Police Chief Unable To Simply Do Nothing Over Reported Teen Sexting, Brings Child Porn Charges Against Four Minors
from the the-law-is-the-law,-dammit! dept
Good, old-fashioned “sexting” has netted more teens some child pornography charges. Despite the teens involved claiming the photographed behavior was consensual, Joliet’s (IL) police chief still believes the only way to address a situation he and the laws he enforces aren’t built to handle, is to handle it as poorly as possible. (via Ars Technica)
Joliet Police Chief Brian Benton said posting the video online made already risky behavior criminal.
“It’s a criminal offense, first of all, to post that type of material online, especially for underage,” Benton said.
For underage? Or by underage? (To use Benton’s clumsy phrasing…) Because while everything recorded involved teens between the ages of 14-16, it was also distributed by these same teens. What happened here was only technically “child porn” and it involved no exploitation.
Still, Benton seems to feel the only way to prevent teens from doing something regrettable that might affect them “for years to come” is to treat this all-too-common (and apparently very normal) situation in a way that ensures any teen involved in sexting will be saddled with criminal charges that will affect them for years to come.
“The child pornography offense that was charged is in place for a reason, because we don’t want to accept that type of behavior as a society,” Benton said. “It’s making a strong statement, and I think it’s important to do so, to send a message to others that kids shouldn’t be involved in this type of behavior, and hopefully this will serve as a deterrent.”
No, it’s in place to prevent the nonconsensual sexual exploitation of children. It is not in place to charge teens for consensual, normal behavior.
But, whatever. Now these teens who participated in activity that isn’t explicitly illegal have been hit with charges for something that is very definitely illegal and that will likely affect them adversely until they hit the age of 21, if not for longer. It seems that if Chief Benton can’t make the actual sexual acts illegal, he’ll do all he can to criminalize depictions of the actual events, ignoring the logical dissonance of charging children for creating child porn.
Fun fact: these charges could possibly result in the forfeiture of property owned by the teens’ parents.
In addition, any person convicted under this Section is subject to the property forfeiture provisions set forth in Article 124B of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963.
Except for the parent who turned in all the teens…
(5) With respect to a property interest in existence at the time the illegal conduct giving rise to the forfeiture took place, he or she either:
(A) did not know of the conduct giving rise to the forfeiture; or
(B) upon learning of the conduct giving rise to the forfeiture, did all that reasonably could be expected under the circumstances to terminate that use of the property.
[…]
(b) For purposes of paragraph (5) of subsection (a), ways in which a person may show that he or she did all that reasonably could be expected include demonstrating that he or she, to the extent permitted by law, did either of the following:
(1) Gave timely notice to an appropriate law enforcement agency of information that led the person to know that the conduct giving rise to a forfeiture would occur or had occurred.
(2) In a timely fashion revoked or made a good faith attempt to revoke permission for those engaging in the conduct to use the property or took reasonable actions in consultation with a law enforcement agency to discourage or prevent the illegal use of the property.
If the local PD is creative enough to charge teenagers for producing and starring in their own child porn, it might be willing to seize the property “involved” in this consensual activity.
Filed Under: brian benton, child porn, illinois, joliet, police, sexting, teenagers
Comments on “Police Chief Unable To Simply Do Nothing Over Reported Teen Sexting, Brings Child Porn Charges Against Four Minors”
I saw this yesterday, it’s seriously appalling. I can’t believe they can’t think of a better way to deal with these kids then charge them with something meant to protect children from being exploited by adults.
In order to prevent these teens from ruining their lives, WE’RE going to ruin their lives.
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Isn’t there some sort of term for this? Where you do the end result of something to prevent the end result? Where the end result is the same?
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Democracy
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Religious fanatics have been this kind of thing for centuries, the usual “we had to kill them to save their souls” reasonology.
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As a religious fanatic, I take offense to your over-simplification.
While I don’t think it’s appropriate for teens to be involved in orgies, I also don’t think that charging them with CP is appropriate for a first offense.
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How about not being appropriate for any offense. Do you really think self exploitation is possible?
Re: Re: Re:2 Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius
…translates most closely to “Kill them. For the Lord knows those that are His own.” It was spoken by abbot Arnaud Amalric as a directive regarding the impending sack of Béziers.
Are you that kind of religious fanatic?
If not, well, they don’t make ’em like they used to.
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Catch22.
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I think you may be referring to “Pyrrhic victory”.
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Doctors have a motto: “First, do no harm.” We need something similar for police officers and DAs.
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Police have a motto too: “Protect and Serve.” You can see how much good that does.
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It’s been changed to:
Kill ’em all
let God sort ’em out
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No it just now comes with an unspoken addition.
Protect and Serve… YOURSELF.
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They can’t use religious terms like “God”
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Don’t be absurd.
We can and do use the term “God” in relation to our Country, patriotism, etc..
