He would be required to make payments, including back payments, once he got a job.
Obviously nobody prefers that he be saddled with debt.
But he does have to have some responsibility. As long as he was educated, if he still chose to have sex without using multiple forms of contraception, it is sad, but yes, he gets to be in debt.
And yes, saddling these very rare cases with debt is preferrable to criminalizing all consensual sexual contact between teens.
And since he was below the age I suggested, 16, and since he did not have a job, I would not oppose a law that allowed his parent to warn him that he would face legal consequences if he had sex, and then his parent, and only his parent, could have him face consequences such as the halfway houses or treatment centers that Wang-Ka described.
But what nobody in their right mind should suggest, is that because we don’t want to saddle these very rare cases with debt, we should make ALL consensual sex between teens illegal, regardless of whether anything else was tried, and even regardless of whether the parent wants their kid arrested!
I’m sure it’s tiny… but that’s beside the point. Suppose I told you that black people are over 3 times as likely as white people to fall below the poverty line. Would that justify making it illegal for them to have sex, since they’re that much more likely not to be able to afford a child?
There are poor teenagers, and there are poor adults. What’s the common factor? They’re poor. If you want to keep poor people from having sex, here’s a thought: make it illegal for poor people to have sex! Don’t just single out an unrelated group because they tend to be poor.
But if you really want to get into percentages… what percentage of sex acts between teenagers lead to a child that the teenagers are unable to support? I’ll bet it’s even lower.
Writing her a check for rent and food counts as “arranging something” to me. Once she’s moved out, that’s all they have to do. I’m sure they can clear up an extra cubic foot of space for the baby for a couple weeks, while she finds a place to stay.
Yup, when it’s going to affect him in a tangible way. I used to be one myself, you know.
I suppose I could be convinced to do that… but I haven’t been yet. I don’t see why a 25 year old single mom should be able to get on welfare, but a 15 year old single mom should be turned away.
Since when is health insurance required by law? (You might want to let my two previous employers know about that.)
If you want everyone to have health insurance, then vote for Dean. Right now, those who can afford it have it, and those who can’t don’t.
Sure, change the laws. It wouldn’t make sense for the left hand to require teenagers to pay for something, while the right hand prevents them from earning the money they need to do just that.
You mean, is it preferable that he goes into debt, instead of going into jail (juvenile hall, boot camp, halfway house, Tranquility Bay, whatever you wanna call it)?
That’s a good point, but I wasn’t proposing juvenile hall.
What I’m saying is that since he is under 16, and since he didn’t have a job, that IF his parent had warned him that he would face legal consequences for having sex, that his parent (and only his parent) could have the law’s help in getting him into a halfway house or treatment center.
But you are correct - if these legal consequences are unsuccessful, and it becomes apparent that the only way to stop him from having sex is jail, then at that point the legal consequences become WORSE than the consequences of being in debt.
At that point, after spending so much effort trying to help the kid, you just have to say - it’s up to you. If you are going to be stupid enough to have a kid, then you are going to be in debt.
And by doing so, you are putting yourself in danger of jail when you are older, if you don’t pay that debt.
If that doesn’t stop him, then… debt and possible future jail it is.
Ah, I knew I could count on some creative spin from you.
You see, you’ve got it all twisted around.
Sex between teenagers is illegal. For now.
You want to make it legal.
But in order for the rest of us (well, at least me) to accept that this is somehow “fair” to the parents and taxpayers of these teenagers, you’ve agreed that these teenagers should have to support their offspring.
This is the compromise that you’ve agreed to. Or sort of agreed to—I see you’re trying to weasel out of it later on in your post.
So, if you want teens to have sex legally, then you’ve have to “compromise” with parents and taxpayers everywhere and expect these teenagers to be responsible. Like forsake school, put it on the backburner, and put their noses to the grindstone with a job. And if they don’t support their child properly, they get charged with neglect. That’s what you’ve said.
So, you want poor teenagers to have to support their own kids in this manner? You want poor teenagers to not get government assistance for their kids? They are the ones who are really going to need it the most.
But apparently you’d prefer that over allowing parents to reign in their copulating kids.
They write checks anyway. That’s going to happen whether or not there’s a baby.
Oh no—oh no, no no. No space, no where. That’s a big hassle. Not even for one night. That’s asking the parents for help. No. Nope. There you go again, expecting the parents to “help out.”
But you can’t speak for all teenagers. And since we already know that they do all manner of foolish things (while they have parents legally responsible for them—which separates them from adults who do foolish things) then we can be pretty sure that there are plenty of teenagers who would not think ahead.
Ah—I see. The ol’ “let 'em have their cake and eat it too” mindset comes in.
See, the rules for underage moms and adult moms are different. Either way, they are different. Either it’s illegal to have sex underage, or it’s not. For adults, it’s not illegal. For adults, they have to be responsible for themselves. They don’t have parents who are obligated to look after them. And that makes them different from kids, who do have those pesky parents who must legally keep writing checks to support them. And so the kids have less rights. One of the rights they don’t have is sex.
If you want the kids to have all the rights that the 25-year-old single mom has, then the kids have to lose all those perks they get from their parents. The 25-year-old mom doesn’t have those parental perks anymore, after all. But if the kids get the parental perks, and the “adult rights” (sex) , and government assistance for the baby their parents (who are legally responsible for them) desperately did not want them to risk having, they are “having their cake and eating it too”—which is a common theme in a lot of your arguments.
