Statutory Rape Research Articles

Transgender female sex workers' HIV knowledge, experienced stigma, and condom use in the Dominican Republic.

IntroductionNot only do transgender female sex workers have some of the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections (STI), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and experienced stigma, they also have higher likelihood of early sexual debut and some of the lowest levels of educational attainment compared to other stigmatized populations. Some of the most common interventions designed to reduce transmission of HIV and STIs seek to educate high-risk groups on sexual health and encourage condom use across all partner types; however, reaching stigmatized populations, particularly those in resource-limited settings, is particularly challenging. Considering the importance of condom use in stopping the spread of HIV, the aim of this study was two-fold; first to characterize this hard-to-reach population of transgender female sex workers in the Dominican Republic, and second, to assess associations between their HIV knowledge, experienced stigma, and condom use across three partner types.MethodsWe analyzed self-reported data from the Questionnaire for Transgender Sex Workers (N = 78). Respondents were interviewed at their workplaces. Univariate and bivariate analyses were employed. Fisher Chi-square tests assessed differences in HIV knowledge and experienced stigma by condom use across partner types.ResultsHIV knowledge was alarmingly low, condom use varied across partner type, and the respondents in our sample had high levels of experienced stigma. Average age of first sexual experience was 13.12 years with a youngest age reported of 7. Dominican Republic statutory rape laws indicate 18 years is the age of consent; thus, many of these transgender women’s first sexual encounters would be considered forcible (rape) and constitute a prosecutable crime. On average, respondents reported 8.45 sexual partners in the prior month, with a maximum of 49 partners. Approximately two thirds of respondents used a condom the last time they had sex with a regular partner. This was considerably lower than condom use reported with coercive partners (92.96%) and clients (91.78%). Bivariate analyses revealed two trends: experienced stigma was associated with lower rates of condom use, and lower HIV knowledge was associated with lower rates of condom use. The former provides additional evidence that experienced stigma may become internalized, affecting individual-level behaviors—lowering self-confidence and resilience—making it more difficult to negotiate condom use due to lack of self-efficacy and desire to show trust in one’s partner. The latter supports public health research that suggests gaps in HIV knowledge persist and are pronounced in highly stigmatized populations.DiscussionThe vulnerabilities experienced by transgender persons, particularly in environments that vehemently adhere to conservative ideologies related to sex and gender, are significant and harm this population. These vulnerabilities could potentially be addressed through critically examining of impact of policies that indirectly promote or allow victimization of transgender citizens and subsequently diminish the effectiveness of public health and educational interventions. By taking action through the revocation of such laws, the Dominican Republic has the opportunity to improve overall population health, to protect some of its most stigmatized citizens, and to become the flag bearer of enhanced human rights in the Caribbean and Latin America.

How to Criminalize Incest

This chapter, part of a larger book-length project titled Criminalizing Sex--A Unified Theory, offers a “normative reconstruction” of the law of incest, consisting of four parts: Part I looks at the concept of incest as a complex cultural taboo, one which has attracted the attention of a wide range of social scientists and theorists. Part II considers the striking multiplicity of ways in which incest has been dealt with across systems of criminal law, including the fact that a broad swath of “civilian” jurisdictions do not treat it as a crime at all. Part III considers instances in which adults have sex with closely related juveniles, arguing (on “fair labeling” grounds) that such cases should be treated as an aggravated form of statutory rape, rather than as a separate, free-standing offense of “juvenile incest.” Part IV looks at incestuous relationships between adults. In most such cases, it is argued, criminal sanctions are unjustifiable unless lack of consent can specifically be proved. Two possible exceptions exist, however, where the adult relationship is a continuation of one that began when one of the parties was a minor, or where the two parties are in a hierarchical relationship, such as that between parent and child. In such cases, lack of consent could be presumed, subject to rebuttal evidence that consent was genuinely given.

Sexual grooming of young girls: The promise and limits of law

abstractThis article considers the position of law as a macro-level intervention into the vulnerability of children to rape or sexual assault as a result of the process of sexual grooming. It situates grooming within the context of the South African narrative of rape, and describes features of the process that are drawn on by South African courts. This article offers a critique of the existing law concerning sexual grooming by examining the different manifestations of the concept in law: first, as a stand-alone statutory offence, second, as a means of establishing lack of consent in the crime of rape or sexual assault, and finally, as a factor when sentencing a person convicted of the rape or sexual assault of a child. While the law may offer some pathways to resilience by having named the offence and created the possibility of legal recourse, the existing shortcomings in the law, combined with its interpretation by the courts in emerging jurisprudence suggest that there are obstacles to it being a singular curative of vulnerability to grooming. The law occupies a central position in the broader narrative as a site for justice for victims and has the potential to strengthen the social ecologies of children, and improve the potential for resilience, if it properly fulfills this role.

