State Criminal Codes

It was Social Justice Week a couple weeks ago here on campus and I went to an event titled: Heterosexism, Sexual Violence Between Women, and Secondary Victimization. The professor giving the talk described how the criminal justice system plays a role in deciding whether or not sexual violence cases get taken to court and how a victim is defined.

Now everything that I learned is by no means new, but it seemed that everyone in attendance at the speaker had no idea of certain states criminal codes, especially those dealing with rape and sexual violence so I thought I would share those!

(Image found on Google)

The reason that criminal codes dealing with rape were discussed was because anyone can experience sexual violence...whether it is between two males, two females, or a male and a female. However, in some states the code dealing with rape specifies sex in the description which would make it impossible for some victims to even take a case to court. For example, the following is Alabama's criminal code on rape in the first degree:

Rape in the first degree.

(a) A person commits the crime of rape in the first degree if:

(1) He or she engages in sexual intercourse with a member of the opposite sex by forcible compulsion; or

(2) He or she engages in sexual intercourse with a member of the opposite sex who is incapable of consent by reason of being physically helpless or mentally incapacitated; or

(3) He or she, being 16 years or older, engages in sexual intercourse with a member of the opposite sex who is less than 12 years old.

(Source) http://www.legislature.state.al.us/CodeofAlabama/1975/13A-6-61.htm

So in other words, in Alabama a man who is raped by another man would not be able to have a case because the code states that rape is between two people who are of the opposite sex. This is not just the case in AL, many other criminal codes on rape and sexual violence in different states say just about the same thing...some are even more explicit. This information gave me a lot to think about and I hope it will do the same for you!