I didnt expect this at all. US government's site wrote an entire debate about age of consent being 14.
US government's official site suggests lowering age of consent to 14
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@Best.Korea
Thread title is misleading, this is a document in a library (literally uses the word library) not an endorsement.
Platform vs publisher, or I suppose we could tie ourselves in knots about that one for a few more decades.
You may as well say the US government endorses national socialism if they have mein kampf in a public library.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
I guess you are right in a sense. I am just surprised by things written on official government site.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
What do you think of whats written there? It seems to me that it does a good job explaining.
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@Best.Korea
What do you think of whats written there? It seems to me that it does a good job explaining.
Quick run through:
Cons:
A change in the law would result in more younger children becoming inappropriately engaged in sexual activity.
They don't really lock up children for engaging in sexual activity with each other anyway. Immediate authorities are their inhibitors, that is parents, bosses, school administrators.
That would still be true if it was "legal" although one could argue the culture might follow the law.
There is a lack of evidence this is the case and, indeed, much evidence suggesting that the existing law has no effect on the sexual behaviour of young people.
I agree, they know they are safe; and it's not a good thing for de facto law and de jure law to be different.
The existing law gives young people, especially girls, who do not want to engage in sexual activity a powerful reason for refusing to consent. Although this reason is often cited, there is not even anecdotal evidence to suggest it is valid. It is indeed difficult to imagine a girl saying to her boyfriend that she does not wish to have sex with him because it is against the law. She might not wish to have sex with him, but she wouldn't want him to laugh at her either.
Decent counter-argument but the more core one would be simple: She has a right to refuse anyway, no boyfriend worth having would be better off with a lie rather than the true reason. The government most certainly should not be in the business of providing excuses (at the cost of victims) because shy people won't be honest.
Focus group discussions with 11–16 year-olds reveal that they are generally opposed to a change in the law on this matter.9 This is indeed the case, but, as indicated above, there is a marked disparity between the behaviour of young people and their views on the existing law.
It wouldn't matter if they were against it and weren't hypocrites in their opposition. Most people don't want to engage in homosexual behavior but that doesn't mean it should be illegal.
Young people aged 14 years are not physically mature enough to engage in full sexual activity. The median age of menarche in English and Welsh girls born between 1982 and 1986 was 12 years and 11 months.10 Thus, the great majority of girls of 14 years are indeed sufficiently physically mature to engage in full sexual activity.
History says they can do it physically, this was never a strong argument because our bodies are covered with sensors which tell us when we're doing something dangerous (pain).
Young people aged 14 years are not cognitively mature enough to evaluate the risks of engaging in sexual activity. There is ample evidence that 14-year-olds are as capable of analysing the risks and benefits of different interventions in complex medical situations as are 21-year-olds.11
Capable surely, but the reason they do stupid things more than adults is not because they are incapable of reasoning but because they don't have the wisdom (whether it comes from brain development or life experience) to know when to use it.
Of course many adults never gain sufficient wisdom, and we watch them destroy themselves all the time; but it follows that while a guardian has restrictive authority they ought to have the privilege of preventing self-destructive behavior.
In particular, he cites his own work13 pointing to age differences in sensation-seeking and impulsivity.
Basically what I said.
The problem with his argument is that the greatest reduction in impulsivity occurs between adults aged 22–25 and those aged 26–30 years. Is it really suggested that sexual consent should be invalid up to the age of 26 years?
I think that impulsivity as a proxy for what I am calling "wisdom" seems to be a good proxy and it does show spikes (on average) for those ages. Many team leaders in many fields know this explicitly or implicitly.
Identifying a line in the sand does mean there is an imperfections in the logic. The rationally derived is the opposite of the arbitrary... but just because you know a particular line in the sand can't be rational doesn't mean you know where it should be.
For example, McCartt et al,15 studying traffic accidents among young people, found that ‘of the studies that attempted to quantify the relative importance of age and experience factors, most found a more powerful effect from length of licensure’.
That study result doesn't surprise me in the least, I am eminently skeptical of the high level of quackery in theoretical neuroscience and the general aversion in behavioral psychology to accept the most obvious explanation in open war with Occam's razor.
