Sex Offender Research & State News: 20/20 Age of Consent

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March 26, 2008

Law Can't Prevent Underage Sex

3-26-2008 National:

In my last two columns, I discussed the cases of young people who were placed on sex-offender registries because their sexual partners were below the age of consent. For the rest of their lives, any neighbor or employer who looks them up on the Web will be led to believe they are pedophiles.

This raises many questions, among them: What is the right age of consent?

The legal age is different everywhere. In Yemen, it's 9, although you have to be married. In Mexico, you can legally have sex as early as 12. In the United States, the age varies by state, ranging from 16 to 18.

For "20/20" I spoke to an 18-year-old boy who had sexual relations with a girl four years younger. Isn't that taking advantage of a 14-year-old? I asked.

"I wouldn't think so. I thought I was really gonna have a relationship."

What if she were 13?

"I really can't answer that question ... because she wasn't."

What if she were 12?

"Oh, heck no. There's a point where you draw the line somewhere."

But where? The law is at odds with what goes on in real life. The Centers for Disease Control reports that a quarter of America's teens say they had sex before they were 16. Since no state's age of consent is lower, millions of Americans must be breaking the law.

Some groups, like the Family Research Council, say the laws should be stricter.

"We oppose efforts to lower [the age of consent]," Peter Sprigg, its vice president for policy, told me.

But 17-year-olds are still going to have sex.

"Well, they are. But I think it's a legitimate goal of public policy to discourage that."

Making it illegal discourages it?

"There will be some deterrent effect presumably. That's what all of our laws do."

"The idea that we criminalize 14-year-olds' having oral sex or sexual intercourse with 16-year-olds, that's a horrible solution to a subtle and complex issue."

Klein calls this criminalization of sexual activity America's War on Sex.

"Telling a kid just say no, and expecting them to not have sex, that's like telling somebody who's depressed, have a nice day, and expecting that to lift their depression."

Some states created exemptions to their statutory rape laws for kids who are close in age. They're called "Romeo and Juliet" exemptions because Romeo and Juliet were close in age. But I bet the legislators would be surprised to learn that Shakespeare's Juliet was only 13.

Klein says, "We trust 15-year-olds to make decisions all the time. We give them access to credit cards. We let 16- and 17-year-olds drive cars. The idea that somebody who's behind the wheel of a car can't make good sexual decisions, I think, is more about our anxiety about sex than it is about any clear thinking about 17-year-olds."

But the Family Research Council's Sprigg will have none of this. "The focus should be on telling teens that sex should be saved for marriage. The benefits of waiting are enormous."

If they're too young, why did God make them biologically ready? I asked him.

"Well, in some ancient cultures, it would have been perfectly appropriate for young people to marry and start a family as soon as their bodies were biologically ready for reproduction. But we live in a very different culture, and young people today need more time before marriage, but they don't need sex before marriage."

Whatever the law says, there's no proof that age-of-consent laws deter sex before marriage. Many kids don't even know what the age of consent is.

Something is very wrong when young people, doing what hundreds of thousands of other kids do, are condemned for life on sex registries next to rapists and real pedophiles. There's no justice in that. ..more.. by John Stossel

John Stossel is an award-winning news correspondent and author of Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel--Why Everything You Know is Wrong.

March 23, 2008

John Stossel: Politicians dangerously mix sex and the law

3-23-2008 National:

WHEN New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was caught using a prostitution service, the irony was that he was a tough-on-prostitution politician. He took pride in locking up the same kind of people he is said to have done $80,000 worth of business with. He supported "tougher laws" to imprison customers like him.

In his statement to the news media, Spitzer called the scandal a "private matter." Good point. Adults' paying for sex ought to be a private matter, but when Spitzer was attorney general, he didn't consider paid sex private. He's one of many politicians who were eager to punish others for doing what he did.

What's going on here? Maybe these men want to punish others for acting on the same forbidden impulses they know they can't control themselves?

Rep. Mark Foley of Florida was a big advocate of punishing any adult who had sex with minors. "They're sick people; they need mental health counseling," he shouted.

But then ABC News caught Foley sending sexual instant messages to minors.

Politicians should cut back on their grandstanding, says Arizona public defender Chris Phillis, because while it's bad enough to call what consenting adults do "sex crimes," it's even worse to criminalize kids who do what kids have always done.

