Age of Consent: protecting victims
Cumbria's former director of Public Health, professor John Ashton, started a hare running in the past week with a proposal which was swiftly disavowed by the leadership of all three political parties - to lower the age of consent.
As the parent of two preteen children I am concerned that we get this one right. Like the Prime Minister and others I think that dropping the age of consent is the wrong solution but that doesn't mean there is no problem.
Ashton was making the counterintuitive argument that dropping the age of consent by a year would increase the age at which teenagers start having sex by making it easier to "draw a line in the sand" against sex at the age of 14 or younger. He also thought that it would make it easier to give counselling, contraception, and medical support to fifteen-year olds.
We have to make the existing law work better, recognising that there is no perfect solution to this problem. The lower the age of consent, the greater the risk of failing to protect vulnerable young people against predatory behaviour: the higher the age, the greater the risk that the legislation will be ignored by young people to whom it seems out of touch with reality while making it harder for medical professionals and state agencies to offer support.
The existing system failed to adequately protect the victims of grooming rings in Oxford and elsewhere, but if the age of consent were lower some potential victims of gangs like those in recent court cases might be even more vulnerable.
Perhaps one thing that could be done, without any change to the law, would be to strengthen the advice to all state agencies including legal/law enforcement, medical agencies, and social services, that a person under the age of consent who is or has been sexually active should be presumed to be a victim and that where possible the law should not be applied in a way likely to prevent anyone, particularly not victims, from receiving medical support, counselling, or contraception.
Any solution to the problem is going to be messy. But human behaviour often is.
As the parent of two preteen children I am concerned that we get this one right. Like the Prime Minister and others I think that dropping the age of consent is the wrong solution but that doesn't mean there is no problem.
Ashton was making the counterintuitive argument that dropping the age of consent by a year would increase the age at which teenagers start having sex by making it easier to "draw a line in the sand" against sex at the age of 14 or younger. He also thought that it would make it easier to give counselling, contraception, and medical support to fifteen-year olds.
We have to make the existing law work better, recognising that there is no perfect solution to this problem. The lower the age of consent, the greater the risk of failing to protect vulnerable young people against predatory behaviour: the higher the age, the greater the risk that the legislation will be ignored by young people to whom it seems out of touch with reality while making it harder for medical professionals and state agencies to offer support.
The existing system failed to adequately protect the victims of grooming rings in Oxford and elsewhere, but if the age of consent were lower some potential victims of gangs like those in recent court cases might be even more vulnerable.
Perhaps one thing that could be done, without any change to the law, would be to strengthen the advice to all state agencies including legal/law enforcement, medical agencies, and social services, that a person under the age of consent who is or has been sexually active should be presumed to be a victim and that where possible the law should not be applied in a way likely to prevent anyone, particularly not victims, from receiving medical support, counselling, or contraception.
Any solution to the problem is going to be messy. But human behaviour often is.
Comments
Don't know really they were just my initial thoughts on the matter.
Thanks for the post. Perhaps we should introduce the 'Romeo and Juliet' laws such as those that I think have been brought in, in America, where teenage sex is only criminal if theree is an age gap of, say, three or four years. Have you considered this?
I just graudated in philosophy so though I'm no politician, I do feel that the politics is highly informed by theoretical discussion. I thought you might like this debate I found, which tackles the issue at its foundations. Here's a link: http://iai.tv/video/age-of-innocence Let me know what you think!
You are right that this is a factor that courts and prosecutors should consider, though I would not regard it as a necessary or sufficient condition to prosecute.
The key criteria in deciding whether it is in the public interest to prosecute, or to impose a heavy sentence, should be whether it can be proved that a person involved in a sexual act with someone below the age of consent has behaved in a predatory way towards someone vulnerable.
A significant age difference may be a sign of this, but although it would be rarely in the public interest to prosecute two fifteen-year-olds for having consensual sex, where there is evidence of predatory behaviour against a young person there needs to be possibity of legal sanction even if the aggressor is not significantly older.