posted
Absurd. I've had people text me unwanted sexually explicit texts that I have opened unwittingly. How on earth is that a felony? What is wrong with these people?
Posts: 3060 | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
If you are receiving child porn, you had better be careful. You could get into some serious trouble...
Posts: 571 | Registered: Mar 2001
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quote:Dante Bertani, chief public defender in Westmoreland County, Pa., where the students went to court, called the felony charges "horrendous." He says such treatment should be reserved for sex offenders, not teenagers who might've used poor judgment, but meant nothing malicious.
yeah, 'horrendous' is a pretty good way to describe those charges.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Phanto: I would not remain friends with someone who sent me child porn.
Read the article again. This is kids sending pictures of themselves to school friends. Then kids being kids, the friends share them with other friends until everyone on the team has a glamor shot of the head cheerleader as background for his cell phone. It's stupid. But so is spiked hair and columns of His Name written inside the cover of her trapperkeeper. Until every kid's parent knows what his/her son has in his cell phone, it's going to happen. Guarenteed
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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EDIT: Ok, by the show of hands how many of ya'll ever faxed an image of any part of your anatomy to another person during that time period between your 14th and 34th birthday. I'll count the votes because they didn't have fax machines during that time period between my 14th and 34th birthday. Now, leaving your hand up, everyone considering such electronic image transfer to be distributing ilicit pornography please stand. The usher will be arround to take your names.
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
This is incorrectly named, these are not text messages, they are picture messages, not the same network.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Feb 2009
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quote:Ok, by the show of hands how many of ya'll ever faxed an image of any part of your anatomy to another person during that time period between your 14th and 34th birthday.
*blink* I don't know ANYONE who's done this.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
This is just the electronic age "playing doctor." You wouldn't charge a high school kid as a sex offender for fondling each other in a movie theater, why should they get felony charges for sending pictures? It's absurd.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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This is ridiculous. If you don't want a picture of yourself flying around, then don't send it in the first place. The only case I'd support SOME sort of punishment beyond parents taking care of business is if someone had a picture taken of them on a cell phone without their permission and it was spread.
Otherwise, parents should be on this one. Why the hell do these things always bypass the parents and go right to the courts?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote: You wouldn't charge a high school kid as a sex offender for fondling each other in a movie theater, why should they get felony charges for sending pictures?
I would assume it's because sex offenders can't join in the fondling, but they might end up with the pictures. You can't just go after the demand side if teens are supplying for free.
If we accept the premise that looking at child porn is a step on the road to molestation, then the decision makes sense. Getting arrested now so you don't get yourself or someone else raped later is a reasonable trade, in my opinion. It's all a question of where you see the lines between privacy and safety, I guess.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I seem to remember a case awhile back about an underage boy who was using a webcam and being paid in cash and gifts to perform for people over the internet. Eventually it spiraled out of control and his father ended up basically selling him to prostitutes and videotaped it in Mexico, which was a whole higher level of messed up, but the boy himself, despite being a major contributor to the problem never received a single bit of punishment and in fact got to keep all the money he made during his activities.
Now that I think of it, he MIGHT have received some punishment, but only for his activities after he turned 18.
I think this is an invasion of privacy. You can't charge someone for a crime because their actions MIGHT lead to someone ELSE committing a crime somewhere down the line. The law isn't supposed to work like that.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
What the law is supposed to do and what the law is are two different things. It's currently illegal to take naked pictures of people under 18. It's illegal to distribute them, and it's illegal to receive them.
Arresting these kids makes sense under the current laws. Whether the current laws make sense is another matter. Given the giant piles of money that can be made off ameteur porn, I'd rather not get the kids started early. But at least half a dozen of my classmates became strippers after high school, and at least two ended up in porn, so maybe my view is a bit warped.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Good grief. The cheerleaders played truth or dare once in high school and took naked photos and some of them got e-mailed. While I agree that was horrific and wrong, I don't think that the people recieving the e-mails should have gone to jail...
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
This is stupid. yes, children/teenagers shouldn't be sending photos of themselves-but how could you charge them with child pornography for sending racy pictures of themselves? So is any child who masturbates guilty of child molestation?
Yes, it goes back to that kids making out in a movie theater analogy.
Honestly, the parents should be contacted, and either the children or the parents [or both] should get some kind of fine. And if the children must be charged with anything, it should be with lewd behavior-not child pornography.
Obviously, with texting, lines blur, and it's hard to trace sources or know who has taken/sent/accessed what, willingly or unwillingly.
But child pornography is a very serious offense, and needs to be treated as such. By charging kids who send flirty/sexy pictures of themselves, and I supposed it would have to include all of the kids who have taken Myspace photos in their underwear [all..oh...say...five million or so?] with child pornography, it lessens what is a very serious offense, and makes light of it. You want to stop it, go after the parents. Charge the kids money. Give them penalties, take away privileges, don't give them jailtime-you're not helping anything.
Go after the REAL criminals for a change.