This is to some degree true of the mindset and behavior of people engaging in sex, marriage, and family rearing. History is full of people doing it at 16 and executing it (as far as we can tell) well.
To a great degree, young adults are as immature and ignorant as society allows them to be. A society which places emphasis on wisdom (and virtue in general), has no unhealthy minor culture as created by public schools, and most importantly makes impulsive (brash) and irrational behavior taboo will produce 16 year olds who are more ready to engage in sex than modern society's 22 year olds.... or at least that is the way it seems when you read letters written by 16 year olds from such societies in history.
Pros:
Lowering the age of sexual consent would result in the decriminalisation of just under one-third of the adolescent population. Most such law-breakers are not currently prosecuted, but it cannot be right that their freely given sexual consent is deemed illegal.
In all cases the law should be enforced. If the result of the law being enforced is injustice, remove the law, not the enforcement. This is prerequisite honesty in the proposition of civil life.
The numbers of young people whose sexual activity results in sexually transmitted infections is substantial.16 The number of pregnancies in 15–17-year-olds, although it is reducing, remains substantial.17 Further, the sexual experience of many young people, particularly girls, is distressing, and a substantial number of girls regret their first full sexual experience.18 Lowering the age of sexual consent would make it distinctly easier for appropriate sex education to be provided to children and young people to enable them to make wiser decisions. It would also make it easier to provide sexual health services to people of this age without the fear of conniving in illegal activity.
This doesn't follow. It is so rarely enforced that I don't think any adolescents would balk at seeking medical help given doctor patient confidentiality. Schools DO have sex education where they all but assume everyone is going to "break the law" and have sex rather than remain abstinent.
Further, the sexual experience of many young people, particularly girls, is distressing, and a substantial number of girls regret their first full sexual experience.
Do they regret it because it is illegal or because they know it's unwise and would bring condemnation from their guardians?
The voting age in England and Wales is currently 18 years, while in Scotland it is 16 years. The voting age should surely be reduced to 16 years in England and Wales, with an expectation of a further reduction in due course.
Or perhaps it should be raised to 30 years, if the justification is filtering out the impulsive youth. Voters have the power to murder and steal in a democracy, that's as or more dangerous than consensual sex.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Capable surely, but the reason they do stupid things more than adults is not because they are incapable of reasoning but because they don't have the wisdom
Many people dont have wisdom. Lack of wisdom isnt really the basis for taking away choices. It is absurd.
People gain wisdom by making choices, thus preventing people from making choices prevents even more wisdom as result.
The text compared countries where age of consent was 14 and found no worse outcomes than where its 18.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
They don't really lock up children for engaging in sexual activity
They do sometimes. They put them on sex offender's list. About 30% of registered sex offenders are children.
This is due to problem of consistency. Children are held accountable for crimes. Sex with children is a crime.
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@Best.Korea
Where did you see that?About 30% of registered sex offenders are children.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
"Approximately 200,000 people in 41 states are currently on the sex offender registry for crimes they committed as children"
There are about 780,000 people on sex offenders registry, meaning 25% to 30% offenders did it as children.
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@Best.Korea
The citations end here: https://stoneleighfoundation.org/studies-experts-question-effect-placing-children-sex-offender-registries/
Would have hoped for something more official.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Like this?
"According to the U.S. Department of Justice, juvenile sex offenders comprise 25.8% of all sex offenders and 35.6% of sex offenders against juvenile victims."
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Its a document from 2009, but I dont think it changed much since then. There are sex offenses also.
Sex offenses are different. I have read that 70% of sex offenses against children are committed by children.
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@Best.Korea
Yea, that document (a true government publication) claims that 16% of all offenders are younger than 12.
