26 United States The EconomistMarch 28th 2020
21of hygiene “extremely dangerous”. The cur-
rent crisis at least is raising public aware-
ness of “severe overcrowding and unsani-
tary conditions” for those locked up, says
Inimai Chettiar, of Justice Action Network,
which campaigns for reform.
In Harris County some pregnant in-
mates have been released. Those protest-
ing in Rikers want detainees aged 50 or old-
er sent home. Ohio’s chief justice has said
that people at highest risk of infection
must be isolated outside jails. Ms Oliver
notes that older inmates are both at risk
and pose little threat, as they are unlikely to
reoffend. A bill, hr4018, which was unani-
mously passed by the House last year and is
waiting to go before the Senate, would
make it easier for elderly prisoners to serve
the final third of their sentences at home.
Another effort in many states aims to
prevent people entering jails in the first
place. Sheriff Dart in Chicago says daily ar-
rivals have recently fallen by nearly half,
from 100, as police issue more citations
and arrest fewer offenders. That is becom-
ing common in dozens of counties and cit-
ies. In Baltimore the state attorney, Marilyn
Mosby, has told prosecutors to stop charg-
ing non-violent offenders such as those
caught dealing drugs, trespassing or ille-
gally selling sex. In Los Angeles, where
17,000 are in jail on an average day, officials
are aiming to get the population down by
2,000. Daily arrests there have dropped
from 300 to 60, says the sheriff.
Amid all this, there is an opportunity to
release those whose detention does little
for public safety. Of the 1.29m in state pri-
sons, according to the Prison Policy Initia-
tive, a think-tank, nearly half are held for
non-violent crimes. Three-quarters of the
631,000 in jails are awaiting trial, mostly on
non-violent charges. Those held for break-
ing parole conditions or not posting bail,
and those nearing the end of their sen-
tences, may all be let out early. Montana’s
chief justice has called for judges to free “as
many prisoners as you are able” in such
categories. One county jail in Kentucky re-
leased 120 of its 697 detainees this month.
The remaining population will be hard-
er to reduce, but some individuals who are
classed as “violent offenders” probably
also pose little threat to public safety, says
Julian Adler at the Centre for Court Innova-
tion in New York. He points out that some
defendants strike plea bargains and get a
record as violent, though they have never
inflicted or threatened physical harm on
any victim. “Statistics can mislead,” he
says. A getaway driver, convicted as an ac-
cessory to a robber, may count as a violent
felon. So may someone who brawled in a
bar. Mr Adler hopes the current push to re-
think who should be kept inside will
change public attitudes in the longer term.
This wish may not be forlorn. Efforts are
under way in several states to change lawsso as to shrink the incarcerated population:
by doing away with cash bail, for example,
or by getting police to carry out fewer ar-
rests for misdemeanours. Such existing
programmes are routinely backed by both
political parties and have made it easier to
respond quickly in the face of covid-19, ac-
cording to Laurie Garduque of the Mac-
Arthur Foundation, which funds research
on jail reform. The speedy action of many
courts, sheriffs and other officials in the
past week or so she describes as admirable.
The pandemic brings a reminder that soci-
ety’s most vulnerable—the poor, homeless
and mentally ill—commonly end up in
jails. Efforts to help them now are “not rad-
ical”, says Ms Garduque, “but are pushing
in the same direction that we knew from
before.” After the pandemic, she predicts,
“we can go even further.”^7Behind bars chart
United States, share of federal and state inmates*
By selected groups, 2020, %Sources: Prison Policy Initiative; Pew Trusts *Jails and prisonsImmigrant detentionYouths (<18) and
seniors (55+)Not convictedNon-violent offenders6040200Total, ’00042208636909B
y conventionalmeasures, American
teenagers have become prudish. Less
than half of high-school students are hav-
ing sex, with fewer partners and more con-
traception than the generation before
them. Teen-pregnancy rates have never
been lower. But those indicators no longer
offer a complete picture: online, teens are
bucking the trend. In 2019, among 12- to 17-
year-olds, 14% reported sending nude im-
ages, compared with 12% three years earli-
er; 23% received them, up from 19%. The
steady climb may reflect rising smart-
phone use and changing social norms.
What it certainly reflects, says Justin
Patchin, of the University of Wisconsin-
Eau Claire, is that “the current approach to
stop this isn’t working.”
For a decade, the prevailing advice to
teens about sexting has been straightfor-
ward: don’t. In about half of states it is ille-gal for under-18s to sext, on child-pornog-
raphy grounds. Legal punishments for
minors are rare, but widely publicised in
hard-line sex-education literature. One
sexting-prevention programme in Con-
necticut, sponsored by the state’s criminal-
justice division, warns would-be sexters
that “your family members are eventually
very likely to see any images you send elec-
tronically,” and friends may be “ashamed
to be associated with you.” Public-school
lesson plans from one county in Florida are
bluntly entitled “Sexting Over the Net! stop
it now” and “Safe Sexting: No Such Thing.”
Those reactions are understandable.
But they are based on misconceptions of
the problem. “We wasted so much time try-
ing to figure out why kids were sexting,” la-
ments Joris Van Ouytsel of the University of
Antwerp, who began studying the topic in- More important, researchers now
broadly agree, is the context in which chil-
dren are doing it. Just as it is offline, con-
sent is vital. Things go wrong when teen-
agers pressure and coerce others, most
often girls and younger teenagers, to send
nude photos; or forward them to someone
else, as happens in 4% of cases.
Conflation of abusive and non-abusive
sexting has led to an oversimplified re-
sponse. The onus of most interventions
has been on the sender. But Jeff Temple, of
the University of Texas Medical Branch at
Galveston, notes that such thinking ig-
nores the fact that sext-senders are often
the victims of harassment. It also lets off
teenagers who demand sexts or share them
without permission, and leaves out the re-
cipients of unsolicited ones who have been
“cyber-flashed”. In some places sexting
laws lump together teenagers who take
nude photos of themselves, technically
creating child pornography, with adult
predators. Some states, including New
Mexico and Washington, have begun decri-
minalising sexting between minors—a
good first step.
“We have to stop being distracted by the
fact that sexting involves digital technol-
ogy,” says Elizabeth Englander, director of
the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction
Centre. Instead, she argues, it is “part and
parcel of sexual development”. The inter-
net has spawned novel abuses with wider-
than-ever reach, but they tend to mirror
those in the real world. For instance, more
than a quarter of teenagers in relationships
suffer “digital-dating abuse”, where one
partner uses technology to snoop on,
threaten or stalk the other; 35.9% of teen-
age victims have also suffered that offline.
Yet most sex education is stuck in ana-
logue. New Jersey is rare in covering sext-
ing problems in its curriculum; in Decem-
ber a bill was introduced to incorporate it
in Illinois, too. The question that remains
is what they should be teaching. To find
out, researchers discussed some anti-sext-
WASHINGTON, DC
American teenagers are having less
real sex, but more of a virtual kindTeenage sextingSharing and not
caring