Can You Be Around Children As A Registered Sex Offender

(CNN) -- When Vanessa Hudgens' naked photos hit the Internet, the "High Schoolhouse Musical" star quickly apologized. But sending nude or seminude pictures, a phenomenon known every bit sexting, is a fast-growing trend among teens.

Marissa Miller's mother, MaryJo, is suing the DA to stop him from filing charges.

Phillip Alpert is a registered sex offender as a upshot of sending a nude photo of his xvi-year-sometime girlfriend.

The National Entrada to Forbid Teen & Unplanned Pregnancy, a private nonprofit group whose mission is to protect children, and CosmoGirl.com, surveyed nigh 1,300 teens about sex activity and technology. The result: 1 in v teens say they've sexted even though the majority know information technology could be a criminal offence.

Phillip Alpert plant out the difficult way. He had simply turned 18 when he sent a naked photo of his sixteen-twelvemonth-old girlfriend, a photo she had taken and sent him, to dozens of her friends and family after an statement. The high school sweethearts had been dating for virtually 2½ years. "It was a stupid thing I did because I was upset and tired and information technology was the centre of the dark and I was an immature kid," says Alpert.

Orlando, Florida, law didn't run across information technology that way. Alpert was arrested and charged with sending child pornography, a felony to which he pleaded no contest merely was later convicted. He was sentenced to five years probation and required by Florida law to register as a sex offender.

"Yous will find me on the registered sex offender list next to people who accept raped children, molested kids, things like that, because I sent kid pornography," says Alpert in atheism, explaining, "You think kid pornography, y'all think 6-year-one-time, 3-year-old little kids who can't think for themselves, who are taken advantage of. That really wasn't the case."

Alpert'south attorney Larry Walters agrees and he's fighting to become Alpert removed from Florida's sex offender registry. The law lags backside the technology, he says. "Sexting is treated every bit child pornography in almost every state and it catches teens completely offguard because this is a fairly natural and normal affair for them to practice. It is surprising to us equally parents, but for teens information technology's office of their civilization."

In many states, like Florida, if a person is convicted of a criminal offence against children, information technology automatically triggers registration to the sexual practice offender registry. Thirty-eight states include juvenile sex offenders in their sex offender registries. Alaska, Florida and Maine will annals juveniles only if they are tried as adults. Indiana registers juveniles age 14 and older. South Dakota registers juveniles age xv and older. Most states allow public admission to sex offender registries via the Internet and anyone with a calculator can locate registered sex activity offenders in their neighborhoods.
Spotter a report on the 'sexting' tendency and how police are now getting involved »

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A number of states have elected not to provide Internet access to registries; Florida is not ane of them. At that place is no hiding for Alpert, whose neighbors, he says, all know. "I am a sex offender. If you lot type my name into the search engine online, you volition notice me."

As sexting incidents popular up around the country, prosecutors are trying to come up to terms with how these cases should exist handled. George Skumanick Jr., a district attorney from Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, took a novel arroyo when 20 students from Tunkhannock High School were defenseless allegedly sexting.

He gave them a choice: probation and re-education classes or be charged with sexual abuse of a minor. "An adult would get to prison for this," says Skumanick, calculation, "If you have the photo, y'all've committed a offense. If y'all ship the photograph, you've committed a different crime, but essentially the same criminal offense."

Critics, nonetheless, say kid pornography laws on the possession or dissemination of graphic images were never meant to apply to teen sexting and that these teenagers unremarkably take no criminal intent when they transport pictures to each other.

amFIX: Should teens be prosecuted for "sexting"?

15-twelvemonth-former Marissa Miller of northeastern Pennsylvania was 12 when she and a friend snapped themselves wearing training bras. "I wasn't trying to be sexual," she says, "I was having fun with my friends at a sleepover, taking pictures, dancing to music." The picture recently surfaced on a student's cell phone and Marissa'due south mom, MaryJo Miller, was contacted past Skumanick. "He told me that he had a full nude photograph of my daughter," says MaryJo Miller, who calls the pic innocent.

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Rather than force her daughter to take the classes, which would have required she write a report explaining why what she did was wrong, Miller and two other families �-- with the assistance of the ACLU -- are suing the district attorney to finish him from filing charges. "We believe she was the victim and that she did zippo wrong," says Miller. "How can I ask her to compromise her values and write this essay, when she didn't practise annihilation?"

Although the district attorney maintains the program is voluntary, the letter of the alphabet he sent to parents notes, "Charges volition be filed against those who practice not participate." Seventeen of the twenty students caught in the sexting incidents take completed the 14 hours of classes.

Skumanick won't comment on the Miller case, but says, "You tin't call committing a offense fun or a prank. If you practise that, you tin can rob a bank because yous think information technology'southward fun." In the bulk of sexting cases, it'south ordinarily girls sending pictures to boys, who then send them to their friends. Though teens may retrieve it's funny and a way to flirt or fifty-fifty seek revenge afterward a breakdown, there tin can be dangerous consequences.

Terminal yr, Jessica Logan, a Cincinnati, Ohio, teen, hanged herself after her nude photo, meant for her young man, was sent to teenagers at several high schools. For months after, her father says, she was the subject of ridicule and taunts. "Everyone knew nigh that photo," Bert Logan says. "She could not alive information technology down." On July 3, his married woman institute her. "She had been getting dressed to go out. The crimper iron was withal warm. Information technology was and so unexpected," Logan says. "I heard my married woman scream, I ran upwards to Jessie's room, but information technology was besides late."

No charges had been filed against Jessica's xix-year-quondam boyfriend, who disseminated the photo, nor had the school taken whatever action, Logan says. He says he and his wife want to warn parents and students of the dangers of sexting. The Logans are fighting to raise awareness nationally and to advocate for laws that accost sexting and cyber-bullying.

As for Alpert, life is non easy every bit a registered sex offender, a label he will deport until the historic period of 43. He's been kicked out of college, he cannot travel out of the county without making prior arrangements with his probation officeholder, he has lost many friends and is having problem finding a job considering of his condition equally a bedevilled felon. He says he feels terrible about sending the photo of his ex-girlfriend, especially since they were once and then close.

At the same fourth dimension, Alpert says, "I'm beingness punished for the residual of my life for something that took two minutes or less to do." Says chaser Walters, "Some judges have the practiced sense and reasonableness to care for this as a social trouble and others are more zealous in their efforts to put everybody away and I retrieve it'southward time equally a club that we step back a little bit and avoid this temptation to lock upwardly our children."

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