Nancy Willard, director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, has published an article on the Center’s website addressing the subject of Sexting and Youth: Achieving a Rational Approach.  Among the issues addressed in the article is how children are now being prosecuted for distributing child pornography when they take and text a photo of themselves.

I wrote an article on this subject in September of 2009 entitled “Too many registered sex offenders make dangerous sex offenders difficult to track.” In that article, I discussed how laws are labeling so many people as sex offenders that it is now difficult for law enforcement to focus on those who are truly dangerous.  For example, under current laws a teenage girl who sends a nude photo of herself to her boyfriend now becomes a convicted child pornographer, subject to the same sex offender registration and community notification as a dangerous offender like Phillip Garrido. While this was clearly not the intent in passing laws against child pornography, few legislators have the courage to attempt to modify the law out of fear that they will be labeled as soft on crime. As a result, the lives of impulsive children are ruined while true sex offenders get lost in the shuffle.

I am flattered that Ms. Willard chose to footnote my article in her new article on teen sexting, and I encourage all parents to read what she has written on the subject.  Ms. Willard is an expert in this field.  In addition to being the director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, she has also published two related books: Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats: Responding to the Challenge of Online Social Cruelty, and Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens, Helping Young People Use the Internet Safely and Responsibly.

Yesterday I posted an article about the shockingly high rate of sexual abuse of minors committed by staff members of juvenile detention centers.  The overwhelming majority of the cases are incidents of female staff members having sexual contact of various kinds with boys incarcerated in juvenile detention centers.

Today I wrote a follow-up to yesterday’s article and blog post, in which I list the 13 juvenile detention facilities with the highest number of rape or sexual molestation allegations in the government report.  Readers in Alabama will be relieved that none of our facilities made the “worst 13″ list.  However, it is frightening to see statistics showing rates of child sexual abuse in juvenile centers being almost one out of every three kids.

To read about the 13 places your child is most likely to be raped or sexually abused in a juvenile detention center, click here.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report on Thursday indicating a surprisingly high rate of sexual abuse of juvenile inmates.  The new study indicates that the rate of sexual abuse in juvenile detention facilities is far higher than previously reported by either the federal government or the states.

In some facilities, more than 30 percent of the juveniles were victims of some form of sexual abuse.  The overall rate of sexual abuse was 12 percent.  Of the juveniles who had been sexually abused in some way, 95 percent of them said the abuse was committed by female staff members.  Approximately 26,550 juveniles are held in 500 facilities around the country, with 91% of the inmates being boys.

I posted an article about the report on my legal news column on Examiner.com, where you can read more details about the report.  The article also links to a number of news reports on the subject.  A copy of the full government report is also attached to the end of this article.

William L. Pfeifer, Jr.

Special Report: Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported by Youth, 2008-09