Via Reason’s Katherine Mangu-Ward we learn that New Jersey legislators, in “recognizing that teenagers who e-mail nude or sexually suggestive photos of themselves to friends aren’t really child pornographers,” are proposing an alternative to prosecution. If the bill passes, charged sexters will merely be forced to attend a “course focusing on the consequences of such acts.” I fear for any 13-year old girl forced to attend a Jersey-led course justifying the criminalization of her own image, but I guess it’s better than, as the bill’s author puts it, “hauling them off to jail.”
Photograph by George Doyle/Getty Images.
