'Sexting' lands teen on sex offender list

I just became aware of something called sexting that is very disturbing to me. Apparently this is a growing trend among many teenagers. As the mother of three teenagers I am very troubled by this apparently new trend. My children, thank God, have not sent any naked or sexual pictures of themselves or their friends by texting or on the Internet. However, when I asked about it they admitted that their friends have sent jokes of a sexual nature by text to them. We have a very open relationship, which I am grateful for, so it is easy for me to speak to them about this. I had to show them the article and told them to make sure their friends know that they should not send such things because the consequences could be great. Some teens have been charged with pornography and made to register as a sex offenders. Their whole future just gets screwed up over this nonsense.
Give your kids a heads up on this because teenagers do things like this for fun, for retaliation or for spite against someone and then they end up getting a criminal record. It is very disturbing that so many children are being locked up for this type of 'teenage mischief'. There has to be a better way to teach them to be more responsible instead of putting them in jail where they only learn how to become real criminals instead of learning how to be responsible young adults.