Charging Minors with Child Porn Options

[Comptine]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28679588/

There have been a lot of cases of police arresting and charging teenagers/minors with possession and distribution of child pornography because they've been sending racy pictures through their phones. Authorities argue these measures are done to send a message. They are protecting kids from further harming themselves by risking their pictures getting put on the internet. So a 14 year old girl who sends her boyfriend a naked picture of herself could get arrested and charged for distributing child porn.

However, once charged, these kids have to register as a sex offender, in some places for as long as ten years. Which means, that 14 year old girl will find it a lot harder to apply for jobs and college all because she sent a photo of herself to her boyfriend and got lumped into the same category as a child molester.

Thoughts?

[Firiath]

Those kids shouldn't have to register as sex offenders. It's stupid that they don't consider the effects that it might have on them. As paperplanes said before, it's gonna be hard for them to live their life properly and isn't that what the government wants? And there's the emotional stress too - do you really think that those kids could gain any more friends because it's probably leaked out that they're sex offenders.