Police catching teens with X-rated text messages

by Leanne Tokars (ltokars@wsbt.com)

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X-rated text messages

Police say they are seeing more young girls sending nude or partially nude photos of themselves in cell phone text messages. If they are under 18 years old, that's illegal. (WSBT photo)

By WSBT News1

Story Created: Feb 28, 2008 at 10:55 AM EST

Story Updated: Mar 8, 2008 at 7:53 PM EST

SOUTH BEND — Some teens are using their cell phones to send X-rated text messages, and police say many times they’re breaking the law.

Most teenagers say they send text messages.

“Yes, all the time. In class and every hour,” said one local teenager as she left school Wednesday afternoon.

But police say they’re seeing more and more texts with graphic content.

“It surprised me when it first came to the forefront, now it does not. I mean we see that a lot,” said Captain Phil Trent with the South Bend Police Department.

Many times police say they’re young girls, still in high school, sending nude or partially nude photos of themselves to their boyfriends.

“They really don't think anything of it,” said Commander Mitch Kajzer with the St. Joseph County High Tech Crimes Unit. “A lot of the kids have told me it's a fairly common practice."

But here’s the catch — when you send a photo using your cell phone, it doesn’t mean it will only stay between you and the person you send it to.

In fact, it only takes a couple seconds for the person who receives your text message to send it to someone else or post it on the Internet.

Once that happens, it could put you in trouble with the law. Many teenagers told WSBT that is something they didn’t know.

“If they're under 18 years old, it's illegal. Even though they're taking photos of themselves, it's still production of child pornography,” explained Kajzer. “When they send that photo out over the cellular network or onto the Internet — that's distribution of child pornography."

Kajzer says he gets about one to two new cases each week from parents finding images on their teen's cell phone or from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children gets their information from Internet service providers monitoring their networks for these images.

“You could argue that a lot of the text messaging — that type of activity — is protected under the First Amendment of free speech. Sending photos like that isn't,” said Kajzer.

That means you can get in trouble whether you're sending the text or receiving it.

Once the police identify the person in the photo, they contact them and their parents and conduct interviews to determine whether criminal charges will be filed.

Many cell phone networks allow parents to stop their children from being able to send or receive text messages through their cell phone plans.

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