Just to state the obvious(in my opinion) a fifteen year old savvy, sexually aware, and willing enough to post pics of herself masturbating online is a child ? As in the kind that ask for Barbie for Christmas, etc ? Oh the humanity! :rolleyes:
Exactly. And I hope we can agree that 15-year-olds taking naked pictures of themselves and distributing them is something that should be discouraged… right?
Some of them probably do deserve it. Some of them probably don’t. I’ll be glad if this catches a couple of bona fide perverts, but I don’t think it’s going to be clear-cut like that.
My point is that it would make things more difficult, both in the investigation and the prosecution, if we were to turn a blind eye to some underage boobies but not to others.
I certainly would. A fine and some community service or something would be the best way to handle it, I think.
Are they hiring?
joking, joking…
Which is why this has to be prosecuted. There are thousands of ordinary schoolgoirls in Japan who sell themselves into prostitution so they can afford new cellphones. I have no doubt that there are girls who would sell nudie shots of themselves. I also have no doubt that real child porn dealers will use it as a workaround.
Prosecute the girl to send a message, then suspend the sentance to deal with her as an individual.
Amend them how?
Not really, no, because I don’t think she’s going to be convicted of the charges brought against her. I think she’s going to get a lawyer who’s going to plea bargain away the felony charges and leave her with a misdemeanor juvie record which will be sealed. I also think that any plea is going to require her to cooperate with any investigation into th recipients of her pictures. If the pictures were unsolicited then the recipients shouldn’t be charged; if they solicited them knowing she was underage then they should be charged.
Age of consent is for me a difficult question. One the one hand I think it’s ridicuolus that an arbitrary age is set and one day either side of the line is the difference between “child” and “adult.” On the other hand I recognize that society is going to create an arbitrary demarcation because there is simply no convenient (or, probably, constitutional) way to decide on a case-by-case, person-by-person basis “this 15-year-old girl or boy is emotionally capable of consenting to sex or being photographed and that one isn’t.”
Always. It’s a 20-hour-a-week volunteer job with few perks and people swear at you all the time and call you a terrible person. Still interested? 
While I agree that this will likely be the case in this situation, I have to question the effectiveness of bringing up felony/child porn charges against subsequent instances of this type - every time - because there are no other laws that would apply to someone under 18 who decides to take/share naked pictures of themselves. (Not to mention those who, for whatever reason, do not have the option of the plea bargain available to them.) “Child porn” is a pretty heavy charge to lay on someone, and to respect the seriousness of the crime, I would rather have it levied against those for whom it was designed. Therefore, for the sake of both justice and brevity, a new classification of this crime might be in order.
Agreed, and agreed. (see previous posts)
I absolutely agree. There is no way to judge the emotional capability of any teenager in regards to readiness for sex or sexual situations. And it absolutely shouldn’t be judged in our legal system, backlogged as it is. However, by outlining a few yes/no prerequisites for the applicability of a new law regarding these situations, it would be much easier to determine in what category these actions should fall:
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Was any other person involved with the creation or production of the offending material? If it was an independent act, that would (generally) rule out coercion or force.
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Was the subject of the photograph the sole initial distributor of the material? If yes, the subject had complete control over who, if anyone, viewed them (at least initially). Any distribution would mean that the subject consented to the photos being distributed. (Is he/she old enough to give consent? Legally, no. They’re old enough to take digital photos of themselves naked and then distribute them, however, so some measure of culpability should be given.)
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Was the subject aware of the intentions, real or implied, that distribution of these types of materials communicated to the recipient? (A.K.A. I didn’t know my naked photos were going to get some nameless freaks in cyberspace hot and bothered.) Mainly for the odd circumstance in which the subject has the mental capability to create and distribute the material, but still lacks the understanding of their actions and how it affects society. A normal teenager certainly knows what general reaction they’re going for when they send naked photos of themselves to people.
Of course the answer to these three factors most likely wouldn’t be known at the time of the arrest, but could certainly be investigated in time for the formal charges. Rather than defend - or plea bargain - against the original child porn charges, a more applicable charge could be brought against them, with appropriate guidelines for sentancing, rehabilitation, and fines.
(In regards to amending existing laws) - I don’t have the knowledge of the legal system to expand upon the “amend” idea while sounding remotely like I know what I’m talking about. Consider it a line I tossed out there to see if anyone with more information than I could follow up on. You caught me 
I am interested in hearing anyone’s responses to this idea.
What is LiveJournal, and why does it have pics of nekkid kids ?
It doesn’t sound like the place you want featured on your CV…
LiveJournal is a site that hosts web logs, or blogs - sort of an online diary. Nekkid kid pics violate the terms of service, hence the need for people to find and deal with offenders.
