The back cover of this year’s Portland Police “Safe Summer” booklet, distributed to all public school students, included a fun conversation starter: graphic descriptions of sexual crimes. The page, entitled “Measure 11: An Oregon Law!” is list of crimes that could cause a 15-year-old to be tried as an adult, including…
Sexual Abuse 1: You are baby-sitting or playing with a small child. You have sexual contact with them by touching their penis, vaginal area, or anus, or by making them touch you in those same places. You will go to prison and could be there for 6 years and 3 months.
- Don’t think about her breasts.
It is good, I think, to make people aware of what crimes apply to them. I could see reasoning in informing 15-year-olds that they will not be tried as a juvenile for arson, manslaughter, or rape. But I have problems with this pamphlet (after the jump!).
First of all, the “comic book” was distributed to students as young as kindergarteners (The Oregonian reports that the school district has since advised principals to recycle undistributed flyers). The graphic and controversial material should not be put in the hands of such young kids, particularly without warning in a book that mostly contains information about summer programs such as at the Oregon Zoo.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, is the manner in which the material was presented. The page is written in an accessible, casual way. For example…
MURDERS? YES…Murder and Aggravated Murder will send a 15-year-old to prison. BUT… There are 22 more crimes that WILL MOST LIKELY send a 15-year-old to a lock up program or prison for a long time! Doing a crime means big time!
I understand it’s hard to get kids to read these days, what with their game boys and their face books. But does this information need to be presented in such a casual way? What do you think?
We’re pretty casually blowing people’s brains out in the middle east. Maybe it’s time we got casual about murder on the homefront? Just last week, I, and presumably some kids, too, watched a video of a guy being shot to death on this here blog!
Using Comic Sans to try and teach kids about obeying the law should be a felony.
Let me save you some breath here, Graham:
Using Comic Sans. . .should be a felony.
“Hey kids, our criminal laws are often draconian fucking ridiculousness! Better get used to it!”
That’s just…wild? I’m not really offended that someone gave kids a pamphlet telling them not to rape people. Not because they should have done it! I just don’t think the kids are going to care. They won’t give a rip – it’s only adults that would get excited about their precious snowflakes seeing a naughty word.
But I just can’t picture someone who would sit down and create this thing, with the comic book art and word balloons and Comic Sans, and think it was a totally sensible vehicle for discussing sodomy and pornographic exploitation. That is a seriously weird person. I wonder if they drive an Art Car?
It’s just another out of touch PSA. Maybe they should have McGruff The Crime Dog do a rap about it.
Trying 15-year-olds as adults? We live is an asshole society.
Sodomy is what Catholics do to get around “The Law.”
I agree with @Reymont that kids probably care less about this than adults do. The only problem I have with it is that it might be triggering and it has no warning. If a kid who has been sexually abused (and as many as 1 in 13 probably have been) and is flipping through this thing and reads it – it could trigger unwanted and damaging feelings & memories, especially in kids who suffer from PTSD from the trauma.
I know this sounds hand-wringingly PC but I’ve actually seen this happen to kids before and it does suck.
@Sarahfina: Not to sound flippant, but worrying about triggering PTSDs in abused kids as a reason not do this sort of thing is absurd. Look at the number of jokes about priests and Michael Jackson that occur almost non-stop. Popular culture is almost always going to make kiddy-rape a funny-ha-ha thing. It’s dumb and sucks, but victims of childhood sexual abuse need to figure out a way to deal with the harsh realities of living in an uncaring world.
@Graham: sorry, but uh, no. I spent a couple years with the kind of kids Sarahfina’s referring to. Some of those kids have seen a harsher reality than I (or presumably you) will ever have to deal with. They’re not insulated–we are. They deserve some structure or support in the classroom when being re-exposed to those kinds of themes. Every classroom’s gonna have a kid like this.
@Night Moves and @Sarafina – I believe you that those kids have it rough, but isn’t a pamphlet like this intended to help stop creating more of them? It’s like saying we can’t have anti-heroin education because someone might be a recovering addict.
@Night Moves: Then get those kids into therapy and help them deal with their problems in a constructive manner. If they’re so unable to function that we most protect them from the most innoucuous of media, then those kids need to have in-patient treamtent. We can’t allow lowest-common-denominator be the criteria we use for what is or is not acceptable.
I don’t see anyone claiming we shouldn’t teach kids tough topics. But if we roll that kind of ed into a whimsical pamphlet with a busty blonde superhero and a catalog of summer programs, we’re not giving it the attention it deserves. “In-patient treatment” won’t help any kid normalize or focus on an education. Neither will encouraging meltdowns with the misguided assumption that it will “toughen em up”. And even for the kids that actually need that kind of intervention—that’s one of those “if only” things. Like, “if only we could hire a chaperone for every sex offender”.