In Lacey, Wash., A 13-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy are being charged with distributing child pornography, and—if convicted—will be required to register as sex offenders. The Seattle Times reports that the boy was engaged in a relationship with another 14-year-old girl, during which he obtained an explicit picture of her. After the two broke up, the boy sent the picture to the 13-year-old girl, who then distributed it to other classmates.
Thankfully, the victim is not being charged as a sex offender like other young girls have been charged in the past. From what I can surmise, the only difference between this and other cases is that, in this case, the subject of the explicit photo did not distribute it herself.
Sex Offenders? Really?
I agree that what the two teens being charged did a horrible and despicable thing by passing around an explicit photo of another girl taken in confidence, and I think they should be given very serious punishments. But I question whether they should be required to register as sex offenders. Sex offender registries should be reserved for those people among us who are considered a threat to our communities.
Putting criminals on sex offender registries is somewhat of a popular pastime for outraged communities and reactionary politicians looking for quick, popular legislation to pass. But what is the purpose of a registry? Is the purpose to inform the community about possible dangerous threats, or is it about shaming people who have made mistakes?
Warning or Shaming?
If the purpose is simply to shame people charged with a sexually-related crime, then it has no real benefit other than ostracizing members of the community, pushing them to the fringes, and punishing them well beyond their criminal sentence. But if the purpose is to keep community members informed about habitual predators who may pose a threat to families and children, then the registry can be extremely useful. If implemented properly, a sex offender registry it can point out the people in the community who we need to know about and take caution around.
I find it hard to believe that these two young people pose any threat to my family and my children. Once their sentences have been served, they should be allowed to put their stupid, juvenile mistakes behind them, go on to college, get jobs, and make the lessons they have learned shape their adult lives for the better. Putting them on a sex offender registry simply serves to further dilute the registry with non-dangerous people, and stigmatize these young people so that they cannot enter back into society once they have paid their debt and cannot go on to become productive members of society.
In your area, contact your local and state representatives to enact smart sex offender laws that are actually useful to the community and do not simply serve to shame those who made stupid mistakes.
James Gunter is the editor of The Crime Map and the director of social media for CrimeReports.com.
Get on the National Crime Map at CrimeReports.com
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Washington doesn’t currently have an laws specific to ’sexting’, and there are none pending in the current legislative session. CommunityWatch has pulled some good ideas from other states, and will be working on it in Washington over the break, and maybe in two other states that have requested assistance.
One of the ideas is to create a juvenile category of the crime, but still allow the person to be charged as an adult if it rose to that level of seriousness.
I completely agree. The only way to really deal with underage sexting is to create laws specifically for underage sexting. The adult laws don’t really apply, and aren’t fair to teenagers who make stupid mistakes. Obviously, I think we need an overhaul of the entire sex offender registry system, but dealing with this growing problem first, might be a step int he right direction. Thanks for your comments.
the problem is not just with underage kids and sexting. The reg. is watered down with thousands of people of age with crimes that do not make them a threat to any person. There are also thousands with crimes from decades ago and no other sex crimes since. I had a minor sex crime 25 years ago. I never went to prison as it was minor and not intended. Yet my life was ruined ten years after the fact in 96 with retroactive laws. Then again in 07 when I was placed on the public internet for all to see. I am a threat to no person. I can’t be removed and have no legal options. I must pay the state for the reg. every year. I am so fed up! enough is enough. The only way things will change is if enough people tell the law maker they will be voted out if these laws don’t change. That is the only think they care about. Save the reg. for the people you need be concerned about, not me and people like me! Make the call to your law makers!!!!
Thanks for sharing your story, Chuck. I think you are completely right. The current registry system doesn’t work precisely because it has been diluted with too many non-dangerous offenders. These people pose no threat to society, yet the public shuns them because they are on “The Registry.” And most members of the public don’t bother to actually find out what happened or why someone is on the list. My advice to community members when they learn that a sex offender has moved into the neighborhood is to fin out what actually happened and why they are there. As Lenore Skenazy recommends, “Get to know your local sex offenders.” She wrote a great piece on that very topic here: http://www.parentdish.com/2010/01/25/get-to-know-your-local-sex-offenders/
Again, thanks for sharing. I hope we can get the word out and change laws that only make us less safe and more afraid.
