There is seemingly a fine line between a perverted adult who looks at naked photographs of minors and a high school student who has a naked photograph of his high school girlfriend or boyfriend. Yet, in many states, the law doesn’t take into account this fundamental difference. The difference is that in the first case, we have the real sex offender, someone who is clearly guilty of a heinous crime. However, in the second case, with regards to the teenager, the only thing he or she should be found guilty of is having raging hormones. Unfortunately, the law in the majority of states does not take into account this critical difference, as both the real sex offender and the hormonal teenager will be prosecuted for felony sex offenses.
The small town of Louisa County, Virginia, has recently gone through a major “sexting” scandal at the local high school where literally hundreds of boys and girls were being investigated for sending and receiving naked photographs of minors. Since 2009, state legislatures have attempted to help curb the confusion that “sexting” has created for law enforcement officers when it occurs between minors; there have been at least 20 states to have recently passed laws designed to establish a series of smaller penalties for first and second offenses among minors, rather than just charge a minor with a felony for a first offense. Unfortunately, Virginia was not one of the states to have adopted these more flexible laws as they relate to “sexting” among minors, so all the students that were being investigated in Louisa County were potentially going to be charged with felonies.
Luckily for the Virginia high school students, students, after a lengthy investigation, the officer residing over the “sexting” scandal, Major Donald Lowe stated, “We don’t want to put anything on your record, but the next time we come around, we’re not going to be so nice about it.” The students were lucky because Major Lowe put in such a great deal of time and effort into understanding what was really going on with the naked photographs being disseminated around the high school. Another officer might not have been able to put himself in the position of these high school students the way Major Lowe did. The fact is, this could have gone much worse. We very easily could have had 100 high school students charged with felony sex offenses that would have haunted them for the rest of their lives; this would have ruined the lives of a large group of high school students guilty of nothing more than sexual curiosity and raging hormones. Luckily, we don’t have that problem because Major Lowe made the right decision in simply giving the kids a warning.
It would be prudent for the legislation to adapt with the times and for all states to adopt more flexible laws as they relates to minors engaged in “sexting.”
To read more about the Louisa County “sexting” scandal and “sexting” in general, see http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/11/why-kids-sext/380798/?single_page=true.
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