In an unusual legal case arising from the increasingly popular practice known as “sexting,” six Pennsylvania high school students are facing child pornography charges after three teenage girls allegedly took nude or semi-nude photos of themselves and shared them with male classmates via their cell phones.
It might just be me, but I completely don't understand the logic behind the charges. It sounds like they are doing it to send a message to the kids that stuff like this can screw your life up. And to send that message they are going to.... screw their life up.
prosecutorial overreach is nothing new is cases carrying the sex offender label, no matter improper. It's all about bolstering the resume with easy to read stats. Kind of like swinging at everything to jack your BA up at the expense of your OBP. It makes you look good to stupid people, but hurts the performance of the larger group.
I agree it's weird, not really how the law was intended to be applied I'm sure. But what's the solution?
The problem stems from people taking sexually oriented pictures of minors. And I think we agree that's wrong. Well, what's a minor? 10 year olds - that's really wrong. But some 17 year olds are already doing half the football team. Still, I can't see changing the age for doing porn to 17, too many of them would be easily manipulated by dirty old men in trench coats. So I'm all for keeping the age limit at 18.
So do we introduce a "unless they take pictures of themselves" clause? I dunno, seems like the dirty old men would quickly find a way to exploit that loophole.
And I think when we're dealing with something as serious as child pornography, we need to keep the sentences pretty heavy. if we go light in a case or two, you know some pervert will find a way to exploit it.
This thread is worthless without one of those "This thread is worthless without pics" smileys.
I think it's ridiculous to charge someone with a sex crime for taking pictures of themselves. I also think it's stupid to charge a 15-17 year old with a sex crime for having pictures that another 15-17 year old gave them.
TheRock wrote:So do we introduce a "unless they take pictures of themselves" clause? I dunno, seems like the dirty old men would quickly find a way to exploit that loophole.
It is really hard for me to automatically consider nudity as pornography. It's even harder for me to think that criminalizing what is in essence a "you show me yours, I'll show you mine" act as logical. This is no way the production of child porn like what the charge is.
This doesn't really accomplish anything that wouldn't be solved by suspending them or something, assuming they were caught doing this by a teacher or something.
KCollins1304 wrote:This doesn't really accomplish anything that wouldn't be solved by suspending them or something, assuming they were caught doing this by a teacher or something.
Sure it does. As Rugby said, it lets us know that this prosecutor is tough on crime, especially on crime involving sex and children. So when he's running for DA in four years he can run commercials saying that his top priority is protecting our kids from sexual predators, and as a prosecutor he has convicted X amount of people of such crimes so now our kids are safer. Nevermind the fact that it was our kids who committed the "crime" in the first place and that of the kids that he's so worried about protecting, at least six of them will have a really hard time ever getting a decent job. I guess if preventing as many nade pictures of teenagers as possible is the top priority, then this makes sense. But if what's best for the kids who are apparently the victims of the crimes that they are accused of committing is the top priority, this is an absolutely backward and asinine solution.
Art Vandelay wrote:This thread is worthless without one of those "This thread is worthless without pics" smileys.
Well, that's really the problem. If someone posted them online, they'd be distributing child pron. That's what a naked picture of a 16 year old is.
Art Vandelay wrote:I think it's ridiculous to charge someone with a sex crime for taking pictures of themselves. I also think it's stupid to charge a 15-17 year old with a sex crime for having pictures that another 15-17 year old gave them.
Point taken. But here's the thing. If this becomes ok, some schmuck will start a website offering big $$ to young girls who submit pictures they take of themselves. Even bigger $$ for pictures they take themselves getting busy. As long as they just send it to "friends" that's ok right?
Now I can sympathize with kids being young and stupid. They're just doing this for fun, they're not trying to break any laws, etc etc. If a girl snaps a picture of her ta-tas on her cell phone, what's the big deal? If she sends it to her boyfriend, what's the problem? He sends it to some friends, all in good fun right? Whole school has it, still ok? Now kids from other schools get it and it's online, how we looking? At some point, is it a crime for someone to have this naked picture of a minor? Or are we throwing that law out entirely? Kiddie porn is ok if they do it to themselves? What's so different of a friend helps take the pictures? Seriously, do we draw a line anywhere? Well, you can bet if one of those kids cell phones got stolen they're going to play the child porn card to keep their pics from being distributed.
I don't see how we change the current laws at all. Sexually oriented pictures of a minor = child porn = jail time. And I hear that's one crime even criminals aren't keen on. Possession of said materials has to remain a crime with a pretty high price tag.
Cafe Home
Fantasy Football
Fantasy Basketball
Fantasy Hockey
by Tavish » Tue Jan 20, 2009 5:27 pm 
