An elderly woman is "terrorised" by teenagers in a Dunedin suburb; a procession of spouses and partners appears before the Family Court on domestic violence offences; a Housing New Zealand employee is intimidated into leaving her Wellington home; an overbearing Cabinet minister is accused of strong-arm tactics in a parliamentary select committee; and a major report is released proclaiming an alarming problem of violence in schools.
It is the last of these that attracts the largest headlines and the loudest soundbites, but "bullying" it seems, of varying kinds and to different degrees, occurs in all sectors and at all levels of society.
The focus on schools is understandable in as much as they represent a containable site, our children spend a considerable proportion of their young impressionable lives there, and because the State, acting in loco parentis, is held to be accountable for all that takes place therein.
But they are not the beginning and the end of the problem.
The latest report, prepared by the Office of the Commissioner for Children and the Human Rights Commission, released ahead of a school violence summit in Wellington last week, suggests there are "glaring gaps" in national guidelines for schools dealing with bullying.
It also raises questions about whether the Education Review Office, which is charged with overseeing schools' anti-bullying systems, is up to the job.
Its main message is that schools must work to change cultures within, and foster safe reporting systems, rather than simply cracking down on individual bullies.
It recommends implementation of increased staff training, confidential reporting and better systems to communicate with parents, police and other agencies.
Shorter lunch-break times and staggered bell times to decrease the number of unsupervised pupils in the playground at any one time are also suggested.
The view of the Otago Secondary Principals Association is that much of this work is in hand, that bullying is recognised as a problem - in its many evolving forms, for example text bullying - and that strategies are constantly being developed to deal with the problem.
Association chairman and Kaikorai Valley College principal Philip Craigie suggested that Otago schools were safe because they were proactive and already had good systems in place.
But he also put his finger on the larger issue: "Problems that spill in from home, or a lack of family environment, are the hardest to deal with."
While attempts to prevent bullying in schools are to be commended and supported, it is all too easy to isolate the problems inherent in this sort of behaviour to the schoolyard.
The concrete jungle extends well beyond the school gates.
Most psychologists and social scientists would argue that anti-social attitudes and actions are "learned" in the home environment.
Children bring to school behaviour that they have either learnt or observed in the living room, the kitchen or the backyard.
It is thus both unfair and unrealistic to expect schools, in addition to their primary teaching mission - as many a principal has complained - to act as day-care facilities for wayward youths and proto-criminals.
And nor, today, do there exist the disciplinary tools for schools and teachers to be able to do this.
Savvy children and their sometimes indulgent parents are all too ready to cite their rights - while all to readily unhitching those rights from any notion of responsibility - and to challenge the authority of the school or the teacher when asked to face the consequences of unruly or unacceptable activity.
So while it is undeniably true that schools today have an issue with bullying and violence - and no-one is denying that - it is equally true that, while setting sights on eliminating violence from the playground will adjust and modify for the better some problematic potential dangers and problems, this course is not, nor cannot ever be, a panacea for all of society ills.
The recent report makes good points and is welcome in as much as it draws attention once again to a national problem.
But it is not a problem that either originates in the school ground, or is in any way confined to it.
