Some issues in the realm of high-tech policing fall into the category of clear cut moral issues -- like prosecuting over child pornography, murders, or rapes.  However, a major debate is growing over a growing number of sex offense convictions being handed out to teens due to tech-related offenses.

This traditional legal issue has been accentuated by the trend to send picture messages via text message, email, or instant messenger.  Many teens are sending sexually provocative pictures of themselves, their classmates, or their significant others in a trend called "sexting".  Many of these teens are in turn receiving serious legal punishments.

Phillip Alpert was dating a 16 year-old sophomore at his high school when he was a senior.  Not long after he turned 18, he and his girlfriend got in a dispute.  He ended up forwarding text message sexually explicit pictures she had sent him to her friends and family members to embarrass her.

The move backfired.  Orlando, Florida police charged Mr. Alpert with the distribution of child pornography, as his girlfriend was underage.  He was convicted and sentenced to five years probation and was forced to register as a sex offender.  He states, "You will find me on the registered sex offender list next to people who have raped children, molested kids, things like that, because I sent child pornography.  You think child pornography, you think 6-year-old, 3-year-old little kids who can't think for themselves, who are taken advantage of. That really wasn't the case."

He has been kicked out of college, denied travel out of the county without making prior arrangements with his probation officer, lost job offers, and is faced with constant embarrassment from his neighbors and peers.

Mr. Alpert's attorney Larry Walters is still fighting to remove Mr. Alpert from the list of registered sex offenders.  He states, "Sexting is treated as child pornography in almost every state and it catches teens completely off guard because this is a fairly natural and normal thing for them to do. It is surprising to us as parents, but for teens it's part of their culture."

In total, nearly every state has laws that add people committing crimes against others legally defined as children in sex offender registries.  In thirty states, juvenile sex offenders also get added to such registries if they commit sex crimes, such as sexting.  Most states offer fully searchable sex offender registries to the public. 

Some prosecutors are giving the teens a break.  George Skumanick Jr., a district attorney from Wyoming County, Pennsylvania allowed 20 teens caught texting at a local school a choice between reeducation classes or jail.  He states, "An adult would go to prison for this.  If you take the photo, you've committed a crime. If you send the photo, you've committed a different crime, but essentially the same crime."

Critics of the laws, though, argue that teens sending sexually explicit pictures to each other is a natural urge and should not be punitively punished.  A district attorney tried to file charges against Marissa Miller of northeastern Pennsylvania and her friend, who snapped cell phone pictures of themselves in bras when they were 12 years old and sent them to a classmate.  Rather than facing jail or reeducation, Miller's parents have obtained an ACLU lawyer and are fighting the charges.  States her mother, "We believe she was the victim and that she did nothing wrong.  How can I ask her to compromise her values and write this essay, when she didn't do anything?"

Mr. Skumanick disagrees.  He likens sexting to bank robbery, stating, "You can't call committing a crime fun or a prank. If you do that, you can rob a bank because you think it's fun."

Perhaps the greatest troubling aspect of these laws, however, is their inconsistency.  In 2008 Jessica Logan, a Cincinnati, Ohio teen, hung herself over a nude picture sent to her friends by her 19 year old boyfriend she got in a fight with.  Despite the extreme nature of the case, the local police and the school that her boyfriend attended have thus far taken no legal action against him.