Part one of this series is located here and details the events leading to a suicide of an 18 year old who got screwed over by sexting. Today, I will be dealing with how the courts handle the issue, how parents should pay attention (sounds familiar), and how stupid teens can be. Enjoy
Okay, to start this, I want to share a quick story: in Lebanon Ohio two young teens were charged for sexting nude images of themselves. The girl sent a nude image of herself to her boyfriend and both were charged. This is the main story I will be using to prove my great and amazing points.
Anyway, these two youngins decided it was great to send pictures to each other. The court, on the other hand, thought it was not good. Good job to the court. Both got 100 hours of service, along with 30 hours of house arrest for the boy and an essay by the girl. Frankly, I think they both should have gotten the essay and house arrest punishments.
To start with, I agree that they should have been punished. The kids committed a serious offense (child porn) and so they should be nailed. I also like the essay (even though it should have been both) as it gets the girl to think about it and explain why it was wrong. Frankly, I like how the case was decided, as courts (juvenile) should work to change the kid, not punish them. They made sure the kids knew it was wrong and made them explain why.
Moving on, let's talk about how stupid teens can be. We know that teens do stupid things, and we know that they are normally not appropriate. However, we also know that they are just teens. In this case, the girl showed extremely bad judgment in taking the picture and sending it to her boyfriend. Sure, you two are in ”love”, but when you break up it is sure to circulate the Internet. As for the guy, I am understanding that it is hard to get rid of pictures of your girl, but he should have known better two. Frankly, both kids made mistakes, and I hope that both learn from them.
Now, moving on to my favorite topic in the world: how parents screw up.
in this case, it seems as though the parents were left in the dark. Normally I would argue that they were not at fault, but then you need to realize that this was done via text-message-pictures. This means that the parents have access to all records and can easily check in on their kids. Frankly, if the girl and boy were sending this sort of image, I am assuming that their verbal exchanges were even worse. Frankly, I would be checking up on my kids texts if I was paying for them, and the parents should have been doing here as well.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
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3 comments:
I was waiting for this post because I was curious to see what you had to say. I thought a lot about this case.
And I came to exactly the opposite conclusion.
The fact remains that "sexting" is much more common than people would like to admit. People who like each other and who are old enough to have sexual feelings will share themselves with each other, and that includes using their phones, which has the unfortunate by-product of running right into a law that was designed poorly. (I am almost blaming congress/the state legislature even though I know they couldn't have predicted this outcome. Either way, the fact that the vast majority of "child porn" in this country is produced by "children" should indicate that changes to statutes are necessary, not diving head deep into unnecessary prosecutions.)
But if legal statutes are fucked up, that's ok, because prosecutors have the discretion to not pursue cases. In my opinion, this is a case that is best handled by (as you said) parents. There's no need to get law enforcement involved, and certainly not the hammer of the state.
So most of my anger is pointed at the Warren County Prosecutor, who apparently can't tell the difference between the child porn which involved young children being abused and photographs between two horny high schoolers. Her inability to tell the difference suggests she should get a career in a different field.
It also suggests that she is much more of a menace to children in Warren County than anyone else.
I think in time people will calm down, laws will be changed, and we'll laugh at this period of time where people were making a big deal about this.
Having said that, I know of few people over the age of 40 who are savvy enough to find out what their children are texting to each other. Besides, you might have to be plowing through thousands of texts per week almost all of which are mind-numbingly dull.
I don't think it's realistic to ask parents to watch their texting habits that closely.
you still need to write an intro, get on that
anyways, here is the thing:
i agree that the standard is fucked up, but how can you disagree with the punishment the judge gave, it was gentle but taught them a very valuable lesson
as for the parents, even if they do not know how to do it most phone companies walk you through it or send you the texts (you can ask for those automaticalls). Frankly, you can scan them using OCR then searchi for certain things (sex, drugs, porn, etc.) using Ctrl+f
"how can you disagree with the punishment the judge gave, it was gentle but taught them a very valuable lesson"
The only lesson I see here is that the Law is an Ass and prosecutors sometimes pursue cases for motives that are unjustifiably beyond the public welfare.
"Frankly, you can scan them using OCR then searchi for certain things (sex, drugs, porn, etc.) using Ctrl+f"
They're parents for godssakes, not CIA operatives. I'd be quite uncomfortable with a parent who would seriously entertain such an idea.
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