Teen Sexting Can Ruin Your Reputation, and to Prove It We’re Calling In the Police

Another “sexting scandal” has
broken out in a middle school in a suburb northwest of Chicago.
This case apparently involves a small group of eighth-graders
who have been taking “inappropriate pictures” and sharing them with
each other.

Because kids are involved and because sex (or perhaps just
nudity) is involved, reporting is somehow both a little salacious
and weirdly vague. Trying to decipher exactly what happened from
both the local CBS affiliate
report and the Chicago Tribune
report left me scratching my head. And of course, the school
administrators got the police involved:

Officials at a Barrington middle school have contacted police
about students “sexting” images to other students, and authorities
say they are considering criminal charges.

A “small group of … adolescents were recently involved in
‘sexting’ inappropriate images among themselves using their
smartphones,” Craig Winkelman, principal of Barrington Middle
School-Station Campus, said in an email to parents Monday
evening.

Winkelman said disciplinary actions could be “severe” because
“sexting among students can affect reputations and disrupt the
educational environment.” He warned that criminal charges “may also
result” from the students’ actions.

Winkelman contributes further to the weird vagueness by adding
that some of the students were “victimized” in the incident with
absolutely no explanation of what that means. One might think he
means teens were photographed unknowingly, but then he added that
the kids involved are getting counseling, “despite the pending
consequences,” which makes the teens sound like both the victims
and miscreants at the exact same time (which perfectly encapsulates
the way America deals with teen sexuality, no?).

The school clearly wants to protect the privacy of the students
involved, but the principal’s statement is confusing. Was all
participation voluntary or not? It probably doesn’t matter to the
school or most parents, but it should matter when the school bring
police into the picture. If there were no adults involved in this
incident, and if participation was voluntary, perhaps the scandal
is a matter the teens’ parents and school administrators can deal
with on their own. But no:

[Winkelman] noted the situation isn’t unique to the Barrington
area and encouraged families to talk to their children about the
“life-altering regrets and damage sexting can imprint on a young
person’s future.”

Yes, especially when you call the police on them and threaten
them with criminal charges.