The insane logic of sexting prosecutions

In North Carolina, the adult perpetrator and the minor victim are the same person. Come again?

A teenager checks his cell phone.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

America is notorious for its brutal treatment of minors in the criminal justice system. Who can forget Lionel Tate, the 13-year-old sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing a 6-year-old when he was 12, with what he said were wrestling moves he'd seen on television? (Years later, his sentence was overturned on appeal, and he was released on parole.)

New ground has recently been broken in the incarceration of American teens, however. Several children have been charged as adults for possessing child pornography — of themselves. Apparently, moral panic over sexting means we must entrap our children in a Kafkaesque bureaucratic sandpit before turning them into hardened criminals.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.