This is going to be touchy, and I got some hate on the Jake Mcelfresh thing, which is somewhat related, in the way that 14 year old girls are involved and social media, dating apps and on-line relationships have become prevalent in today's society. This is an issue that we are having to deal with over and over and there's something really wrong here. I am on the fence. I don't want to rack anyone up, and I'm going to quit printing people's emails and insist that if you have something to say, post it. Stop baiting me, I don't appriciate it.
From the NYT/MSN: 19 year old Zachary Anderson met a young lady through the dating app Hot or Not, created by James Young and Jim Young. Due to her status as a minor, she has not been identified in the media. She told him she was 17, the legal age of consent in her home state of Michigan. Her actual age was 14. Anderson drove from his home in Indiana to meet her, and after picking her up at her home, had sex with her in a park near her home. When the girl returned home from her encounter with him, her mother had called the police, concerned because it was reported, she was epileptic. The police contacted Anderson a few weeks later, and in cooperation, he turned himself in in Feburary and was charged with 4th degree criminal sexual conduct. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail, and probation. As an Indiana resident, Anderson will be required to be on a sex offender registry for 25 years and refrained from using a computer or owning a smart phone, and according to his parents, Lester and Amanda Anderson, killing his future career as a computer science engineer and it would be like, virtually, "Taking away heat or gas, to somebody in today's world." [I don't own a smartphone....and I suspect I could find another life without the internet, but I digress]
This brings about a furious argument about the validity of making the sex offender registry a tool for keeping pedophiles and child molesters from being able to victimize other children. It behooves us to note several things: did the parents of this VERY young lady know she was using a dating app that has specific rules about age? Did they understand what their daughter was doing on the internet? Did Anderson in any way understand the ramifications of driving over the state lines to have a sexual encounter with a girl under the age of 18? Being that 17 may have been legal, it is hard for me to concieve that a young man smart enough to study computer sciences would be foolheardy enough to not comprehend that. I feel for the parents, it is hard to see your child make a mistake, any mistake, but one with such far reaching ramifications must be quite a blow.
Like in the matter of Jake Mcelfresh, who was accused without charges of sexual misconduct with teenage girls via social media, the digital age has spawned a set of behaviors and actions that we didn't have in the past. We had no way to send naked photos of each other over the internet or text, and no way to choose sexual partners via a dating website, potentially lying about circumstances that become criminal activity once in the arms and bodies of the wrong person. I can't advocate more strongly for greater parental responsibility--- but not for sexual offender law reform. I say pay more damn attention to what your kids are doing. Maybe it won't happen to you. Thank God it didn't happen to me.
I like this piece from ABC News because they interviewed the kid who was convicted of the crime of 4th degree criminal sexual conduct in this story and you kind of get a sense of what he's thinking.
He says that he "Did it just, you know, to do it."
Admittedly, at that age I did TONS of stuff just to do them. But none of them were criminal sexual conduct. I can assure you, none of them, stupid as many of them were, were anywhere close. Having to register as a as a sex offender may seem steep and the punishment seems ridiculous, but unless the law is changed to fit the times, this is our new reality. Maybe we should educate our kids better and hope we can help them understand this behavior will come with a steep price that they will pay for 25 years.
From Crimefeed: According to CNN, Judge Dennis Wiley, the same judge who previously told Zach Anderson there was no excuse for his behavior, has voided the teen's conviction in the case of his fourth degree criminal sexual conduct in July of this year.
The judge determined that they did not fulfill and significantly undercut their plea agreement,and since the sentence was breached, Anderson's original sentence has been vacated. He will be re-sentenced by a different judge and is not currently on probation.
