Taking naked selfies on your smartphone and then sending them out through texts can lead to personal and professional problems. The police in San Diego want to make sure teenagers understand this. So, in order to 'teach' minors not to sext naked photos to each other, they're going to reach out and destroy some lives. NBC's San Diego affiliate reports:

San Diego police say criminal charges will be filed in a sexting ring involving dozens of students from several high schools and one middle school. According to investigators, it started with a dozen girls sending nude photos of themselves to their boyfriends. Then, the boyfriends passed the pictures on to their friends, creating a web of photo sharing. "They are fully nude shots, sexually explicit of some of our high school students," San Diego Police Lt. Chuck Kaye said. While the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC) is not releasing the names of the schools involved, investigators say they have identified 30 students from six high schools and one middle school they believe were involved in the sexting ring.

These pictures are considered child pornography, so imagine what might happen to whomever the police arrests. Furthermore, according to the NBC report, there's no hacking or coercion going on here. The girls sent out the naked pics themselves.

I was going to provide a link to all Reason blogging about sexting, but the search is dominated by Anthony Weiner mocking. Instead, here's a post by Jacob Sullum back from 2011 about how teen sexting isn't as common as people fear.

Follow this story and more at Reason 24/7.

Spice up your blog or Website with Reason 24/7 news and Reason articles. You can get the widgets here. If you have a story that would be of interest to Reason's readers please let us know by emailing the 24/7 crew at 24_7@reason.com, or tweet us stories at @reason247.