence usually as last resort in defense lose. Then society loses again because some of the prior victims will turn their frustration against this injustice into further violence.

School mismanagement of bullying (and of course first and foremost bad parenting) breeds narcissists and psychopaths. Who then work their way into positions of control and power to continue to implement the same literally insane principles of punishment and force them onto others to make others suffer the same hell they suffer, out of a deep seated and misdirected desire for revenge.

Restorative justice would be key to break this cycle, but of course narcissists know to prevent this from happening.