JUVENILES ACCUSED OF RUNNING CHILD PORN INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. (AP) -- Police are asking parents in South Florida to check the online accounts of their children after three teens were accused of creating an Instagram account to solicit and post explicit photos of other minors.

Pembroke Pines police arrested two boys, ages 12 and 15, and a girl, 13, on Thursday, following a 10-week investigation. They face charges of electronic transmission of child pornography.

"The Pembroke Pines Police Department urges the community to pay close attention to their children's online activity," Sgt. Angela Goodwin said in a news release Thursday. Parents who think their children may have been exploited can contact Pembroke Pines police or any other law enforcement agency.

Police say the social media account encouraged its 500 followers to post nude and sexually explicit photos of minors to "expose" them. The posts included their names and personal information. Many followers posted cruel comments in response to the images.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_JUVENILES_CHILD_PORN_CHARGES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-02-13-06-15-57

[marym625]

1. Oh dear dog!

What are we doing to our kids? The complete lack of empathy I see coming from much of that generation is frightening.

I know there are awesome kids out there. Altruistic, beautiful minds, unending empathy. But there are also, it seems anyway, a greater number of than in the past, of kids who are just down right mean.

Maybe it's just that we see more than ever before. More kids on the Internet, unsupervised.

How sad for all involved. Obviously, especially the victims who had pictures and information posted. But the 12 and 13 year old that did the posting. I don't give them a pass. They should be punished. But at that age they are hardly capable of adult thought.

Sad all around.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. Technological changes create social disruptions.

But the pace of technological change has been rapidly increasing, and the time it took prior generations to come to terms with the changes and figure out how to minimize the damaging aspects has decreased markedly. We're not just fighting 'the last war', we're still trying to deal with changes to society that are a few hundred years old. We're just not good at figuring out the 'wisdom' first, whether as a species or as individuals, we always want to jump headfirst into new tech, new knowledge, without considering ramifications, and then try to 'deal' with the fallout when humans being humans finds ways to use the new tech to do base things.

I gotta say, I came into the OP thinking this was going to be another case where kids were actually getting punished overly harshly for doing what kids do, but these particular kids weren't just 'playing doctor' with high tech toys, they'd gone a step ahead and welded it into a sort of 'Lord of the Flies' shaming and humiliation tool. It's good authorities caught onto this before they wound up with any suicides of those being 'exposed'.

[marym625]

5. Very well said

And I came thinking the same.

Though I am afraid they may all be charged as adults considering where they are. I have great issue with charging children as adults and I don't care what the crime is. We know that the brain is not fully mature until the early to mid 20s. We regulate alcohol and no one under 21 can legally drink because we know that most people under that age are not capable of making good decisions, even sober.
But we'll charge children as adults and send practically babies (from my age, they're babies) to war. With the permission of a guardian we'll even allow we year olds to fight.

Sorry, I'm in a mood this morning. I'm so disheartened at so much that is going on.

Your reply should be its own post.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

8. You're spot on.

Total agreement on the 'not charging as adults'. I don't think many people in the legal system really know or care why it is you don't treat kids and adults the same. They look directly at the crime, and simply often jump to my god, this is horrible, of course it should be treated as an adult crime. As if we're treating kids less harshly because we're just 'being nice to kids', and not because of the enormous changes in cognitive ability and emotional understanding over the timespan in question. Biology matters, and it's great that enough people put in enough time to at least create a system for juveniles, but it's still shunted aside far too often with the cry of 'Try them as adults!'.

[marym625]

10. along those same lines

I can't help but think of the kids that are relegated to adult nursing homes when the family cannot take care of a disabled child. It's a horrible life for anyone but so much worse for children.

[KingCharlemagne]

13. Hell, on a moral scale, we are barely evolved from your garden-variety reptile, even though on a

technological scale, our evolution is proceeding at the speed of light. (No offense to DU's professional and amateur herpetologists either

[Bluenorthwest]

12. Following 5 years of decline, the juvenile Violent Crime Index arrest rate reached a new historic

low in 2012...The juvenile Violent Crime Index arrest rate increased in the mid-2000s, and then declined through 2012 to its lowest level since at least 1980. The rate in 2012 was 38% below its 1980 level and 63% below the peak year of 1994.
http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp?ID=qa05201

[marym625]

14. That's fantastic news!

Thank you for the information and the link.

It doesn't change what I said though. People, children included, can be unsympathetic and not empathetic and still not be criminal.

As I stated, "I know there are awesome kids out there. Altruistic, beautiful minds, unending empathy. But there are also, it seems anyway, a greater number of than in the past, of kids who are just down right mean. 

Maybe it's just that we see more than ever before. More kids on the Internet, unsupervised."

Maybe it's just me. But, that's what I am seeing.

I am very glad to learn that the crime rate for kids has declined so much
. I hope that it continues to do so and the upswing is done. Thank you again

[Dont call me Shirley]

2. TV and movies for kids feature mean, snarky kids who speak in nasty tones of voices.

I overheard one teen bragging to their friends that they "love being mean". Schools and churches promote the deeper rutting of degrees of social stratification, which leads to bullying.

Thanks bushco, for ushering the era of mean and hate. (Sarcastic snark)

[Fred Sanders]

4. Technology once promised us space travel and hover cars... instead it gave us Instagram.

What a fucking waste of technology and keen minds.

[marym625]

6. Funny you should say that

I just watched a rerun of That 70s Show where Red says, they promised us hovercrafts!

[Fred Sanders]

9. And that was only the promise they made to Red in HIS youth, the 70's brought poor Red the VCR instead.

[marym625]

11. Haha!

A fan of the show I see.

Thanks for the laugh. Really needed that.

[onehandle]

7. Florida Boy steps up to be Florida Man. nt

[candelista]

15. Fine young entrepreneurs!

Capitalist prodigies!

[ut oh]

16. Being on the receiving end of 'mean kids'

growing up, I'd say the numbers have not increased. It's more that all of this has become more public and wide spread with social media and other technologies.

This allows bullies to group up and more easily gang up on their victims.