The new US legislation that could mean 15 years in prison for guilty teenagers of ‘sexting’
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The decision to increase the minimum sentence of individuals culpable of child exploitation has been questioned
In an effort to extinguish cases of sexual exploitation among minors, US Congress has passed a legislation that could see guilty teens spending up to 15 years in federal prison. Called “Protecting Against Child Exploitation” and introduced back in March by US Representative Mike Johnson, receiving overwhelming backing by Republicans. One select Republican, Justin Amash, was notably against the bill, citing the expansion of the mandatory minimum sentence as a reason. In fact, this reasoning fuelled the bulk of the overall opposition.
Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia (another opposed) accentuated that the legislation would lead to individuals, not of the profile for a long-term prison stay, being convicted. This could include a third party in the crime (e.g. a teenager who asks a friend to convince another teen to take sexually explicit photos) themselves be accused and convicted of conspiracy or attempt, thus provoking a judge to sentence the third party to a similar jail term.
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Furthermore, John Conyers (Representative of Michigan) stated his belief that prosecutorial power expansion (upping sentence lengths) does little for the protection against child exploitation, “We are under a new regime here at the federal level, and I can’t depend on relying on the prosecutorial discretion to protect juveniles under this statute.”
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