For the Children...

Radley Balko has a thoughtful piece in this months Reason on how some prosecutors are treating the gorwing trend of 'sexting' and teens posting exlicit pictures of themselves. He points out how some jurisdictions are charging these teens as child pornographers where they could receive prison terms up to 10 years. As a parent, I would probably be pretty shoacked and angry if my kid were doing this, but I don't think the way to deal with a knuckleheaded, impulsive teen is to ruin their life with a child porn felony conviction.

The root disconnect, here, is that the law treats pre-pubescent sex crimes on par with crimes related to teenagers who are sexually mature. Fact is, teenagers become sexually mature years before it's socially or legally permissible to think about them that way. That they're then having sex is nothing new. Nor is the fact that teens make rash, emotional, spur-of-the-moment decisions. What's new is that they're able to document it all in ways that can quickly escape their control. What they need after the fact are responsible adults who can walk them through a poor decision, appropriately reprimand or punish them if necessary, but all while keeping things in perspective, and minimizing the long-term consequences for the teen. Dumping the kid into the criminal justice system has all the subtlety and precision of dropping an anvil on the problem from 40 stories above.