Thursday, March 5, 2020
Sexting and Child Pornography
On October, 2016, a 16 year old girl attending Maurice J. McDonough High in Maryland shared a one minute video with two of her friends: a 16 year old female and a 17 year old male. The video she shared showed herself engaging in a sexually explicit act. She expected her video would remain private. However, after she had a falling out with those friends, one of them shared the video with the school resource officer who worked for the county sheriff's department. She was arrested and, although she was not jailed and was not required to register as a sex offender, she was placed on probation and subject to electronic surveillance and weekly drug tests. While the production of child pornography usually involves a harm to child, is there a harm in this case? If so, does the harm justify criminal charges and the threat of prison? What about if the women in question were older than 18 -- would that make a difference? Should minors be penalized in any way in the criminal law for sharing sexually explicit images of themselves?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
In the case of a teenager consensually sending explicit images of themselves to consenting recipients, I do not think it is necessary to give them prison time or make them register as sex offenders. When most people think of child pornography and say these are the appropriate consequences, they are generally thinking of a moist Ralph in his basement with videos of 5-year-old children. However, if the creator and distributor consents and there is not related to another crime, like sex trafficking or pedophilia, then it should be the decision of the sender. In this case, I do not think there was harm to either party because everyone was aware of what was going on and consented to it. However, if there was harm, I believe that the severity of said harm, as well as the intention and circumstances, would need to be considered to determine a just response. Generally, with minors, I think the most important thing is education, so they know the possible consequences of their actions like others seeing it, colleges revoking their acceptances, etc. The child pornography law's primary goal is to stop the sexual exploitation of vulnerable children. However, when the child knows the consequences, they are no longer naive and vulnerable. Once a minor is educated, I think it is their decision if they want to make and distribute images of themselves. If the girl were over the age of eighteen, then the entire situation would be fine. The law prohibits child pornography, not pornography, in general, because they do not think it causes enough harm to justify it being illegal. So, if the girl were 18, and all other circumstances remained unchanged, then there would legally be no issue.
ReplyDeleteAs with all the principles and cases we look at, I believe that there is no one correct answer and there’s a lot of gray area. In this specific case I don’t think that any punishment should’ve been given. The ‘child pornography’ that the arrested girl was in possession of was a video of herself and she sent it. Nothing happened without consent and no one in the situation was harmed, therefore no legal action should’ve been taken. Speaking more generally, I don’t think that minors should be able to be charged with possession of child pornography, unless the child in question is a literal child. If a 13-17 year old wants to send sexual images to people around their own age, I don’t think there is anything legally wrong with that. I think that the punishment should come from parents or school staff but not law enforcement. Now, that being said, I think that if a 17 year old has sexual images of a three year old, there should be legal consequences for that. In that situation, it can be assumed that the 17 year old has a genuine interest in children and is not likely to grow out of it, therefore an arrest would be appropriate. But if the senders and receivers are all teenagers then I think the only punishment should be a lesson on internet safety. Nothing is actually going to stop people from sending nudes and sexual content but if we can educate young people on the dangers and how to be safe in a logical way (without scare tactics) I think that is the best way to handle situations like that. Either way, I think the actual case of this girl being arrested for sending a video of herself is utterly ridiculous and should never have happened.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, I do not think that criminal charges or threats of prison time were justified. When it comes to convictions of child pornography, in my judgement what it ultimately comes down to is consent. These laws should be in place to protect the sexual exploitation of children from non-consenting parties and people with poor intent, not to punish consenting parties of minors. From my understanding of the case, the explicit video was only shared with authorities as a result of the falling out of the three friends, not because of an issue with consent. Furthermore, we may consider this case a "victim-less crime," as this was a non-exploitative case of child pornography especially because it was her decision to share the video of herself. Although I am not aware of all of details pertaining to the issue, from my judgement there was no direct harm done to any children and therefore it should not be a legal concern. Cases in which explicit content is unsolicited or sharing content that does not belong to the sharer themselves are perhaps different cases; however, for this particular instance, I see no value in jail time, criminal conviction, or registering as a sex offender for this sixteen-year-old girl. There are undoubtedly social consequences for instances such as these which act as a retributive punishment for the negligent manner in which many young teens treat this content. I agree with Ella's blog remark that education is the most important factor regarding cases such as these, and I am again in agreement with the fact that it should be their decision to possess or distribute content of themselves to consenting parties after they have been educated. The law has a right to step in with these child pornography laws only when there is harm involved; however in this case I see social and academic consequences as enough punishment.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the idea of “child pornography” is a slippery slope to navigate. Usually, the first thought that comes to mind is the sexual exploitation of a minor without their knowledge or consent, or the illegal collection that a person has. In this specific case, I do not think it should be illegal or a crime that puts this person on the registered sexual offenders list because when a minor at the age of consent in their state sends a sexually explicit picture at this age, they should know the possible consequences. I believe that there still should be consequences if this minor was over the age of 18 and sent explicit photos to a minor under the age of consent, but in this case, I do not see the reasoning behind felony charge. I believe that the consequences from the family and friends will be just enough to answer this possible crime. I am glad that the court ruled this case and changed the way they applied the law because the severe consequences of child pornography do not truly apply to this situation. It is unique to talk about this issue after the speaker Big Mama came to Hawken. Her tactic of scaring individuals I do not think were beneficial, but she did bring up challenging topics like sex trafficking and pedophilia. I think that it is important to have laws around child pornography, but it is equally important to make exceptions to this law for certain cases, specifically for older “children”.
ReplyDeleteI think that the point of most child pornography laws is to protect children from being exploited. While in most cases these laws are necessary and helpful to stop exploitation of children, sometimes they can cross over into a paternalistic standpoint when people try and use them to police others' actions. While I don't think that the teenager in this case should've shared the video, I also don't think she should be punished by it. If we look at the harm principal, something should only be illegal if it harms someone other than the perpetrator, and in this case no harm was done to anyone besides the girl herself. While someone might justify the arrest by saying that it's making an example out of her or trying to convince kids not to do what she did, I don't think that's a valid reason to arrest her on child pornography charges because it's paternalistic intervention on her behalf. I do think if she were over eighteen than it might warrant some punishment because then you could make a legitimate argument that she was an adult preying on children (although I think this should be applied on a case-by-case basis, e.g a seventy-year old sending explicit images to teenagers is very different than an 18 year old). I don't think minors should be punished for sharing explicit pictures of themselves because it doesn't harm anyone besides themselves. I also think paternalistic laws like these can have the unintended side affect of shifting some of the blame, for example although it is the girls fault that she took the images, when other people sent them out but didn't get punished it sends the wrong message, making it look like it's all her fault when in reality multiple people here are in the wrong.
ReplyDelete