Right sorry, don’t convict them of sex crimes, but stop them from having sex, and (possibly, this is to other posters) blackmail them with the threat of persecution.
Just because something “can” happen doesn’t mean you have to be totally and completely prepared for the consequences.
I “could” walk outside, trip, break my neck and be a vegetable for the rest of my life.
An adult “could” knock up a girl, while using a condom and birth control, girl has baby. The male adult is unemployed, can’t get a job, living with parents at the moment, and parents get stuck helping pay for the baby.
I see no damn difference between the adult in this situation, and the teen, cept maybe a couple years.
Ryle Dup:
How many adults are homeless and unable to support themselves? And what percentage of adults live at home, go to school full time, and have parents who are legally responsible for them? What percentage?
What percentage of 14-year-olds have graduated high school, are able to hold down a full time job, and do not have parents who are legally responsible for them? What percentage?
Is there a vast difference between these two percentages? Ya think so?
I’m sure there are 14-year-olds who can be responsible, and I know there are adults who are not responsible. But the law has to draw the line somewhere, and it has. There are always exceptions to every law, but it’s the best system we’ve got so far. Unless you want your taxes raised so much so that each case can be analyzed in excrutiating detail. But hey—I’ll bet you don’t pay much in the way of taxes yet, do you? 
The fact is, most adults are far more capable of handling responsibility in their lives. They’ve had the time to graduate high school, they’ve matured, they’ve held down jobs. Sure, some fall through the cracks, but they don’t usually have mommy and daddy being legally responsible for them. So mommy and daddy aren’t so involved in the dumb mistakes these (adults) make. And so maybe mommy and daddy don’t have as much of a stake in what these irresponsible adults do. (The taxpayers still have a stake, though—but that’s a whole 'nother thread.)
But with a 14-year-old, they usually do have mommy and daddy who are legally responsible for them. And odds are extremely high that these 14-year-olds are not high school graduates who can support a child on their own. Unless you want to provide stats proving otherwise?
The law and most of society sees the difference between adults and minor children who are being supported by their parents. And I daresay that your parents (who are legally responsible for you) very likely see the difference too.
Why can’t he get a job? For how long can’t he get a job? You mean he can’t work at McDonalds? And what about unemployment?
Parents who are not legally responsible for him, since he’s an adult.
The parents can kick him out, since they are not legally responsible for him. The parents can tell him to buck up and behave like the grown-up adult he is and be responsible for his own obligations, and they can tell him to get the damned job at McDonalds working full time.
Can the parents kick a 14-year-old out of the house (and not be painted as boors or horrible people)? Can they stop financially supporting their 14-year-old? Can they stop providing food and lodging for their 14-year-old? Can they force their 14-year-old to hold down a full time job? (And even if they could, would current labor laws allow them to?)
Yeah, there’s a big difference.
Do you even read what you are typing?
You are honestly saying that the only thing stopping 14 year olds from having sex with each other is that it is illegal?
That is the most absurd thing you have said yet. This law has only been abused in this way in a very, very few cases.
And what about states where it is not illegal for teenagers to have sex with other teenagers their own age? Do you have the statistics to prove that in these states teen pregnancy has shot through the roof, and the taxpayers are paying a fortune?
No, of course you don’t. You have no statistics, and no point. Teen pregnancy is at an all time low, no thanks to people like you who would rather mindlessly criminalize teens than educate them.
No, I’m saying that there is a law that makes it (in some states, including the state in the OP) that makes it illegal.
I am also saying (in case you missed my whole point) that it is illegal for a parent to kick out their 14-year-old and stop supporting them and to not be legally responsible for them. Usually, anyway.
And I am also saying that it is illegal to force a 14-year-old to work a full-time job in order to support their offspring.
Do you have any statistics that prove that no unplanned pregnancies happen, and that no parents of 14-year-old parents are now having to support their kid and are also saddled with a grandchild that they would have preferred that their 14-year-old not have?
Copy and paste. Copy and paste where I said I wanted these kids charged with a crime.
