Dating age laws in alabama
02-Jan-2020 20:16
Federal law makes it criminal to engage in a sexual act with another person who is between the age of 12 and 16 if they are at least four years younger than you.
Each state takes a different approach as the age of consent has ranged from 10 to 18.
Statutory rape occurs when a person over the age of consent engages in sexual intercourse with someone under the statutory age of consent, also known as a minor.
In most states, the age of consent has been arbitrarily designated by statute.
In this hypothetical state, two seventeen-year-olds who had consensual sex could both theoretically be convicted of statutory rape.
Other states imply a different method which, like the federal statute, takes into account the relative ages of both people.
This would allow a sixteen-year-old to lawfully have sex with a fourteen-year-old, but make it criminal for an eighteen-year-old to have sex with that same fourteen-year-old.
(For more information about rape between spouses, see Marital Rape Laws.) Named after Shakespeare’s young lovers, “Romeo and Juliet” exceptions are intended to prevent serious criminal charges against teenagers who engage in consensual sex with others close to their own age.
Though statutory rape does not require that the prosecutor prove an assault, it is still rape.