AP
June 5, 2008
HARTFORD, Conn. - Passing notes in study hall or getting your best friend to ask a boy if he likes you or, you know, LIKES you, is so last century. Nowadays, teenagers are snapping naked pictures of themselves on their cellphones and sending them to their boyfriends and girlfriends.
Many of these pictures are falling into the wrong hands - or worse, the Internet - and leading to criminal charges.
Some parents are aghast.
"I just don't understand why kids would do a stupid thing like that," said Rochelle Hoins of Castle Rock, Colo., where 18 students in her twin sons' middle school sent around nude pictures of themselves last year.
Similar cases have been reported in New Jersey, New York, Alabama, Utah, Pennsylvania, Texas and Connecticut.
In La Crosse, Wis., a 17-year-old boy was charged with child pornography for allegedly posting nude photos of his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend on his MySpace page. The girl had taken the pictures with her cell.
The images are complicating the work of investigators looking for exploited children. Authorities are increasingly discovering that the teens themselves took the shots, said John Shehan, a director at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