Child sexual abuse presenting to District General Hospital, Chilaw

Incidence of child sexual abuse is increasing worldwide. There is little data on child sexual abuse in the North Western Province of Sri Lanka. To describe the demographic and medico-legal findings of victims of sexual abuse aged less than 16 years and to identify factors associated with positive findings on medical-legal examination. This cross-sectional analytical study, analysed 132 victims, referred by authorities to General Hospital,Chilaw, from 2012 to 2014. Mean age of the victims was 13.1years. Main types abuse were penetrative (61.4%), intra-crural (39.4%) and anal sex (10.6%). The perpetrator was known in 94%. Places of offence were offender’s habitat (55.3%), victim's home (23.5%) and secluded areas (11.4%). A positive history of penetrative sex (OR =15.3; 95% CI 5.6-42), chronic sexual abuse (OR=4.8; 95% CI 2.2-10.5) and time lapse in reporting to authorities (OR=4.4; 95% CI 2.0-9.4) were significantly associated with presence of conclusive medical examinations findings. Children were less likely to be willing partners in intra-familial abuse compared to extra-familial abuse where the child was sometimes a willing partner, (OR=0.2; 95% CI 0.07-0.5). Adverse psychological outcomes were observed in 16.7% (n=22). Most children were victims of statutory rape and knew the perpetrator. In extra-familial abuse, child was sometimes a willing partner. A positive history of penetrative sex, number of abusive incidents and time lapse for presentation were important factors associated with conclusive medical findings.

Legal, Social, Ethical, and Medical Perspectives on the Care of the Statutory Rape Adolescent in the Emergency Department

Rapes involving adolescents who present to the emergency department (ED) are fraught with ethical and legal complexities and are often emotionally turbulent for patients, their families, and medical providers. Management requires a thoughtful approach from multiple standpoints, including legal, psychosocial, ethical, and medical ones. However, there is no standardized sexual assault education for emergency medicine residents, and management practices vary widely.1,2 We present a hypothetical statutory rape case based on real cases that occurred in New York City and bring together the perspectives of an attorney on the legal parameters, two social workers on the psychosocial issues, an ethicist on the moral considerations, and a pediatric emergency physician-who is also a sexual assault forensic examiner-on the medical treatments. We aim to provide a framework for physicians to navigate issues of patient-physician privilege involving minors, privacy rules, and mandatory reporting laws.

Tradition and Culture in Africa: Practices that Facilitate Trafficking of Women and Children

Many states in Africa have adopted legislative, administrative and institutional measures to combat trafficking in human beings. These measures include, among other things, the formulation and implementation of both national and regional action plans by African states to provide for comprehensive and coordinated interventions. Many African countries have also enacted an anti-trafficking legislation at the country level. Despite these measures, African women and children have been trafficked annually worldwide for purposes of forced labor, sexual exploitation, and domestic servitude. Additionally, women and children are trafficked within their countries from rural to urban areas. Misconception and abuse of African tradition and culture have been one of the underlying root causes of human trafficking. Cultural practices, such as forcing young girls into ritual servitude, Trokosi (slaves to the Gods), Wahaya (fifth wife), Ukuthwala (kidnapping girls for marriage), payments of dowry, male dominance, female genital cutting, witchcraft, and child marriage, perpetuate the crime of human trafficking. Some women and young girls in Africa, many of whom migrate from rural to urban areas, find themselves compelled by these cultural beliefs to leave their home and family. This crime has been taking place imperceptibly for a long time. More often than not, incidents have been reported, and charges such as statutory rape and kidnapping are filed against the perpetrators, without authorities knowing that they constitute the offense of trafficking. Although most African traditions and cultural practices are positive when they are distorted and abused, they perpetuate serious problems like trafficking.

Child Rights Protection in Ethiopia: Critical Analysis of the Statutory Rape Provisions of the Criminal Code and Their Application

Children, due to their mental and physical immaturity, are among the vulnerable section of the society. States are thus required to provide special protection and care for children by making necessary legal and institutional arrangements. To this effect, Ethiopia has ratified international and regional human rights instruments meant to provide protection for children. It also included provisions protecting child rights in its constitution. These constitutional provisions have also found expression in the subsequent legislative reform that, among others, resulted in the adoption of a New Criminal Code in 2004. This Criminal Code replaces the provisions of the earlier 1957 Penal Code on statutory rape providing better protection for children against sexual abuse. Yet, gaps still persist both in the law and practice in terms of fully realizing the rights of children in Ethiopia. This article aims to examine the legal and practical protection of children by the statutory rape provisions of the Criminal Code in the Ethiopian legal system. In doing so, it attempts to evaluate the current statutory rape provisions of the Criminal Code against child rights standards as well as evaluating the practical application of the laws by courts and prosecutors.

Engaging Parents and Caregivers in the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse

Engaging parents and caregivers in the prevention of child sexual abuse (CSA) is “a type of maltreatment that refers to the involvement of the child in sexual activity to provide sexual gratification or financial benefit to the perpetrator, including contacts for sexual purposes, molestation, statutory rape, prostitution, pornography, exposure, incest, or other sexually exploitative activities”. CSA includes contact and noncontact sexually abusive acts that are both overt and covert in nature.