Phillis, who defends teens accused of sex crimes, says common sexual experimentation is now prosecuted. "If a 15-year-old touches a 13-year-old, touches their breasts, they are now guilty of a felony crime. And I would love to tell you that 13-year-olds aren't engaging in this conduct. I have a 13-year-old. But telling you that isn't going to change the fact."

The Centers for Disease Control reports that 25 percent of America's 15-year-olds say they've have had sex. Nearly 40 percent of 16-year-olds and almost half the 17-year-olds say they have. All are under Arizona's age of consent, which prompted Senate committee chairwoman Karen Johnson to try to change Arizona's sex-offender laws. She wanted to give kids a break.

But the political winds are not on her side. Few politicians want to spend political capital weakening sex-crime laws -- even when such laws have horrendous unintended consequences.

Arizona's Speaker of the House Jim Weiers defends Arizona's tough laws, saying that if you are a sex offender, "Arizona is becoming very quickly known as a state you don't want to stay in." But Weiers acknowledges that Arizona's sex-offender registry has 15,000 names on it.

I asked him how putting young people who engaged in noncoercive sex play on Arizona's registry protects the public. "I don't know if it does ... You can't take each and every individual ..."

But it is individuals whose lives are wrecked by these laws. When Garrett Daley was 14, his 9-year-old adopted sister, Devon, said he molested her. Their mom called the police.

It turned out Devon had lied. It was she who initiated sex with Garrett. She later told the police, but they didn't believe her. Today, seven years later, prosecutors still won't let her change her testimony.

To avoid a jail sentence, Garrett plea-bargained to "attempted molestation of a child." What choice do these kids have? "They're told they'll go to jail for 90 years or 50 years or something, unless they accept this plea, and the plea almost always requires lifetime sex-offender registry," Sen. Johnson says.

Garrett didn't realize his plea bargain would put him in a different kind of jail. Once you're on the sex offender registry or on probation, your life is wrecked, public defender Phillis told "20/20."

"They can't go anywhere children frequent. So that's McDonald's, that's Jack in the Box ... Children have actually been told if you go to a movie and another child walks in, even if it's a rated R movie, then you're to get up and leave."

I told Weiers about the public defender's comments. "The public defenders say all laws go too far," Weirs replied.

Give me a break. State sex-offender registries could separate consensual teen sex from pedophiles who prey on 5-year-olds. Minnesota does that.

Too often, American criminal law is a blunt instrument designed to make it look as if politicians are protecting us. I think the politicians usually protect themselves, at our expense. ..more.. by John Stossel is co-anchor of ABC News' "20/20" and the author of "Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity."

March 16, 2008

20/20 Age of Consent Series

John Stossel brings us a new series on the Age of Consent. Each week he has addressed a specific issue, a video and a written story. Also, don't forget to check the readers' comments as we found that even the well known vigilantes were harassing the commenters with their misconstructions and other nonsense. Finally, it was nice to see commenter telling their stories of how their lives were affected by the registry. So, sit back and enjoy, if new ones are posted we will update:

Age of Consent: Where it all begins.

Sex Abuse Laws: Unintended Consequences? Frank and Nikki Rodriguez are married with four children. He is on the Texas State Sex Offender registry because the couple had sex when he was 19 and she was 15, below the age of consent in the state.

Parents Turn to Police When Daughters Have Sex Mark Putorti called the police when he found out that his daughter Alexis,15, was having sex with her boyfriend. The age of consent in Connecticut is 16 and Alexis' boyfriend was arrested.

Having Sex, Legally: Which Age Is Best? Age of consent laws vary from state to state and from nation to nation.

Double Standard When It Comes to Underage Sex? Although Debra LaFave, Mary Kay LeTourneau and Pamela Rogers were criminally prosecuted, many people view the women's sex crimes very differently than they view similar crimes committed by men.

Sexual Abuse or Harmless Horseplay? Kids Treated Like Cons as Schools Crack Down on Minor Infractions

Sex, Laws and Politicians Eliot Spitzer Is the Latest Example of Politicians Not Practicing What They Preach

Age of Consent: Sex Offender Laws Do tough sex offender laws in states ruin some lives while saving others?

Which Laws Are Necessary for Consenting Adults? 20/20 Is Looking for Interview Subjects for a Future Show