Virginia Teen Sexting Scandal

By Floyd Bayne

OK, this story struck a chord with me for a couple of reasons. First, as the father of a daughter (granted, she is older now), second as another example of the ever-increasing police state or more specifically, the propensity of the American public to get the police involved in everything.

Now let us assume, as this "investigation" is not complete, that all the offenders are in fact, juveniles. No adults involved, just kids being stupid. As a parent I would be beside myself, because I understand, as apparently many young people don't seem to, that those pictures are now out there forever. A stupid move by any standard. However, do we really need the police and the courts getting involved and turning all of these kids, stupid though they may be, into felons? For the rest of their lives they will now have a record following them around. What purpose will that serve in this case? Can we just allow parents to handle their children, at least some of the time?

And I know that some of these kids might not have involved parents or that even good parents cannot always know what their kids are doing. But even for those who don't have parents who are capable of dealing with this, do we really need to create a bunch of felons out of them?

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Commentary based on this article:

Teen sexting investigation spans six Va. counties

RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) – A massive teen sexting investigation involving six Virginia counties is now underway. The investigation started in Louisa County a few weeks ago after nude photographs of a 14-year old and two 15-years olds were discovered on Instagram.

Within days, investigators uncovered more than a thousand sexually explicit photos being shared on two Instagram accounts involving teens from Albemarle, Fluvanna, Orange, Goochland, and Hanover counties.

READ ENTIRE STORY AND WATCH WTVR NEWS 6 VIDEO HERE