THE YOUNGEST SEX OFFENDERS

We all grew up breathing the Romeo and Juliet mentality. A couple of teenagers crazy in love trying to defend their love from society. Romantic? Maybe...for other times.

The truth is that the spontaneous relationships from the past have been buried through the years under law suits and today the school sweet harts better be very careful or the modern Romeo might end up behind bars with a label of SEX OFFENDER for the rest of his life.

On January 18Th of 2006 a Task Force for Juvenile Sex Offenders prepared a report to review this law. This report was submitted to the Governor and the Florida Legislature in order to modify the Juvenile Sex Offenders Florida Law as it reads today:

F.S 800.04 "An offender less than 18 years of age that commits lewd or lascivious molestation against a victim 12 years or older but less than 16 years of age commits a felony of the third degree".

Which means that if you have a teenager son "dating" already and unaware of the consequences of having sex with girls underage, this article is for you.

It is as simple as this: The opportunity of having sex, a complaint from either kid's parents and one of them will end up in jail. The aftermath is even more complicated because the law says that" "Neither the victim's lack of chastity or the victim's consent are valid defenses" when trying to fight for the innocence of the defendant.

It also reads: "The perpetrator's ignorance of the victim's age, the victim's misrepresentation of her or his age, or the perpetrator's Bone Fide of the victim's age cannot be raised as a defense in the prosecution under this section."

However, in most cases the "perpetrators" are labeled as Sex Offenders for the rest of their lives.

The mission of the 2006 Task Force was to establish that the use of the label "Juvenile Sex Offender" was inappropriately applied to youth who are very young or who engaged in ‘consensual’ sexual behavior with victims of the same age or developmental stage with no criminal intent and recommended that "The Florida Legislature should modify section 985.03, Florida Statutes, to change the term "Juvenile Sex Offender" to "Juveniles with Sexual Behavioral Problems."

The debate aroused due to the significant number of young children (youth less than 12 years of age) committed to moderate or high-risk facilities representing at least one percent of their population.

The report also recommended that: "Very young children (less than 12 years of age) or those mentally immature who are involved in sexually delinquent behavior, should be referred for therapy and treatment by the Department of Children and Families rather than being prosecuted".

20 years ago (and maybe even less than) the fact that healthy children and adolescents would engage in a certain amount of sexual exploration and experimentation was considered normal.

Society would admit that there was a stage in every human being's life when awareness and understanding of sexuality was critical to develop a balance between appropriate and inappropriate sexual behavior.

Unfortunately, on these days such "experimental" practices have ruined a considerable number of young kid's lives. The question is: Are we over-criminalizing their behavior? or Are we letting our concern for the the adult sex offenders influencing our common sense?

Unless there is a potential behavior problem, kids are only kids, and we need to be very careful when rushing to condemn children to a devastated future.

That's why so much emphasis has been given to correctly screening and identifying those youth most likely to re-offend, and the ones who are neither pathological nor at a high risk to re-offend..

MAKE YOUR KIDS AWARE OF THESE LAWS!

Better safe than sorry... Instead of dealing with sex issues in a whisper manner, parents and educators need to address kids with an honest and open sexual education.

That TABU conversation needs to leave the kids with the right idea of what is right and what is wrong while dealing with their sexuality. Otherwise, they will get the wrong message from all those movies, songs and unbelievable amount of "floating" garbage they absorb every day from just about everywhere!

As adults, we need to teach them about the consequences of inappropriate behavior and gestures too! An example? Little Paul used to go "we-we" in the bushes when he was 3 years old and daddy used to laugh about it. Now little Paul is 14 years old and he was just caught while he was "we we" in the bushes again, the only difference is that the neighbors saw him and Paul got arrested for indecent exposure.

"Instances exist where children who have engaged in consensual sexual behaviors with another underage youth of similar age or developmental status have been convicted of a sex crime. Sex between a consenting 16 year old and a consenting 15 year old, for example, could result in a second-degree felony charge for the 16 year old. In other situations inappropriate groping, sexual harassment, taking lewd pictures with cell phone cameras and similar behavior may result in a legal consequence that brands the youth as a sex offender. It is likely that adolescents of any age are unaware of these and other similar legal ramifications. Education around these issues is critical for all young people". (2006 Task Force for Juvenile Sex Offenders).

Until the law is modified, make your kids aware of these consequences. Safe sex is not the only issue anymore, the legal aftermath of a simple experimental sexual encounter between teenagers could be devastating for both parties destroying a promising future for ever!