Incarcerating Kids will Solve the 'Sexting' Problem Like Incarcerating Drug Users Has Created a Drug-Free America

Because I write about drug policy, I encounter daily massive ignorance, complete stupidity and utter idiocy. But this piece by Ashleigh Banfield on the Daily Beast blows most of it out of the water on the dumb-o-meter.

Banfield wants harsh legal penalties applied "with zeal" to teenagers who send each other sexy pictures via cell phone or internet. Right now, such teens are already at risk of serious prison sentences plus a lifetime of being labeled a child pornographer and having to register as a sex offender because no one ever considered that such laws could apply to their "victims" if the "victim" takes her own photo and sends it to her boyfriend or a boy forwards a sexy pic.

So, the possibility of being lynched and the certainty of being ostracized by one's neighbors once you register with the cops as a maker of kiddie porn --as well as the prospect of being seen as the lowest of the low during a lengthy incarceration -- are already failing to deter teens.

How exactly would additional penalties, prosecution and enforcement help? Do we want to fill our crowded juvenile detention centers with kids whose only real offense is being impulsive or naïve? When these kids are placed in prison populations with violent offenders and are raped and assaulted, what exactly will be gained?

And when the teens who fall prey to these absurd laws are made to spend years away from their families, with poorer schooling, with kids who take drugs and make other poor choices as their only peers, we expect this to improve them, how?

Banfield writes:

Despite the fact that kids should know how permanent their digital actions are, they don't. Many can't be trusted to consider future consequences past a few days

So how, then, will making the consequences of a dumb choice even harsher prevent the impulsivity which is characteristic of adolescence and which, by definition, involves failing to consider consequences? This is like randomly poisoning kegs of beer in hopes of stopping teen drinking.

Banfield worries about a girl who killed herself after her sex pictures were forwarded around -- but does she think being labeled a sex offender for life couldn't make someone suicidal? She discusses how sexting might "ruin" someone's life, but prosecuting them for it wouldn't do this?

We know these kids are already failing to consider the potentially dire outcomes from these choices -- so making the consequences more dire by scapegoating a few unlucky kids will do what, Ashleigh?

Einstein once said that insanity is taking the same action and expecting different results. America's criminal justice policies reflect this insanity -- and Banfield's column crystallizes the complete bankruptcy of trying to use criminal law for a purpose to which it is utterly unsuited.

Teens are going to act impulsively -- if we want them to become healthy and productive adults, we need to protect them from the consequences of their immature actions, not criminalize them. Sending a few token kids to prison for lengthy terms -- and let's face it, the ones who go away aren't going to be rich and white with good attorneys -- isn't going to stop "sexting."

All it will do is feed our continually growing prison population and make a few cynical politicians and brainless journalists feel like they've "done something."

Comments

[MerhabaAbi]

Land of the free and home of the brave.

Or is it, land of control freaks and the home of people willing to sing about bravery.

[peterg76]

But young people never did anything remotely like this with lesser technologies like photographs and letters, right?

[magen]

Ashleigh Banfield isn't one of the brightest lights out there in TV land.

[ecto plasm]

I think a "news"paper being called the Daily Beast is a dead giveaway, there. Kids shouldn't be in a prison population, a suspension from class ought to be punishment enough. This kind of idiot-speak (as exemplified by Ashleigh) is the ultimate stupid end of parents not taking responsibility for their own children. So date-rapists continually fail to be punished in our system, but now some morons want flirty kids to get locked up? What a wonderful world. Thank you Maria for being a voice of reason.

[MyNameIsJames]

The people who have suggested this insane policy are the one's who should be jailed.

Here is the reality.

Kids have been sexting or its equivalent over the internet for well over 10 years. In the form of racy emails and photos. They have also been giving each other peep shows with live cameras over the internet for years
The world has not ended.

[Novista]

And just maybe 'sexting' is a reflection that the teens recognise that 'rule of law' is a joke, given the bizarro world we see around us.

[Radarman]

Ok, let me get this straight. Two 17 year olds can spend the night together, having sex with each other, with the lights on and that's legal. No problems, pick up the condoms from the school before you go out, all's good. But if the next day the girl sends her lover a cell phone pix of her naughty bits to remind him of what he saw in person last night she goes to jail for life. Get the duct tape my head is going to explode.

[DMHopper]

"All it will do is feed our continually growing prison population and make a few cynical politicians and brainless journalists feel like they've 'done something.­'"

Maybe that's the point. The for-profit prison industry operates on the same principle as every other American capitalist institution: growth, growth, growth. In order to keep that growth going, they need to make more people into criminals.

[rukiddingll]

"Sexting" is right up there with some of our other sex offender laws (think mooning, streaking, consensual sex between teens, viewing "child porn" of a 17 year old ...). We should be reserving "sex offender" status for those who molest children or engage in the production and use of REAL child porn. The laws are starting to penalize the very kids they were intended to protect.

[RobinSeattle]

You don't put kids in jail and ruin their lives over some dumb teenage stunt that doesn't hurt anyone except the girl dumb enough to send sexy pictures of herself over her cellphone.

The only thing these kids have coming o them for sexting is some strong parental discipline. The government should butt the hell out. Have a sense of proportion you panicky over-reacting dummies!

[Skepticat]

Teens are children in the process of learning how to become intelligent reasonable responsible adults. Many teens during this process at times lack abilities to perceive the logical consequences of stupid behavior. If they could - they probably wouldn't be doing said stupid behaviors.
Threatening them with severe long term legal penalties for behaving stupidly without intent of causing harm only ensures that more people may have their lives wrecked for longer periods of time.

[undrgrndgirl]

this idea seems to be right up there with abstinence only sex education.­..

[believethelie]

Excellent article. Thank you for your insightful thoughts and words

[silverball]

...i couldn't agree more...and hadn't really thought about a comparison to our asinine and archaic laws regarding drugs....E­SPECIALLY MARIJUANA.­...but it's a very good and valid analogy...­...