Rape: Legal Aspects - Forcible Rape: Purpose Of The Law, Forcible Rape: Punishment, Forcible Rape: Elements Of The Offense
sex statutory offenses feminism
In the eighteenth century, William Blackstone defined rape as "carnal knowledge of a woman forcibly and against her will" (p. 210). This definition remains in effect in many American jurisdictions, and it has provided the starting point for revisions over the years. The legal aspects of rape include five topics concerned primarily with forcible rape—the purpose of rape law, the punishment for forcible rape, the elements of the offense, evidentiary issues, and practical concerns about enforcement. The sixth topic covered in this entry is nonforcible intercourse with a person under a statutory age of consent ("statutory rape").
Additional Topics
Modern rape laws are conceived primarily as a means to protect women and men against physical harm, emotional injury, and interference with sexual autonomy (the right to choose the circumstances of sexual intimacy). Historically, the purposes of rape law were more limited, and the law's coverage was narrow. Rape law was long concerned, for example, with protecting the chastity of women. In …
At common law, rape, like all felonies, was punishable by death. By the early twentieth century, most American states had reserved the death penalty for cases of first-degree murder, but a substantial minority, primarily southern states, continued to authorize capital punishment for rape. There was intense concern, however, about racial discrimination, as the overwhelming majority of defendants ex…
The traditional offense of rape required proof of five elements: penetration, force and resistance, nonconsent, absence of a spousal relationship (the marital exemption), and a culpable state of mind (mens rea). This section explains these elements and the modern evolution that has led states to modify or abandon traditional requirements. One feature of the modern evolution has been the abandonmen…
The administration of rape law has long been influenced by judges' preoccupation with the possibility of false charges and erroneous convictions. For centuries, English and American courts were obsessed with the idea that a woman might fabricate a rape accusation because she feared the stigma of having consented to intercourse. Judges also worried that a woman might falsely accuse a man for…
Specific legal doctrines were only one of the impediments to effectively protecting women from rape. Even in cases that met the legal definition of the offense, victims often refused to report it, fearful that officials would humiliate them and that the offender would avoid punishment in any event. In the relatively few cases in which a complaint was filed, police and prosecutors often ruled it &#…
Ever since the sixteenth century, intercourse, though fully consensual, has been classified as rape when the woman is under a specified age of consent. The earliest statute set the age of consent at ten, but modern American statutes typically set the age of consent at sixteen or eighteen. Four features of traditional statutory rape law are contestible. The first is the refusal to require mens rea.…
American Law Institute. Model Penal Code and Commentaries, Part 2, Comment to §213.1. Philadelphia: American Law Institute, 1980. ——. Unwanted Sex: The Culture of Intimidation and the Failure of Law. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998. …
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User Comments
9 months ago
charlotte
i want to know
almost 2 years ago
yeahbuddy!
yes. that why is says women AND men!!
about 3 years ago
This is quite sexist. Men are raped just as women are.