Copy and paste.
My main point is that the parents have much more on their mind than just trying to hamper their kids’ love lives. The parents are sweating bullets, hoping they don’t get “drowned in grandchildren.”
And yeah, the teen pregnancy rate is low, and that’s great. But until it is at 0%, parents will still sweat bullets.
Copy and paste? Fine:
You are specifically saying this is the best system we have so far, and that without it taxes would shoot through the roof.
So my question is: where are the statistics that show that in states where safe consensual sex between teenagers of the same age is not illegal, there are more teen pregnancies and taxes have shot through the roof?
In fact, aren’t you just making it up? Isn’t it true that this law has been abused in this way so rarely that even the deluded would not honestly believe that it has an appreciable affect on teen pregnancy?
Just admit it. You made it up, you have no statistics, and you are refusing to concede the point on pure stubbornness.
But what laws am I talking about? The laws that make parents responsible for their 14-year-old kids? The laws that won’t allow 14-year-olds to hold down jobs? The laws that can (hopefully) keep adults from sleeping with these parents’ 14-year-old kids?
Please, try again. Please copy and paste where I say that I want these kids put in jail.
Copy and paste.
I have no idea. That was never my point. I think you’re getting me mixed up with the person (whoever that may be) who wants these 14-year-olds locked up in jail.
My point is that unless you can prove to me that there is 0% unwanted teen pregnancy, there will always be parents who will be trying to stop their kids from having sex. And that these parents are trying to stop their kids from doing the “natural” thing (sex) because these parents don’t want to be grandparents just yet—not when they are still legally responsible for their teenager.
Huh? What the hell are you talking about? What statistic am I trying to make up?
Unless you think that I’m making up the statistic that teenaged pregnancy is NOT at 0%? Because that’s the only stastitic I can think of right now. Are you claiming that teenaged pregnancy is at 0%? Care to provide some cites?
I’m just talking about the fact that parents don’t want to be grandparents while their kids are still in high school. That parents don’t want their kids to have sex for a substantial reason that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with spoiling the kid’s fun, or punishing them, or for moral reasons.
You know what? I need to ammend these last few posts a little, because I do see where you have been confused, Nightime. And I apologize for that (really!).
As I have repeated multiple times, I don’t want to see these kids (even the hellspawn described in the OP) put in jail. I don’t necessarily think it’s a great idea to arrest them or charge them with a crime. But I don’t feel sorry for the hellspawn described in the OP. Especially since their records will be expunged when they turn 18 anyway.
I do feel sympathy for parents who worry about being grandparents before their time. And I hope that they have some legal way (not involving arrests and certainly not jail time) to help keep their 14-year-old boy or girl away from their neighbor’s 14-hear-old boy or girl, if they are concerned that these kids are going to have sex. And needless to say, I am glad that there are already laws that protect the average 14-year-old from an 18-year-old, or 19-year-old, or 40-year-old.
No matter what a 14 year old does, there’s a chance that something bad will happen. Suppose your kid wants to go skiing. There’s a chance that he may break an arm or leg, or even be paralyzed or killed in a skiing accident.
If he doesn’t have the money to pay for a hospital room, surgery, wheelchair, or funeral, is he really “prepared and capable” to be responsible for the consequences of skiing? Surely not. Now does that mean it should be illegal for him to go skiing?
Oh, I see.
So, you think skiing is similar to bringing a new child into the world, huh?
Is there insurance out there to protect parents from foolish teenagers who risk getting knocked up? Can the parents buy insurance to help support this grandchild that they didn’t want quite so soon? Can the parents buy insurance that will give their 14-year-old daughter’s childhood back, so she won’t have to be thinking about morning feedings? (And they won’t either?) Can the parents buy insurance that will get their 14-year-old off the hook for child support payments? Can they?
The parents can buy insurance that will help them out in many of the mishaps and scrapes that kids typically get into. But until they can get insurance for “stupid kids risking getting pregnant,” I fear your point is moot.
