These laws not only specify a legal age of consent, but also enforce a maximum age difference between the youths. The new statutes, commonly referred to as “ Romeo and Juliet laws,” take into account the actual and relative ages of the participants. Many states, in an effort to address this issue, updated their statutes to reflect the true intent of statutory rape laws: to prevent young people from being manipulated into sex by adults. The age of consent laws in most jurisdictions were strict and inflexible, giving prosecutors no room for allowance of teenage lovers. Some involve one partner who is technically an adult, at age 18, with another who is a minor, though the two may have dated for a period of months or years. Many statutory rape cases involve two teens engaging in sex with one another. The legal age of consent may also vary in each jurisdiction depending on the type of sexual act, the gender of the parties, and other special circumstances. In all states, a person under the age of consent who engages in sexual activities is considered the victim, and the older partner is the perpetrator. Many states consider the relative ages of the participants. Each jurisdiction takes a slightly different approach to determining age of consent, which as the actual age ranging from 10 to 18 years. If the girl was 15 years old, however, it is not. This would mean that a 17-year-old boy engaging in sexual activity with a 13-year-old girl is a crime. Having sex with a minor between the ages of 12 and 16, who is at least four years younger, is a crime. Legal Age of ConsentĪccording to federal law, the legal age of consent is between 12 and 16 years. Rather, statutory rape would not be a criminal act at all if both individuals engaging in sexual activities were above the legal age of consent. The term statutory rape can be misleading, as it does not refer to forced acts of sex, or coercion. Every state has statutory rape laws, though the specific definitions and punishments vary greatly. Statutory rape occurs when an individual over the legal age of consent engages in sexual activities with another person who is under the legal age of consent as specified by state law. Having sexual intercourse with a person under the age of consent is a crime referred to as “ statutory rape.” This means that the mental capacity of a person may leave hi or her unable to legally consent to sexual activities, regardless of chronological age. Age of consent in the United States refers to a person’s chronological age, but in some cases, a court may consider the person’s mental age, in determining whether he or she has been taken advantage of. The actual term age of consent does not appear in the laws of most jurisdictions, though federal law sets this age at 12 to 16 years, and most states have similar ages. The age of consent is the age at which, according to law, a person may legally consent to engage in sexual activity. Enforcement of consent laws based on the participants’ actual ages were not common until the 19th century, because proof of age and date of birth were not readily available. The American colonists initially followed English tradition, which commonly recognized marriage at ages as young as 9 years, in the subject of marriage and sex. Christianity made it clear to its followers that sexual relations outside marriage was forbidden, and children were commonly held responsible, and punished, for submitting to sexual acts with an adult. The accepted age of marriage at the time was 12 years. This Westminster 1 statute made it a crime to “ravish” a maiden younger than the age of marriage, with or without her consent. The first written age of consent law found by historians comes from England in 1275.
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