In God We Trust.
One nation, under God.
God Bless America..
Hell, the military oath I had to swear as I went into the Army included “God and my Country”.
What was that you said? I thought not.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
I was being sarcastic, but these uses are actually being contested in some places (pledge of allegiance?)
In today’s world, I would guess that they would get a lot of backlash if they tried to use it in something new (and I think that’s pretty dumb).
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
Existing uses, like what was added to the pledge and things like the ten commandments posted inside county courts, Should be challenged and new uses should receive backlash.
America is not a theocratic state, or shouldn’t be, and the direct support of a/any religion undermines that. I don’t care how often the courts rule the other way in religious zeal or conservative fear, God Almighty is not supposed to be the commander and chief of this little club called The United States Of America.
The original Bellamy pledge:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
This was edited at the behest of a KoC campaign and signed by a newly baptized president in an admitted flourish of religious zeal.
I personally prefer an edited version:
I pledge allegiance to the constitution of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
I like it for reasons made clear by magicians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukURt2TsEwY
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The problem is that that isn’t actually their motto, nor their mandate.
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It is for LAPD.
http://www.lapdonline.org/history_of_the_lapd/content_basic_view/1128
Re: Re: Re:3 Maybe oaths, mottos and mandates don't actually mean anything.
The LAPD is renowned for serving violence to those they are sworn to protect. I remember as a kid seeing my Mom come home having been worked over by LA’s finest after her vehicle was hit-and-run…and she called it in.
That was in the 80s.
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Their motto is still “Protect & Serve” it just the focus of their protection and serving that has changed.
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Their real motto is “Nothing, whats a motto you?”
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Well the general principle is used from that leve of thing right up to foreign policy. Most commonly used excuse for killing foreign people in foreign countries is that those same foreign people are being killed by their own people so it’s so much better if we take over the killing duties. EG saddam killed his own people, gaddafi killed his own people, assad is killing his own people.
So at least there’s a consistency through all levels. Is like they’ve found the political equivalent of the grand unified theory.
If we can stop others doing potential harm by us doing definite harm, the answer is obvious
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“In order to prevent these teens from ruining their lives, WE’RE going to ruin their lives.”
That’s standard operating procedure. Another common example is that of cops killing suicidal people to keep them from killing themselves.
You just gotta love it when the victim and the “perp” are the same person. *sigh*
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Technically in this case, each is a victim of the others, not themselves. Not that this case isn’t absurd, but not for the reason you say.
Stuff like this is so fucking stupid.
If we have a 17-year-old girl who takes a photo of herself naked *WHAM*, she’s guilty of “making and possessing ‘child’ pornography.”
But let’s say she turns 18 the very next day and takes another photo of herself naked.
If we put those two photos right next to each other, nobody is going to tell the difference.
Yet one is “illegal,” the other isn’t.
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He’s actually saying that creating it or even possessing it wasn’t a crime. It was distributing it that was.
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But unless you want to make all child porn legal, you have to have a line somewhere.
If you have a car drive 54.9999999 MPH and another car drive 55.0000001 MPH, one is speeding and one is not, but if they were side-by-side you wouldn’t be able to notice the difference. (I know that cops don’t generally pull people over for such miniscule violations, but still, at some speed there is a line between whether they will or will not pull someone over.) If one person steals something priced $99.99 and one person steals something priced $100, those are almost the same crime, yet one might be a felony and one might be a misdemeanor.
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No, you rewrite the laws in such a way that it clearly spells out that the sexual exploitation of a minor is illegal instead of making it about child porn which is the entire point of these laws in the first place. Since a minor cannot sexually exploit themself then clearly there would be no law broken here.
Re: Re: Re: As I recently ranted in another article comments forum...
Our laws tend to be more about criminalizing those actions that might exploit a child somewhere than about actually protecting children, and reducing actual child sexual abuse.
That’s because, like The Tick, our law enforcement is much more into beating up (alleged) criminals than it is about actually reducing suffering or keeping the peace or sustaining order.
One look at child welfare in the United States and it’s clear we hate our kids, and resent them for not being discount laborers in our factories anymore.
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You’re missing his point, which is about how you define an age limit. There has to be some unambiguously defined boundary, otherwise you end up with a complete mess, although I agree that age of consent laws as they stand are far from ideal and could do with being rewritten.
I don’t see your point about rewriting the law here though; sexual exploitation of a minor already illegal, and photographing somebody who isn’t considered able to consent to it is considered exploitation. Are you questioning whether that should be considered exploitative at all, or just whether it should be considered as exploitative as actually having sex with them?
Exploiting oneself wouldn’t stand up in court, for sure, but that isn’t the issue here. There are four people involved, each accused of harming the other three.
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The question is: if both parties are too young to consent, according to the law, are they capable of carrying out exploitation under the same law?
