Under current Oregon law the impact that sexting has on a teenager’s life will last longer than the word’s popularity. A teen caught sexting the image of someone doing something explicit (think Greg Oden) or a sex act involving a fellow teen could be forced to register as a sex offender under Oregon law. That’s ridiculous. A bill introduced into the Oregon legislature would give judges discretion in the sentencing.
From KATU:
Senate Bill 68 would eliminate the mandatory sentencing law for the child pornography law of using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct. The charge is often used to prosecute those who take graphic photographs or videos of children,
but it’s also charged against teens who send sexual text messages to one another.
In the following KATU story, the DA who testified in Salem says the law hasn’t been used in five years to go after teens but can be used to parlay the arrest into more info on sex trafficking. But he also says if the folks behind this change, the ACLU and others, is in favor is tweaking the bill to only cover teen sexting he’s fine with it.
I’m a law and order kind of gal and I’ve worked against child sex trafficking, but this aspect of the law is ridiculous. I’m sick and tired of overzealous lawmakers making criminals out of people who engage in indiscretions that 20% of teenagers claim they do. Frankly, I’d rather Mom or Dad sort this out and if it gets to court give the judges discretion in the matter. What do you think?
http://www.katu.com/politics/Sexting-bill-could-change-punishment-of-teen-offenders-200291821.html
Sexting, teens are not adults, we spent 200 years identifying the age where a person becomes responsible and is supposed to have matured enough to deal with societies issues and responsibilities. When you remove character development and a solid set of values from the classroom or parenting, you get a dystopian disaster. Law is the enacting of a moral code into words and justice. If you have a changing, or bad moral code, you get a dystopean disaster, you lose the benefits of the renaissance and the reformation at the same time.
i called my state senator, told them, this is horrible legislation. All the ways to protect our kids, and they go after text messages. Thank you for posting this.
I am confused. In one of your other blog posts you guys were using the fact that a person you were trying to make look bad was in favor of reforming some of the sex offender laws to imply there was something wrong with it and him and now you are agreeing that there are sex offender laws desperately in need of reforming. Which is it? Hypocrites