Citation

Miller HL, Miller CE, Kenney L, Clark JW. Fam. Plann. Perspect. 1998; 30(4): 177-181.

Affiliation

Special Studies Section, Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Topeka, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, Alan Guttmacher Institute)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

9711456

Abstract

Because there are few qualitative data on the attitudes of district attorneys towards the local enforcement of statutory rape laws called for by the 1996 federal welfare reform law, anonymous surveys were sent to all 105 Kansas district attorneys in 1997. Data were gathered from the 92 returned surveys and from in-depth telephone interviews with seven of the respondents. It was found that 74% of the respondents favored aggressive enforcement, but only 37% believed the public would support such action, and only 24% thought enforcement would reduce the incidence of adolescent pregnancy. While 57% supported the legal age of consent in Kansas (16 years), 53% thought the law should not specify age differences between the partners, but prosecutions are the exception when the age difference is less than 3 years unless the victim was mentally disabled or the case involved force. Most of the district attorneys (77%) rejected the view that a minor who is already sexually active does not merit the protection of statutory rape laws, and 78% felt that paternity acknowledgements should be admissible evidence in prosecutions. Only 17% expressed the opinion that enforcement would discourage adolescents from seeking health care. It was concluded that the impact of statutory rape prosecution on reproductive and psychological health should be considered on a case-by-case basis and that potentially negative impacts can be minimized by educating law enforcement officials about adolescent health care issues.

Language: en