So, either the parents of a teenager have mechanisms to try to get their teenager from screwing like a mink, or they don’t. And if they don’t have that mechanism, you’ve already conceded that the teenager is on their own. They are responsible. Make 'em work to support the child or charge 'em with neglect if they can’t. That’s what you’ve said. You’ve stated that this is your expectation. Several times. But now you want to bring government assistance into it? No, sorry, that won’t fly.
Ah, so you think it’s fine for this poor little teenaged parent to go without health insurance? In order for her to afford to take care of that baby properly, she oughta have health insurance. And mommy and daddy don’t have to provide it for her.
Ah. I see. Back to the sweatshops for the young teenagers, then? I can see how nicely that law could be abused.
You miss the whole point of the mom using this mechanism—to stop him before the two girls get pregnant. To have someone else—some professional—perhaps have a shot of convincing him that he’s got to stop his foolish ways. It’s preventative—that’s been the point all along.
Nightime: I’m not really ignoring you, I’m just thinking that we are not so far apart in thinking (on a few things, anyway). I defintely prefer Wang-Ka’s explanations, but I do agree (and I know Wang-Ka does too)—I certainly wouldn’t want some pretty decent teenager who got caught steaming up his car windows with his girlfriend put in a halfway house lickety-split. I think that Wang-Ka’s describing a pretty careful and laborious process, where only the “hard cases” end up in some sort of halfway house or whatever.
I also wanted to ask: would you compromise and think that age 17 would be an acceptable “cut off” age for this mechanism?
You want the parents to pay rent for their girl to live somewhere else? Oh. No no no. Food yes, rent no.
She can live rent-free with mom and dad. At home. But her baby can’t. That baby is her responsibility. Not the parents.
Why should mom and dad fork out more money for rent when she can live at home without costing them extra? (OK, maybe she’d use a little more electricity and water—but that’s it.) So the parents give her a little something to cover what they are saving on electricity and water, but that’s it.
They don’t have to house the baby, just their own child. They shouldn’t have to pay one extra penny for rent of a different apartment for their kid. They shouldn’t have to have a baby that they desperately didn’t want their daughter to have in their house. They should not have their lives disrupted in any way at all because of what their daughter chose to do.
She pays her own rent. Let the father of the baby help her with that.
From what I’m reading it really comes down to two things.
How much responsibility the parents have for their children.
How much power they have to enforce their will, since they are responsible for the consequences.
So if we have parents completely responsible, they must house their children until said children turn 18, including any children their children have. They are responsible for all their child’s actions, so the child rearing / finances, etc will come from both paternal and maternal grandparents equally until thier children turn 18. They have ultimate power, because after all, they are completely responsible and you can’t hold the parent responsible if they don’t have the power to do anything about it.
Or we have parents not responsible at all, and able to abandon their kids at any age for any reason at all, like being home 5 minutes late. (I’m not so sure this isn’t true, to be honest. I think you can give your child to the state and relinquish all rights to it.) They have no power over their children, even grounding is not enforceable, their only resort is to throw the children out of the home.
I think everyone would agree that either scenario is unacceptable, and an extreme of either position.
So the line is somewhere in the middle and this thread is about arguing where that line should be.
Part of me feels that when you choose to have children, you aren’t just choosing to have a cute little baby, and enchanting toddler, or an engaging tween. You’re also choosing to have a teenager. And it’s your responsibility to raise it well enough so that you don’t face the nightmare situation of considering giving your child a criminal record.
On the other hand, life doesn’t always turn out how you plan it. I disagree with this law in theory. I would be much happier with a law that allowed parents to petition a judge to send their child to a boot camp, reform school, etc because they were unable to control the kid. (Is this law already in existence? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was) I don’t think many parents would go to this length, unless they truly couldn’t control their child. I think this would be more helpful to both teens and parents, because it is broader and focusses on the inability to control the kid, rather than just focussing on one possible out-of-control behaviour, sex. Parents, what do you think ?
In Nightime Land, everyone is responsible. So much so, in fact, that the law makes NO allowances for people who are NOT responsible, upright citizens. This is why teens can’t be sentenced to anything if their parents didn’t warn them first. How it is proved that the parents warned the kids is still a bit of a mystery, but that’s okay, because everything always works out in Nightime Land.
Hm. In reality, the law is often there to act as a backstop and penalty for people who are NOT responsible, who make bad decisions, bad judgment.
For example, all these lazy slothful parents I keep hearing about who don’t warn their children about the dangers of sex, legal and otherwise.
Weirdly enough, Nightime is right, here; I’ve actually met a couple of kids who had no clue about this. One of them was a fourteen year old girl who was pregnant… and had no clue as to how she had got that way. No, seriously! We had some seriously rotten parents here, who did NOT warn their kids about what could happen!
And you know what? It doesn’t matter.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Ignorance of NATURAL law won’t protect you, either. Are you proposing, then, that we simply decriminalize ALL potential juvenile crime, unless it can be proven that “someone warned them it was a crime?” Vandalism? Spraypainting your tag on a building? Beating the crap out of each other?
You could, of course, argue that sex is natural, whereas spraypainting and fights are not. I could convincingly argue otherwise, though. For teens, at least.
…but ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Sex could get female persons pregnant, and violating the law might wind up getting you in front of a judge. That’s how it works.
Nightime, you have accused me of being obsessed about criminalizing sexual behavior among teeners. Not so; if someone can offer me a functional alternative that prevents bad consequences, I’d happily change my opinion.
