Public Attitudes towards Penalties for Sexting by Minors Carianne Blyth * and Lynne D Roberts † Abstract Current child pornography laws in Australia extend to cases where minors transmit sexually explicit material of themselves or others via digital communication ( ‘sexting’). This is the first study examining attitudes of the Australian adult public regarding criminal laws that can apply to sexting by minors. A sample of 285 Australian adults completed an online questionnaire that presented a scenario concerning adolescent sexting. Participants completed measures of perceived responsibility and deservingness of penalty for both the sext sender and recipient who, in some cases, also forwarded the sext. Overall, support for legal penalties for adolescent sexting was low, except in the case of non-consensual distribution of sexts. The results highlight the public’s concern with the non-consensual forwarding of sexts, providing support for calls to distinguish between consensual and non-consensual sexting in legislation and educational and public campaigns. Keywords: sexting – public opinion – child pornography – Australia Introduction ‘Sexting’, variously defined but generally relating to the digital exchange of user-generated sexually explicit content, is a relatively new phenomenon that has been enabled by advancements of technological communication (Lenhart 2009). Broad definitions of what constitutes a prosecutable offence under Australian child pornography laws extend to cases in which children under 18 years of age create, distribute or store sexual material relating to themselves or other children as a result of engaging in sexting (Crofts and Lee 2013; Lee et al 2013). While not designed for sexting by minors, there are few provisions available to protect the possibility of children becoming implicated in these laws (Lee et al 2013; Tallon et al 2012). Most Australian criminal laws rely on the standards of reasonable persons to determine whether or not the nature of an image constitutes offensive child pornographic material (for example, Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) s 473.4). In the context of sexting, the standards of reasonable persons can only be surmised, as currently no Australian study has assessed adult public attitudes towards criminal penalties for adolescents who engage in sexting (Crofts and Lee 2013; Tallon et al 2012). Understanding public attitudes about how * BPsych (Hons). Child Protection Worker, Department for Child Protection and Family Support, Cnr Grose and Lake St, Cannington WA 6107. † PhD. Associate Professor, School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth WA 6845. Email: lynne.roberts@curtin.edu.au.