Sex Offenses: Children

Crimes against children did not develop into a recognizable class of the criminal law of the United States until the latter half of the twentieth century. As societal recognition of both physical and sexual abuse of children increased in the 1960s and 1970s, legislatures throughout the United States revised criminal codes to more precisely define crimes against children. Although statutes describing sexual offenses against children are far from uniform, the development of the laws demonstrates societal recognition of the existence of such crimes and legislative acknowledgment of the need to define the crimes with specificity.