I was scanning the local news stories today, and I came across an op-ed piece from a recent edition of the Tuscaloosa News. In this piece, it appears that a mother of a young man who is in jail wrote an article about her son. In this piece, the mother talks about the number of young men in jail with the charge of statutory rape. Technically, this is a Rape II charge. In the state of Alabama, this charge is about a person of a certain age who has had sex, consensual or not, with a person of another age. In this particular situation, her son was over a certain age and had sex with a girl under a certain age. From all appearances, this sex was consensual, and seemed to be between boyfriend and girlfriend. I make this distinction for a reason. In our state, those who had this kind of sex are viewed exactly the same as those who molest children. In essence, child molesters and those who have consensual sex with their underage girlfriends are all considered sex offenders, and ALL HAVE TO REGISTER AS SEX OFFENDERS FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES! That is how generalized our sex offender laws are in the state of Alabama.
What do we, as social workers, think about these laws . . .
There are no correct answers . . . just wondering what everyone thinks about these sets of laws and what they mean to our practice . . .
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Perhaps if child molesters were punished on a more severe level than rapists (with a distinction between rape I, rape II and molestation), there could be a drastic, lasting change.
In my opinion, child molesters should be punished more severely than they currently are. Child molestors should not be placed in the same category as rapists. The offenses are both very different. Furthermore, there should be a distinction among rape charges as well.
Something to ponder... If a person is arrested for trafficing drugs, their sentence is oftentimes very strict because there is a major emphasis on the "war on drugs". How about implementation of a "war on criminals who hurt kids in any way"?.... a child molester can easily be paroled whereas a person trafficing drugs even if it is their first offense can (and often does) receive a more severe punishment than molesters.
About Rape I vs. Rape II... there should be some kind of publicized seperation addressing sentencing as well as policies following sentence served (sex offenders register) so that justice is given to all involved.
There was a case similar to this in Georgia where a young man had been in prison for 10 years for having sex with a minor (he was 18 or 19 at the time and she was 17). There is something obviously wrong with this. Some kind of distinction should be made...
Katie
I deal with this type thing with my job very often. I definitely feel that there should be some type of clear distinction between the statutory rape situations where there is only 2 calendar years or slightly more difference between the offender and child than for the more distinct age differences (for example a 45 year old offender and a 13 year old victim). Many times teenagers are involved in a dating type relationship and there could be easily the 2 year difference as specified under Alabama law when the victim is under the age of consent (16 in Alabama)and the two engage in sex. Unfortunately many youth are unaware of the laws until after the incident and are then held accountable to them. I have seen some seemingly (I did say seemingly) naive youth be charged with crimes and I felt with certainty that they had no idea that what they were doing was illegal. Not only are they sometimes charged with the crime but they are also usually indicated for child abuse in the State's Central Registry for Child Abuse and Neglect through DHR. However, I have observed that at least in my area people are more hesitant to sign warrants for these type situations and most of the time the youth offender gets by with a warning and an indicated DHR report.
Kristi
I think the laws/ bills need to modified. I also think those are different crimes and should have different punishment. There should also be some type of distinction. I think some of the laws "suck" and they are not put in place to help us, but harm us.
I think laws are there for the most part to protect children who can not give proper consent to ceratin activities. I believe they were created with the right attitude and reasoning behind them, but often people lose sight of what is important and things get taken too far.
I do not believe a child of 16should have to register as a sex offender simply because they chose to have intercourse with their girlfriend, but I do believe there is an age that is too young for children to be having sex. It is very hard to draw that line in the sand about what age it is okay and what age it is not. It often times is a personal choice within a family. Other times, though, older boys or girls will coerce the younger person in a relationship into sexual activity or exert some type of power over them, and then yes, I believe it should be seen as a crime. I have seen law enforcement in this area not turn a blind eye to the situation, but they are very careful about how they enforce this law because they too understand it could be ruining some child's life.
I believe that as social workers, we should be educating our clients, friends, relative, random people we meet about the sex offender laws so that they are aware of what can happen to them. I keep copies of the law in may desk and give them out to people I come into contact with who need to know. This comes from seeing boys getting into trouble for having sex with their girlfriends and having parents or guardians who were not familiar with the laws. We should always strive to EDUCATE the people we see!
Post a Comment