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Not if they end up on the sex offender registry. That really does have an detrimental effect on the rest of some kid's life, and it HAS happened before.
In any case, sex offender laws were designed to protect children from being sexually exploited by adults. The sentencing standards were developed to protect society from adult predators who are likely to re-offend because they are hard to rehabilitate, and likely to share pictures and video with other predators.
It was not intended to punish immature teenagers for getting horny.
Branding a kid for life over taking pictures of himself for his girlfriend is not productive to society. Ditto for receiving a photo he didn't ask for. It's pretty boneheaded.
Yes we should come up with some kind of punishment to discourage teens for doing this. But prosecuting them under the SAME laws we apply to actual child molesters? That's dumb.
I think there should be a separate, milder punishment for teens consensually exchanging pictures between themselves, and a harsher punishment for distributing the pictures past their original intended recipient. There should be NO punishment if you receive an unsolicited picture and immediately delete it. Perhaps there shoudl be a requirement to tell someone it was sent to you but that's about it.
The law in some states says you can also be prosecuted and deemed a sex offender for distributing pictures of yourself. This 16 and 17 year old girl and boy were officially charged as adults for the sex crimes and faced registering as sex offenders, but were ultimately pled down. Consensual
Here is Illinois law on the subject, for one state: "Adults risk embarrassment if their sext message is misdirected. But when a teenager (meaning a minor between 13 and 17) creates, sends, or receives a sext message in Illinois, he or she may have committed the criminal offense of child pornography. Sex offense laws predating the sexting phenomenon do not contemplate the ease and frequency with which teens send risque' pictures to each other from their phones. Nonetheless, they subject sexting teens to a myriad of felony charges and branding as a "sex offender.""https://www.isba.org/ibj/2010/04/sex...ojokeitsacrime
I'm not sure how often a minor is actually registered as a sex offender due to sexting, but the risk is definitely there because the law says it is in some states, and I'm sure it's happened here and there. Most kids are probably pled down, though.
My community experienced similar incidents at the Middle schools. Parents insisted the school and Police " do something". Charges were filed. Parents hired lawyers. Charges were dropped. Identities of kids were never disclosed beyond the mommy network and that was flawed.
Unless I am missing something, the free Phone Vault app requires a valid credit card to install.
I'm not sure if it was this story or another one, but the sexting thing I saw was in a middle school with students 11-14.
The HUGE problem I see here is that the kids apparently have zero clue that their pictures, once out there, are out there forever. How do you raise a child with so little understanding of things?
I don't think these kids should get registered as sex offenders. That's ridiculous and probably much more damaging, but there is something seriously wrong when kids are sending nudes to each other and turning it into a trading card game.
Anyone who thinks it's fine is nuts.
Kids are doing this in every public and private middle and high school.
There are drugs in every public and private middle and high school.
Parents who think their kid's school is somehow exempt from this phenomena likely have their heads buried in the sand.
As I understand it, in the very rare case where someone is convicted of a felony and required to register as a sex offender involves someone 18 or older and someone under 18 or the age of consent.
Back when, in the days of My Space, I installed spyware on our PC and told my daughter I was tracking every keystroke. It did not stop her from having flirtatious convos with strangers, including adults. Her reaction at the time was " everyone does it".
How easily this could have led to disclosing TMI or a plan to meet or trading pictures.
I eventually disabled My Space.
Never once dawned on me to demand her school " do something".
What is the latest news ? I doubt it if the teens will be prosecuted. Canon city is a very small town so this is big news to the residents.
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