Insanity: 14-year-old girl faces prison for posting nude photos of herself on MySpace.com
April 3rd, 2009 by Robert Franklin, Esq.A 14-year-old New Jersey girl faces a lengthy stay in prison and a lifetime on the state's sex offender registry. Why? Because she posted nude photos of herself on MySpace.com. It's not exactly like 'sexting,' but the principle is the same. It's happening all over the country and children are being caught in a net designed for predators. And ironically, that net doesn't seem to be catching too many predators.
All of this comes after the federally-financed investigation into the incidence of sexual predators using the internet to lure victims determined that it's really not much of a problem. So it seems clear that the real sexual predators know the laws against using the internet to do their stuff, and avoid that mode of communication. The ones who don't know, and to whom it seems not to occur that they're violating criminal laws are teenagers.
These kids need parental guidance, not police records. It's time state legislators figured out what the rest of us adults already know. These kids aren't criminals. Stupid perhaps, but that shouldn't land you in jail. Even the woman whose daughter was the 'Megan' of 'Megan's Law' is excoriating police for arresting this girl.
Read about it here (MSNBC, 3/27/09).
Thanks to Kirsten for the heads-up.
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April 3rd, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Thank you Robert for posting this one. Begs the question can a child be guilty of violating the Child Porn Act? In other words, can the named victim of the act also be a perpetrator? The theoretical aside, fascinating how the thousands of boys in recent years have not prompted such vivacious discussion, but once a girl gets in trouble the sky may be falling. I think this issue illustrates two things. One, the state of institutionalized misandry where boys are valued in the education system as irrelevant, and are dispensable but girls are not. Two, how absurdly extreme these punishments are to impose on children.
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Hold on! Is this not victimization of a child, kidnap and imprisonment based on child pornography? Seems like big brother now is exactly what the law was meant to prevent! How IRONIC!
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Sexting is even more of a problem than Robert Franklin says. Since the sexter is both the perpetrator and victim of sexual abuse, the act is subject to mandatory reporting requirements. When dad finds out about it and explains to his daughter that sexting is improper, he can be charged with a crime for failing to report a sexual abuser to child protectors.
April 4th, 2009 at 4:25 am
This is so insane.
I'm glad I'm not a teenager the group I grew up with would have been doing this for sure.
Do you think that this country could get any more hysterical over sex??
When I was growing up probably every other girl was having sex at age 15...some even earlier. But if she takes a photo of her chest then it's prison time??
These laws are so insane.
I see the news stories in my local paper where some guy gets 5-10 years in prison because he was caught with pictures of underage girls.
Now keep in mind that it's not right but he could go on you tube or anywhere really and have videos of people being murdered and that would be perfectly legal. But if he is caught with a topless 15 year old he dose serious prison time and is a sex offender for life.
So the lesson learned is a 15 year old girl's chest it 1 million times more offensive than a picture or video of someone getting beheaded or shot and killed. And having a photo like this will get you more prison time than shooting, stabbing, of even killing someone.
As for the girl in the story she will be fine thse laws were meant to add to the United States highest incarceration rate of men in the entire world...not to imprison women. If it keeps up they will change the law to exempt girls or just not charge them in the fist place.
She will probably write a book.
April 4th, 2009 at 5:03 am
"Do you think that this country could get any more hysterical over sex?? "
Funny that back in the day, it was right-wingers who were accused of being all wrapped around the axle about sex.
April 4th, 2009 at 5:22 am
And who stands to profit (I use the term literally) from making criminals of children? Are they not content to criminalize men for being now... now they're going after the children too???
GR
April 4th, 2009 at 5:24 am
Interesting thing is that it's so easy to slip images onto someone's computer without them knowing. All you have to do is specify a ridiculously small display size of the image on an otherwise innocent web-page, and everyone who then looks at that page becomes a possessor of child porn - without having seen anything. If a forensic team were to check their computer, they would find the image, but there would be no indication that it was shrunk so small at the time of display it was impossible to see.
