Statutory Rape: Criminal Law
Statutory Rape
A’ram Christopher
Criminal Law
Professor James Barney
Statutory Rape
Introduction
Statutory rape is usually defined by the state law concerned. However, statutory rape is distinguished from other forms of rape in that the victim must necessarily be below the age of consent and that lack of consent is not a requisite to the crime on the common understanding that a person below a certain age lacks the capability to give an informed consent. Prior to the development of modern statutory rape laws, statutory rape was used to protect young women and children from the sexual incursion of unwanted males. At that time, women were regarded as chattels or property and as such were ferociously protected by their ‘owners.’ …show more content…
It prohibited sexual intercourse with females under the age of 12 because of the presumption that those falling within that age were not capable of giving consent. Prior to this, statutory rape requires only the absence of consent, but ten years after codification statutory rape was made a capital offense and the age was lowered to 10. The English law on statutory rape was imported by English settlers to Colonial America, but the law served more to protect the chastity of young, single women than their inability to give consent. This was because in the old days, female chastity had a value that made women more valuable as special property. Statutory rape used to be, therefore, a property crime and was only applicable to unmarried white women of a certain age. In the years that followed, there were three waves of statutory rape laws reforms: at the turn of the 20th century, in the 1970s and 1980s, and in the 1990s (Cocca …show more content…
Carpenter (2003) attributed this to the dilemma whether statutory rape is a malum in se, a public welfare law, or a combination of both. An offense that is malum in se is inherently evil in itself and includes serious crimes as murder, rape, assault and similar crimes that are commonly seen by society as something that must be given a stop (Berg 11). In this type of crime, the element of mens rea as shown in Fig. 1 is a requisite for conviction together with actus reus. On the other hand, public welfare offenses, also classifiable as mala prohibita offenses, are not necessarily inherently evil, but are merely reflective of current values and temper. Mala prohibita offenses are usually strict liability offenses, which mean that the mere act of doing them suffices conviction without the proof of intent or mens rea required in mala in se offenses (Berg 11). A combination of these types balances the requisites of mens rea and strict liability in one offense legislation. In statutory rape laws, for example, the proof of mens rea is allowable if the age differential between parties is small and imposes strict liability when the age gap is big (Carpenter
A’ram Christopher
Criminal Law
Professor James Barney
Statutory Rape
Introduction
Statutory rape is usually defined by the state law concerned. However, statutory rape is distinguished from other forms of rape in that the victim must necessarily be below the age of consent and that lack of consent is not a requisite to the crime on the common understanding that a person below a certain age lacks the capability to give an informed consent. Prior to the development of modern statutory rape laws, statutory rape was used to protect young women and children from the sexual incursion of unwanted males. At that time, women were regarded as chattels or property and as such were ferociously protected by their ‘owners.’ …show more content…
It prohibited sexual intercourse with females under the age of 12 because of the presumption that those falling within that age were not capable of giving consent. Prior to this, statutory rape requires only the absence of consent, but ten years after codification statutory rape was made a capital offense and the age was lowered to 10. The English law on statutory rape was imported by English settlers to Colonial America, but the law served more to protect the chastity of young, single women than their inability to give consent. This was because in the old days, female chastity had a value that made women more valuable as special property. Statutory rape used to be, therefore, a property crime and was only applicable to unmarried white women of a certain age. In the years that followed, there were three waves of statutory rape laws reforms: at the turn of the 20th century, in the 1970s and 1980s, and in the 1990s (Cocca …show more content…
Carpenter (2003) attributed this to the dilemma whether statutory rape is a malum in se, a public welfare law, or a combination of both. An offense that is malum in se is inherently evil in itself and includes serious crimes as murder, rape, assault and similar crimes that are commonly seen by society as something that must be given a stop (Berg 11). In this type of crime, the element of mens rea as shown in Fig. 1 is a requisite for conviction together with actus reus. On the other hand, public welfare offenses, also classifiable as mala prohibita offenses, are not necessarily inherently evil, but are merely reflective of current values and temper. Mala prohibita offenses are usually strict liability offenses, which mean that the mere act of doing them suffices conviction without the proof of intent or mens rea required in mala in se offenses (Berg 11). A combination of these types balances the requisites of mens rea and strict liability in one offense legislation. In statutory rape laws, for example, the proof of mens rea is allowable if the age differential between parties is small and imposes strict liability when the age gap is big (Carpenter