So, that’s the law. Now are we to believe that it’s OK to send to 14 year old kids to jail because they want to fuck each other? Lord, just round us ALL up and put us ALL in jail, why doncha?
A few points I’d like to make.
I was sexually active at the age of 14, with another 14 year old.
There is absolutely nothing I can think of that my parents could’ve done to stop me being sexually active with my boyfriend.
At the age of 14 I was more sexually responsible than most adults I know today. Admittedly, I was abnormally paranoid about pregnancy, but the information to be sexually active safely was freely available and I had several backups.
I am very grateful neither my husband nor myself were forced to have our sexual activities pored over by the legal system, the media, the general public and anonymous strangers on a message board.
Of course parents wish their children wouldn’t have sex while they are responsible for them. Unfortunately, that is one of the possibilities that may occur when you have children. But I would guess that the (approx.) 50% of people who plan their pregnancies don’t think of this.
Not at all. I’m simply saying that the law, as written, has a giant loophole when it can punish people for committing a crime which is defined as doing something that the law says that they’re not old enough to know that they want to do. If this law said that having sex with someone under 16 was illegal for someone over 16, fine. If the law said the teens having sex need to be within a certain age range in comparison to one another, fine. But to leave enough room for an interpretation which supports this kind of prosecution just doesn’t make sense.
Otto, having found the actual Wisconsin statute online, as opposed to a paraphrase of it, you’re correct. I wonder why that extra clause has been inserted into the paraphrases of the statute that are being disseminated by both the U. of Wisc. and Beloit University?
Threatening behavior?!?! Who the hell did they threaten? They thew down an angry challenge in the heat of the moment. Let’s not overstate things! Moreover, a bad attitude is not criminal. And while the sex alone was not the reason why the police were called, it is the entire reason why these kids were charged with crimes.
Sexuality is a powerful force, but it’s not like it’s an external thing. It’s hormonal, and teens – minors though they may be – are the ones with the greatest surges of those hormonal impulses. Biology is priming the pump and saying “Yes, you’re young, you’re healthy, you’re energetic and you’re fertile. Don’t wait until you’re 35 with half the sperm count or 1/3 of the viable ova, propagate the species now!” Kids acting completely within the bounds of biological imperative are criminals – not because it’s wrong on its face for them to do so, but because we’ve legislated that it’s wrong for them to do so for a lot of reasons which apply fairly equally to kids over 16, when it’s magically Not So Wrong According to the Great and Powerful State.
Interesting reading about kids, sex, what we know, what we presume and how we respond.
By the way, for those who suggest that this will all go away when these kids are 18, that’s not necessarily so. The laws regarding expungement of records have been becoming increasingly stringent, and often require a specific period of time to have elapsed between the crime and expungement, regardless of the offender’s age. There has also been a move to deny expungement of youthful offender records when the crime in question is considered violent or serious. (Cite)
And what about the time before they turn 18? Do you know how many jobs you can’t get if you have a conviction record, especially for a sexual offense? Kids charged with far less serious crimes (i.e. non-physical offenses) can’t get hired as grocery baggers. Colleges have problems with people with criminal records as well, especially if the nature of those crimes might make someone a risk to the student population, and you can best be sure that if anyone’s going to be deemed a potential risk, it’s someone who has a record of sexual assault.
In short, there is nothing which justifies criminalizing this behavior, nor a DA using their discretion and interpretation of this kind of law as a bully club to both punish kids for doing something that isn’t wrong (ill-advised, most assuredly, but not harmful or inappropriate in and of itself) and push them into what will likely be an escalating spiral of interventions into their lives which will certainly have effects on them for many years to come.
Mr2001 brought up an important point: how do we want our justice system to respond to inter-family disputes of this nature? Do we really want to set a precedent that criminal sanctions can be applied for incidents in which there was no quantifiable harm done to any party and the only reason that the system was ever involved is someone got honked off at someone else’s attitude? Our courts are overburdened trying to keep on top of real crimes. We really, really do not need to drag in stupid familial issues being used to make political hay for an overambitious prosecutor.