You could do this on a website popular with professional people - airline pilots, policemen, judges, lawyers, teachers. Wait a week. Remove the shrunken image from the page you've doctored so that it can't easily be traced. Wait a few days. Then drop anonymous hints to the local police station of people who you think might be harboring child-porn. Sure enough, the police will find illegal images on all their computers. Enough to look like an international child-porn ring in action. Wait a minute....
April 4th, 2009 at 6:13 am
Here is another thing.
I was watching I think the discovery channel and they had a bunch of programs where everyone was naked....people of all ages.
So lets say 1 million people saw these programs are they all going to jail?
April 4th, 2009 at 7:20 am
Jim @ 4:
--- As for the girl in the story she will be fine thse laws were meant to add to the United States highest incarceration rate of men in the entire world...not to imprison women. If it keeps up they will change the law to exempt girls or just not charge them in the fist place. She will probably write a book.---
Well said. I'm sure she'll walk away from this relatively unscathed. On the other hand, had she been a man, not so sure.
April 4th, 2009 at 7:55 am
Crusaders for justice do not care about collateral damage. They are not going to change the law they will just do what they have done in other states just arrest and charge any males involved. The only thing about this case that makes it hard to do that was the girl was acting on her own. They will figure out a way to make Facebook or anybody else responsible so as not to further upset the rule on not holding females responsible for anything. Holding a female respomsible for anything of a sexual nature is a big no no in modern inlightened society.
April 4th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Was wondering, long before computers, etc. As kids we used to go skinny dipping at night in the local lakes. Sometimes someone would bring a Poloroid Camera, lol. Wonder what the law makers and cops would have thought of that?
GAWD, some days ya just wanna scream!
April 4th, 2009 at 9:39 am
As Wendy McElroy said the other day on ifeminists: "we are becoming a society defined by our fears."
People (mostly luddites with no understanding of computers or the internet) imagined all of the crazy things that can happen to kids on-line. They realized that these kids can be and say anything they want - god forbid - on-line. And these same luddites in their fear freaked out (yeah, that's the technical term). This is what happens when fear drives policy and drives our nation's laws. One day our society will look back on these days as the dark ages of technology...that is if we survive that long without throwing everyone in jail.
April 4th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Skip you would be doing 20 to life for even thinking about it!!!
These are "crimes" that hurt no one.
Like I was saying you can watch the discovery channel and see naked people running all over the place if you want and a lot are well under 18. But if some 15 year old takes a picture of herself and you end up with it you go to prison!
A big wake up call for everyone should have been the Janet Jackson super bowl incident.
People are watching a really violent game where people are constantly injured. The commercials sell ED drugs and Booze and other drugs all of which kill at least 100,000 a year. And what is the "obscene" thing that gets a $500,000 fine??
We ALMOST got to see half of a girls chest! I would like to see the numbers on how many people girls chests have killed over the years!
I always wondered why the feminists don't fight to make going topless legal? It's legal for guys why make it illegal for women??? I guess they are too busy trying to put more men in prison to do anything worthwhile.
April 5th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
I’ve been wondering myself if a child can be the victim and perpetrator at the same time. In our local case, IF I remember right, it was two 13 year olds who took naked pictures of each other and then sent them around. How do you try that case? How do you get a conviction? And why would you want to? They are 13, for pete’s sake! We took naked pictures of ourselves and each other when I was a kid, they just never went anywhere. We used a Polaroid, no outside development, we kept them hidden and later destroyed them before our parents found them. A lot of kids do it. I don’t know what happened with our local case. I know they were arrested, that part was in the paper, but I haven’t seen anything since and it was early in the school year, so several months ago.
These kids don’t need criminal records and added to the sex offender registry, they need to be turned over to their parents for punishment and, if applicable, disciplined at school. What they are doing is no where near sex offender status.
April 5th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
#13, Jim said: “A big wake up call for everyone should have been the Janet Jackson super bowl incident. People are watching a really violent game where people are constantly injured. The commercials sell ED drugs and Booze and other drugs all of which kill at least 100,000 a year. And what is the "obscene" thing that gets a $500,000 fine??”
The worst part about that whole fine is it was an accident! Anyone who saw the look of utter shock (no pun intended) on her face would know it was an accident.
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