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You could probably build a defense around this. It would probably depend on the circumstances; would a child who rapes another child be found guilty of rape? I expect the conclusion would generally be that it’s a mitigating factor, since the person is old enough to know they are doing harm, even if too young to understand the extent of that harm.
It is normal for teens to do dumb things, but it is not normal for teens to make explicit sex videos and publish them in a public venue. As for charges for what they did, I assume this is something that will be handled by the juvenile court, which makes the list of life-destroying horribles here unlikely.
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It shouldn’t even go to court. This is exactly the sort of thing that the justice system (juvenile or otherwise) is not intended or equipped to handle. It can only make things worse for the child, regardless of the court’s ruling.
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Exactly. This should be turned over to and handled by the court of Mom and Pop which would likely and rightfully commence proceedings for the seizure and forfeiture of the assets used to commit the offense.
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I’ll play devil’s advocate for a minute here.
The role of the court here is to punish and rehabilitate, so saying that any ruling would make things worse sounds akin to saying that all punishment is bad. But, the idea of punishment is that by making things (proportionally) worse temporarily, it actually makes things better in the long term by deterring behavior which is self-harmful. It’s likely that a well-chosen punishment, whether given by the court or the parents, would actually make things better for them by inciting them to give more thought to their decisions in the future.
The court could simply order them to not use a camera-enabled phone for a number of months, which is no different to what most parents would do.
My main concerns in this situation would be the frankly criminal waste of public money that’s gone into prosecuting this, and the fact that part of this basically comes down to legislating morality. My view has always been that juvenile courts should not get involved in behavior that harms only those involved, except in the most extreme of cases (parens patriae), and even then should do so without bringing morality into it.
Re: Re: Re: Our corrections system is about self-perpetuation first, containment second and rehabilitation third.
When the Bethlem Royal Hospital lived up to its namesake term bedlam it was noted that it wasn’t fit for dwelling by any man, let alone those who were sick and required care. And the cacophony and pandemonium was such that it would turn the orderlies and doctors mad.
In the US our corrections facilities are not engineered to rehabilitate or assist in recovery, certainly not to provide a satisfactory habitat for inmates, but as a safe, secure place to contain them where they can be forgotten by the outside society. Our prisons our oubliettes in the truest sense of the word.
I’m not sure where in our justice system you intend to find rehabilitation. But the psychological consequences of corrections as temporary as you claim it to be drives innocent people to crime and outlawry. You don’t go into to jail and come out of it a better person.
For that matter, that’s true whether you’re an inmate or an officer of the law.
Re: Re: Re:2 Our corrections system is about self-perpetuation first, containment second and rehabilitation third.
I was talking more about juvenile courts. It’s very true that adult correctional facilities are more concerned with incapacitation, for better or for worse.
But we’re likely not talking about anything close to jail time here, if it even gets to court. It’s simply wrong to say that any punishment the court might choose to give is necessarily going to be harmful.
Re: Re: Re:3 Our corrections system is about self-perpetuation first, containment second and rehabilitation third.
“But we’re likely not talking about anything close to jail time here, if it even gets to court. It’s simply wrong to say that any punishment the court might choose to give is necessarily going to be harmful.”
Spoken like a true apologist.
Re: Re: Re:4 Our corrections system is about self-perpetuation first, containment second and rehabilitation third.
Spoken like a true anonymous coward who can’t make a point and resorts to ad hominems.
I maintain that I don’t see how a short probation sentence would be in any way life ruining. I’m definitely not saying that prosecuting this was in any way reasonable, just that it’s not necessarily going to end in disaster.
Re: Re: Re:3 Our corrections system is about self-perpetuation first, containment second and rehabilitation third.
You think juvie is better?
Our schools are shit and are organized like prisons. What makes you think the punitive system for kids is going to somehow be better than that?
It’s containment and it has the same amount of inmate-on-inmate and guard-on-inmate abuse as adult corrections. More so, since children are less experienced and can be convinced more easily to stay quiet, say, when the guards extort them for sex.
Frankly, the court case is going to be horrifying enough. You think a judge telling them how in exploring their sexualities they wound up inadvertently committing a serious crime is going to have negligible effects
And yeah, we don’t know if the police are going to seize the assets of their parents and put the families on the street, which they evidently can legally do now.
I think you’re pretending there’s going to be a best case scenario, where the norm is far from that.
And the US systems are worse to kids than they are to adults.
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I’ve never heard of such a harsh sentence being passed in any of the several cases like this there have been. I didn’t think the sentencing guidelines even applied to juvenile cases (and I’m certain the term “felony” does not; all juvenile convictions are delinquencies).
Such a sentence applied to a minor would be open to an 8th amendment challenge too, I suspect (since the restrictions you mentioned were never intended to apply to age-appropriate peers, and restricting a child to only being able to interact with people inappropriate for their age would definitely be considered “cruel and unusual”).
