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The US is good at creating lots of laws which get taken very literally, and turn a lot of people into technical criminals who aren't really doing anything wrong.

There are plenty of people whose attitude is "I don't care about justice, they should have known it was against The Law, so they are Going Down!!111!"

The law on child porn is a good example. Clearly it wasn't intended to make a 15 year old a criminal for sending a pic of themself to their boy/girl friend, and it is an excessive and injust outcome to put them on the Child Protection register for 10 years.

But that wasn't considered when the law was created. Once created, prosecutors started to nail people indiscriminately, partly because prosecutors get rewarded for nailing criminals.

Common sense was outraged. There has been a backlash, and some states, such as Vermont, have responded by repealing that particular bit of the law.

Howard A Treesong wrote:Surely there's a matter of discretion when applying charges, the police don't have to charge everyone.

Actually police don't have that much of that kind of discretion, it is the courts that do. Even a warning isn't a free pass as it is recorded, you just don't pay a fine. If a parent or teacher calls up and (remember this is all recorded) says they found underage porn on something the police have to investigate, which means there is a record of it, and they have to bring charges. The court is what determines whether or not they are appropriate, as I stated above. They can't ignore them, but that doesn't mean they are going to jail either as the state does have discretion. If anything it is a good thing these come to light becuase it shows us where some inadequacies in the current legislation. Edit: Much like KK pointed above. If it doesn't come to light we can't change it.

We already have had the 15 + 15 is ok but 15+40 is creep discussion so it is a bit redundant. Plus, this is about pictures, not actions, which is a whole other ball of wax.

I didn't qualify young adults as stupid, I have found that stupid has no demographic with humans. Of course don't think of themselves as a minor, but they know they are. By 15 how many times you think they have been told they aren't old enough for something or that they are to young? There are kids that have committed crimes specifically becuase they know they are underage and won't be charged as an adult. Doing stupid things and being stupid are two different things.

I always forget, the first article wasn't a teen sending to other teens, it was a teen sending pics out to all sorts of strangers on the internet.

Yeah what's with teenagers and sending pics of their bodies all over the place.

We don't care about your emotions and we sure as hell don't care about your bodies.

Around here sex laws go with the following 2 possibilities:

An 18 years or older cannot have sexual relations with someone 15 years or under. 1st offense is a Class 5 felony, 2nd offense is a Class 4 felony. If both parties are juveniles(under 18) the older can be punished with a class 1 misdemeanor if there is a gap of 5 years or more(ie a 17 year old and a 12 year old).

Punishments:
Class 5 felony= A prison term of 1 year to 10 years.
Class 4 felony= A prison term of 2 to 10 years and a potential fine of up to $100,000.
Class 1 misdemeanor= Confinement in jail for no more than 12 months and a fine of no more than $2,500, either or both.

So here its less okay for an 18 year old to have intercourse with a 15 year old( 3 year difference) than it is for a 17 year old to have intercourse with a 12 year old(5 year difference).

I don't get it, but that's how we roll. We're also considering voluntary castration for sex offenders.



As far as young adults being stupid they kind of are, but that's due to natural development and puberty. The amygdala(emotion center) is the first thing to develope during puberty and the emotional control center is finishing development at ~20 years of age.

halonachos wrote:Yeah what's with teenagers and sending pics of their bodies all over the place.

You act like it is a common thing but really the passing of self taken porn between teens is a fairly recent phenomenon. It took camera phones, cell phone data transmission, low cost to do so, and ubiquitous internet to create allow such a thing, and that isn't that old. Also you need a culture that tells them this kind of thing is what should be done in mass media. Hormones make you want to [make love], culture is what makes you think pretending a you are a porn star is the way to be popular.

If they had just sent a pick to a boyfriend/girlfriend there wouldn't probably have been much of a problem, but both cases listed above were about, essentially, porn rings: one a girl with a bunch of strangers and the other a bunch of teens sharing pics with a bunch of other teens.

We've had the culture for a while now thanks to MTV, camera phones are relatively common now, and pricing is getting lower.

Besides, teens were taking naked pics of themselves to give to their BF/GF for a long time, just ask any vet.

halonachos wrote:We've had the culture for a while now thanks to MTV, camera phones are relatively common now, and pricing is getting lower.

I don't consider 10-15 years as 'awhile'. Television has been around for 'awhile'.*

halonachos wrote:Besides, teens were taking naked pics of themselves to give to their BF/GF for a long time, just ask any vet.

If you could point out where I said it never happened at all before, please point it out. It used to be poloraids but it was uncommon for highschoolers to make nude photos to share. We aren't talking about a gradual increase in the last decade or so but a huge increase. It has gone from being fairly uncommon to common. Even with the huge increase we still aren't talking about the majority of teens though.



*when you see ' you have to do the air quotes motion.

I know that the majority of teens don't do that, but the majority of teens are stupid.

Facebook and any social network is proof of that. Personal experiences also bias my opinion unfortunately.