Ohio Legislator Wants To Criminalize Kids Taking Nude Pics Of Themselves
from the too-much-free-time dept
The uproar over "sexting" -- kids taking nude pictures of themselves and sending them with their cameraphones -- is in full swing, with lots of politicians looking to wring some publicity out of it. In our earlier post about the Pennsylvania prosecutor who threatened to bring child-porn charges against some kids for taking their own pictures, Steve L left a comment noting that a politician in Ohio plans to introduce legislation that would make sexting a misdemeanor offense. He says he wants to criminalize the activity to protect kids from the "extra burden" of being charged with felony sex offenses. It's bizarre, though, as he says that teen sexters "did something stupid, but I don't think anyone wants for them to be called sex offenders," and "I think what these teens need is education about how this type of behavior could affect their lives." So the way to educate them is to make them criminals?![Hide This Hide this](https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/topclose.png)
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Filed Under: criminalizing, ohio, photos, teens
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Another one?
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I'll say it again, if a person under the age of 18 is taking and distributing sexual pictures of him or herself, he or she is committing a criminal act. This law does not make them criminals. They are ready are criminals under the law.
Once again, there is absolutely no exemption under our child pornography laws for people who take and distribute pictures of themselves.
Once again, the law sees no distinction between a 40 year old man taking and distributing nude pictures of his 13 year old daughter and the daughter taking and distributing pictures of herself.
And you completely miss the entire point of this legislation. Instead of charging them with felonies, which could be done as they did commit felonies, he wants to be able to charge them with a much lessor crime. A mere misdemeanor offense. He wants to let the kids have a second chance rather than risk them being charged and convicted of felonies. That's a good thing!
I'll just say this, I'm not arguing for or against the child porn laws we have in this country. All I'm saying is that as they currently exist, there is no exception under the law for creating your own child porn and distributing it yourself.
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"Let me not be understood as saying that there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise for the redress of which no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they continue in force, for the sake of example they should be religiously observed."
Abraham Lincoln
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While the logic in the legislator's approach is questionable(one would think that the felony statutes could be amended to reflect their inapplicability to teen "sexting"), it is most certainly clear that the intent of the statute is not to "criminalize" the act.
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Ok, I need to call a foul here. That sentence makes it sound like he wants to take an activity that is currently completely legal and make it illegal.
Here's what he actually said:
Now, whether the activity should be legal or not is a legitimate discussion, but please don't twist his words to make them say something they don't
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A prosecutor tried to do that and the ACLU is suing him for his kindness.
"but anything harsher would just be ridiculous"
That's exactly what the legislator wants to do. Rather than charge them with felonies, he wants to charge them with misdemeanors. Misdemeanors are much less serious than felonies and are basically a step above a traffic ticket. I simply cannot understand why Carlo thinks the option of charging kids with a lessor crime is a bad thing.
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Yes, his intentions seem good but he is just adding another law which gives the prosecuter the OPTION to charge the kid with the lessor crime. It wouldn't change the existing law so another prosecutor could go for the higher charge. This additional crime actually gives the prosecutor more leverage in trying to get a plea bargin.
Between this, illegal downloading, cyberbulling, and whatever other questionable online activies that kids get involved with these days, it seems just about any kid with a computer is a criminal by someone's definition. We should just turn schools into prisions and problem solved (sarcasm).
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I would take a felony over a sex offender misdemeanor any day. And that, in a nutshell is what is wrong with society these days.
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What this guy is trying to do is make it so he can punish the person who is doing it but to a much lesser extent. This way they can be educated but not labeled a sex offender for life.
That is why we can't use the current law.
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Exactly, but for some reason Carlo is against giving such kids a break. Maybe deep down he's a Republican.
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I still like this addition. States are allowed to add on to federal laws and this sounds like a good add.
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If the person taking the picture and the person receiving the picture are consenting individuals, then where is the foul?
Where is the *bad* here?
I'm not talking about the evil corners that could happen (exploitation), but to assume that any and all instances of this action require "correction" is simply wrong-headed. In fact, it will work against society in the long run.
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Re: Jurisdiction
> all pretty much illegal to start with. There is no need to
> jump through another hoop or create yet another law -
> just apply what is there already.
Those are federal statutes. This is state law. Two different jurisdictions. You were corrected once on this matter already in the comments to the other article on this topic (after which you suddenly disappeared).
Also, based on current Supreme Court precedent, which has held that mere nudity alone is not pornography and cannot be outlawed, many (if not all) of those statutes you're so fond of citing are ripe for challenge and constitutional invalidation.
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Maybe in the murky dynamics of legal proceedings this reduces a teen's chance of being charged with a felony (while perhaps also increasing the chance of being charged at all) but it certainly follows the usual pattern: pass new laws, never repeal old ones, and don't do anything that even a true moron could be convinced is "going easy on child molesters".
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Soooooooo
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o yeah,
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Hey, it worked so well for the RIAA!
And yeah, the Ohio legicritter is trying to reduce the penalty on youthful indiscretion. So this is actually a good thing.
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'cmon Carlo
How does charging them with a misdemeanor "make them criminals"? Everyone with a traffic violation is a criminal by your definition. Job applications don't ask "Have you ever been convicted of a felony, or of sexting?" This is an attempt to make sexting not a big deal, but that wouldn't be a good headline would it? "Ohio Legislator proposes sane punishment for kids doing stupid things"
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Can somebody please ban Ima Fish!
Can somebody please ban Ima Fish!
Can somebody please ban Ima Fish!
Can somebody please ban Ima Fish!
Can somebody please ban Ima Fish!
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Re: Can somebody please ban Ima Fish!
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County jail prepares to expand... news...
