Hey, kids: To cops, sexting and child porn are the same
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The “sexting” trend – where teens send provocative or naked photos of themselves via text message – might have just taken a turn for the even worse, with at least one middle school student being accused not only of distributing pictures of his naked, 8th grade girlfriend, but actually charging money to other students.
The Boston Herald reports that the Middlesex district attorney’s office is indeed looking into the case, which police believe may have involved 40-50 students who viewed the photo; but so far, Massachusetts officials have been reluctant to actually charge students with crimes, despite a number of high-profile sexting incidents throughout the state over the last couple years:
Local prosecutors have preferred to avoid criminal prosecution, as Leone did last year in a case at Marshall Middle School in Billerica, where the youths and their parents signed agreements to keep the matter out of court as long as they performed community service, completed a cyber-education program, wrote essays, stayed off Facebook and social networking sites, and did not use phones that can take or transmit photos.
Child pornography charges have been contemplated in previous cases, but ultimately officials have preferred other disciplinary measures. After a similar sexting case in Falmouth, Mass., last year, sex crimes expert Wendy Murphy told the Boston Herald, “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.” But after attempting to go easy on these kids, it now seems that being “heavy-handed” might indeed be the only way to deter young students from distributing inappropriate photos.
In addition to community and school programs telling kids that sexting and online bullying is wrong, MTV has launched a “digital abuse” awareness campaign, emphasizing that it’s “a thin line” between private and public photos. The cable channel has also created an MTV News special on sexting, and plans to devote an episode of its documentary series “True Life” to the issue.
I’m usually wary of campaigns that use punishment as the deterrent to bad behavior, but it certainly seems like explaining to teens the emotional and moral consequences of humiliating a person by disseminating naked pictures of him or her isn’t really working. If someone were to say, “Look, it’s not gonna be so funny when you’re getting charged with distributing child porn, forced to sign up for a sex offender registry, and won’t be allowed into college” then I’d sure as hell be scared out of doing it if I were still a teenager.
Teens also might need to be reminded of the youngsters who have killed themselves over cyber-bullying incidents over the last few years. If they’re made to understand that their actions can have very real, serious consequences – driving someone to kill themselves serious – then they might think twice about how aggressively they act online.
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Combining things like this with other means of criminalizing childhood like Zero Tolerance, one has to wonder what kind of people will take care of us when we’re old.
I agree, mostly, and certainly find a lot of zero-tolerance stuff to be ridiculous. I just think that at least in educating teens about these issues, teachers need to emphasize that what they’re doing is actually considered a serious crime, which they might not realize.
In response to another comment. See in context »Yes, sending a photo of someone without their permission is wrong. Embarrassment can lead to suicide, although out of the hundreds of thousands of children who have sent nude photos only maybe 2 have killed themself. This # is nil considering that a suicide happens every 40 seconds.
With permission, nude photos are not wrong. For over half of human history we were all naked. People only started wearing clothes about 72000 years ago. Not just adults but every child back then was also naked.
The adults who say a sex offender might see the photo, don’t you know that most sexual offenses against children are by people in the same household?
I also think its natural for police to want to charge kids–if they didn’t they would have less work to do & wouldn’t be enforcing laws.
[...] to the Boston Globe (via True/Slant), local police and prosecutors are investigating and considering child pornography charges in this [...]
I’ve actually been wondering about this for a while because for anyone who is at all in touch with the teenage crowd these days, sexting is a very real phenomenon that happens all the time. However, I’m thinking that this goes back to the days (not that it’s that far) of the digital camera, where people could take and distribute n00ds via email, without any consequences that could potentially come with developing them at your local CVS or Rite Aid (are you listening, Vanessa Hudgens?).
Not that I’m condoning sexting, but it’s probably obvious that MMS isn’t going away any time soon and will only progress to video when 4G becomes more widely available. I’m wondering if this is going to go the way of the “To Catch a Predator” game, where if you’re over 18 and propositioning/distributing it’s not ok, but if the parties involved are under 18, despite blue laws that might say otherwise, they can do what they want because there isn’t the adult/minor difference between them. In the end, I’m thinking it should be like weed. The punishment should go to the distributor, especially with cell phones, there’s no way you can control what you’re receiving.
And this kid who is making money off it, I hope his girlfriend breaks up with him.