Teenager Charged with Child Abuse/Child Porn, for Photographing SELF!

Originally posted by cognoscente

Originally posted by GT100FV
I can see there being charges for distributing nude pics, being that she's underage, but the other charges are ridiculous in this case. That's akin to someone who tried but didn't succede in committing suicide, being charged with attempted murder, and sentenced to death.

People are charged with something akin to attempted murder for failed suicide, that is... if they don't make insanity claims. Either way, you would go to a hospital for the mentally insane, go to jail, or have to pay a huge fine.

I know of not one case, at least here in California, where someone who has attempted or threatened to attempt suicide has been imprisoned. The laws that make it illegal to commit suicide or self inflict injury create the ability to commit people who need help to a mental institution for at least a few days or longer if they are still unstable at that time.

From a legal standpoint I can't see this child pornography case going very far. Regardless of the way the law is written there is typically a "victim" and a "suspect" .. if they are one in the same I sure hope the D.A.'s office, the judge and damn sure hope a jury would see the futility in finding someone guilty of sexually abusing themselves.

The judicial system doesn't exist to get people help, it tries sometimes but not typically well. If they truly wanted to get the young girl some help a CPS referral would more than definitely get her the resources she may need to understand what was wrong or dangerous in her activities.

Also there is the "spirit" of the law and judges are supposed to consider that and not just the letter of the law. If she were convicted on these charges than she would most likely end up requiring to register as a sex offender. Most of the sex registrant laws (megan laws) require lifetime registration regardless of age at time of conviction. She will be required to register annually or anytime she moves and will have a lot less options in her career choices.

This is not the type of person that I want to see required to registery annually and listed as a sex offender. These types of convicitons "water" down the effectiveness of checking a neighborhood for sex offenders.

Also there is the "spirit" of the law and judges are supposed to consider that and not just the letter of the law.

As far as I know, this is not true.
The justice system makes a big deal about how we have a "government of laws and not men" and judges are supposed to rule entirely based on the letter of the law and not their own opinions.

In this case we have a flawed law, as a result, a girl gets to get branded as a "sex offender" for the rest of her life, to protect the cultural fiction that teenagers are still "children".

Any laws that treat teenage sexual behavior as if it was the same as genuine child abuse are going to end up leading to farces like this. But we are not mature enough, as a culture, to face facts when it comes to teenagers and sex. So the farce will continue.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of real rapists and child molesters out there. But the fact is unless we change our laws to reflect the realities of teen sexuality, we will end up diverting resources from real cases of abuse to idiocy like this.

Important:

Analyst: Data doesn't support Iowa sex offender rule

www.qctimes.com...

The fact is .... Is this girl took a wrong turn .. and the turn she took was into herself .. and trying to get some sort of response that she will never get by doing this .. But she will mistake it from the response she does get ... and take it with a grain of salt ... and as all of the councelling that they make her go through ... To be sane again ... Will probably MOST LIKELY turn her INSANE ... For the first part the people that are becoming .. Psychiatrists in this country ... are outside of thier heads for the most part ... .. I am not even going to go there ... as I have many numerous Experience with this myself ... and with one of my best friends being a Psychiatrists ... herself ...

Originally posted by xmotex

Also there is the "spirit" of the law and judges are supposed to consider that and not just the letter of the law.

As far as I know, this is not true.
The justice system makes a big deal about how we have a "government of laws and not men" and judges are supposed to rule entirely based on the letter of the law and not their own opinions.

In this case we have a flawed law, as a result, a girl gets to get branded as a "sex offender" for the rest of her life, to protect the cultural fiction that teenagers are still "children".

Any laws that treat teenage sexual behavior as if it was the same as genuine child abuse are going to end up leading to farces like this. But we are not mature enough, as a culture, to face facts when it comes to teenagers and sex. So the farce will continue.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of real rapists and child molesters out there. But the fact is unless we change our laws to reflect the realities of teen sexuality, we will end up diverting resources from real cases of abuse to idiocy like this.

Originally posted by WyrdeOne

I am amazed. Not one person has asked "Why on earth would she take these types of photos of herself and then send them to people she doesn't know on the internet?"


Maybe the reason nobody said that is because it didn't happen? Where are you getting the information that she sent pictures to random strangers? From what I've read, it appears she sent the photos to people she knew online.

Okay, firstly, I did not say that she sent the pictures to random strangers, I said she sent them to people she doesn't know on the internet. You say she sent them to people she knew on line - had she ever met these people? Are these possibly classmates who she chats to on the internet or are these "friends" she met in a chat room?

Are there any other children in the household and, if so, what is being done about them? Has this girl maybe been abused at some stage for her to be so sexually aware?

You don't know many 15 year olds, do you?

It doesn't take abuse to awaken sexual urges in teenagers.

I'm not that far off 15 years old myself that I don't remember what it was like. I was just very fortunate to have parents who were very strict and drilled our morals and principles into our heads every single day. Peer pressure was never an issue as, if we were told that "everybody is doing it", we would respond with the old line of "if your friends were going to jump into the fire would you do it too?". Respect for oneself and respect for others was the No. 1 Rule in our house and neither myself nor my four siblings were raving sex maniacs in our teens!

I think it's pretty naieve to think of teenagers as sexless angels - that couldn't be farther from the truth.

No, not sexless angels but young men or women with enough self-respect not to behave in such a depraved manner.

One thing that does really bother me is that parents allow their children so much unsupervised time on the internet.

I agree 100%.

I know that I sometimes come across as a prude or maybe stuck in the Victorian England or something but I really do believe that most of the world's troubles come from the trend towards less discipline for our children which started in the 1970's and we are now reaping the fruits of this. I come from a large family (5 children and, at present, 8 grandchildren ranging from 8 years old to 22 years old) and none of my siblings or nephews or nieces would even think of doing something like this and would be absolutely disgusted.

When I was 15, I did some incredibly stupid, dangerous stuff. Any one of which was worse than photographing myself and distributing it.

Now, being an adult, I have no idea why I did them, except that I was young and dumb!

I am just glad there was no listing for my acts to follow me around for years and year.

You did nothing of this magnitude ... and if you did you would have been caught ... I am not saying you may not have streaked ... or things such as this ... But you didn't take Vulger pictures or Lustful , Sexual pictures and pass them out at your school .... I hate when people come into threads and try to debunk the obvious by personal experiences. Everyone is different this I know ... But you coming and and posting what you posted was ... so irrational and obviously you did nothing of the sort or you may have went into further detail .. Now I really don't care for your stories ... If you want go get on your processor and type a book up ... Maybe you can sell it under Non-Fiction ... I am sure someone will believe you ... Who knows you could label it something real nice and change some lifes ... Just ask Joel Osteen ... ""

Originally posted by Horrificus
When I was 15, I did some incredibly stupid, dangerous stuff. Any one of which was worse than photographing myself and distributing it.

Now, being an adult, I have no idea why I did them, except that I was young and dumb!

I am just glad there was no listing for my acts to follow me around for years and year.

Personally, had there been an Internet and webcams when I was 15, I am fairly certain I would have done something similar. At 15 I was pretty sex-obsessed.