Hello Chuck – I’m curious as to what state you’re in that doesn’t have a method of removal from the registry. my email is bethan @ communitywatch dot us. thanks – take care.
I don’t care who you are…. minor or major, you are a sex offender and I want to know who you are so I can protect my child from such perverts. You should have thought about the consequenses before you acted. Its time people were held accountable for their actions instead of blaming everyone else… you did it, you enjoyed doing it, now you have to face the consequense. Why should my child or sister or friend pay that price for you?
I think you’re right to suggest that parents and other community members need to know if there are dangerous sexual predators living in the neighborhood, despite the age of the sexual predator. Certainly, some teenagers have committed very heinous, violent acts against others and the community needs to know about them as well as adult offenders.
However, in the case above, the issue is not whether we should have sex offender registries (because we absolutely should), but rather, if a teenage offenses like the one described above are worthy of landing them on a registry. From my point of view, it’s hard to make the case that these kids pose any threat to me or my family. What they did was stupid, but it wasn’t violent.
The purpose of sex offender registries should be to inform community members about dangerous people in the neighborhood, not to shame people who made stupid mistakes. In my opinion, these kids fall under “stupid mistakes.” Once they pay for their crimes, I don’t feel they would be a threat to anyone. Therefore, they shouldn’t be on a registry.
Wow, it’s uneducated moron’s like you who have turned this into the mess of a witch hunt it needs not be. How about you do some research and see how effective these registries are? You do realize that most children are assaulted by someone they know? Maybe you should keep an eye on that funny uncle of yours if you are so worried about your kids.
My boyfriend’s life is ruined. Like Chuck’s. Because when he was 18 years old and drunk at a party a drunk pumped full of xanax stripper came on to him and he had sex with her. Like most 18 year old BOYS would. Then the next morning she “forgot”. Everyone at the party defended him, including his own sister. No one there was ever interviewed as a witness. He was young, terrified, and couldn’t afford a lawyer. Now he has to register as a Tier 3 sex offender for “sexual assault” FOREVER because the laws changed after he was convicted. We are stuck where we are living now for God knows how long because we can’t find anywhere else to live. We have our drunk vicodin addicted neighbor screaming “sex offender” at us every time we walk out the door (although she feels quite comfortable coming over here to bang on the door at all hours of the night begging for a ride to get “smokes” or trying to sell us her pills because she can’t remember that I’ve told her NO 1000000 times), and how convenient that the neighborhood watch committee staked their big neighborhood watch sign right in front of our mailbox. We get to drive to 2 different counties every 3 months to register. The county we live in and the one he works at (and thank God he even has a job as good as he does considering he is a felon). And how nice that as of a year or so ago we get to pay them money for him to register. We also get to live in fear of some moron taking justice into their own hands after finding his name and our address on a sex offender registry.
To make the longest story ever short, he made a mistake. One with a hefty price. We do need an overhaul of the entire system. Labeling minor’s as sex offenders over sexting is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of. I’d hate to see what all I could have been convicted of at that age. They’d create a specific registry just for me alone lol.
Sara, not all sex related “crimes” make someone a pervert. Maybe they had a relationship with a girlfriend whose parents didn’t like. That does not make a pervert. If you have a son, I hope he never does anything with his girlfriend & her parents complain or your son, innocent or not is ruined for life. Also, girls never lie…right!!!
I was a victim of sex abuse as a child, but this was in a different time & place. Life in the 50’s !!! What can I say. Abuse never happened. I still believe not everyone is guilty of a crime & everyone should not be on the internet. I don’t know Chuck nor his story so I can’t call him a pervert. Not everything is black or white, sometimes there is shades of gray.
That is such a tough situation but I think I agree that we need laws that deal more specifically with the issue and not try to bend laws meant for Adults to fit this new reality.
I think that’s really the crux of the issue here. A new type of crime has emerged and instead of trying to create new laws for it, the courts have simply taken adult crimes and slapped them on teens with no thought that the crime might actually be different for a teen than it would be fro an adult. Thanks for your comment, SAHD PDX—if that is your real name . . .