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It is normal for teens to do dumb things, but it is not normal for teens to make explicit sex videos and publish them in a public venue.
Given how often we hear stories of exactly that, what makes you think it’s not normal?
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People commit suicide every day, but that’s hardly normal behaviour.
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People commit suicide every day, but that’s hardly normal behaviour.
In a population of billions, there will be lots of abnormal behavior going on all the time. Your statement does not prove anything. There’s no way either of us could know how much teens are sexting, but do you suppose there are only a very small percentage of teens who have ever done it? I would guess it’s not that rare at all. Most of them have digital cameras of one kind or another, most of them have fairly poor judgment, and they’re almost all very horny and curious about sex. It would actually be pretty bizarre if this weren’t going on regularly.
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People commit suicide every day, but that’s hardly normal behaviour.
Apparently, sexting among teens is their “normal” now days:
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I do not believe that making a video of a sex orgy and publishing it for the world to see is what most people associate with “sexting” and view as normal teen behavior.
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I think the question here is if it’s within the threshold of what teens will be expected to do (it is).
I think we’re trying to make an example of them, though.
Consider two scenarios:
A) Some teens take video of themselves in sexually explicit situations and publish it.
B) Adult enterprisers collaboration to court third party children and persuade them (by promises or threats or whatever) to engage in sexually explicit scenarios which are captured on video and sold for profit.
In this situation, we are equating these two scenarios. We’re not only pushing to convict the teens from (A) as the adults from (B) but we are also implying (for future precedence that the adults from (B) are doing nothing worse than the mischief engaged in by teens from (A).
As a curious aside, I wonder if in cases where a youth is seriously injured by another youth in a classic bullying scenario (the second kid wants to kill something and finds the first kid a convenient target), if, when such incidents go to court the penalty suffered by the bully compares at all to pornographic teens in (A)?
You think?
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All excellent points, although the moment someone argues against something because it’s “not normal” they can just stop right there. XD You can compare scenarios all you want, and doing so does point out how ridiculous it all is and is good to do. At the same time though, all that matters is if it’s not hurting anyone or being detrimental. Anti-sexuality largely stems from Puritanism and the concept that sex a) should be hidden, or b) is somehow hurtful for anyone young to be around or experience themselves, are both ridiculous concepts that need to die. If someone isn’t brainwashed that sex is going to cause them to go to hell, sex is a normal, fun, and healthy activity.
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“[S]ex is a normal, fun, and healthy activity.”
Absolutely, but the vast majority of people, including teens, have the good sense not to videotape themselves engaged in explicit sexual activity and posting the resulting video on the net for public distribution.
Re: Re: Re:6 Lack of good sense = Willful exploitation of children for profit.
But do you think that not having that sense is grounds to treat them with the same degree of punishment that we would black market professionals that sexually exploit children for profit?
Because that is exactly what is happening here.
Re: Re: Re:7 Lack of good sense = Willful exploitation of children for profit.
I have no reason to believe that is exactly what is happening here. Juvenile court proceedings, assuming it even gets there for a trial on the merits, are markedly different from adult court proceedings, not the least of which is that they are generally confidential and outside the public’s prying eyes, as well as records being sealed.
Re: Re: Re:8 To the contrary...
Considering commonplace behavior of the courts, we have no reason to believe that such a false equivalence is not what is happening here.
Common practice is to lay on in excess, is to let people fall into the the corrections system to serve as part of the 90% occupancy quotas that private prisons typically require (with fines to the taxpayers to enforce them).
You may like to imagine a Department of Justice that has compassion, that actually takes measured consideration of its cases, but while that happens, that is the rare exception. The rule is that law enforcement lies to bolster its case and pad the list of charges, and keeps colleagues handy to lie and serve as witnesses. And judges give greater weight to police testimony than they do to video.
We know this is the norm because the police unions raise unholy Hellfire whenever a judge dares to question police testimony, as if doing so breaks sacrament.
You seem to be convinced that these kids are outright evil and that if the choice is to subject them to too much punishment than not enough. Maybe you’re depending on a just-world hypothesis. I don’t know. But your interest here seems to be towards annihilating that which you find abhorrent than matching the outcome as closely as possible to the crime — or in this case, to the ill-advised but dubiously-criminal behavior.
Re: Re: Re:9 To the contrary...
It’s not like the prison system has incentives to throw people into jail! It’s not like they’re making money off doing so, or something like that.
Oh wait…
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Why would that be bad? I do it myself. There’s no harm in sharing. Sharing is caring!
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Consider two scenarios:
A) Some teens take video of themselves in sexually explicit situations and publish it.
B) Adult enterprisers collaboration to court third party children and persuade them (by promises or threats or whatever) to engage in sexually explicit scenarios which are captured on video and sold for profit.
You left out a scenario:
C) Some teens take video of themselves in sexually explicit situations and sell it for their own profit.
