Yesterday, the Governor signed House Bill 4583, now giving juvenile courts the authority to place on supervision minors who disseminate “indecent visual depiction” of another minor through electronic means.  Minors found to be in violation can be sent to court-supervised counseling or community service.

The bill underwent several changes before being passed.  Most notably, there is no authority to prosecute minors disseminating  ”sext messages” depicting themselves.  The original bill made it a Class B misdemeanor  for any minor under 17 to send any nude photograph or other depiction of sexual conduct via electronic means.  There were also criminal violations for minors who request and distribute the offending pictures.  The harshest proposed penalties were for those who post the pictures to websites with the intent of causing emotional distress to the person depicted.

The new law sets out to protect minors from other minors sending around nude pictures, and imposes a juvenile justice theory of rehabilitation rather than true punishment.

There are very strong opinions about minors and sexuality.  The facts, however, are that people under the age of 18 have sexual relationships with each other all of the time.  It seems that the Illinois General Assembly has acknowledged that in not prohibiting a minor from sending sexually explicit images of him or herself to others.

There are strong freedom of speech and privacy arguments at play in the issue of whether or not minors should be prohibited from engaging in this type of communication.  There is even a practical consideration that even if it were a misdemeanor for Romeo and Juliet to send sexual pictures to each other, there are scant enough resources to seriously prosecute the offenses.  There are probably a dozen Romeos and Juliets in every single eight grade class.

When things are not necessarily illegal, but also not right, it’s time for good parenting to come into play.  Minors may not understand the concept that nude photos sent over an internet or phone connection can last forever, and can, in a very short time, make it into the wrong hands.  Now, in Illinois, if these images are passed around by another kid, they may be getting a hands-on lesson in the juvenile justice system.  Anyone can still be prosecuted for child pornography, disorderly conduct, public indecency, or a violation of the harassing and obscene communications act.

Most people have strong opinions about this topic.  Please sound off respectfully in the comments.