Nicole Brady | SMH | August 14 2011
Teenagers have been placed on the sex offenders' register for sexting offences.
A SENIOR Victorian magistrate who presided over a case in which a youth pleaded guilty to teenage sexting offences has condemned as ''so unjust'' the mandatory laws that meant the young man was registered as a sex offender.
The magistrate, who works in country Victoria, said the lack of judicial discretion in such cases meant severe consequences for young people who posed no threat to society and were often guilty of little more than naivety.
The magistrate, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he had made the unusual decision to speak out because he was troubled by cases recently identified by Fairfax.
He presided over the case of the country youth, then aged 18, who was sent four uninvited text message pictures of girls, aged between 15 and 17 years, topless or in their underwear. Police found the pictures on his mobile phone and laptop and charged him with child pornography offences.
On legal advice the youth pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a one-year good behaviour bond without conviction. The magistrate refused the prosecutor's application for the young man to be placed on the sex offender register but police later realised his guilty plea resulted in mandatory registration for eight years. Magistrates have discretion for those aged under 18, but none for adults.
''These people shouldn't be regarded as sex offenders. It's going beyond the pale in relation to the imposition of long-term penalties which are not judicial penalties, they're not fines or community-based orders or even sex offender treatment programs. This is a limitation on what a person can and can't do for the next eight years of their life, for God's sake,'' the magistrate said.
The magistrate said that in the sexting cases coming before him in court the offenders ''have a minimal amount of culpability attached to them and a minimal amount of danger to any other person in the community. That's when it becomes so unjust.''
He called for magistrates and judges to be given discretion over who ought to be listed as a sex offender. ''We're the ones that see the material, we hear the pleas from the legal practitioners, we get to hear the prior convictions if there are any, we get to see the actual participants - the people who have been involved in this sort of activity,'' he said.
Chief Magistrate Ian Gray declined to comment. Police Minister Peter Ryan, who oversees the sex offender register, declined to be interviewed.
The country magistrate said he first learnt of the rise of adolescent sexting - people sending naked or revealing pictures of themselves via their mobile phones or the internet - about two years ago from a police officer who had been talking to local school children.
''This person said to me there was serious concern that sexting was in epidemic proportions. If you hadn't had pictures taken with no gear on you were part of the outer scene.''
Under Victorian law, it is an offence to possess or transmit child pornography, which is defined as images showing those under 18 ''engaging in sexual activity or depicted in an indecent sexual manner or context''. Anyone over 18 found guilty of possessing or transmitting child pornography is automatically listed as a sex offender.
The Sex Offender Registration Act was brought in by the Labor government in 2004, with bipartisan support, to enable police to monitor paedophiles and other serious sex offenders.
The magistrate said some of the adolescent sexting material he had seen ''certainly is grossly pornographic and some of it almost makes you feel unwell''.
But he said the only harm in cases where such pictures had been forwarded to other people was to the girl in the pictures. While the consequences were often traumatising for the girl, the males involved were not paedophiles or serious sex offenders.
''The parties are no danger to the community, they're no danger to kids, it's an exercise in many cases in naivety, not even quite stupidity, just naivety,'' he said.
Showing posts with label Sex Offenders Register. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sex Offenders Register. Show all posts
Monday, August 15, 2011
Sunday, July 31, 2011
The Accidental Sex Offender
Abigail Pesta | Marie Claire | 28 July 2011
It was a classic teenage love story. He was a football star, and she was a cheerleader. They met, they fell in love, they started having sex. And then the cops got involved. Fifteen years later, they're still paying the price.
Frank Rodriguez cannot coach his children's soccer teams. He can't get a job at a major corporation. He can't leave the state without registering with local law enforcement. A married father of four girls, he is a convicted sex offender. Neighbors can find his name and address on a public registry online.
His crime? Sleeping with his high school sweetheart 15 years ago. At the time, Frank was 19 years old, a recent high school graduate in the town of Caldwell, Texas. That's when he first had sex with Nikki Prescott, his future wife. The two had been dating for nearly a year; the sex was consensual. However, the legal age of consent in Texas is 17, and Nikki was just shy of 16. Nikki's mother, worried that her daughter's relationship with Frank was getting too serious, reported Frank to the police. She expected the cops to issue a warning, but instead she set in motion a legal nightmare from which Frank would never recover. He became a registered sex offender — for life.
Today, Nikki, 30, and Frank, 34, both say they unequivocally support laws that put sexual predators behind bars and protect children from attacks. "The registry isn't a bad thing," says Nikki. "It's a good thing. It's just that Frank shouldn't be on it."
Nikki and Frank's predicament is not an isolated incident. Across the country, young lovers are increasingly finding themselves caught in the nation's complicated web of sex-offender laws. Teenagers wind up on the public sex-offender registry, alongside violent predators, pedophiles, and child pornographers, for having consensual sex with an underage partner (or, sometimes, for streaking or sexting — sending racy self-portraits, which can be considered child pornography). The stigma of the sex-offender label is difficult to shed: "Once you're on the registry, good luck trying to explain it," says Sarah Tofte, who has studied sex-offender laws for the nonprofit group Human Rights Watch. "It's like you're in prison proclaiming your innocence. People think, Right, that's a likely story. Especially potential employers."