Posts: 135 | Registered: Jun 2007
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quote:So is any child who masturbates guilty of child molestation?
That's a good question, if we're following this vein of the law being followed to the letter regardless of how silly such a prosecution would lead to.
edit to add: That NY Times article is interesting. For example, where on Earth did they get the stat that 20% of teens have sent naked pictures of themselves over their phones?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
You'd probably have to check state statutes to be sure, but Legal Dictionary lists it this way:
quote: Child molestation is a crime involving a range of indecent or sexual activities between an adult and a child, usually under the age of 14.
So no one under 18 would meet this definition and an 18 year old having sex with anyone 15 and up wouldn't be a molestor. I suppose that's why they get charged with statuatory rape when it comes up.
Child pornography doesn't seem to be as strict as the web hosting company my husband worked for defined it. (Probably to make sure they didn't get charged. It was a huge deal.) Legally, there seems to have to be either sexual activity or behavior designed to arouse the viewer's sexual interest. Their rules were if a child was touching themself or an adult body part was in the picture with a naked child, it was pulled.
As for why this skipped the parents, I'm assuming it's because the schools found the pictures. Sending someone unwanted lewd material is sexual harrassment. Since the school knows it's happeneing, they're responsible if a parent sues. If the pictures were found by the court to be child porn, I have no idea what could happen to any adults who knew it was being distributed. Aiding and abetting?
Kids sending each other pictures is a bad idea. Adults knowing it's happening is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:Originally posted by AvidReader: Kids sending each other pictures is a bad idea. Adults knowing it's happening is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Yes, but I seriously doubt that the vast majority of parents of the alleged had the slightest inkling this was going on.
Of course I doubt they were completely oblivious, but it was probably relatively unknown.
Not many parents, at least in the majority of the nation, carefully monitor their child's phone or internet activity-there's ways too get around filters, and all it takes to hide/delete a message is a few clicks of a button.
Posts: 135 | Registered: Jun 2007
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posted
There are ways of determining which cell phone the pictures originated from if the pictures are forwarded and you are somewhat computer savvy. So, say a girl forwards an explicit picture to a guy, and he forwards it to someone else etc. After two or three forwards maybe it makes it to someone who is a pedophile. With some work, the abuser tracks the message back to the phone number that sent it, and maybe even hacks a computer system to determine where that phone is used or by whom. You could potentially find the person who originally sent the message.
This practice is dangerous and could lead to people being assaulted. It should be taken seriously, and the teens need to be made aware of why. The parents also need to know what their children are doing. If you, or one of your children/teens receives a sexually explicit picture message of a teen or child I strongly urge you to contact your local police and the national center for missing and exploited children, so that the issue can be investigated.
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by lobo: "Not many parents, at least in the majority of the nation, carefully monitor their child's phone or internet activity"
posted
I have no idea over what is sent to me, so how can they show any intent? I mean, if I were to sign up for someone to such things to me, that's another thing, but anyone can send anything to another person without their consent.
I would imagine this wouldn't be easy to make stick against any real legal challenge.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Ok, by the show of hands how many of ya'll ever faxed an image of any part of your anatomy to another person during that time period between your 14th and 34th birthday.
posted
Fax machines were never as prevalent as cell phones are. They never felt private to people. If I understand correctly, they were more like something a business used rather than something that nearly every private person had. So, naturally, few if any people faxed nude photos of themselves. It's not a good analogy. That doesn't mean that teens didn't engage in risky behavior before cellphones, but it was different behavior with different risks.
Despite the talk of child porn afficianados tracing the cell phone picture back to its source and potentially raping the original sender, this seems a far-flung hazard when compared with the hazards I risked and survived unscathed as a teenager.
Posts: 1751 | Registered: Jun 1999
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quote: Despite the talk of child porn afficianados tracing the cell phone picture back to its source and potentially raping the original sender, this seems a far-flung hazard...
I completely agree. And it's not remotely part of why I think this is dangerous. It's not that the pedophile might come after yu personaly, it's that you might get him revved up to go hurt someone else.
As for my comment about it being lawsuit fodder, I was referring to the schools calling the police. Once they knew about the pictures, they had to act. Period. Calling the cops was the best way to avoid a lawsuit later. That's the culture we live in. That's how schools solve problems. Maybe if folks stopped suing them every five minutes we might have gotten a different solution.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I'm so glad I go to a school with an active, intelligent principal and staff who know how to handle students and situations like this.
[He's just so involved-progress reports went out today, and he went to each individual student, about 400-500, and anyone with below a "B" he discussed their grade with them directly and how to handle it better, and he did it in a helpful, caring, non-condescending way. How awesome is that? It just made my day.]
We need to have better implementation on how involved teachers/administrators are in this process, and how they are involved. Parents should also be more strongly encouraged to be included, but you can't really force parents to do anything, short of legal activity, which doesn't take place until after something has already happened.
Posts: 135 | Registered: Jun 2007
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