Can A Registered Sex Offender Be Around Children

(CNN) -- When Vanessa Hudgens' naked photos hit the Internet, the "High School Musical" star speedily apologized. Only sending nude or seminude pictures, a phenomenon known equally 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 equally a result of sending a nude photograph of his 16-year-old girlfriend.

The National Entrada to Foreclose Teen & Unplanned Pregnancy, a private nonprofit group whose mission is to protect children, and CosmoGirl.com, surveyed nearly 1,300 teens about sex and technology. The result: i in 5 teens say they've sexted fifty-fifty though the majority know it could exist a crime.

Phillip Alpert found out the difficult style. He had merely turned xviii when he sent a naked photo of his 16-year-old girlfriend, a photograph she had taken and sent him, to dozens of her friends and family unit after an argument. The high school sweethearts had been dating for nigh 2½ years. "It was a stupid thing I did considering I was upset and tired and information technology was the middle of the night and I was an immature kid," says Alpert.

Orlando, Florida, police force didn't come across information technology that manner. Alpert was arrested and charged with sending child pornography, a felony to which he pleaded no competition but was after convicted. He was sentenced to 5 years probation and required by Florida law to register as a sex offender.

"Y'all will find me on the registered sexual practice offender list next to people who accept raped children, molested kids, things like that, considering I sent child pornography," says Alpert in disbelief, explaining, "Y'all remember child pornography, you remember 6-year-old, 3-year-old little kids who can't think for themselves, who are taken advantage of. That actually wasn't the case."

Alpert's attorney Larry Walters agrees and he's fighting to become Alpert removed from Florida's sex offender registry. The law lags behind the technology, he says. "Sexting is treated as kid pornography in almost every state and it catches teens completely offguard considering this is a fairly natural and normal matter for them to do. It is surprising to us as parents, but for teens it'due south part of their civilization."

In many states, like Florida, if a person is convicted of a crime confronting children, information technology automatically triggers registration to the sexual practice offender registry. Thirty-viii states include juvenile sex offenders in their sexual practice offender registries. Alaska, Florida and Maine volition register juveniles only if they are tried every bit adults. Indiana registers juveniles age 14 and older. Southward Dakota registers juveniles age 15 and older. Nigh states allow public access to sex offender registries via the Net and anyone with a calculator tin locate registered sex offenders in their neighborhoods.
Lookout man a report on the 'sexting' trend and how police are at present getting involved »

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A number of states have elected not to provide Internet access to registries; Florida is not i of them. There is no hiding for Alpert, whose neighbors, he says, all know. "I am a sexual activity offender. If you type my name into the search engine online, y'all will detect me."

Equally sexting incidents pop upwards around the country, prosecutors are trying to come to terms with how these cases should exist handled. George Skumanick Jr., a district chaser from Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, took a novel approach when 20 students from Tunkhannock High Schoolhouse were caught allegedly sexting.

He gave them a pick: probation and re-instruction classes or be charged with sexual abuse of a small-scale. "An adult would go to prison house for this," says Skumanick, adding, "If you take the photo, you've committed a law-breaking. If you send the photograph, yous've committed a unlike crime, but essentially the same offense."

Critics, however, say child pornography laws on the possession or dissemination of graphic images were never meant to apply to teen sexting and that these teenagers usually have no criminal intent when they send pictures to each other.

amFIX: Should teens exist prosecuted for "sexting"?

Fifteen-year-old Marissa Miller of northeastern Pennsylvania was 12 when she and a friend snapped themselves wearing preparation 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 movie recently surfaced on a educatee's jail cell telephone and Marissa'southward mom, MaryJo Miller, was contacted past Skumanick. "He told me that he had a total nude photo of my daughter," says MaryJo Miller, who calls the picture 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 aid of the ACLU -- are suing the district attorney to finish him from filing charges. "Nosotros believe she was the victim and that she did nothing wrong," says Miller. "How can I ask her to compromise her values and write this essay, when she didn't do annihilation?"

Although the district chaser maintains the program is voluntary, the letter he sent to parents notes, "Charges will be filed against those who do not participate." Seventeen of the twenty students defenseless in the sexting incidents take completed the fourteen hours of classes.

Skumanick won't comment on the Miller case, only says, "You can't call committing a crime fun or a prank. If you lot practise that, you tin rob a bank because you call back information technology's fun." In the bulk of sexting cases, it'due south usually girls sending pictures to boys, who then ship them to their friends. Though teens may think it's funny and a fashion to flirt or fifty-fifty seek revenge after a breakup, at that place can be dangerous consequences.

Last year, Jessica Logan, a Cincinnati, Ohio, teen, hanged herself after her nude photo, meant for her boyfriend, was sent to teenagers at several high schools. For months afterwards, her father says, she was the discipline of ridicule and taunts. "Everyone knew about that photo," Bert Logan says. "She could not live it down." On July three, his wife plant her. "She had been getting dressed to go out. The curling iron was still warm. It was and so unexpected," Logan says. "I heard my wife scream, I ran up to Jessie's room, merely it was too late."

No charges had been filed against Jessica'due south 19-year-erstwhile boyfriend, who disseminated the photo, nor had the schoolhouse taken whatever action, Logan says. He says he and his wife desire 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 like shooting fish in a barrel as a registered sexual practice offender, a label he will carry 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 trouble finding a job because of his status as a convicted felon. He says he feels terrible about sending the photo of his ex-girlfriend, peculiarly since they were once so close.

At the same time, Alpert says, "I'm existence punished for the rest of my life for something that took two minutes or less to do." Says attorney Walters, "Some judges accept the good sense and reasonableness to care for this as a social trouble and others are more than zealous in their efforts to put everybody away and I retrieve it'southward time as a society that nosotros pace back a little bit and avoid this temptation to lock up our children."

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