Now what do you think?
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
Why would anyone care? The only question is is anyone being hurt. If not, then case closed.
Not that it matters, but prostitution is legal in some places even in America, and making money off sex is done across all sorts of websites.
Re: Re: Re:5 How often does it happen?
In this case, scenario (A) happened. In fact, it happens quite a bit.
And scenario (B) happens all the time, and is one we can (probably) agree we want to discourage or prevent, but our policies are not very effective. Instead Law Enforcement goes after the consumers.
Scenario (C) is probably not very common. I might imagine we might see an increase of it in the future by some enterprising teens but probably not on a grand or organized scale.
And even then, my point remains the same: the laws we have to disincentivize scenario (B) (and fail) have no business being applied to scenarios (A) or (C).
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Also in 1995 no one could share their sexual fun with the entire world. Technology has made it easier to make these things far more visible. Teens still had orgies though, to various degrees, depending on the repressiveness of sexuality in the particular cultures.
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People commit suicide every day, but that’s hardly normal behaviour.
More so than you apparently realize.
Re: Re: Playstation 4 Share Play has demonstrated differently.
The Share Play feature of Playstation 4 allows you to capture games as you play, your screen and/or you and company in your living room as you play games on the PS4.
And it was on the first day after release that end-users were humping in front of their PS4 and sharing it to the PSN network, much to the chagrin of Sony (who’s had issues with sex since Betamax) and much to the bemusement of everyone else.
Given an available camera and a venue for sex, it appears to be really rather normal for human beings to sext the world. Just because our society has hang-ups due to fifteen-hundred years of Abrahamic prudishness doesn’t make sexual expression, even a certain degree of perversity, normal and healthy.
So yeah. These teens did nothing wrong. And the system is revealing it’s incompetence in persecuting them.
Re: Re: Re: Playstation 4 Share Play has demonstrated differently.
Not disputing that, they definitely did nothing wrong, and this whole prosecution is based on prudish morality rather than notions of actual harm. That’s not to say that what they did was wise or health. I think a good comparison here would be cannabis use; most people agree it isn’t wrong and shouldn’t be a matter for the law, but I doubt many would claim that it’s healthy or a smart decision to make.
Ugh
This is like a cop pointing a gun, yelling “stop or I’ll shoot”, at a man standing on a ledge threatening to commit suicide.
Re: Ugh
“Stop AND I’ll shoot!” FTFY…
It would appear that this is more than simple sexting. It was three guys and one girl videoing themselves doing who knows what. And no surprise it’s the girls mother who called the cops. I’ll bet she wanted the boys charged with rape, but when her daughter told her it was consensual, she pressured the police to use the next best thing, which leads us to the CP charges.
The internet is a sea of pornography
I do realize that Americans have deep-ingrained Puritan instincts about sex.
And that people over the age of, say 40, didn’t grow up with the Internet, and that influences their thinking.
But stop and have a look at reality. The internet is a ocean of pornography. Is ANYONE going to even notice a few more drops in that ocean?
I’m 100% fine with laws that prevent adults from coercing minors into sex. But are photographs really going to do any harm in themselves?
Is photographing a naked minor (or a minor having sex) really worse for anybody than the very fact of the minor being naked in front of an adult, or having sex with same? Are the photographs going to steal their soul or something? [Rhetorical question. No.]
If it weren’t for the Streisand Effect of publicity for child porn prosecutions, who would even notice a few more porno pics on -ferGodsSake- the Internet?
Why do we expect anything different from a police state?
Anyone who isn’t making or enforcing laws is a criminal, or potential criminal. In the police administration’s view the collateral damage of turning a few youth into criminals and ruining their lives is just the cost of doing business.
Root cause
With that ridiculous quote it is obvious Benton is part of the problem, and he’s part of the problem because he has completely bought into the following: Sex is shameful.
That is the root cause. A law designed to protect children is used to destroy children’s futures. Why? Because those kids had sex, and they must be shamed for it, with the full force of the law.
Our puritan ancestors saddled us with a deep-seeded hangups about sex, and we’ve never completely put it behind us. Women are still fighting for rights that were kept from them because of the original sin. Gays and lesbians are fighting for rights because everyone is so obsessed about other peoples sex that they happen to find distasteful. And then we have these kids. It’s not fair.
The root cause is that sex equals shame. Make no mistake. This is an honor killing. Their sex brought them shame, and it must be cleansed with sacrifice. The only difference is that there’s no blood involved. Well, not yet anyway. When you criminalize normal behavior, all you get is more criminals. These kids will be back as adults, shaped by a criminal system into the kinds of people that the criminal system needs to stay in business.
Re: Root cause
Actually they were only sexting, not having sex. Or at least that’s what the charges were against them.
