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Grosse Pointe case reopens dilemma about statutory rape
From: (http://detnews.com/EDITPAGE/9807/15/young/young.htm)
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The case in which four former students at Grosse Pointe North High School have been
ordered to stand trial on charges of criminal sexual conduct involving three underage
girls has revived the debate about statutory rape laws.
The girls say they were forced into sex or plied with liquor until they were too
incapacitated to object. There are some strange details in the case that cast doubt on
their stories. But whether or not they consented is legally irrelevant. The
defendants are
charged with statutory rape, which requires only that the alleged victim
be over 12 and under 16. At the time of the incidents, the boys
were 17 and 18 and the girls were 14.
Unlike some other states, Michigan does not set a minimum age for defendants or
require a minimum age gap between victim and defendant. Formally, the law does not
differentiate between a 30-year-old who has sex with a 13-year-old and a 19-year-old
who has sex with a 15-year-old.
To many, this makes no sense. The law is meant to protect kids from being exploited
by adults, not to punish sex between teen-agers.
Others, including some state legislators, think the law should be still tougher. Rep. Tim
Walberg, R-Lenawee County, is sponsoring the stalled House Bill 5065, which would
raise the age of consent to 18. Sen. Joanne Emmons, R-Big Rapids, is also championing
the measure as a way to reduce pregnancies among young welfare mothers.
A good argument can be made that there should be some legal recourse when an
adult, especially an authority figure such as a teacher, seduces a 16-year-old. But would
harsher laws and more prosecutions make a dent in births to unwed teens, or is this a red
herring?
A few years ago, a study claiming that most babies born to teen-age girls are fathered
by adult men got a lot of attention, with conservatives and liberals alike urging a
crackdown on predatory males. But the “predator” could be a 21-year-old with a
19-year-old girlfriend.
Later research showed that only 27 percent of births to girls 15-17 involve a father
five or more years older than the mother. Nearly a quarter of the older fathers, however,
were married to the teen-age mothers. Even under the proposed Michigan law, underage
girls and boys could still marry with parental permission.
Whether a 30-year-old man who wants to wed his pregnant 16-year-old girlfriend
should be given a marriage license or a jail sentence is a tough question. (Such
marriages,
of course, were once common.) But when statutory rape laws are used as a weapon
against consensual sex between teens who are close to each other in age, they can reach
true absurdity.
Last year in Wisconsin, 18-year-old Kevin Gillson was convicted of sexual assault
after he got his 15-year-old girlfriend pregnant, despite the girl’s insistence that
she
consented and the teens’ desire to marry. Gillson was spared jail, but his contact
with his
child was severely restricted, and he had to register as a sex offender.
I don’t think it’s all right for teen-agers to have sex or to have babies, even
if it leads
to marriage. But laws are not the answer.
For one, both boys and girls should be held accountable. Yet calls for more statutory
rape prosecutions almost invariably presume that girls are the victims. True, 23 percent
of
girls who lost their virginity when they were under 14 report that their first sexual
experience was not voluntary.
This is an alarming problem — but one that obviously wouldn’t be affected by
raising
the age of consent. For 14- and 15-year-olds, the rate of nonvoluntary first intercourse
drops to 9 percent; for 16- and 17-year-olds, to 5 percent.
If there are answers, they are cultural, not legal: Sending teens the message that sex
should be postponed; stigmatizing parents who look the other way while their kids have
drunken orgies, like those teen-agers apparently did in Grosse Pointe. This may not end
the problem, but it will be a step in the right direction.