3 ms·

Which is better, to have a few horrifically competent go free or have a few innocent teenagers on the sex offender registry?

glogla 9y ago
It seem that nowadays, people want to err on the side of needlessly ruining lives instead of risking the possibility of life unruined.
jliptzin 9y ago
To have a few horrifically competent go free.
- mirimir 9y ago
  This is the obvious answer, no?
  - jliptzin 9y ago
    I thought so
bsder 9y ago
That's a really interesting question. I'm always on the side of "convicting innocents is wrong" because I consider it a pure civil liberty issue subject to abuse. However, you are going to have to defend against people doing a "damage amount" calculation. The malicious individuals are so vile and cause so much damage and exploitation while teenage sexting cases are generally sufficiently rare that the calculus probably doesn't come up in your favor. In addition, I have see firsthand from a bystander position that prosecutors are generally pretty good about teen sexting. I watched as a prosecutor patiently explained to an idiot mother that if he managed to convict the boy in the sexting case, he was also paving the way to convict her daughter of exactly the same thing. So, she could go along, and both of the involved parties would get some relatively innocuous conviction that would go away for both when they became 18, or she could make a big fuss and both of them would be sex offender registrees (the DA was clearly going to uncover evidence of statutory rape along the way--the boy and girl were obviously having sex with each other). The DA really didn't want the case to go very far. Of course, the DA involved didn't have to bow to religious nutcases to get elected. The relatives of the mother finally browbeat her into submission, but it was unclear which way it was going to go for quite a while and it could have gone very badly for all parties involved.
- lovich 9y ago
  Are adults actively seeking child pornography more common than teens experimenting? If that is true it would be a little disgusting/terrifying
  - bsder 9y ago
    While lots of teens are sending pictures, the number of cases that actually get involved in the legal system tends to be low. Generally something stupid has to happen--posted to Facebook, being shared around at school, comes up in a divorce proceeding, found on phone while being searched, etc.--before a DA is going to bother getting involved.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      OK, but that just makes it a horrible precedent that's arbitrarily enforced.
- Retric 9y ago
  Vastly more than 10x as many teens send sexting photos than their are child predators out there. So, your harming large numbers of children to do what? Kill free speech for the fun of it? What's next, outlawing anatomy textbooks? Prostituting people for baby photo's of their kids? That may sound silly, but the edge cases on this get complex. What happens if a kid texts a picture of a rash on their privates to their doctor? PS: Remember with the current state of AI we could flag every single sexting photo ever posted. So, what your going have this minor conviction of a large percentage of teenagers...
  - mirimir 9y ago
    > Prostituting people for baby photo's of their kids? I think that you mean "prosecuting" ;) And yes, that's already common. Or at least, it was, when people still used film cameras.
bsder 9y ago
You are framing the problem wrongly. The FIRST problem is the existence of the "sex offender registry" AT ALL. If you get rid of the sex offender registry then the problems around the child pornography laws become far less acute.
astral303 9y ago
Sex offender registry ruins lives far far far beyond what is morally "right." Google it.

glogla 9y ago

It seem that nowadays, people want to err on the side of needlessly ruining lives instead of risking the possibility of life unruined.

jliptzin 9y ago

To have a few horrifically competent go free.

mirimir 9y ago
This is the obvious answer, no?
- jliptzin 9y ago
  I thought so

bsder 9y ago

That's a really interesting question. I'm always on the side of "convicting innocents is wrong" because I consider it a pure civil liberty issue subject to abuse. However, you are going to have to defend against people doing a "damage amount" calculation. The malicious individuals are so vile and cause so much damage and exploitation while teenage sexting cases are generally sufficiently rare that the calculus probably doesn't come up in your favor. In addition, I have see firsthand from a bystander position that prosecutors are generally pretty good about teen sexting. I watched as a prosecutor patiently explained to an idiot mother that if he managed to convict the boy in the sexting case, he was also paving the way to convict her daughter of exactly the same thing. So, she could go along, and both of the involved parties would get some relatively innocuous conviction that would go away for both when they became 18, or she could make a big fuss and both of them would be sex offender registrees (the DA was clearly going to uncover evidence of statutory rape along the way--the boy and girl were obviously having sex with each other). The DA really didn't want the case to go very far. Of course, the DA involved didn't have to bow to religious nutcases to get elected. The relatives of the mother finally browbeat her into submission, but it was unclear which way it was going to go for quite a while and it could have gone very badly for all parties involved.

lovich 9y ago
Are adults actively seeking child pornography more common than teens experimenting? If that is true it would be a little disgusting/terrifying
- bsder 9y ago
  While lots of teens are sending pictures, the number of cases that actually get involved in the legal system tends to be low. Generally something stupid has to happen--posted to Facebook, being shared around at school, comes up in a divorce proceeding, found on phone while being searched, etc.--before a DA is going to bother getting involved.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    OK, but that just makes it a horrible precedent that's arbitrarily enforced.
Retric 9y ago
Vastly more than 10x as many teens send sexting photos than their are child predators out there. So, your harming large numbers of children to do what? Kill free speech for the fun of it? What's next, outlawing anatomy textbooks? Prostituting people for baby photo's of their kids? That may sound silly, but the edge cases on this get complex. What happens if a kid texts a picture of a rash on their privates to their doctor? PS: Remember with the current state of AI we could flag every single sexting photo ever posted. So, what your going have this minor conviction of a large percentage of teenagers...
- mirimir 9y ago
  > Prostituting people for baby photo's of their kids? I think that you mean "prosecuting" ;) And yes, that's already common. Or at least, it was, when people still used film cameras.

bsder 9y ago

You are framing the problem wrongly. The FIRST problem is the existence of the "sex offender registry" AT ALL. If you get rid of the sex offender registry then the problems around the child pornography laws become far less acute.

astral303 9y ago

Sex offender registry ruins lives far far far beyond what is morally "right." Google it.