It is still unclear if by "rape" they mean real rape or "we're going to call this rape because we don't like it", but if it's the latter this is a great injustice.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Anyway, there are plenty of links concerning sex offenders and what percentage of them are children under 18.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
It is still unclear if by "rape" they mean real rape or "we're going to call this rape because we don't like it"
In most cases, it isnt actually rape. I managed to find some stories that explain it in detail.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
""Anthony*, a 14-year-old autistic boy, was making awkward overtures to his crush. Other kids thought the courtship was cute until, according to his attorney, Nicole Pittman of Impact Justice , Anthony got frustrated and sent his crush a picture of his genitals. "Parents flipped out," Pittman told Broadly, explaining that they requested authorities press charges against the teen. Now, Anthony is listed on the sex offender registry. He can no longer attend school or even be left alone in a room with his little brothers.
"As a person on the registry, you're considered a sex offender, and sex offenders can't be with children under the age of 17," Pittman explains. "In one moment he can be [Anthony] who is on the spectrum, but the minute this happens, all of that goes out the window and he becomes in people's eyes a predator—that's not the truth. That's not who these kids are. They are young kids on the spectrum."
Pittman has been defending children like Anthony for 12 years, and says there are still several thousand juveniles on the sex offender registry in the State of Michigan.
Some of these children were on the autism spectrum or struggling with disabilities, but most judges have refused to make exceptions, citing what Pittman describes as a "one size fits all" policy. Pittman, along with other lawyers and social workers, is fighting to change these laws and educate the public about the true cost of their unilateral enforcement.
Pittman identifies Michigan-based social worker Susan H. Rogers as a leader in the cause. Owner of the Parent Counseling and Consulting, PLC, Rogers began diving deeper into the problem 11 years ago, when she was asked to join the Professional Advisory Board for a Useful Registry in Michigan examining sex offender laws and their impact on disabled people and juveniles. "People on [a] sex offender registry don't get second chances," she told Broadly in a phone call. "'This person has a disability. We'll take them off the registry'—no, it doesn't happen like that."
"Most times with children there is no sexual [motivation]," Pittman explains, but "the moment the touching looks sexual, though, society labels them pedophiles." Rogers added that "it doesn't matter if a person is on the spectrum. They're going to be treated like any sex offender." When an autistic child pulls his pants down in a grocery store, Pittman explains, "We look at [the situation] from the lens [of] a 50 year old man [flashing people]."
Minors are not listed publicly on the sex offender registry, but they're forbidden from attending school because that's where children congregate. Once they turn 18, most states require them to register on the public sex offender list with an identifying photo. Children like Anthony would be identified as child pornography distributors for sending nude selfies, and required to disclose their status as a registered sex offender to any employers in some states. "There's a lot of homelessness and depression [because people can't get jobs]," Pittman explains. "We have a whole new generation of victims on this law."
Pittman has interviewed 500 registered kids. While only some were on the autism spectrum, she says all of them have been victims of abuse. "We are putting people on [a] registry who should be protected," she declares. Pittman believes that judges understand the problem but are reluctant to treat children with autism differently than adult offenders, recalling one judge who told her, "I understand what you're saying, but I'll be looked at as soft on sex offenders."
Police officers, on the other hand, seem more open to change, according to Pittman. She points to a Michigan boarding school where cops have made an effort to reduce conflict by asking for help communicating with children with autism. "Law enforcement is really seeing this happening and really want to get involved and say, 'These aren't the people who want to be on the registry,'" Pittman explains.
Michigan has pioneered the effort to change how authorities treat children with autism. For nearly 20 years, the 17th Circuit Court of Kent County has allowed children to plead to what D'Orio describes as a "a lesser, non-registerable offense." In 2011, Michigan passed an amendment to the Michigan Sex Offender Registry allowing children "who committed an offense under [the] age of 14" to be removed. "Six-year-olds were on it," Pittman recalls. "Three thousand children came off [the list that year]."
Pittman and Rogers agree that the biggest problems facing children with autism are misunderstandings about their behavior, especially when it comes to sexuality. According to Pittman, the US defunded research on childhood sexuality in 1950. "All the benchmarks we use are the 1950s, when there weren't [nude] selfies and what," she says. "We have no measures in this country to understand what normal childhood sexuality is."
Rogers hosts seminars where teens on the autism spectrum can ask dating questions, and instructs teachers and parents how to understand and communicate with autistic children. When asked how we might help keep children like Anthony from being unfairly labeled as sex offenders, Rogers responded, "Education, education, education.""