Bierie David M, Budd Kristen M
1 U.S. Department of Justice, Alexandria, VA, USA.
2 Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA.
Sex Abuse. 2018 Apr;30(3):296-321. doi: 10.1177/1079063216658451. Epub 2016 Jul 15.
Statutory rape is an important yet understudied topic. There is broad public support for the prosecution of older adults who engage in sexual relationships with minors regardless of perceptions of consent by either party. However, some scholars worry that expansive definitions within these laws have led to the widespread involvement of the justice system in the lives of similarly aged teenagers engaging in relatively normal sexual behavior, so called "Romeo and Juliet" liaisons. This, in turn, has called into question the legitimacy of national policies, such as sex offender registration, because of the presumption that registries are likely filled with these kinds of cases which may not represent the intent of legislatures and the public. Despite the importance of these debates, there is little research assessing the prevalence of Romeo and Juliet cases in official crime statistics or that analyze differences in characteristics of statutory rape as a function of victim-offender age differences. Drawing on more than 20 years of police data from over 6,000 police departments in the United States, this study found statutory rape cases were rare and Romeo and Juliet cases were even rarer. Multivariate models showed several distinctions between statutory rape cases as a function of the age differences between victim and offender. Of note, the odds that additional forms of sexual aggression occurred in the incident grew as the age difference expanded.
法定强奸罪是一个重要但却未得到充分研究的课题。对于起诉与未成年人发生性关系的成年人，无论双方是否认为存在同意的情况，公众普遍表示支持。然而，一些学者担心，这些法律中的宽泛定义导致司法系统广泛介入年龄相仿的青少年进行相对正常性行为（即所谓的“罗密欧与朱丽叶”式恋爱关系）的生活。这反过来又对诸如性犯罪者登记等国家政策的合法性提出了质疑，因为人们推测登记册中可能充斥着这类案件，而这些案件可能并不代表立法机构和公众的意图。尽管这些辩论很重要，但很少有研究评估官方犯罪统计数据中“罗密欧与朱丽叶”案件的发生率，或者分析法定强奸罪的特征因受害者与犯罪者年龄差异而产生的不同。本研究利用来自美国6000多个警察部门的20多年警方数据，发现法定强奸案件很少见，而“罗密欧与朱丽叶”案件更是罕见。多变量模型显示，法定强奸案件因受害者与犯罪者的年龄差异而存在若干区别。值得注意的是，随着年龄差异的扩大，事件中发生其他形式性侵犯行为的几率也在增加。