There are now more than 650,000 registered sex offenders nationwide. There are no reliable statistics on the number of juveniles — but the problem is clearly on the rise. Each of the 50 states now has at least one grassroots group dedicated to getting young people — many high school age, but some under the age of 10 — off the registry. The effort includes judges and other legal experts who say they have seen the problem often enough to persuade them that the system needs adjustment.
Frank Rodriguez cannot coach his children's soccer teams. He can't get a job at a major corporation. He can't leave the state without registering with local law enforcement. A married father of four girls, he is a convicted sex offender. Neighbors can find his name and address on a public registry online.
His crime? Sleeping with his high school sweetheart 15 years ago. At the time, Frank was 19 years old, a recent high school graduate in the town of Caldwell, Texas. That's when he first had sex with Nikki Prescott, his future wife. The two had been dating for nearly a year; the sex was consensual. However, the legal age of consent in Texas is 17, and Nikki was just shy of 16. Nikki's mother, worried that her daughter's relationship with Frank was getting too serious, reported Frank to the police. She expected the cops to issue a warning, but instead she set in motion a legal nightmare from which Frank would never recover. He became a registered sex offender — for life.
Today, Nikki, 30, and Frank, 34, both say they unequivocally support laws that put sexual predators behind bars and protect children from attacks. "The registry isn't a bad thing," says Nikki. "It's a good thing. It's just that Frank shouldn't be on it."
Nikki and Frank's predicament is not an isolated incident. Across the country, young lovers are increasingly finding themselves caught in the nation's complicated web of sex-offender laws. Teenagers wind up on the public sex-offender registry, alongside violent predators, pedophiles, and child pornographers, for having consensual sex with an underage partner (or, sometimes, for streaking or sexting — sending racy self-portraits, which can be considered child pornography). The stigma of the sex-offender label is difficult to shed: "Once you're on the registry, good luck trying to explain it," says Sarah Tofte, who has studied sex-offender laws for the nonprofit group Human Rights Watch. "It's like you're in prison proclaiming your innocence. People think, Right, that's a likely story. Especially potential employers."
There are now more than 650,000 registered sex offenders nationwide. There are no reliable statistics on the number of juveniles — but the problem is clearly on the rise. Each of the 50 states now has at least one grassroots group dedicated to getting young people — many high school age, but some under the age of 10 — off the registry. The effort includes judges and other legal experts who say they have seen the problem often enough to persuade them that the system needs adjustment.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
'Sexting' youths placed on sex offenders register
Nicole Brady | The Age | July 24 2011
VICTORIAN teenagers caught with raunchy images of girls sent to them via ''sexting'' have been charged with child pornography offences and placed on the sex offender register, ruining their career options and branding them for years.
The cases have alarmed lawyers and youth advocates who are calling for urgent amendments to the law, which was designed to prevent paedophiles from associating with children, not ''punish teenagers' sexual curiosity''.
They want courts to be given discretionary power over who should be placed on the register.
Sexting involves people sending naked or revealing pictures of themselves via mobile phones or the internet to others.
Under the law, sexts are classified as child pornography when the images are of people under 18, even if the person pictured took the photographs themselves and willingly sent it to others. It is mandatory in Victoria for those over 18 found guilty of possessing or sending child pornography to be registered as a sex offender.
The Law Institute's criminal law section co-chair, James Dowsley, said the surge in the number of low-risk people being listed on the register meant police were being forced to supervise people who posed little or no risk to children, therefore compromising the monitoring of serious sex offenders.
The Sunday Age is aware of two recent cases in which teenagers were charged with pornography offences as a result of sexting. Both were placed on the register for eight years.
VICTORIAN teenagers caught with raunchy images of girls sent to them via ''sexting'' have been charged with child pornography offences and placed on the sex offender register, ruining their career options and branding them for years.
The cases have alarmed lawyers and youth advocates who are calling for urgent amendments to the law, which was designed to prevent paedophiles from associating with children, not ''punish teenagers' sexual curiosity''.
They want courts to be given discretionary power over who should be placed on the register.
Sexting involves people sending naked or revealing pictures of themselves via mobile phones or the internet to others.
Under the law, sexts are classified as child pornography when the images are of people under 18, even if the person pictured took the photographs themselves and willingly sent it to others. It is mandatory in Victoria for those over 18 found guilty of possessing or sending child pornography to be registered as a sex offender.
The Law Institute's criminal law section co-chair, James Dowsley, said the surge in the number of low-risk people being listed on the register meant police were being forced to supervise people who posed little or no risk to children, therefore compromising the monitoring of serious sex offenders.
The Sunday Age is aware of two recent cases in which teenagers were charged with pornography offences as a result of sexting. Both were placed on the register for eight years.
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