Finally yosemitebabe, I’m not sure I’m getting you. You keep arguing that you don’t want to see these kids in jail, but you continue to go on about how the current system is the only thing which supports parents who don’t want their kids involved in a teen pregnancy, and the current system – at least in Wisconsin – says that these kids go to jail. So what is it, exactly, that you’re advocating?
If the worst thing your teenager does is engage in safe, consensual sex, then you should count your blessings.
I wouldn’t be happy about my 14yo having sex, but I can’t see that it’s the place of the courts to deal with sexually active teenagers. It sounds like this woman’s problems with her daughter go far beyond sex. If the kid is truant, using alcohol or drugs, shoplifting, then, sure, take legal measures. But it’s ridiculous to prosecute consensual sex among teenagers.
I would be very interested in seeing if states with a higher age of consent have lower teen pregnancy rates. There are many factors I considered before having sex for the first time, but whether or not I was legally old enough certainly wasn’t one of them.
Well, then maybe adults should consider not only whether they are ready to have children, but whether or not they are prepared to become grandchildren fourteen years down the road. If the answer to either question is no, then no sex.
Okay, that is just ridiculous, but then the age of consent in Canada is something like fourteen.
Moving this to Great Debates.
I’d rather give my kid a stern talking to about condoms than send them to prison. How could that possibly be better?
What an idiot mom.
Hmmmmmmm. No, sorry, I didn’t mean to give that impression. Thought I had stated SEVERAL times that, due to the skimpy media coverage, we really don’t know what else these kids had been up to.
But sorry, you’re right, I probably didn’t elaborate well enough.
The sex act is not what I felt this particular young couple should have been arrested for. I too think that that is just silly.
However, if their threatening, challenging behavior is a symptom of an impending descent into juvenile delinquency, as the mother seemed to feel it was, then she might very well have looked at it, (their behaviour, not the sex) as “the straw that broke the camels back,” and out of fear and inability to control the child, finally called the police.
Again, as the whole incident was VERY skimpily reported, she could very well be just a springerite whore who allowed the child free reign all her life and is now going “Oh my, what do I do”??..
…and simply called the police to let “someone else deal with it”.
My opinions were based on if it were the first scenario. And again, I apologize, I should have made that more clear.
I thought I did, by sharing my OWN parenting experiences, but oh well “my bad” as the kids say. 
I didn’t answer one by one your other comments/questions, but they seemed to fall under the basic concept of this statment by Ryle Dup (sorry for my previous misspelling).
(paraphrased)
“You gounding the, lock them in their room, punish them…”.
Okay, folks??? We’re talking about FOURTEEN year olds here. Not little kids. Half the teens I see today are nearly as big, as big or bigger than (as in the case of MY daughter) than their parents.
So, hello? It’s not a matter of “okay you screwed up, you’re staying in your room”
Yeah, riiiiHiiiIIIGHT. You’re going to be able to physically restrain a determined kid that size in order to “punish” or ground them.
And Again, the courts, at least in my state, do NOT back the parents up on this, all they’ll do is bring the kid back if he/she runs away.
There are no consequences for the kid.
For these two? They are 14, and AGAIN people, for those who seemed to have missed the their records will be expunged when they are 18 part,…
YES, it’s embarrassing, YES, it’s not fair that they’re being punished over “merely” sex. But, and again, please refer to the first part of my post. If this was a regular dedicated parent, who’d tried her best and still ended up with obnoxious, determined to be a delinquent little brat child, I can definitely understand her wanting to do something which would have an actual impact.
Because if taking the Nintendo away hasn’t, and attempting to ground/punish hasn’t, and they’re still headed down the path to the wrong side of the tracks, the parent needs to do something to stop it.
If nothing else has worked? The shock of a 30 day program in Juvie may be her last hope.
And again, let’s not be ridiculous and over exaggerate here. Hell, they’re not going to be spending “years” in jail.
It’s likely they’ll never see any jail time at all, our court systems being what they are.
I concede, good luck tlw. Can’t argue with people on insist on talking down and ignoring points.