I'm tired of women not getting equal treatment!

Equal rights for women, I say!

Or wait, that'd mean they get the same punishment for the same "crime". Crap. What a dilemma.

As if high school wasn't hard enough...

According to this, second degree sexual assault of a child is punishable by not more than $10k or 10 years. A child is considered to be 16 or younger though, so I'm kinda confused why the close birthday of the 17 year old girl's boyfriend matters...

I feel like something's missing...

Its called the double standard...

but that really isn't the root of the argument... there was a fantastic comment on the site itself... Why are we prosecuting teens for having non-violent, consensual sex? Have teens not been knocking boots since the garden of eden? I understand trying to protect children from predators... but this no tolerance bulls**t that has kids who play doctor being labeled sex offenders has to stop.

I think everyone who reads this site needs to email their congressmen discussing this issue. It's true; it's gone on long enough. The current administration is veering away from abstinence only education so it seems they're aware that teens have sex. Hopefully they're open-minded enough to realize that this is a seriously erroneous policy and that it needs to be reformed.

Jailing a teenager for having sex with a girl 3 years younger than him for 25 years is outrageous. It's disgusting that they're ruining a kids' lives in the name of protecting them.

There are many issues going on here that are outrageous.

Men and woman should be treated equally. You can't have it one way and then not another.

The part I find most disturbing is charging teenage children with sexual assault charges when they are having sex with people in their age group. 17 is still a child. It is utterly ridiculous to me that these teens will be labeled with sex offender for the rest of their lives and it also upsets me that in cases like these, it lessons the meaning of sex offender which should NEVER be allowed. That label should be reserved for the scum that deserve it. Not horny 17-14 year olds getting it on consensually.

Thats like a freshman and an junior or sophomore and a senior in high school.. if they dont want kids in relationships with that age group they're going to have to seperate high schools freshmen and sophmores that are allowed to date each other in one building and juniors and seniors that are allowed to in another building.. retarded.. I say let the kids have fun..

well duh, the court system is all f**ked up.

Yeah exactly, there are too may people getting off without punishment or getting off easy for rape-related cases, but no, two teenages who were having consentual sex... 25 years.

I mean in Holland, a LIFE sentence is just 18 years... That's life... That's what they do to Murderers!

If you're a 'good' prison inmate (no fighting, no escape attempts, show remorse for your crime) you'll end up Paroled in 13.

If you thumb your nose at the system, scream about how 'great it felt' and are a general jerk to the prison system, you'll do the full 25.