Alabama statutory rape laws define the age of consent as anyone 17 or older. It is also true in Alabama, as well as many other states, that statutory rape has been committed even if the sexual activity in which you engaged in took place without the use of force or threats.
Alabama § 13A-6-62 |
Second-degree rape for someone age 16 or older to have sexual intercourse with someone between age 12 and 16, when the actor is at least two years older. |
Two to 20 years in prison |
Of course, with juveniles, the Family Courts never subject offending parties to this magnitude of punishment; typically, the offending male is sentenced to something far less punitive such as a combination of probation, mandatory community services, sexual counseling, and classes. According to Ala. Crim. Code § 13A-6-62, Part 1: Rape in the second degree, a male commits the crime of rape in the second degree if: Being 16 years old or older, he engages in sexual intercourse with a female less than 16 and more than 12 years old; provided, however, he is at least two years older than the female.
The legislature's justification for this law was that an incapacity to give consent exists for all girls being between the age of 13 or 16, separated in age from their male partner by at least 2 years. Thus, hypothetically - any 17 year old boys and 15 year old girls, or 16 year old boys and 14 year old girls, whom engage in mutually consensual sex in high school, despite the absence of force or compulsion and presence of mutual consent, render the 17 year old boy criminally guilty of a class B felony crime.
All it takes to short-circuit the efficacy of this shortsighted law is a look at the social dynamics of a typical high school, and recognition of the simple fact that sexual activity is a very real aspect of many of our teenage sons and daughters' lives. Spelled out in specific, practical terms: It is a social staple in all of our high schools, that many of the most popular freshman and sophomore girls, either sexually pursue, or are sexually pursued by, paramours from the social regency of any high school - the senior and older junior boys.
Ignorance of this fact hardly conjures bliss for the lives that are stained or destroyed by the often arbitrary and capricious enforcement of Alabama's statutory rape law. In my own personal observation, this law is typically invoked against lower and lower-middle class males by the victim's parents whom want to resolve the issue of their adolescent's sexual activity by exacting revenge through the court system instead of simply educating their child on sex. In my own personal estimation, I believe this is probably the case for most, if not the vast majority of stat. rape cases of this sort across the country, as I have yet to see a prominent family's son prosecuted for committing statutory rape. A colleague from work told me that it would probably take the prosecution of a very public figure's son, such as the state governor or another like prominent politician, to have the law amended subject to a re-examination of its realism, or lack thereof. I'll leave you with a quote a friend posted on Facebook that I think captures the casualty we cause with a statutory rape law such as this one here in Alabama:
...winners and losers have emerged in the battle for control over statutory rape's meaning, as various groups have vied for media attention,...in an effort to have legal actors recognize their particular vision of acceptable sexual behavior for teenagers. But no matter which reformers have claimed center stage...the consistent losers appear to have been the poor and minority classes (45 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 1039).
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