This
article, by Tamar Lewin of the NY Times, starts with a couple of anecdotes:
In Iowa, Jorge Canal is on the sex offenders registry because, at age 18, he was convicted of distributing obscene materials to a minor after he sent a picture of his penis by cellphone to a 14-year-old female friend who had requested it.
In Florida, Phillip Alpert, then 18, was charged with distributing child pornography and put on the sex offenders registry because after a fight, he sent a photograph of his nude 16-year old girlfriend by e-mail to dozens of people, including her parents.
In most states, teenagers who send or receive sexually explicit photographs by cellphone or computer — known as “sexting” — have risked felony child pornography charges and being listed on a sex offender registry for decades to come.
And now, lawmakers are starting to wake up and realize that they were overreacting:
But there is growing consensus among lawyers and legislators that the child pornography laws are too blunt an instrument to deal with an adolescent cyberculture in which all kinds of sexual pictures circulate on sites like MySpace and Facebook.
Last year, Nebraska, Utah and Vermont changed their laws to reduce penalties for teenagers who engage in such activities, and this year, according to the National Council on State Legislatures, 14 more states are considering legislation that would treat young people who engage in sexting differently from adult pornographers and sexual predators.
And on Wednesday, the first federal appellate opinion in a sexting case recognized that a prosecutor had gone too far in trying to enforce adult moral standards.
The opinion upheld a block on a district attorney who threatened to bring child pornography charges against girls whose pictures showing themselves scantily dressed appeared on classmates’ cellphones.
Jesse Weins, chairman of the criminal justice department at Dakota Wesleyan University, said that because the legal code functioned as a guide to acceptable behavior, “there should be something there, even if oftentimes it doesn’t make sense to prosecute.”
But there are those who favor decriminalization.
“Generally this should be an education issue,” said Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union. “No one disputes that sexting can have very bad consequences, and no parent wants kids sending out naked images. But if you’ve got thousands of kids engaging in this, are you going to criminalize all of them?”
There are two basic scenarios. In one, a teenager shares a nude picture, usually with a romantic partner. In the other, a partner, or more commonly an ex-partner, distributes the image.
The new Nebraska law makes that distinction, giving a pass to children under 18 who send out their own photograph to a willing recipient who is at least 15. On the other hand, a teenager who passes the photograph on to friends could face a felony child pornography charge and five years in prison.
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