But it raises the question, if consensual ‘sexting’ between 2 underage people is bad, shouldn’t actual sex be treated much worse? You’re getting everything involved in sexting there, and much more! Which in the eyes of this police chief must mean the ‘children’ are being victimized even worse then they are in sexting.
Yet I do believe that most states have laws far worse on kids for consensually distributing ‘child pornography’ of themselves then they do on two under age kids having consensual sex. (the laws are still messed up in a lot places with 1 slightly under age and one slightly over age kid having consensual sex however)
Re: Re: Root cause
In my state, actual sex that involves a minor is considered statutory rape. This is true even if everyone involved in underage (in which case, they’ve all committed rape).
This is exceedingly messed up, but at least it’s relatively consistent: sexting is not considered as harshly as that.
Re: Re: Re: Romeo and Juliet laws
Most states have Romeo and Juliet laws that allow kids over 14 to have sex with their peers if the age difference is less than five years.
Less common are R&J laws that cover sexual activity with same-sex couples.
Re: Re: Re:2 Romeo and Juliet laws
In my state, the law says that if the people are within 5 years of age that can be (but is not required to be) considered as a mitigating factor. But that’s as far as it goes.
Also, since the charge is a felony, the parents of the kids have no say about whether or not the kids will be prosecuted.
Re: Re: Re: Root cause
according to Illinois Law:
If the “Romeo and Juliet” exception applies, sexual abuse is a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail, up to two years of probation, and a fine of up to $2,500.
So, in this case the police did have the option to charge all the children with statutory rape. Child porn charges though, have more severe penalties for them.
Re: Re: Root cause
“Actually they were only sexting, not having sex.”
Actually, I believe they were having sex with gasp THEMSELVES! Oh, the horror!
Re: Re: Root cause
AFAIK, the law in Illinois (and many states, though unsure of the exact number) treats underage sex as rape, regardless of the age of the participants. I agree it needs to be re-thought out.
The police chief in this case has actually outright said he sees underage sexuality as something we shouldn’t “accept as a society”, so there’s no inconsistency there (whether that’s a good thing or not). As for why he’s not pursuing rape charges, God knows. Perhaps in his twisted mind he believes that would be excessive, yet filing equally bogus charges and wasting considerable amounts of public money is not; people this clueless are hard to predict and interpret, since they don’t have the intellect to act consistently.
Re: Re: Re: And so the police chief also regards himself as a jurist.
…which is really no surprise. We have enough police officers who believe that black people should just be summarily shot, and rather than being able to defer to the state’s notions of legal equality and inalienable rights, they do.
What about the next step for the photos?
What happens when someone who doesnt know who these kids are ends up with the photos in their inbox or facebook account? Are they going to have their life ruined because they now posses child porn? At some point control of the images will be lost.
Re: What about the next step for the photos?
You know, it’s only a matter of time and it will happen eventually: A juvenile will be pissed off at a teacher, take a bunch of nude selfies, hack into the the teacher’s computer and plant them there, then accuse the teacher of abuse claiming that the teacher coerced them into making the pics for them.
Re: Re: What about the next step for the photos?
Hack the teacher’s computer? You mean walks up to the teacher’s logged in, unsecured computer while the teacher is out of the room for a minute. Then gets charged with hacking if/when they get caught.
Re: Re: Re: What about the next step for the photos?
Seems like creating a throwaway email address and sending the photos to the teacher would be enough, or at least have a good chance at success.
Re: Re: What about the next step for the photos?
Please don’t give them ideas!
Except by government officials. They’re free to exploit the children any way they like.
So the mother of one of the kids...
Sees this video on twitter and instead of getting together with the other parents and discussing an appropriate way to punish said children for getting caught having sex, she instead calls the police and utterly ruins her daughter’s and three other teen’s lives with child pornography charges since the police chief is clearly a complete fuckwit.
Congratulations parental unit, you’re doing it wrong.
Re: So the mother of one of the kids...
Perhaps the parent is aware of facts that have not been disclosed. You might be jumping the gun criticizing her.
Re: Re: Criticizing the mother for ruining lives.
When those circumstances are made clear that warrant wrecking the futures of four kids including her own, sure, we can rescind criticism with all due apologies.
Until then, I can’t imagine any, so her status as a total fuckwit is sustained.
Re: Re: Re: Correction...
The officer was the designated complete fuckwit so the mother is only an accomplice fuckwit, aiding and enabling a third-party fuckwit.
Re: So the mother of one of the kids...
It’s entirely possible that the mother didn’t believe her daughter when her daughter said it was entirely consensual, in which case calling in the police to sort it out makes a certain amount of sense.
Unfortunately for her, not only did things shake out that it apparently was consensual, but the police are puritan idiots who will now criminally charge her daughter for making a sex tape.
Re: Re: "Calling in the police to sort it out makes a certain amount of sense."
Because common police anywhere in the US are soooo adept at child psychology, or heck, de-escalating belligerent situations.
