On Monday evening, October 16th, the Metrowest Commission on the Status of Women (MCSW) presented forum at Franklin High School on “Teen Sexting: The Harm, The Recovery, and Changing the Law.” Panelists included Representative Jeff Roy, who would talk about his recently introduced legislation, Bill H.948 “An Act Relative to Transmitting Indecent Visual De-pictions by Teens,” that would change the criminal process of charging teens as felony sex of-fenders and offer an educational diversion program, Senator Karen Spilka, Franklin Police and School Safety Officer Christopher Spillane, Dr. Elizabeth Englander, of Bridgewater State Uni-versity, and Denise Schultz, representing the MCSW, which sponsored the talk. Senator Ross also attended the event from the audience perspective.
“We had 64 kids involved in an incident in Franklin High School five or six years ago, a serial publication of a picture that had some really horrible consequences,” said Roy, who says he was approached by Franklin PD Officer Jason Reilly about the issue.
“He said, ‘We’re having a bear of a time with students who are getting involved in sexting, and we lack the tools to deal with this,” said Roy. “He said, ‘Right now, our choices are to charge them with nothing, do nothing, or charge them with the possession of child pornography. There has to be something in between.’”
“Sexting started to arrive about 10 years ago,” said Sgt. Spillane. At that time, he says, the technology was at the high school level, but now it has permeated middle school culture as well. “Honestly, this sexting thing is not going away … We’ve seen the sexting issue drop down to middle school, and we contacted Jeff to see if we have a tool to maybe get them involved in services maybe they’re screaming for.”
Spillane says current laws don’t address the problem.
“I don’t think any police officer would feel comfortable charging a 14-year-old for a sex felony where they’d have to register the rest of their life for a mistake,” he says. “We’re trying to make this more of an educational piece.”
“Minors would be charged with an offense,” says Roy, of those who share a private picture without consent. “But before they’re arraigned, the DA would have the opportunity to give them an education program.” The charge would be a misdemeanor of transmitting an image without consent instead of a felony child pornography charge.
Rep. Roy is not minimizing the seriousness of exposing private sexual photos. “We know this is dangerous behavior and potentially has lifelong consequences,” he says. “But we ought to be in the education business, of allowing kids to learn a lesson and address it through a new set of statutory rules.”
If passed, and all the lawmakers in the room agreed that the law would probably undergo many revisions or tweaks before that were to happen, the law would apply to minors only.
“If you’re 23 and you share a nude picture of a minor under 16, you’ll still face a child pornog-raphy charge,” says Roy, who says he had to start “from scratch” in drafting the legislation, as many states have yet to deal with it. He contacted a variety of sources, including Amy Hasenoff of the University of Colorado, for their input.
Senator Spilka, who represents Medway and Franklin, as well as Ashland, Holliston, Hopkinton and Natick, said, that in this age of electronic devices, said, “This is, in particular, a very im-portant bill and issue that comes up in all areas and school districts across the state.” She an-nounced at the forum that the Massachusetts senate was on the verge of passing an omnibus justice reform bill (filed October 26th) that included a provision for a pre-arraignment diversion such as what’s in Representative Roy’s bill as well as a number of other issues that take into consideration maturity factors.
“It’s critical. We want to protect our children from the harms of sexting, but we want to pre-vent and limit our children from entering the criminal justice system,” she said. “Research on adolescent development consistently shows that young people do not fully mature until their mid-twenties and how they can lack important self-control, impulse control and good decision making capacities - and lack ability to fully understand long term consequences to their ac-tions.”
Mistakes, she said, are normal, and rather than press criminal charges, she says, support ser-vices can give them the resources they need to “get back on track.”
As for prevention, Dr. Englander said that discussion about private pictures needs to happen not only in schools, but also at home, starting at a young age.
“Really talk with your kids. Tell them what interests you, what worries you. Ask them their opinions. Ask them if they have any friends who’ve gotten involved, and how they would handle (that situation). Say, ‘Im thinking about this; what do you think?’”
Englander explains that young adults today have different ideas about nudity, so parents might want to tailor their approach to discouraging their teens from sexting.
“The good news is, increasingly, kids are recognizing there can be serious consequences,” said Englander. “When you have kids who say, ‘It’s just skin, what’s the big deal,’ if you can’t con-vince a kid that taking a pic in a bathing suit is inappropriate, instead emphasize to them that this could have repercussions they haven’t considered.”
The FPD generally finds out about such pictures from the administrators of the school, or sometimes by people who walk into the police station saying that they sent an image to a boy-friend or girlfriend, that the relationship was then terminated, and now that image has been sent around.
“Some use that picture as leverage,” says Spillane, “as in, if you don’t send me another pic, I’m going to send it to my group chat. They’re using it to bully, to re-victimize the victim.”
Issue Date:
November, 2017
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