(MENAFN- The Conversation) Criminalising children and young people for life for 'sexting' is an injustice. It is an overreaction to a modern day problem that legislation and the criminal justice system is yet to catch up with. Although some advances have been made when dealing with young people sexting, under the new 'no formal action' response (also called ), this discretionary guidance is still recorded on police systems and could potentially hang over that young person for .
There are a number of that might be committed by both children involved in a sexting scenario, such as the one below.
A 15-year-old girl receives a text from a boy in her class, who is the same age and she finds attractive. The photo shows a penis. There is no request to send anything back from him, but she sends him a photo of her naked body. The girl's mother finds the boy's photo on the phone and calls the police.
Both teenagers could now be at risk of being charged with taking/making/distributing indecent images of a child and/or possession of indecent images of a child.
There are a range of options available to police in this scenario, ranging from no further action to a caution or charge – with this being at the discretion of the responding police officer.
But in January 2016, the Home Office launched in recognition of the unnecessary and increasing criminalisation of young people. This guidance allows police to record the sexting 'crime', but to take no formal action due to it 'not being in the public interest'.
In 2016/17, involving young people under the age of 18 were recorded by the police as either possessing, making or distributing indecent images of children (although knowledge about the overall ). Of these offences, around a third were diverted from 'formal action' through Outcome 21, which is certainly a positive step.
Sexting: on your record for life?
The is that it is not possible to categorically say that a sexting incident recorded on police systems would never be disclosed during the kind of standard criminal records checks carried out by employers. So the shadow of that childish mistake could continue to loom over the young person indefinitely.
Discretion about whether to rests with each . When considering each case, these senior officers are supposed to consider the relevance of the job applied for (for example, whether it involves children, young people or vulnerable adults).
Even if the girl in the scenario above was blackmailed to send the boy a photo of herself, she may still end up with a police recorded Outcome 21. And should she wish to get a job as a teacher in the future, there is no guarantee the 'offence' won't be flagged in the application process. The way the law is structured may actually end up deterring victims from seeking police help.
Recording and responding to sexting
Very simply put, whether a child's record is marked for life depends on the (school or police) and the knowledge and awareness of people within these organisations.
It seems that many are aware of Outcome 21 due to their close links to schools. But other responding police officers, like neighbourhood officers, may not be as aware of it and could still be using formal crime outcomes such as cautions. These will definitely appear on the future criminal checks of that young person. The lack of information on this is quite worrying.
Meanwhile, school guidance on sexting produced by the UK Council for Child Internet Safety states that Outcome 21 may to deal with sexting, with schools now referring more cases to them. But the UKCIS also insists that when a police referral is made, the mandatory recording process should be triggered – no matter what the circumstances of each individual case.
Mixed messages in responding to sexting saw an experienced officer which wanted to report an incident. Instead, the officer encouraged the school to deal with it internally. Not only was this , but it raises the question of whether all internally.
Sexting cases are likely to continue to increase along with technology. Police are already struggling with how to deal with this, with some forces instead of children. We already know that , with most children . Additionally, those are now more likely to be sexual images taken by young people themselves.
This is a very modern problem which cannot be solved by implementing laws which are blind to the way today's young people communicate with each other. The punishment should fit the crime and the priority should be safeguarding children, not criminalising them.
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