Y’see, I am of the opinion that the smarter teeners don’t GET themselves into this situation. They keep their ears open, they learn, they study up on the situation. Mostly, they don’t have sex. If they MUST have sex, they make a point of using the proper protections, and doing it under circumstances in which they will not get caught. It happens all the time.
PLEASE note that I am NOT advocating ANYTHING. I am simply stating facts. And I KNOW they are facts, because I have personally HEARD of a dozen incidents of this type, at least. Not to mention the incidents I personally was involved in, when I was a minor.
So, basically, we have a sizeable portion of teens having sex who never go in front of a judge. And if no consequences arise from that sex… then who cares?
So, next, we have the teens who aren’t quite so clever, after that.
What happens to them?
In most cases, I should think, they and their parents deal with the situation. It never becomes a matter of law, any more than two people who have a car accident who agree who will get paid, and never bother calling their insurance companies. They deal with it themselves. Y’see, I have the opinion that MOST parents would NOT want their kids going in front of a judge, and I think I’m right about that.
So, there goes another sizeable portion of the teen species.
Who’s left?
Well, that leaves the ones who are stupid… AND unrepentant… AND whose parents are willing to throw them to the courts.
That ain’t many, I should think.
And if we have NO law to deal with this bunch… what then? Apparently, in Nightime Land, we simply THREATEN them with laws… WHICH ARE NOT PERMITTED TO EXIST. The watchdog has no teeth. And besides, that’s irrelevant, because apparently the parents have to be able to prove they taught the kid everything about sex, as well as warning them about this imaginary Easter Bunny of a law which would punish them for having sex.
Are you by any chance a lawyer, Nightime? Requiring this sort of thing would make the lawyers quite rich, without providing much in the way of benefit to anyone BUT lawyers…
I’m also going to quit repeating “juvie convictions disappear off your record when you turn eighteen.” I’ve said it lots of times now, but some people are apparently incapable of reading or understanding it. True, a conviction might have some effect on one’s application to colleges, but I really doubt that the kind of idiot kids who are going to get trapped in this law were thinking about college, anyway, or could qualify even if their records were pure as snow.
And you know what? If they just wait until age eighteen to apply for college, the conviction will be gone, anyway. You don’t wanna wait? You shouldn’t have broken the damn law.
I do have a question, though:
If a law preventing teens from having sex were worded in such a way that a first offense was NONCONVICTABLE, requiring a JUDGE’s WARNING, and no other penalty… would the law be acceptable then? Just asking.
If a 14 yr older was living on his/her own, earning a good living ALL BY HIM/HERself, then perhaps they would be showing emotional maturity – and financial maturity as well. Being emotionally equipped should weigh as heavily as financially equipped to raise another person.
I cannot think of any 14 yr older who is emotionally equipped to become a parent himself/herself. It happens, but it’s ‘not a good thing’.
Besides, emotional maturity means you know when you’re too young to be doing it – and if these 2 had any brains in their heads (or emotional maturity) they would’ve realized they were too young to be toying with their futures like that.
This doesn’t seem too convincing considering the subjects of the OP.
Let’s see, he’s already being held in “secure detention” presumably some sort of “juvie jail” and is facing a felony charge and prison time. If he get’s out with a little warning I will be quite amazed.
So the bottom line is, if a kid keeps having sex after the warnings etc… you think they should face jail time. Right?
Teens that have sex, like many other completely normal kids, are “little monsters running wild”? Give me a break.
well, boo hoo. You have to take responsibility for the actions of your child. Was that something you wouldn’t expect from being a parent?
This “potential” rights violation is really odd to me. Should you send a kid into the justice system for actually getting pregnant or catching an STD? Should those be crimes? That’s the bad part right?
I don’t think so. The things they need most are love, understanding and help which are the same things they needed beforehand (plus possibly a pack of condoms), not legal intervention.
Not necessarily. Juvie jail, perhaps. More likely, a halfway house situation or something similar. I might also point out that the treatment center in which I worked was considered “secure detention,” although it had more in common with a hospital than with a jail. The main similarity was that the internees were not allowed to leave the building without adult escorts, and that the doors were locked (and the windows unbreakable. But there WERE windows, and the place had no bars).
And if some guy wanders into my house, begins porking my daughter, and refuses to leave when I order him the hell out of my bed, then personally I think a felony charge is getting off light. A faceful of buckshot is a not-uncommon response to this kind of outrage in some parts.
And in this situation – the situation outlined in the OP – I don’t necessarily think the judge OR the parents are out of line. Particularly if the kids had prior offenses on record. Like I said, the law is intended as a backstop for parental authority, not a replacement for it.
And if YOU think that I should have a moral right to suddenly have to deal with the results of my children’s mistakes… you’re absolutely right. That’s what parents are for. But if you’re going to tell me that I have no right to exercise control over my children, you’re out of your friggin’ mind… and if I wish to invoke the help of the law, well, that is my right as a parent and a taxpayer. I am, after all, one of the guys who elects those guys who MAKE the laws.
…and if I think my kid should be locked up until age eighteen so that I don’t have to deal with surprise grandchildren… well… who would you rather have, making that call? Random parents, all over the country? Or the legal system?
In these parts, if I were to lock up my daughter in the basement to prevent her from having sexual contact, this could be termed “child abuse.”
When it takes place under due process of law, it is called “preventative detention.” And there has to be a damn good legal reason for it, or it doesn’t happen.
In my professional capacity, I had to deal with a LOT of parents. Wanna hear a funny one? Once, a grown woman got in my face and made a LARGE noise because I did not wish to allow her to incarcerate her daughter in my facility, and suggested she speak with the psychiatric staff.
