Does Not Warrant A Jail Term

In yet another example of the absurd inconsistency in both the statute and application of Australian age of consent laws, a 28 year old woman has been jailed for at least 6 months for ... having sex with a 16 year old boy, which is legal in every state but South Australia and Tasmania.

I’ve written about this topic before, particularly in relation to S73 of the NSW Crimes Act, or its equivalent in other states. This stupid piece of legislation makes it a criminal offence to have sex with a 16 or 17 year old if the person is in a position of some “care or authority”, despite it being perfectly legal in the absence of this element of the relationship. Worse, the offence carries a jail term of up to 8 years, with accompanying registration as a sex offender for life.

It has led to tyrannical perversions of justice, such as the case in which a woman was charged for having sex with a 17 year old male student when she was 22. Worse, the charges were laid 7 years after the fact. It’s disappointing the boy (now man) in the matter didn’t have the chivalry to deny any sexual contact and refuse to testify.

To add an air of farce to the Tasmanian case, the affair was discovered by the boy’s father, who set up cameras to catch ghosts in his house, but instead filmed his live in girlfriend with his son. Corrrrrr-nuuuuu-tttoooo!!!!!

And how's the father's form? Calling the police in? You might hate your girlfriend for betraying you, but how is your son really going to feel about this sordid episode? How will he feel about you as a father, when he is an adult?

As in previous posts, I’m not saying the woman did nothing wrong. The question is whether it benefits society to have a law which can send her to jail and place her on a sex offenders’ register for life (effectively ruining that life), for having sex with a 16 year old boy, an act which would be legal in most Australian jurisdictions.

In this particular case, the woman contributed to her demise (and harsh sentence) by continuing the affair after she had been caught and formally spoken to by police. This is certainly extremely stupid, however I suggest it is evidence of immaturity and emotional problems, rather than predation. There is no evidence of a string of affairs with underage boys.

So, what is the benefit to society in jailing her? Putting her in a cage with abused, violent, mostly drug affected and often mentally ill prisoners; exposing her to a material risk of being bashed.

Will she be “rehabilitated”? Will society be better?

She probably won’t be fucking any 16 year old boys any time soon. But, she could well be largely unemployable and probably a drain on society for the rest of her life.

Is this the outcome most of us want for what is highly likely to be an immature and emotionally unbalanced woman having a sexual relationship with a boy who is a bee’s dick away from the legal age of consent?

Great piece of legislation, pollies and wise discretion in sentencing, Your Honour.

These are the sorts of outcomes we can expect if we allow legislation relating to social interaction to be framed by hypocritical, conservative religious people and frightened, middle class mothers.

This particular travesty occurred in Tasmania, but that doesn’t mean other Australian states don’t need to make changes to their own laws. I can well imagine a situation in say, NSW or Queensland whereby the boy was deemed to be “under the special care” of the woman, because she was his father’s de facto partner. The police (with prompting from a slighted lover) and the DPP may well have chosen to run such a charge as a test case.

The problem is that in every state in Australia, the age of consent is a “cliff” style law, which not only varies between jurisdictions, but is essentially binary.

The latter is the worse injustice. Have sex with a 15, 16 (or even 17) year old on the day before their birthday and potentially go to jail, then be registered for life as a sex offender. Do it 24 hours later without sanction. Other than an unsatisfactory ambit of discretion for the judge, there is no mechanism for distinction between predation and a consenting act between two parties of similar emotional maturity, albeit one materially older than the other.

Most people would assume they would never be in such a situation and they would mostly be correct. However, that is not a reason to ignore inconsistencies in our law.

Firstly, the injustice in such poorly framed legislation harms society by needlessly rendering some people unproductive. Secondly, acquiescence emboldens the minority who want to make more of such falsely moralistic laws, imposing their agenda on the rest of us. That is how each of us loses a little liberty each time unjust laws are enacted or enforced.