Posted on 02/17/2009 4:22:46 PM PST by NCjim
Ask yourself: should the police be involved when tipsy teen girls e-mail their boyfriends naughty Valentine's Day pictures?
Say you're a middle-school principal who confiscated a cell phone from a 14-year-old boy, only to discover it contains a nude photo of his 13-year-old girlfriend. Do you (a) call the boy's parents in despair; (b) call the girl's parents in despair; or (c) call the police? More and more, the answer is (d) all of the above. Which could result in criminal charges for both of your students, and their eventual designation as sex offenders. "Sexting" is the clever new name for the act of sending, receiving or forwarding naked photos via your cell phone, and I wasn't fully convinced that America was facing a sexting epidemic, as opposed to a journalists-writing-about-sexting epidemic, until I saw a new survey done by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. One teenager in five reported having sent or posted naked photos of themselves. Whether all this reflects a new child-porn epidemic, or just a new iteration of the old teen narcissism epidemic, remains unclear.
Last month, three girls (ages 14 or 15) in Greensburg, Pa., were charged with disseminating child pornography for sexting their boyfriends. The boys who received the images were charged with possession. A teenager in Indiana faces felony obscenity charges for sending a picture of his genitals to female classmates. A 15-year-old girl in Ohio and a 14-year-old girl in Michigan were charged with felonies for sending nude images of themselves to classmates. Some of these teens have pleaded guilty to lesser charges. Others have not. If convicted, these young people may have to register as sex offenders, in some cases for a decade or two.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
No!
ugh...brave new world
I’m sure I will be told that we have to stick with the old standards, but we really need a new line in the sand about what requires registering as a sex offender.
yup toss the book at them and the parents
No way. Unless her boyfriend happens to be 47.
OK. This is just dumb... and we wonder why our criminal system is so overworked...
That'll teach 'em!
Sigh...
Eventually sex offender registries are going to be meaningless when they're filled up with kids like these. Serial pedophiles and violent rapists are going to blend in easily on registries full of public urinators, johns and hookers, mooners, skinnydippers and now "sexters."
Maybe that's the point.
Let the parents handle it!
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
bttt
That's exactly the point.
I thought there should be such a line when I was caught making out with my husband (not before we were married, after) in my vehicle on a mountain by a ranger. He told us if we had been ticketed we would have had to register as sex offenders.
Not the Police, but the parents of both kids. Its a lost art to simply hash out a problem with another school kid or nieghbor without involving police or the courts. Take away the devices when they are abused that enable this behavior is a starting point.
What gives him the authority to do that?
I would say:
E) Get a new line of work. You suck at your present one.
Call the parents. Don’t hesitate. Bring the kids to the office, get the parents there WHEREVER they are and do not allow the kids to leave, or back into the school, until they have visited with:
1. A Doctor (for a checkup - yes even little girls get awful STD’s)
2. Their Pastor/Priest or whoever they have
THEN call the Department of Social Services. I know - they are idiots - but that is the protocol and it should be observed.
The Gobmint would have you do it the other way around - call them first - but the other two MIGHT NOT HAPPEN if you do.
After EVERYONE has had a meeting (altogether, in the same room, in some cases it is called a CHINS, or Child in need of support) the next course of action should be decided.
Something is wrong and there should be an adult somewhere in that chain, I hope, to help sort it out.
Let’s stop this BS about how “normal” it is to send kiddie porn around the internet.
Probably one of the best moves I ever made in raising a teen was when I got her a cell phone I had texting and internet blocked on her phone.
In all honesty it was because I knew she could not be trusted to limit her use of those facilities but had I ever read about such things I would have been on the phone the next minute to have them blocked.
Let the parents of the “denuded” child decide whether or not charges should be pressed.
That way the school is protected from “outraged” parents .
Exactly!
I don’t want sex offender lists muddied up with kids who moon other kids, people who are caught urinating in public, or even kids who engage in this disgusting practice of “sexting.”
Of course...I also don’t think REAL sex offenders should ever be let out of jail, either, but since they are, let’s keep the sex offender list a moderately useful one.
***Sigh***
And people wonder why I don’t let my kids have cell phones.
Regards,
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