Oh, I got a faceful and a half, there. The bottom line was this: her daughter was sleeping with a guy that Mom didn’t like. They had run away twice, after Mom tried to ground her. The object was to lock her daughter up in my facility, four hundred miles from her home, until such time as the kid wised up, or she turned eighteen. It was a punitive thing, you see.
I didn’t like this. I was under the impression that my facility was psychiatric in nature (although we had a penal unit, as well), and this child had not got due process of law, OR a psychiatric evaluation. She was going to be locked up because Mommy Dearest wanted it that way.
We eventually DID wind up with her – not for sex offenses, but because her runaway episodes and subsequent truancy allowed her to be locked up for a ninety-day psychiatric evaluation. My observations were a large part of that evaluation.
My observations concluded that the girl was a rotten spoiled brat… just like her mother. She was, however, NOT stupid. At least, not as far as sex was concerned. She’d taken every precaution. The only reason anyone knew they were having sex was because the kid TOLD her mother.
The bottom line was this: Mom didn’t like her boyfriend, and would likely have let her come home if she’d just break up with the asshole and begin offering her lithe bod to some little preppie creep that Mom approved of.
Daughter refused.
…and she wasn’t crazy. Ultimately, however, she was ruled “incorrigible” by the courts (due to runaways and truancy), and wound up in a halfway house. She wised up there, to some extent – part of the education curriculum there was “Why You Would Rather Be Here Than In Juvie Jail,” and was able to hold out until age eighteen, when the battle between her and Mom resumed, but at least now the system didn’t have to be any part of it.
No, I have never been involved in a case where a minor was involved in a sex crime involving consensual sex with another minor. LOTS of sex cases, but none quite like the OP. But I have no reason to think it would go any differently than any case I have ever witnessed, experienced, testified in, or otherwise had
anything to do with.
Some concern has been voiced about the judges. I’ve seen judges in action, lots of times. The judges I’ve seen and worked with were all sane people, and in most of their cases I have witnessed or read about or done the paperwork on, I saw no problem with their decisions or verdicts.
…but… some judges MAY abuse the law, and punish, punish, punish some poor li’l teeners who got caught on their first time. Therefore, it is said, we should throw out the laws.
Bullshit.
You see, the lives of many teeners are a game of constant struggle. The example I have given above is a prime example. The struggle consists of the teen’s wish to explore his world and garner life experience, versus the parents’ wish to protect and control the teener.
Who’s right? Both are. And MOST parent/teener partnerships work this out in some fashion that does not involve the law.
…but when you have an unruly kid, the parents need SOME damn thing to get a handle on them. And if the kid is particularly unruly, then it will need to be a law.
BUT WE DON’T TRUST THE JUDGES! cry my detractors.
You may be right. I’ve certainly read a few cases where it sure seemed like the judges in question were on crack.
But you know what?
I DON’T TRUST THE FUCKING PARENTS!!!
I have met more parents in my line of work than I have judges… and I am here to tell you that in fully a third of the cases in question, I would HAPPILY have voted to lock up the goddamn PARENTS before I’d lock up the KIDS!
MY professional opinion was, often, “Take these teens away from their stupid parents and put them in a decent foster home or halfway house where they will have a structured existence, some decent education, and some good examples of “fairness and responsibility.” We might yet be able to keep these kids from turning into assholes like their parents.”
Yes, judges sometimes miss the mark. But I think the laws should stand. At least that way, when the parents arrange to have their kids dragged into court, someone outside the screwy situation gets to investigate and make an informed, objective call as to what should be done.
And when you have decent parents who have done everything they can… and the kids are still being shitheads… then they can fall back on the legal system as a last resort.
Is it perfect? No. But it’s what we’ve got. Eliminating it is not going to improve the situation.
There are bad judges, sure. And under the best circumstances, the only kids who will be facing bad judges will be the ones who HAD their chance to wise up and clean up their act.
…but pardon me if I think it’s a bit irresponsible to abolish the laws simply because ONE teener MIGHT at some point get jacked around undeservedly. He might also get hit by a bus crossing the street, but I notice no one’s demanding the abolition of automobiles…
Well, I’m another taxpayer and I think getting the legal system involved over a completely normal activity (or “attempted procreation” as you might consider it) is not only a waste of my money but also an activity I don’t think the government should legislate.
I don’t have a problem with parents taking reasonable disciplinary measures to control the behavior of their children. Encouraging the criminal prosecution of your children for having sex is not reasonable.
I might favor some form of government assisted mediation between the parents and children to help with variety of issues including teen sex, but I don’t think criminalizing sex and treating the teen simply as an offender makes sense.
If someone is committing child abuse that is a seperate issue from the kids having sex. Treating the child like a criminal is not the only way to avoid child abuse.
I asked you for a cite that consensual sex between teenagers IS illegal in most places.
I asked for evidence of how many times teens have been convicted of sex crimes for consensual sex with someone their age.
I think you are being dishonest to act as though this law is the only thing preventing “bad consequences” when in fact you have provided no evidence that this law has been used enough times for it to be said to do anything of the sort. Your argument is null until you provide this evidence.
So you agree that responsible teenagers can have sex. If they use multiple methods of birth control, have talked about adoption or abortion, and are willing to accept the child support debt they will accrue in the extremely tiny chance that they still have a kid and choose not to put him up for adoption, then they are far more responsible than many (or most) adults who have sex.
