Vt. may set aside harshest penalties for 'sexting'

April 14, 2009 By DAVE GRAM , Associated Press Writer

(AP) -- Parents, school districts and law enforcement have been grappling with what to do with teenagers who take sexually explicit photos of themselves with their cell phone cameras and send them to friends.

Vermont legislators are moving to get rid of one option: child pornography counts that result in lifetime listings on the state's Internet sex offender registry.

Legislation passed by the Vermont Senate and pending in the House would remove the most serious legal consequences for teenagers who engage in "sexting." The bill would carve out an exemption from prosecution for child pornography for 13- to 18-year-olds on either the sending or receiving end of sexting messages, so long as the sender voluntarily transmits an image of himself or herself.

The bill, however, would not legalize the conduct. Legislators believe prosecutors could still use laws against lewd and lascivious conduct and against disseminating indecent materials to a minor.

State legislatures, including Vermont's, have been cracking down on sexual predators in recent years, but lawmakers here say they don't want increasingly tough penalties applied to those caught up in what many regard as a youthful fad.

"We felt that it's poor behavior and it's not something we want to give our OK to," said Sen. Richard Sears, D-Bennington and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "But at the same time, do we want a kid in jail? Do we want them tagged as a sex offender for the rest of their lives? And the answer is no."

Sexting appears to be widespread among teens. A December survey of 1,400 young people for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy found that one-fifth of girls had sent nude or seminude pictures of themselves electronically and that a third of boys had received such pictures, said Marisa Nightingale, senior adviser with the group.

Prosecutors around the country have tried various approaches against teenagers who used cell phones, e-mail or Web sites to transmit naughty pictures of themselves.

Last month, a 14-year-old New Jersey girl was arrested for posting nude pictures of herself on MySpace. She was charged with child pornography and distribution of child pornography for allegedly posting nearly 30 explicit pictures on the site. But it's likely she'll avoid jail because she's a juvenile, according to a prosecutor handling the case.

In Pennsylvania, 17 students involved in distributing photos of nude or scantily clad female classmates accepted a county prosecutor's offer that their cases would be resolved if they participated in a five-week after-school program on sexual harassment and similar topics. Three balked and sued in federal court to stop prosecutors from filing charges.

In Ohio, a 15-year-old high school girl faced charges for sending racy cell phone photos of herself to classmates. She eventually agreed to a curfew, no cell phone and supervised Internet usage.

In Vermont, authorities have charged an 18-year-old from Morrisville, Isaac Owusu, with directing two teenage girls to videotape or photograph themselves performing sex acts on themselves and send the results to him. The defense maintains the girls were willing participants.

In that case, Chittenden County State's Attorney T.J. Donovan said Owusu's directing the events is what resulted in charges.

But he agreed with backers of the legislation that volunteering to take and send racy photos of oneself shouldn't result in criminal charges.

"I don't think it serves any public interest to paint those kids ... as sex offenders," said Donovan, chief prosecutor in Vermont's most populous county.

Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said he sympathized with Vermont officials for not wanting to exact heavy penalties for a teenager's foolishness. But he worries that exempting the behavior could have the unintended consequence of immunizing genuine sexual predators from prosecution.

"Our concern is that decriminalizing sexting is a blanket response that is too broad to a problem that is best handled on a case-by-case basis," Allen said.

Donovan, Allen and others agreed that the real solution is educating teens about the risks of sexting.

Allen said his group's "Think Before You Post" campaign was aimed at getting children to think about the practical consequences of sending materials that can be reproduced and end up living on the Internet forever.

Forty percent of kids who had sent sexting messages said they had done so as a joke, Nightingale said her group's survey showed. "But you're basically relinquishing control of how people see you in this very sensitive area, which is your sexuality," she said.

Brendan Houston, an 18-year-old senior at Montpelier High School, said he thinks sexting is pervasive but "kind of childish."

There's one thing it isn't, in his view.

"That is not a crime," he said. "It's absolutely not a crime."

©2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Filter


Move the slider to adjust rank threshold, so that you can hide some of the comments.


Display comments: newest first

Avitar
Apr 14, 2009

Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
We are letting these "legal authorities" off way too lightly. We should not excuse the conduct of prosecutors who are prosecuting young people for youthful behavor. Can you imagine what these dangerous nutjobs might do if streaking came back into fashion?
Rank 3 /5 (1 vote)
Related Stories
Relevant PhysicsForums posts
  • How to tilt a object
    created7 hours ago
  • How to calculate total compressibility in liquid porous solid system
    created13 hours ago
  • Need help reading 3-D
    createdFeb 11, 2012
  • A way to send and receive wireless data
    createdFeb 11, 2012
  • Calling function with no input argument
    createdFeb 10, 2012
  • Force free body diagram problem on gym equipment
    createdFeb 10, 2012
  • More from Physics Forums - General Engineering

More news stories

Japan's Fukushima reactor may be reheating: operator

Temperature readings at one of the crippled Fukushima nuclear reactors have risen above Japan's stringent new safety standard but there was no immediate danger, its operator said Sunday.

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created 24 minutes ago | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Google might launch Drive for cloud storage soon

(PhysOrg.com) -- Google's next big move, according to the Wall Street Journal, is a cloud storage service called Drive. Hardly first to the plate, Google is simply catching up to introducing its cloud reposi ...

Technology / Internet

created 21 hours ago | popularity 4.2 / 5 (6) | comments 5 | with audio podcast report

Iran blocks email, restricts net access: reports

Iran has further restricted access to the Internet and blocked popular email services for the past few days, in a move a top lawmaker said could "cost the regime dearly," media reports said on Sunday.

Technology / Internet

created 14 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 5

Walney offshore wind farm is world's biggest (for now)

(PhysOrg.com) -- The Walney wind farm on the Irish Sea--characterized by high tides, waves and windy weather--officially opened this week. The farm is treated in the press as a very big deal as the Walney ...

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created Feb 11, 2012 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (14) | comments 59 | with audio podcast weblog

Navy to begin tests on electromagnetic railgun prototype launcher

The Office of Naval Research (ONR)'s Electromagnetic (EM) Railgun program will take an important step forward in the coming weeks when the first industry railgun prototype launcher is tested at a facility ...

Technology / Engineering

created Feb 06, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (21) | comments 95 | with audio podcast


Botox developer rues missing out on billions

Botox developer Alan Scott says he rues the day he handed over rights to the best-selling wrinkle-smoothing drug to a US company for just $4.5 million, saying he might have become a billionaire.

Australian women reject 'I love u' texts

Australian women may have embraced the digital era, but they prefer a face-to-face declaration of affection to an "I love u" text and find men addicted to their mobile phones a major turnoff.

Scientists discover molecular secrets of 2,000-year-old Chinese herbal remedy

For roughly two thousand years, Chinese herbalists have treated Malaria using a root extract, commonly known as Chang Shan, from a type of hydrangea that grows in Tibet and Nepal. More recent studies suggest that halofuginone, ...

New method to examine batteries -- MRI from the inside

There is an ever-increasing need for advanced batteries for portable electronics, such as phones, cameras, and music players, but also to power electric vehicles and to facilitate the distribution and storage of energy derived ...

A mitosis mystery solved: How chromosomes align perfectly in a dividing cell

Although the process of mitotic cell division has been studied intensely for more than 50 years, Whitehead Institute researchers have only now solved the mystery of how cells correctly align their chromosomes during symmetric ...

Lab study raises questions over nano-particle impact

Tests involving chickens have raised questions about the impact on health from engineered nano-particles, the ultra-fine grains commonly used in drugs and processed foods, scientists said on Sunday.