Parent alert: 'Sexting' is alarming teen trend

CHICAGO — Though youth is fleeting, images sent on a cell phone or posted online may not be, especially if they're naughty.

Teenagers' habit of distributing nude self-portraits electronically

— often called "sexting" if it's done by cell phone — has parents and

school administrators worried. Some prosecutors, including some in

Utah, have begun charging teens who send and receive such images with

child pornography and other serious felonies. But is that the best way

to handle it?

"Hopefully we'll get the message out to these kids," says Michael

McAlexander, a prosecutor in Allen County, Ind., which includes Fort

Wayne. A teenage boy there is facing felony obscenity charges for

allegedly sending a photo of his private parts to several female

classmates. Another boy was recently charged with child pornography in

a similar case.

In some cases, the photos are sent to harass other teens or to get

attention. Other times, they're viewed as a high-tech way to flirt.

Either way, law enforcement officials want it to stop, even if it means

threatening to add "sex offender" to a juvenile's confidential record.

"We don't want to throw these kids in jail," McAlexander says. "But we want them to think."

This month in Greensburg, Pa., three high school girls who sent

seminude photos and four male students who received them were all hit

with child pornography charges. And in Newark, Ohio, a 15-year-old high

school girl faced similar charges for sending her own racy cell phone

photos to classmates. She eventually agreed to a curfew, no cell phone