Re: So the mother of one of the kids...
I wonder if she called back and said “I didn’t mean for you to ruin my daughter’s life, just those other three!”
The law is problematic, often because a culture of sexual objectification (based in patriarchal ownership of females’ sexuality) causes it to be misapplied by cops who find the idea of young women with sexual agency appalling.
“and I think it’s important to do so, to send a message to others that kids shouldn’t be involved in this type of behavior, and hopefully this will serve as a deterrent.”
Isn’t there a rule somewhere that says punishment against one person cannot be used as an example to another?
Re: Re:
Isn’t there a rule somewhere that says punishment against one person cannot be used as an example to another?
I believe the Supreme Court has so ruled. I don’t recall if it’s based on the eight amendment or something else.
how else will they put the fear of the police into them. Just telling them to grovel and lick their boots when they see them rarely seems to work.
This is a much more effective way to terrorize the children
Something something he liked their first season of work so much, he renewed it for a second season and moved the show into prison.
How many times viewed?
Let me guess how many police officers including the chief have watched said video. My guess is the entire department
If this is indeed exactly as reported, then it’s another textbook example of somebody abusing law to impose their morality on others. This police chief has no business holding the position he does; he has no absolutely understanding of the legislative history behind this law (NY v. Ferber would give him more than enough information) – which itself isn’t ideal for someone tasked with selecting what sort of behavior is worthy of prosecution, but becomes downright disastrous when he actually believes and claims that he does understand it and uses it as a justification for his decisions – and more importantly, he has no notion of one of the most important ideas in law, which is that law should be divorced from morality, with no exceptions.
This won’t hold up in court for a multitude of reasons, assuming it even gets that far (I suspect the DA’s office might not even bother pursuing this case).
However, I’m suspecting there’s more to this than meets the eye. I strongly doubt that all four people involved had equal say in this being posted on Twitter, and I also doubt anybody’s parents would have called the cops unless they felt that their daughter had been wronged by one or more of the others involved; parents may well be overprotective, but people generally don’t call the police unless somebody has been harmed, which if this news article really was correct, wouldn’t be the case here. If this is the case, then juvenile charges (for the appropriate offense, mind) and probation don’t seem excessive.
Re: Re:
“This won’t hold up in court for a multitude of reasons,”
The only this that might hold it back is media attention. Otherwise, it most certainly would.
Re: Re: Re:
thing
Re: Re: Re:
I doubt that. I think a first amendment defense would cripple it fairly well, since the supreme court held in Ashcroft v. FSC that speech that creates no victim cannot be denied protection. There’s a few other defences you could throw at it too (substantive due process, right to privacy, etc).
All other things failing there’s always the absurdity doctrine, which has been successfully used in the past to toss out statutory rape cases where all parties involved were considered the victims of the offence they were charged with.
And if Illinois allows jury trials in juvenile courts, good luck finding one that’ll convict, unless you hand-pick the most overly religious zealots you can find.
Re: Re:
he has no absolutely understanding of the legislative history behind this law
I imagine very few cops have any understanding of any legislative history. They generally don’t even have to have a college degree, let alone any legal training.
which itself isn’t ideal for someone tasked with selecting what sort of behavior is worthy of prosecution
The prosecutor decides that, not the police. He can decide it’s worthy of arrest, but if the prosecutor decides not to prosecute, the police can do nothing else. If I understand correctly, I am not a lawyer, etc. Do correct me if I’m wrong.
Wait. .
And they didn’t charge Twitter for distributing child porn? Think of the children!
It was a dumb thing for the kids to do, but then again kids do a lot of dumb things!!! What I’m wondering, it was all between these 4 kids, how the hell did the police get involved? They had to find out somehow. A parent looking at one of the kids phones and going to the police after seeing the pictures? One of the kids showing the picture(s) to their friend(s)? Putting the picture up on Facebook? How did the police get involved in the first place?
I think parents need to do a better job with their kids! Pound it into your kids brain that taking pictures or Video of your Naked self can come back to hurt you later in ways you can’t imagine. Or anything you post or comment on and come back to hurt you also. Watch what you do.
Re: Re:
This is where I suspect the article isn’t telling us everything. For the parents of one of the kids to get the police involved, it seems very probable that they had reason to think that their daughter had been harmed by one or more of the others involved. Perhaps the girl found out it had been uploaded without her permission, or even was being used by one of the others to ridicule her.
The acts may well have been mutually consensual, but I have a strong feeling the filming and/or publication of the video was not.
Re: Re: Re:
“This is where I suspect the article isn’t telling us everything. blah blah blah”
This is actually where it becomes abundantly clear that as the apologist you are, you are are starting to make stuff up.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Um, no. I don’t see where I’m apologising for anyone. As I’ve said several times, I think this prosecution is idiotic and unnecessary, and that this overzealous and undereducated police chief is trying to involve his morality, rather than reason, in his application of the law.
