Why Do Kids Sext and Is It a Crime?

For this week's Please Explain, Hanna Rosin discusses teen sexting, the pervasive trend of teenagers who send and spread, naked pictures of themselves and their peers on their cell phones. She's joined by Marsha Levick, Deputy Director and Chief Counsel of the Juvenile Law Center. For her article “Why Teens Sext,” Rosin, a senior editor at The Atlantic and a founder and editor at DoubleX, Slate’s women’s section, spent several weeks in Louisa County, VA, where hundreds of students were caught up in a sexting scandal. She looks at how students, teachers, and law enforcement perceive sexting, why parents and law enforcement are unaware of  how pervasive it is, and what should be done to deal with it. Some legislatures are creating laws specific to teen sexting, but in many states, possessing these pictures (even if they are your own) fall under child pornography laws and can lead to teens being labeled as sex offenders.