However I am baffled by your insistence that being sneaky and not getting caught is part of responsibility? Hiding things from your parents is responsible? I think you are dead wrong. Why do most teen pregnancies result from adult fathers? Because being sneaky does not equal being safe. In reality, openness and education have far better results than sneakiness.
Apparently, then you have the lowest teen pregnancy rate in the country, because the state with that low rate does not have this law. And you have still not provided evidence of how often this law is used, leading me to believe that most of your argument is pure fiction.
Oh, this is just great. You say the law is supposed to help the kids, but then you concede that you already gave up on them and they “wouldn’t qualify anyway.” That’s just wrong, Wang-Ka, and you know it.
You know what? There is something fishy going on in Wang-Ka land. He says he works in this field but:
First Wang-Ka is extremely surprised when I tell him that adult males are the fathers of most babies born to teen mothers.
Why is he so surprised? Why does he in fact not believe me at first? If he works in this field shouldn’t he already KNOW this?
Second, he provides no evidence of other teens being convicted of consensual sex with someone their own age, which should be exceedingly easy if this law is the only thing stopping “bad consequences”, as he puts it.
Third, he continually says that responsible kids are “sneaky”, which I find impossible to believe. If you are responsible you should not have to be sneaky, because you should have nothing to hide.
Fourth, he is unconcerned about sex crimes on kids’ records, saying that the kids “probably wouldn’t qualify anyway”, or some such nonsense. If he is trying to help the kids, why is he writing them off at the same time? In fact, he says too bad, " You shouldn’t have broken the damn law". That is certainly not the voice of someone trying to help. Very suspicious.
What are you hiding, Wang-Ka, you and your “sneakiness is a virtue” mantra?
Maybe I was wrong about you, Wang-Ka. This is an excellent idea, and does indeed address my first problem with the law (that there was no way to be sure it would only be used as a last resort).
However, there are still a few other problems which I think most people would agree need to be dealt with:
Only the legal guardian of a teen should be able to have him/her arrested under this law.
Reason: Some parents might trust their kids to use multiple forms of contraception and not get pregnant, and they might be willing to take the risk of another baby in the house. If the PARENT is willing to take the risk, there is no sense in a third party having the kid convicted, is there? IS there, Wang-Ka?
They should not have a sex crime on their record.
Reason: This law is meant to help the kids, not hurt their futures. A sex crime will make it hard for them to apply for jobs or colleges before they are 18. I find it both amazing and disturbing that you say “they wouldn’t qualify anyway.” Aren’t you supposed to be helping? But you are just writing them off. The law should be changed so that it does not count as a sex crime.
I have my suspicions about you, Wang-Ka. I hope they turn out to be as unfounded as your own arguments in this thread.
I don’t want to argue about this point if we agree on everything else, but no. I think by age 16 we have to give teenagers some responsibilty. Otherwise what happens when they turn 18 and suddenly can do whatever they want? Disaster, if it is their first taste of responsibility.
By 16 a teen should realize the consequences of having sex, they should realize that if they must have sex they must use multiple forms of contraception, and they must realize that if they do end up with a kid they will be saddled with child support debt that will take a long time to pay, and they are old enough to work. It’s harsh, but is it better to make all their choices for them?
I think it is better to give them a taste of responsibility while the parents still have some influence, instead of making all their choices until they are gone, leaving them unequipped to deal with life. And kids will usually live up to high expectations. Education has always, and will always, have better results than coercion, despite what some people may say to the contrary, with no evidence to back them up.
I won’t answer for Wang-Ka here, but (superficially) it looks like you want things made “official” that already happen anyway. Or are extremely unlikely to happen any other way. Yeah, just like it’s extremely unlikely (your words) that teens will get pregnant and have babies. You are OK with that risk, but not these other things? (Like, only the parents will report their kids, and they’ll only do it after multiple “warnings” and various aggressive attempts to get them to stop their behavior without the courts’ help, etc. etc.) And it’s extremely unlikely that a judge will have a screw loose and send little Johnny Model Citizen (who gets caught the first time he puts his hand up his girlfriends’ blouse) to Prison with hardened bodybuilding inmates covered with tattoos.
I should probably say (in addition) that the things you want (“warnings,” only the parents turning in the kids, judges that are not loopy) are things that I want too, and that I daresay that we all want. I wouldn’t have a problem, per se, with a policy that insisted that parents warn kids, or that only parents turn their kids in for these kind of offenses, but if it is largely going to be an unnecessary or redundant policy, (and it sounds like it would be) then I’m far from married to the idea. (Because it seems obvious that it’s going to happen that way anyway.) But hey—if some kid is hauled in by some creepy neighbor, and not the parents (who did not want their kid turned in), then yeah, I would think that was inappropriate (barring some special circumstances that I can’t think of right now).
Why are you misquoting me? I said “warning”, not “warnings.”
Do you not agree there should be at least one warning, before the “last resort” is used? Even Wang-Ka agreed with that part!
As for the rest, I don’t see why you think such policies are unneccessary. Why should parents who are willing to take the risks of their kids having sex be worried about a jealous ex of one of the teens having them arrested for sex crimes? Parents have enough to worry about.
You cannot use the lack of non-parents using this law as reason to believe they won’t, because the law ITSELF has only been used a small number of times. In fact I haven’t seen a cite that it has been used ever before, although I believe it has.
If this law becomes used more often, as is likely if it gets public attention, then that is when you better make sure you have safeguards in place, such as only allowing legal guardians to have a kid arrested.
If consensual sex between minors IS illegal most places, that’s a surprise to me. I thought we were debating a hypothetical situation based on the OP, in which a law is being used to prosecute two teens, because they were going to have sex, whether their parents liked it or not.