He asked why the police got involved, which we don’t actually know exactly, so I’m answering with an educated guess about things that we haven’t (yet) been told about based on the information we do know. Key word here is “guess”; notice I never once said I was certain about what I said, just that I suspected it was possible. People don’t generally go through the hassle of getting the police involved unless they feel they’ve been wronged. Now it could be that I’m wrong. Maybe the girl’s mother decided to call the police because she disapproved of he daughter’s friends; for all we know maybe the girl herself did it to place the blame on the others during a guilt trip or as part of some twisted joke. I just don’t think that’s as likely.
Re: Re: Re:
For the parents of one of the kids to get the police involved, it seems very probable that they had reason to think that their daughter had been harmed by one or more of the others involved.
My little snowflake would never do anything like this unless she was forced into it somehow! Many parents are willing to go to great lengths to avoid confronting the idea that their children do things they wouldn’t approve of.
Re: Re: Re:
I dunno. It seems to me that the “my little angel” syndrome is the most likely explanation.
As the father, I can tell you with 100% certainty that if I really believed that someone had actually had actually been harming my daughter and the only response to that was charges about naked selfies, I would be raising a very loud and public ruckus about the whole thing. I doubt that I’m exceptional in this regard, yet I’m not seeing the parents doing this.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
“As the father”
As a father. Ack. I’m not the father of anyone involved in this case.
These children are being exploited by law enforcement. Do we understand who the sexual predators are now? Thank goodness there were no cell phones when I was a teenager.
If you are underage and take pictures of underage people having sex / who are naked, there should be consequences. These pictures could be leaked. There is no real reason why photos should be taken unless they are trying to show them to other people.
Re: Re:
I agree, but the circumstances should determine whether it’s a case for the parents or the law.
reminds me of that german game
“child porn, its porn for children! nothing wrong here.”
hilarious
Wanted sex hurts no one, this is what you get America
Look where your brilliant laws have gotten you America. Make it illegal for kids to be the normal sexual animals they are and pretty soon every kid will be in jail.
In the upcoming revolution, can we please finally agree that sexual rights should be protected for everyone, and only make actual rape and things that are actually detrimental to someone’s mental or physical health illegal?
Re: I think you're onto something.
I think that amongst social conservatives — or really, anyone who cannot see the pluralist society for the individuals — every kid in jail (with the exception of their own) would be an ideal outcome.
And amongst those in authority, we aren’t seeing anyone who recognizes the consequences of presuming delinquency and initiating containment.
Americans have become complacent
The plant is rotten and needs to be pulled out by the roots. The entire system has been corrupted to the point of most all incentives being geared to yield the best outcomes for the rich and powerful, and the worst outcomes for everyone else. If you would have told Americans decades ago that we’d have a prison industrial complex that makes money off jailing people, they would have laughed at you.
The Constitution laid out a fairly decent list of rights, but it didn’t lay out things like sexual rights, or the right to wear what one wishes to wear including nothing. In the upcoming revolution, I hope things like this are corrected.
Re: We need some folks, maybe on Reddit, working on the US Constitution and Bill of Rights 2.0
So that when there is a revolution we have that stuff all thought out.
Otherwise the new boss is the same as the old boss.
Re: Re: We need some folks, maybe on Reddit, working on the US Constitution and Bill of Rights 2.0
Yeah, have to make sure the same thing that happened in Egypt and other countries doesn’t happen here, where there is a power void due to a revolution that gets filled in by the same rich thieves who controlled the masses previously.
My best guess as to what would create a better system is democracy (since even if the masses are dumb, they need to be educated and become smarter by debating everything for a good long period of time until there is a wide consensus on what to do, as opposed to the idea of the dumb masses electing a smart leader which just doesn’t work. Also, no secret laws, obviously.), transparency (those who are elected to positions to perform work for the community are open about everything that happens), and respecting a balance in freedoms between everyone (the current America only respects the freedom of the rich to steal wealth from everyone else).
Re: Americans have become complacent
The whole problem with politics, where representatives are voluntary, is that most people who volunteer are not the the ones you want as a representative. Also, those representatives are of the opinion that their job is to make more laws, which has the result that government drifts towards totalitarianism as laws cover more aspects of life, and in more detail.
Re: Re: Americans have become complacent
But not all public jobs are unpleasant and they can be enjoyed just as much as private jobs. You have bad incentives with private jobs, too, because if someone is just trying to get money that’s when they are more likely to take advantage of you and do a poor job while taking your wealth. So based on that, one could argue that private jobs are more susceptible to corruption than public ones.
Regardless, the system has been slowly configured over time to have the perverse incentive structures that those in power like it to have which is why it would be a lot quicker at this point to pull the whole thing out by the roots and start over with a more intelligently set-up system.