I am appalled that no one has asked the one really important question here:
Was she hot?
Dunno. Hard to see that they, who are so underdeveloped that they cannot consent to a sexual act, could understand a lesson like the one people intend to teach this girl. Seems to me these innocent babes will make the same mistake again in their youthful incompetence. That about right?
Um… that ain’t funny. And my sense of humor is sicker than most.
I’d be in favor of amending the laws. I agree that dippy teeners prostituting themselves or manufacturing kiddie porn (or even cranking out “used panties”) is frankly more than I wanna see happening.
By the same token, though, I cannot in good conscience see holding a fifteen-year-old (in general) to the same standards as a forty-year-old sleazebag. Of either gender.
Yes, there are twenty-year-olds who are remarkably dumb, and there are fourteen-year-olds who are remarkably savvy. Yes, the age-eighteen thing is purely arbitrary, a legal fiction, a convenient marking point for the Age Of Maturity, whether it functions that way or not for the individuals. But, hell, we gotta draw the line somewhere…
Not sure if you’re being sarcastic or obtuse.
A child may or may not understand the ramifications of posting pictures of her twat on LiveJournal.
…but ANYONE not suffering from major brain damage understands that a week or a month or more locked up in a jail cell is no damn fun.
I would tend to think this would deter the repetition of the mistake in question in their youthful incompetence.
The word was “incompetence,” not “idiocy.”
Just trying to wrap my head around the idea, Master Wang-Ka. I mean, if she was punished for lying on the stand, wanton destruction, killing puppies, or something of that ilk I’d see it a lot more clearly.
What ramifications do you want her to understand? That’s what I don’t understand from this thread. That and how:
Is going to teach her anything useful about this whole situation.
That may be so, but I don’t think it’s going to teach her why she shouldn’t repeat her “mistake”.
What’s next? Charging teens that have sex with each other of child abuse and sending them to jail too? And how far are we (society) going to go? What’s the statute of limitations on child abuse? Can we start prosecuting 18 year olds for the sex they had two years ago? I mean we need to teach them a lesson, right?
Who would not have the plea bargain option open to them? As I understand the CJ system, most cases are pled out. There is some concern, in fact, that (at least on the federal level) indictments are being larded with charges to force harsher pleas and bump up the punishment under federal sentencing guidelines.
We already do. There was a case with a couple of 14-year-olds in Wisconsin where they were charged with raping each other.
Anyway, to move on to relevant things, there are consequences to distributing naked pictures that I think it’s reasonable to try to protect minors from. Pictures like this can get passed around, put up on porn sites, and often never really go away, even years later. (Remember those Dr. Laura pictures?) They could play havoc with a relationship or any career in the public eye. (Ok, not porn star, but other careers in the public eye.) For ANYONE, public distribution of naked pictures is something that can have certain negative consequences and should be considered very carefully. I think some people are not old enough or mature enough to make that decision for themselves, so we might as well set a minimum age of 18 for it.
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If she was my kid, I would make a point of EXPLAINING the ramifications. In detail, and some depth. Fifteen is plenty old enough, I think.
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The criminal justice system is not into education. Hell, it’s not even all that great at rehabilitation. Its sole value lies in getting offenders away from the rest of us, and hopefully providing some deterrent effect towards future offenses. Jailing her isn’t going to teach her much, aside from “don’t do it again.” It ain’t the criminal justice system’s job to teach anyone anything. This particular realm, in fact, is supposed to be PARENTAL territory. One would hope her parents would take some part in this event, for the girl’s sake.
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Charging teens with raping each other is old news. Already happening. Not sure I like the sideways method of prosecution, though – if you’re going to use the law against these kids, there should be laws specifically targeting this specific event, and the age group in question. Using statutory rape laws and child abuse laws intended to nail adults in order to prosecute minors playing grabass on the couch, I think, is excessive.
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Statute of limitations. Hm. Excellent point. CAN we bust eighteeners for sex had when they were minors? Damn, at this rate, we could have durn near the whole population in jail, soon. Republican World!
Anyone who thinks this girl should be punished as an adult must be using some sort of bizarre “Alice In Wonderland” type logic that I’m not in on. The logic says:
(1) anyone under 18 is completely and utterly incapable of any meaningful consent to having pictures of themselves in sexual poses taken.
(2) However, if a minor happens to decide on their own free will to take pictures of herself, we must her as an adult. Just because she’s a minor she shouldn’t get off the hook for victimizing herself!
Just checking back into the thread to see if there are more of those pesky little things called facts. Do we know if she’s actually been charged as an adult? Do we know if she’s being held? Do we know how she is going to be punished? Do we know her mental state in putting the pictures up? Do we know if she did it on her own, or was put up to it by drooling idiots? Do we know anything? Anything?