Fair Punishment? -- Is sexting child pornography?

3-15-2009 National:

On the books for some time are laws to cover child pornography. Now, with technology opening areas that no one could imagine when those child porn laws were enacted, should prosecutors be allowed to apply them to this new evolving technology spawning sexting pictures?

Also on the books are specialized laws to deal with juveniles and inherent in them is a fairer and more lenient punishment scheme, every state has some form of these laws.

Child pornography -for the most part- has been adults viewing, trading or dealing with child pornography in some other way, the punishments have been very severe and frequently justified (I always allow for the oddball case in my writings).

Along comes technology which has spawned sexting, nude photos of parts of juvenile bodies which they have taken a picture of and sent it, generally to their boy/girl-friend. Often that friend then forwards the picture on to other friends. While that is definitely questionable since it was originally sent with an air of privacy attached, that secondary act doesn't necessarily take the picture out of the realm of juvenile sexting.

Clearly what the juveniles are doing is far from their best interests, but is it criminal? Prosecutors' come along and apply child porn laws to these juvenile acts, totally bypassing the intent of special handling of juveniles built into juveniles law. The result is, these juveniles are punished far more severely than they should be.

Today Fox News has this video "Fairer Punishment?" Listen carefully to what the one woman who is "Not highly sympathetic" has to say, especially how she absolves the girl who first created the picture while holding the boys who received the picture at fault. Grrrr...that old double standard again, I wonder, would a man feel the same way? Lets hear from men, I'd like to know what you think...

A special thanks to the viewer who sent in the link to that video.

eAdvocate