EDITORIAL
Sexting: A new form of Victimless Crime?
K. Jaishankar
“Six
Pennsylvania high school students are facing child pornography charges
after three teenage girls allegedly took nude or semi-nude photos of
themselves and shared them with male classmates via their cell
phones.” “The female students at Greensburg Salem High School in
Greensburg, Pa., all 14- or 15-years-old, face charges of
manufacturing, disseminating or possessing child pornography while the
boys, who are 16 and 17, face charges of possession. The convictions
would have “serious, serious implications,” including forcing them
having to register as sexual offenders for at least 10 years”
(Brunker, 2009). These news clippings may shock many and make
one wonder why at all a person should be convicted for sending his/her
own photographs. Welcome to the techno era to invite one of the ugly
sides of the use of modern telecommunication networks, called
sexting. Sexting, the portmanteau of Sex and Texting has become a
hot topic of debate between the legislators, educators, parents and
teens.
What exactly is sexting? In simple terms, it is self photographing
nude body or body parts and sending to others, as well texting obscene
words to known persons (in most cases) using mobile phone. Mostly
sexting is done by teenagers, though there are some cases of adults
involving in it. Unfortunately, sexting is considered by many
countries as Child pornography and laws related to child pornography
have been applied in cases of sexting. But sexting is relatively
different from conventional child pornography. Halder and Jaishankar
analyzed this issue and found that sexting has certain
unique characteristics which differentiate it from traditional forms
of child pornography. They are:
1.
Sexting is done by teenagers of adolescent age (13-18);
2.
In cases of “Sexting among teens”, both the original creators as well
as the original recipients are teens. In other words, in such cases,
adults are not participants.
3.
Mobile phone with camera is the main device for creating sexting.
4.
Adolescent teens take pictures of their nude bodies or bare private
parts or genitals only and send it to their friends either with some
written text messages or without any message as such.
5.
This may even include taking pictures in compromising situations and
sending it to others.
6.
Majority of sexting cases first start among boyfriends or girl friends
either on demand or to impress the other person.
7.
It can also be done by a teenager taking picture of other friends
including himself or herself and sending it to bulk of friends.
8.
In some cases the self captured or even received pictures are
distributed to known or even unknown individuals either by cell phone
or even by email and social networking sites. It is only in this stage
that any adult receiver, who receives the message in bulk,
accidentally becomes a participator. But the adult is never the first
recipient.
9.
Such distribution can happen even to take revenge due to breaking of
emotional relationship.
10.
Sexting is mainly done by and among children of the same school;
however, some times there can be involvement of children of different
schools also when they know the sender personally or through social
networking sites or even when the angry teen wants to spread the
picture to a wider audience randomly.
11.
Sexting is done by teenagers who don’t know that it can create legal
trouble.
12.
Sexting can have terrible mental trauma on the creator as well as the
recipient also. It can even lead the creator to commit suicide. It can
also lead some recipients to turn in to instant bullies towards the
creator.
How serious is
sexting? The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project
survey among teens between the ages of 12-17 found (Lenhart, 2009):
-
4% of cell-owning teens (ages
12-17) have sent sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images of
themselves to someone else via text messaging
-
15% of cell-owning teens (ages
12-17) have received sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images of
someone they know via text messaging on their cell phone.
-
Older teens are much more
likely to send and receive these images; 8% of 17-year-olds with cell
phones have sent a sexually provocative image by text and 30% have
received a nude or nearly nude image on their phone.
-
The teens who pay their own
phone bills are more likely to send “sexts”: 17% of teens who pay for
all of the costs associated with their cell phones send sexually
suggestive images via text; just 3% of teens who do not pay for, or
only pay for a portion of the cost of the cell phone send these
images.
-
This project’s focus groups
revealed that there are three main scenarios for sexting: 1) exchange
of images solely between two romantic partners; 2) exchanges between
partners that are shared with others outside the relationship and 3)
exchanges between people who are not yet in a relationship, but where
at least one person hopes to be.
Another study by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned
Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com (2009) which is done among the teens
between ages 13-26, showed that 21% of teen girls and 18% of teen boys
have involved in sexting. This research suggests that nearly 20% of
their 1,280 teen samples have involved in sexting. On the other hand,
sociologist Pascoe (Top News, 2009) has shunned away such research
reports and of the opinion that sexting is overblown. She was involved
in a three year digital youth report study (Ito, Horst, Bittanti,
Boyd, Herr-Stephenson, Lange, Pascoe, & Robinson, 2008) where her
respondents never reported such involvement of cases of sexting.
However, ignoring sexting researches in Toto is also not
correct. Sexting is a new form of cyber nuisance and it is bound to
increase as the usage of mobile phones by teenagers is increasing day
by day. Hence, care should be taken by parents, educators and
counselors to prevent sexting and I am not of the opinion to involve
law enforcement agencies or legal machineries in these cases.
In
the International Conference on “Protecting Children from Sexual
Offenders in the Information Technology Era” organized by the
International Scientific and Professional Advisory Council of the
United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme (ISPAC),
in cooperation with United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
during December 11 - 13, 2009 at Courmeyeur, Mont Blanc, Italy, I
raised the issue of “Sexting" in the Workshop on Victim Protection. In
spite of multifaceted opinions on Sexting, there was a unanimous voice
that sexting should be considered as a victimless crime
and the children should not be prosecuted for this new type of cyber
nuisance.