There are a VARIETY of laws dealing with the topic, by the way. Most of them fall under “immoral conduct,” “lewdness,” and so forth, (including “illegitimate sexual contact,”) and they apply to minors as well as adults. They are often vaguely worded, so as to allow the arresting officers and the judges some leeway. Admittedly, a statute prohibiting “immoral conduct” would likely not be used on two adults in a motel room, but MIGHT well be used against two teens boinking away in the rumpus room. I’m not going to cite them ALL, state by state, region by region; I leave this one to the apt pupil with way too much time on his hands. There are a LOT of them, though, and I dare ANYONE to prove that most regions do NOT have laws of this sort. Hell, the SODOMY law was on the freakin’ books in Texas until fairly recently!
I believe I already mentioned that I personally have no experience of any court case involving teens being charged with anything for having consensual sex with each other. RAPE, yes. STATUTORY rape, yes (although the minor in the case was not charged – the adult was). I have heard of situations similar to the OP – and prosecuted using “lewdness” statutes – but they’re fairly rare, simply because under most circumstances, the minor is being charged with SOMETHING ELSE, not having sex… and I provided a prime example of that situation in my last post.
I can’t PROVE it… but I believe this is because most judges DON’T WANT TO SET TEENS UP as SEX CRIMINALS! They’d rather bust them for something else, and use the opportunity to try and straighten the kids out, rather than jack them around. Can’t cite this, though.
THIS situation, however, is the first I have ever heard of a situation where the kids would be charged as sex criminals. I am presuming that in the OP, they charged the kids the way they did simply due to LACK of anything else to charge them with. As previously mentioned, simple refusal to obey parental directives is not a crime… but plainly, someone felt that legal measures were necessary. I find it hard to disagree, given the circumstances listed in the OP.
I mean, what were the alternatives? Call the cops and have them thrown out? The cops won’t evict your child for you, although they could, I suppose, toss out the other minor. This is a pretty short-term solution, though – they’ll cut class and be at it hammer and tongs the minute you go back to work tomorrow.
Physically FORCE the two to cease and desist? Not easy, when you’re dealing with two teens around your own size, and this could involve putting yourself in jeopardy. Not to mention the legal implications of using physical force against one’s teen kids. I’ve seen Child Protective Services become involved for less.
Now, as to “preventing bad consequences”:
I said earlier that I don’t think the teeners in question gave a hoot in hell about the law when they were pondering whether or not to have sex, and I believe this to be true of MOST teeners having sex.
However, in a situation where a teener has been ARRESTED and detained in some manner, plainly he is not going to be having a whole lot of sex (and skip the prison jokes. Juvie jail ain’t the same thing).
Therefore, if he is separated from his sexual partner, and being detained in some way, he will not be having sex, therefore “bad consequences” will not happen.
Furthermore, while in detention, it is likely that he will be recieving counseling and sex ed, since most judges like to tack on things like that as a condition of release. If the minor in question is given probation, we can but hope he will keep it in his pants, rather than risk a probation violation; this is the whole POINT of probation – prevention of further criminal activity! And aren’t you the one howling about how education is the answer, here?
Again, STOP PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTH. I never claimed that being sneaky and not getting caught was a part of responsibility. I simply said that sneaky teens don’t get caught, or at the very least, they lessen the likelihood of getting caught. We do agree that they ought to be educated about safe sex, and in a perfect world, they would be.
…but this is the world in which we live, a world in which some school boards consider abstinence the only teachable sex education alternative, a world in which some parents do not see fit to teach their kids the things they need to know for one reason or another… and teens being teens, some of them are going to get sneaky. Whether or not they are being RESPONSIBLE is another matter entirely.
I DID ask you to quit putting words in my mouth, though, but apparently you missed that part.
You have remarked that openness and education have far better results than sneakiness. I am actually inclined to agree with you.
In the short run, anyway. Better results for who?
Let us say, for example, that I arrange for my daughter to have Norplant, for example, and we arrange for her sexual partners to be screened for STDs… and we can pretty much ELIMINATE “bad consequences.” All we need to worry about THEN is the hypothetical psychological effects of teen sex… a matter I’m not too worried about.
So, I’ve educated my kid. I’ve taken the proper precautions. I have done everything I can to ensure that if my daughter is sexually active, NO bad consequences can arise from this, yes?
…all the way up until someone decides to interfere in my business. Child Protective Services can be called upon to remove my daughter from her home, due to my allowance and encouragement of immoral behavior on her part. My ex-wife can suddenly demand custody back on these grounds. The school can report me as an unfit parent. Parents of her sexual partners can sue me in civil court for encouraging THEIR kids to engage in immoral behavior (after all, I need blood tests to get those STD checks!).
Note that no law against the teens having sex is required to screw MY life up royally.
So… how likely is all this to actually HAPPEN? Not very. Certainly no more likely than the likelihood of some insane judge sentencing a coupla kids to whatever the maximum penalty is for having consensual sex with each other, based on whatever statute they’re twisting all out of shape, here.
So… I can do what you and I both agree is the better thing to do, educate, and set boundaries and limits… and open myself up to a blitzkrieg from outside… or I can simply be a tyrant and say “no” to all sex, and enforce it as best I can, until my kid turns eighteen. I don’t much like that one, but it beats frivolous lawsuits and being thought of in my community as a frickin’ pervert.
Again: list me some workable alternatives.
Lastly, one more stinkin’ time, STOP PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTH.
