Got Teens?
May want to have a chat with them about this. Six middle-school boys face kiddie porn rap for “sexting.” via Boston Herald:
FALMOUTH - Six middle school students could face child porn charges after a boy took a nude photo of his 13-year-old girlfriend and “sexted” it to his pals’ cell phones, cops said.
The six boys, ages 12 to 14, will be summoned to Falmouth District Court for a hearing to determine whether they should be charged with possessing, exhibiting or distributing child porn in the form of a text message photo, according to The Cape Cod Times.
Wendy Murphy, who lectures on sex crimes at the New England School of Law, said “sexting” almost has become an “epidemic.” Murphy said, “I know it seems heavy-handed to bring child porn charges. Law enforcement is using the only tool it has for what has become a huge problem nationwide.”
Columbia University Professor Sari Locker said surveys suggest one in five teens has sent or received nude or semi-nude pictures. “When boys receive a nude picture of a girl, they think the next time they see her they can go further with her in a sexual way than before,” she said. “It becomes an invitation to advance a sexual relationship.” But Locker said she believes criminal charges are excessive: “Clearly these boys are not sexual predators or pedophiles.”
So, would any juvie judge send them up on kiddie porn charges? Maybe, maybe not. That carries the prospect of lifelong sex offender status. Regardless, for the boys, there would be humiliation, the stress of legal proceedings, and the lawyer’s bill. Then, there’s the prospect of a civil suit. There’s also the possibility, if not kiddie porn charges, of harassment charges. Then, there’s the girl and her humiliation and trauma. Suppose a humiliated, traumatized teen hangs herself. That might seem extreme, but it wouldn’t be the first time Internet hijinks have had that result. Let’s just say, as happened in Billerica, Mass., a couple of weeks ago, the nude photo is “sexted” to up to 100 kids. What happens to a girl after that? Her fault for posing or the boys’ fault for sending it around? Kids do dumb things. Nothing new about that. These days, the potential for serious consequences are ratcheted up a little.
Little bits of electronic dynamite, those phones. I’m glad my kids have them. I can get reach them when I need to, and they can reach me. But it’s a minefield of a brave new world.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:34 am on Wednesday, February 11, 2009
3 Responses to “Got Teens?”
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February 11th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Saddling a 12 to 14 year old boy with a lifetime sex offender label is not acceptable. But there should be consequences. I can tell you if I had ever caught my son, or been told about, pulling this kind of crap, he’d have lost that phone (and a bunch of other privileges) for a period of time lasting long enough to hurt. And I would have forced him to apologize to the girl face-to-face, as well as a public apology to the school and an assembly speech explaining exactly why it was wrong. Even if he felt he was being treated unfairly (I took away his computer once, and he did think he was a victim), I don’t care. The humiliation before his friends would have been enough to ensure he never did it again.
Unfortunately, parents don’t do these things anymore. They think it might hurt the little darling’s self-esteem.
February 11th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Oh, and by the way, if my daughter had ever put herself in the position to be photographed like that, she and I would have done a few dances too.
February 11th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
The consequence of this will be, people will stop caring. First the authorities will stop pursuing such cases; then they’ll stop taking such cases, finally people will stop reporting them. Reporting a picture of a skyclad 13 or 14 year old child will be considered a nuisance call, possibly leading to charges against the caller.
We are talking about a population without a lick of sense after all. Kids will take skyclad pictures, kids will share those skyclad pictures. Before you know it, kids taking and sharing skyclad pictures will be part of life, and those who complain about it will be considered tiresome loons.
We heard about this one incident. We don’t hear of the others that pass right under the radar. The time will come when we’ll realize how much of our resources are being taken up by these cases, and how hopeless our prospects are. We’ll adapt to kids taking and sharing skyclad pictures; because we have to, and because we’ll realize how harmless it all really is. We’ll become more accepting of early adolescent behavior.
We’ll get over it.