MISHAWAKA — It's a growing trend among teens, but some parents are cracking down on "sexting" — when someone sends a sexually explicit picture in a text message. It can be devastating when those pictures get into the wrong hands.

Some parents are deciding to shut off the picture texting feature on their kids' cell phones, saying prevention and education are the only thing that will keep their kids safe.

Take 14-year-old Cassie Wilcox. The John Young eighth grader can't send or receive pictures through text messaging anymore.

"I was kind of upset at first," Wilcox said. "But she was just doing it to protect me."

Her mom disabled the feature on her daughter's cell phone after she found out about an 18-year-old Ohio girl — Jesse Logan — who committed suicide because her ex-boyfriend sent nude picture texts of her to other teens.

"I thought it was really sad," Wilcox told WSBT.

"It's not easy to get made fun of in school for one," said Wilcox's mom, Kristin Keller. "And then for something like that, it just makes it 100 times harder. I don't want that to happen to my daughter or any of my daughter's friends."

Sexting can also get kids in trouble with police.

South Bend Police Capt. Phil Trent said every crime on the books that can be committed by adults can also be perpetrated by a child and charged in Juvenile Court.

According to Indiana Law, sending or possessing a sexually explicit picture of someone under 16 is a felony.

"Parents need to take responsibility," said Trent, who doesn't allow his teenagers to send picture texts either.

Trent said it's possible for anyone to get an unsolicited text message.

"And then it's gonna end up on their phone and they're gonna be on the hook now," he said.

Wilcox said she's heard about sexting, but never realized the dangers, until now.

"I've never really thought about it, I guess," she said. "I've never got a picture like that. I've never sent one out."

And thanks to her mom's pro-active steps, she never will.

"She's never given me any reason to think she would do that, but it's just a protection for her," Keller said.

Wilcox's parents also have a block on their daughter's MySpace account, so she can only use it with their permission. They say keeping up with the technology and communicating the dangers to their daughter is their only line of defense in this day and age.

Some people might argue even if kids can't send inappropriate pictures through text messaging, they can still do it online. Even some cell phones, like Blackberries, have e-mail.

But police say having inappropriate pictures on your computer can still be a big problem. If a teenager downloads the picture onto a computer owned by their parents, the parents could still be in trouble for having child pornography if the person in the picture is under a certain age.