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Re: County jail prepares to expand... news...
Take for example the ever infamous painting "David." You can either say it's a beautiful work of art, or run around yelling "PENIS!!!!!"
The kids are simply exploring their sexuality, which is a normal and healthy thing to do once the body reaches puberty. In all manner of speaking the human body is fully capable of engaging in sex and the reproductive process by an adolescents teenage years. In the 1700's 13yr olds would be married and have a kid 9months later, they're completely capable of inheriting the entire scope of the family dynamic, industrialized society today just doesn't prepare them for it as quickly as we once used to.
Criminalizing the activity is absurd, and entirely illogical. However, more to the point is why these minors are being charged at all when their parents are the ones who are legally responsible for them. If you won't give the minors any other legal representation other than on behalf of the parents then it is the parents who are the ones who should be charged with the crime, just like when a child decides of their own volition to stop going to school.
Inherently this law is saying love is a criminal act, and consent is invalid.
If you don't want your kid texting nude images of themselves, THEN DONT BUY THEM A FUCKING PHONE, better yet... BE AN INVOLVED PARENT. Even better? Quit asking the taxpayers to solve YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM.
/rant
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drink
smoke (cigs and pot)
do hard drugs
have sex
you think making it illegal to text nude pics would do anything? I doubt it
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This new legislation is about taking a common sense approach. It says that these kids aren't felons and shouldn't be treated as sex offenders. Instead it treats the behavior as a misdemeanor offense that can be sealed with the juvenile record rather than branding the kid for life. It's about providing a safety net to protect the kids from the disproportionate legal ramifications of their actions.
And Weird Harold, you can go on about US law all you want, but this is not the exclusive jurisdiction of US law. Typically Federal law would apply in interstate cases or cases where US Government services (aka, the US Postal Service) are used/involved. Like it or not, states still have jurisdiction in the vast majority of these cases. Otherwise the kids in PA would be under federal indictment, which they're not. It's the local prosecutor who threatened to bring the charges, and the local (usually county) prosecutors have no authority to bring federal charges.
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Clean your lenses.
With those two points in mind, it takes a lot of hand-waving and sloppy language to argue that this legislation is good.
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Re: Ima Fish
The point is look at the purpose of the law. I am having a hard time coming up with any instance where charging the supposed victim makes sense.
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don't understand
I find it interesting how this society likes to sick it's head in the sand and or forget what it was like to be a teen. I remember being a teen and we got it on all the time LOL.
I find it hard to believe the rest of the yahoo's making these laws didn't do the same thing when they were teens. Matter of fact maybe they should think back and consider what might of happened if they had been charged with something like this.
If my teenager took a pic and sent it to her boyfriend and I found out, I would call her a dumb ass, ground her and take the phone away. Not give her a criminal record for being a dumb horny teenager.
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On another funny law note, in most states, you can have sex with a 16 or 17 year old girl and you break no law. You can play hide the monkey with her all night long and the law won't bother you, but if she send you a nude picture of herself, well, now you are a child pornographer. Isn't that nice? You can do her but you can't have pictures of her. Age of consent is lower than the child porno laws allow.
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Utter retardation
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Pretty Appalling
Say a DA decides to charge a 14-year-old with child molestation because he/she masturbated in private. Are all of you gonna go on record saying it would be a good idea to get a law on the books stating that masturbation is only a misdemeanor, so that we can give DAs a lesser option than the felony? Here's a better idea: any photography that is self-produced is not child porn. The entire "protect the children" witch hunt against any potential sex offenses makes me ashamed to be human.
"You know Danny, I've sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn't want to do it...but I felt I owed it to them."
- Judge Smails, Caddyshack
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Do you mean that that is his intent (which I doubt) or that that will be the effect (which I doubt)?
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The felony is what gives rise to the sex offender status, not the misdemeanor.
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Wrong. Even misdemeanor offenses (like getting caught peeing in the alley behind a bar) qualify for sex offender status and registration requirements in many states.
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Happy
Are you people for real? You believe this should be handled by the justice system? Misdemeanor or felony? These are the choices?
Sigh
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Are you even using your brains, or have you just been stuck on autopilot too long that you can't turn it off?
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Video responce
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXraaxElqj0&feature=channel_page
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This completely ignores the fact that all these "negative consequences" are the artificial result of America's prudish attitudes;
They could be denied a future job - Because Americans see nudity as shameful and embarassing, so someone who posed for nude photos could be seen as embarassing the company.
A future relationship could be ruined by their partner seeing the photos - Because Americans see nudity as shameful and embarrasing, so potential mates wouldn't want someone who could embarass them.
They could become the object of desire for predators - Because in America, nudity automatically equals SEX!!!
Maybe if nudity wasn't such a big deal, these girls wouldn't bother. Maybe if America wasn't collectively embarassed by anything even remotely connected to sex, and absolutely horrified at the though of teenagers having sexual feelings, we wouldn't be in this mess.
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Sexting
When a budding young "Michelangelo" or "Ansel Adams" does it, it is stupid and maybe criminal.
Go figure - "Beam me up, Scotty, there is no intelligent life here".
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Maybe if nudity wasn't such a big deal, these girls wouldn't bother. Maybe if America wasn't collectively embarassed by anything even remotely connected to sex, and absolutely horrified at the though of teenagers having sexual feelings, we wouldn't be in this mess."
Strange how nobody is asking why. What effect do current media streams have on the development of societal values and personal limits?
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Once again, there is absolutely no exemption under our child pornography laws for people who take and distribute pictures of themselves.
************
Not true. The constitution guarantees freedom of expression along with freedom of speech in the first amendment. One is certainly allowed to express themselves, even if nude.
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