Friday, February 11th, 2011, Senator Kirk Watson filed a bill concerning the offense of sexting. "Sexting" is a term used to describe the sending of sexual explicit and/or provocative messages/pictures. The bill would make sending explicit material over a cellular device a crime for minors and make awareness of this crime by implementing education programs. Since there are few prosecutions already on the subject matter, it's difficult to tell whether there is a real need for the legislation however,with the new law, sexting would be considered a class C crime consisting of a fine for first time offenders and a class A misdemeanor for third-time offenders involving up to a year punishable in jail. Watson believes that passing this bill would make "sexting" be perceived as a more serious matter and would make recipients of sexts punishable for not filing a report within 48 hours of the incident.
The Austin Chronicle. Bill of the Week. http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2011-02-11/bill-of-the-week/ February 11, 2011.
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