I also never “gave up” on anyone. I did say that any teener who has, presumably, been convicted of multiple juvenile offenses probably ain’t going to college any time soon, whether he wants to or not. Am I wrong? Most juvenile crooks tend to have a tough time graduating from high school, too – crime’s penalties have a way of interfering with one’s public school attendance, and therefore they don’t graduate, and most colleges DON’T TAKE people with no high school diploma!
Once he turns eighteen, though, and gets his diploma or GED, there is not a thing in the world stopping him… unless he commits another crime as an adult.
As to the field in which I work: I worked in juvenile psychiatric care, in which I had considerable contact with law enforcement and legal officials. Not a thing there requires me to know diddly about the teen birth rate, or who the daddies are, or how old they are.
Onward.
Sure, education and information are great things, Nightime. But I’d be willing to bet that no amount of education would have caused the Nazis to decide that maybe invading Poland was a bad idea. Some lessons have to be learned the hard way. Any parent will tell you this. This doesn’t mean that we should allow our children to be harmed learning those lessons, or that we WANT them to be hurt or criminalized learning those lessons. THIS is why records are expunged at age eighteen.
You did catch that part, right? Records are sealed or expunged at age eighteen. I’ve been screaming that phrase for three pages of posts, now, and I’m still not too sure you’ve got that part down yet. THIS is why I’m not too concerned about sex crimes on children’s records, folks. THEY DISAPPEAR! The ONLY reason those records are KEPT is to keep track of the kid’s criminal record WHILE HE IS A CHILD.
Yes, this will interfere with his ability to get a job at, say, age sixteen, seventeen. If the child in question is penitent, well, this is good… and the fact that he can’t get a job is tough. THIS IS PART OF THE LEARNING PROCESS. “I’m being discriminated against by society because I am part of a stigmatized group… and I joined that group of my own free will, because I made a mistake!”
Yes, it sucks. But, again, when he turns eighteen, he’s clear as a bell, and can launch into his future any way he wants. I still think being an unemployed teenager on probation beats the HELL out of jail, surprise fatherhood, eighteen years of garnished wages for child support, being shot by a crazed father, or any number of other potential outcomes.
…and perhaps that bad experience will stick with him the next time he’s in a position to make a bad decision. This is how we LEARN the knack of “good judgment,” Nightime. If your mistakes DON’T bite you in the ass – HARD, sometimes – HOW THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO LEARN ANYTHING?
So: we have a hypothetical law that criminalizes sexual contact between minors. It has a proviso, however, that states that on a first offense, a warning is given… and no other consequence can be imposed. You also added a few others:
Only the legal guardian of a teen should be able to have him/her arrested under this law.
I would disagree with that. I catch your kid in my house, I’m having him arrested, unless I know he’s there, and what he’s doing. Takes two to have actual sex, you know.
As to your “third party” argument… you actually have something there. I have known more than a few ruckuses to get started because a busybody “third party” decided to make a noise about how someone else was raising a child. So… I’d say that only the parents of the minors involved in the sex act could trigger the situation – I believe it is the right of ANY parent to control their kid’s sex life. What if I’m okay with my Norplanted daughter doing it, but you aren’t happy with your boy being sexually active? I think we should respect YOUR rights as well as mine and the kids’.
They should not have a sex crime on their record.
Debatable. If your son, for example, is simply trying to have sex with my daughter, once, I am not sure I would call this a sex offense, truth to tell… particularly if you and I know about it, have taken the proper steps, and so on, as I have previously mentioned. I am NOT all fathers, though, and I can name you half a dozen dads who would HAPPILY label their daughters’ sex partners as “child molesters,” regardless of the ages of the boys involved.
On the other hand, if your son is merrily hopping in and out of beds all over town with no regard whatsoever as to any parents’ wishes, he’s a sex offender, and I would gladly label him as such. Once again, he’s only a sex offender until he’s eighteen… and then he gets the chance to rewrite his life any way he wants. Second chances are golden things.
You are absolutely right. I agree completely, and my experience as a social worker, psychiatric aide, teacher, and parent bears you out. But arranging the laws in such a way that simply assumes everyone is going to do that is a colossal mistake.
This is quite right. Except on the occasions where it’s wrong. We all have moments where we look at a big mess and we say, “What was I THINKING?” I have it on good authority that teeners do the same thing.
It’s part of the human condition, folks. And when the carrot don’t work… well, that’s what the stick is for. And eliminating the stick is eliminating half the learning experience.
Correction: I prefer it over allowing the police and the courts to “reign in” kids who have sex.
In that case, if the parents’ house is so jam-packed with stuff that there’s absolutely no room to fit a baby in edgewise, even for a few hours, like Sarah Sylvia Cynthia Stout’s house… then perhaps the family should work it out sometime in the 9 months before the baby arrives. Just a thought.
I’m sure there would be some, just as there are adults who do foolish things. You try to brush off the fact that adults also do foolish things with “yeah but their parents aren’t responsible”, while ignoring the fact that the teenager’s parents wouldn’t be responsible either for the foolish things you’re worried about.
All the rights? You must be thinking of another thread. Here we’re talking about the right to have sex, and the corresponding responsibility to support one’s own offspring.
Nope, sorry. They have a subset of adult responsibilities, and a corresponding subset of adult rights.
That is the common theme in my arguments: Rights and responsibilities go hand in hand.
So you’re suggesting adults aren’t really responsible for themselves either, since they can get government assistance? I guess we better take away some of their rights, then.