Criminalizing sexting will not help in preventing it. Responsible
parenting and proper usage of mobile phones by teenagers are only
right options. Teenagers should understand that once an image is sent
out it will be no more under the control and there are dangers of
spreading of their nude images in the internet. Also receiving such
images will put a teen in trouble, so care should be exercised in
storing such images in their mobile phones. It is heartening to note
that Vermont legislature recently have passed a bill to legalize
(decriminalize??) sexting (Huffington
Post, 2009)
and I hope that most of the American
legal systems will follow this model and if any other country have
plans to criminalize sexting, they should halt that.
About
this issue:
This issue has five articles and one book review. Adam M. Bossler
and Thomas J. Holt in their article on Malware Victimization
have tried to analyze it with the Cohen and Felson’s (1979) Routine
Activities Theory (RAT). RAT is often considered a victimological
theory and many have analyzed using this theory in victimological
studies. Though the authors’ application of RAT is not novel in cyber
crime studies, it does bring in a new empirical approach to this
theory. The authors with the college student samples have tried to
bring in both victimization and perpetration patterns. Cyber Crime
studies from victimological perspectives are now developing and
Bossler and Holt’s study have significantly added to this growing
literature.
Rob D’Ovidio, Tyson Mitman, Imaani Jamillah El-Burki, & Wesley Shumar
study on Adult-Child sex advocacy websites is one of the article of
IJCC which got high rating by the reviewers, recently. Their study in
the form of content analysis, tried to find out how far the sites
which encourage sexual relationships between adults and children are
criminogenic in nature. The study also utilized various criminological
theories such as Differential Association theory, Social Learning
theory and Neutralization theory. The authors found that these sites
are of pedophilic in nature and they should be banned. The authors
also are of the opinion that courts should prohibit child offenders
not to visit these sites.
Robert Moore and Elizabeth C. McMullan in their study tried to analyze
digital piracy with neutralization theory. There are some earlier
studies of this nature by Higgins et al and Moore's and Elizabeth
study adds to that literature. The authors found some neutralization
techniques been adopted by their respondent during the usage of
pirated softwares or music. As I pointed in my previous editorial,
still digital piracy is an issue of debate and not many may accept it
as crime.
Johnny Nhan, Patrick Kinkade, and Ronald Burns tried to build further
on Thomas Holt and Danielle Graves (2007; IJCC Vol 1, Issue 1) study
on fraudulent email messages. 419 Scam is a common cyber crime and
many are victimized by this crime. Though most of these email messages
go in spam, some do come to inbox and unfortunate victims are
victimized by opening and responding to it. This is another study
which is done from a victimological perspective.
In
the final article, Laura Woods Fidelie discusses about Internet
Gambling and finds that Internet Gambling is not legally proscribed
and it needs to be legally acknowledged. The current prescription of
Internet Gambling provides a wide range of criminal activity and many
go unnoticed. So regulation of such activity is the need of the hour.
It should also be noted that many innocent users are lured to the
sites of Internet Gambling by various popup created in some sites of
their interest. Mostly it happens when a user tries to freely download
movies or music. The author concludes that, if this activity is not
regulated it would detrimental to the common masses.
Acknowledgments:
I
would like to thank all the reviewers of this issue who have helped me
in reviewing articles. I would like to thank Mr. Robert M. Slade for
permitted to reprint his book review of Understanding and Managing
Cybercrime (by Samuel McQuade) earlier published in The Risks Digest:
Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems, in this
issue of IJCC. I sincerely thank Editorial Assistant Ms. Megha Asher
for significantly assisting me in the editorial process. My earnest
thanks are due to Mr. Steve Chon the new Moderator of Virtual Forum
against Cybercrime (VFAC)
www.cybercrimeforum.org and the former moderator Mr. Laurent
Testard for effectively incorporating the pdfs of articles of IJCC in
their research network section of their site. I also thank VFAC and
Korean Institute of Criminology for hosting the pdfs in the VFAC site.
References
Brunker, M. (2009). ‘Sexting’ surprise:
Teens face child porn charges, 6 Pa. high school students busted after
sharing nude photos via cell phones. Retrieved on 26th January 2010
from
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28679588/
Schur, E. (1965). Crimes without
victims: Deviant behavior and public policy: Abortion, homosexuality,
drug addiction. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Halder, D., & Jaishankar, K.
Sexting among Teens: An analysis on the Questions of Legalities and
Illegalities. Unpublished Article.
Huffington Post. (2009). Vermont
Considers Legalizing Teen "Sexting". Huffington Post, 12th
April 2009.
Retrieved on 26th January 2010 from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/12/vermont-considers-legaliz_n_185949.html
Ito, M.,
Horst, H. A., Boyd, M. B., Herr-Stephenson, B., Lange, P. G., Pascoe,
C. J., & Robinson, L. (2008). Living and Learning with New Media:
Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project. The John D.
and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and
Learning, November 2008. Retrieved on 26th January 2010 from
http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/report
Lenhart, A. (2009). Teens and
Sexting: How and why minor teens are sending sexually suggestive nude
or nearly nude images via text messaging. Washington, DC.: Pew
Internet & American Life Project. Retrieved on 26th January 2010 from
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/Teens-and-Sexting.aspx
The National Campaign to Prevent Teen
and Unplanned Pregnancy. (2009). Sex and Tech: What's Really Going On.
Retrieved on 26th January 2010 from
http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/sextech/PDF/SexTech_Summary.pdf
Top News. (2009). Sociologist: Few teens 'sexting'. Retrieved on 26th
January 2010 from http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/01/11/Sociologist-Few-teens-sexting/UPI-78141231654189/