Of course it’d be nice for her to have health insurance. It’d also be nice for her to eat balanced meals instead of ramen and mac-n-cheese, and wear Abercrombie & Fitch instead of Wal-Mart & Goodwill. But there’s no reason to legally mandate the clothes she wears, the food she eats, or how she pays for medical care.
That’s the way you see it. Jail has a “preventative” aspect as well (hence the Department of Corrections)… hell, even Tranquility Bay did a decent job of molding kids’ behavior.
But the fact is, the “mechanism” would send a person away, against his will, and restrict his freedom simply because he had sex. You call it prevention, I call it punishment.
How ironic. That’s the same reason it’s wrong to abolish teenage sex just because some teenager might at some point become pregnant.
So repeal the archaic laws against “immoral behavior”. Problem solved.
Nonsense! He isn’t having sex with the parents, is he? Their wishes have no bearing on whether their daughter gave consent to have sex with him. Consensual sex is not a sex offense.
My apologies. I wasn’t really meaning to misquote you, I was thinking in generalities. I think most kids get many warnings with this kind of stuff.
Would you not agree that parents should “warn” their kids many times about sex? I don’t mean, “If I catch you doing it you’ll go to jail” but multiple warnings about the perils of it, about what they consider to be not appropriate, and so forth. These “warnings” should start early, I should think (age appropriate, of course).
These “frank discussions” and “warnings” should intensify when the kid starts dating and socializing—not phrased in a harsh way, but just frank, open discussions about what is and is not acceptable. And so on. And yes, the children should be aware that “hard cases” can find themselves standing before a judge. Most kids won’t be “hard cases,” but they out to know what will happen if they decide to become one. The kid should know that the parents are willing to place them in front of a judge if they do decide to be a “hard case.”
If this is what you are encouraging, I am all with you. I think everyone is with you. Frank discussions about “expectations” and “rules of the house” are great. All parents should have them. I am just curious if you want to make it some official “warning.” Should they go down to the courthouse and have witnesses certify that they “warned” their kids? How would this work? What specifically do you have in mind, here?
I think Wang-Ka’s most recent post was a real education and I agree with him—that the “big guns” should be trotted out as a last resort. I think that’s what he’s been saying all along.
I think Wang-Ka has something about that too in his last post. No, we don’t want someone with an “agenda” turning in these kids, like a busybody neighbor or a jealous ex.
As for the rest, I think that Wang-Ka has been educating me a lot here and I’m finding him quite persuasive. (Not that I was inclined to disagree with him anyway.)
You are deliberately missing the point. It doesn’t matter if the parents’ house is a frickin’ showplace. THEY ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION to make room for that baby. NO “working it out”, no nothing. Not. Their. Problem. What part of “not disrupting the parents’ lives” don’t you get?
Bullshit. “Subset”? Bullshit.
Why did you EVEN suggest the concept of the teen parents working and supporting their kids when you already know full well that most of them can’t? You already know that they’re going to end up on government assistance. Almost 100% of them will, if their parents won’t help out. Why even pretend you thought otherwise?
:rolleyes:
This is pitiful and weak. You can’t even entertain me with some really good spin this time. I’m very disappointed!
Come on. You know the differences between adults and children. And like I said before, you want them to have their cake and eat it too. You agree to some absurd expectation about the kids having to “be responsible,” you agree that child labor laws should be changed in order to accomodate this absurd expectation, and yet you allow this huge, swinging back door there, saying, “If the little darlings can’t handle the sweat shops at age 13, here, they can get government assistance.”
The expectations that a 25-year-old can be “responsible” are actually reasonable. No child labor laws need to be changed for them. There are a world of differences there, but you just ignore them and gloss over them and talk about “subsets,” which is your codespeak for “getting their cake and eating it too.” Or, “cherry-picking which responsibilities one can have and offering huge loop-holes so they don’t really have to fulfill them.”
Read what Wang-Ka has to say about the realities. Stop painting this picture of 13-year-olds sharing cells with 300 lb. felons named “Bubba.”
In reality, kids get busted all the time for a variety of offenses. Often, sex has something to do with it.
And, under most circumstances, the teens DO get a warning. A stern one. A scary one.
…and then, a suspended sentence. Or the case thrown out. Or probation.
I don’t think this is excessive, for ANY violation of the damn law. Hell, I wish I could have gotten away with this sort of punishment the time my old man found out I’d been playing doctor with the little girl down the street!
As it was, my parents dealt with it. I got spanked. The police were not called. I was, after all, only six.
I’m not sure that writing in a proviso that says, “Teen Offenders Must Get A Warning” is a good idea. Teens are as good at playing the system as anyone. “Aw, come on, Mary Lou, we won’t get more than a slap on the wrist for a first offense…”… like I said, I don’t much think that the law very much retards teens’ desire to have sex, no matter WHAT it says.
But punishments, I think, DO retard behaviors. If the law locks you up overnight, or puts you in a halfway house, or demands two hundred hours of community service… I strongly think ANY teen would think twice before repeating the offense that did him in.
I believe that scary warnings for a first offense are a good idea, and sound judicial procedure. I am not so sure that writing them physically into the law is a good idea; it sounds redundant and kind of clunky, frankly, and provides a loophole. Are we going to mandate warnings for EVERY offense a teenager might commit? This sounds like the sort of suggestion that winds up getting crazed Law And Order candidates elected, frankly.
Nightime… concerning this “warning policy”… I am correct in assuming that the reason you want it is to prevent insane judges from slamming kids into jail or something excessive on a first offense, right?