How to ensure children's credibility of testimony in sexual abuse cases

There were several sexual abuse cases in Taiwan where the defendants having committed child rapes either received light punishment or held not guilty. This led to the White Rose Movement in 2010, whereby the court decisions were criticized ruthlessly by people. Among those problematic court decisions with absurd reasoning, we have suspected that the legislative purpose of statutory rape and that of forcible rape applied to children and adults separately were mistakenly mixed. It resulted in the consent of intercourse becoming a legal constituent requirement taken into consideration in child rape cases. However, a child's consent on sex is invalid in the U.S. laws. Since the child's testimony was thought less creditable by some psychologists, Taiwanese courts have admitted the reports of defendant's polygraph and child victim's hymen tests to be presented in court to ensure the child's credibility. This paper, thus, based on Taiwan's judicial experience, aims to explore the child's credibility of testimony from legal and forensic linguistic aspects and to present an assessing method for reference.

Violence and the Gaze in Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl ( À ma sœur! )

The French director Catherine Breillat has in recent years become a kind of figurehead for what has been perceived by many as a new trend in contemporary European cinema toward extreme representations of violence and graphic sexuality. As a consequence of the controversy provoked by Breillat's portrayal in À ma sœur! (Fat Girl, France, 2001) and her other films of nonnormative, even taboo subjects—the depiction of childhood and adolescent sexuality, of unsimulated sex, and of statutory rape—writings on her work have focused largely on the director's public persona and the polemics surrounding these films rather than on their structure and the radical politics of the gaze they enact. Fat Girl depicts shocking and violent material as a means of critiquing the underlying structural violence that the director believes determines gendered power relations. Breillat's films have been misunderstood, Gelley contends, not primarily because of the transgressive nature of their subject matter but, more importantly, for the negativity and ambivalence of their critique and the way in which they reinvent the conventional cinematic language of heterosexual intimacy. Fat Girl is one instance of a larger trend in cultural production and critical discourse, part of a shift away from a focus on trauma and victimhood in the depiction of violence against women, and a turn to the contestatory and critical powers of cinematic and other visual representations that aim to disrupt and challenge our perception of violent action and “counterviolence.”

Regulación jurídico-penal de los delitos sexuales en Honduras

<p>El artículo hace un estudio de los delitos que protegen el bien jurídico libertad e indemnidad sexual en la legislación hondureña, comenzando con el análisis del contexto social del país en relación con la violencia sexual, para luego analizar la actual legislación constitucional y secundaria que busca erradicar este tipo de violencia. En específico, se analiza a la legislación penal que sanciona la vulneración de los bienes jurídicos en estudio, para identificar si en los tipos penales persisten estereotipos de género que puedan incidir de forma negativa en la protección del derecho de las víctimas a ser tratadas con igualdad.</p><p>Realidad y Reflexión Año 15, N° 42, 2015; 55-88</p>

Renting Apartments to Felons: Variations in Real Estate Agent Decisions due to Stigma

ABSTRACTThe study provides a qualitative analysis of 300 real estate agent responses to telephone calls from researchers posing as convicted felons and inquiring about renting an apartment. Telephone calls were made to real estate agents in New York State and primarily in New York City. Criminal conviction type was manipulated across callers who revealed three types of prior convictions: child molestation, statutory rape, or drug trafficking. Analyses indicate that decisions about renting fall within a continuum of responses, including overt rejection, deferral of rental decision to landlords, ambivalence on the part of the agent, concerns about financial ability to pay rent, and concealing the caller’s offense from the landlord. Reasons for acceptance and rejection of renting an apartment are explored. The stigmatized status of offenders appears to have contributed to the variations in the real estate agents responses.

From Private Simultaneous Messages to Zero-Information Arthur–Merlin Protocols and Back

Goos et al. (ITCS, 2015) have recently introduced the notion of Zero-Information Arthur–Merlin Protocols ( $$\mathsf {ZAM}$$ ). In this model, which can be viewed as a private version of the standard Arthur–Merlin communication complexity game, Alice and Bob are holding a pair of inputs x and y, respectively, and Merlin, the prover, attempts to convince them that some public function f evaluates to 1 on (x, y). In addition to standard completeness and soundness, Goos et al., require a “zero-knowledge” property which asserts that on each yes-input, the distribution of Merlin’s proof leaks no information about the inputs (x, y) to an external observer. In this paper, we relate this new notion to the well-studied model of Private Simultaneous Messages ( $$\mathsf {PSM}$$ ) that was originally suggested by Feige et al. (STOC, 1994). Roughly speaking, we show that the randomness complexity of $$\mathsf {ZAM}$$ corresponds to the communication complexity of $$\mathsf {PSM}$$ and that the communication complexity of $$\mathsf {ZAM}$$ corresponds to the randomness complexity of $$\mathsf {PSM}$$ . This relation works in both directions where different variants of $$\mathsf {PSM}$$ are being used. As a secondary contribution, we reveal new connections between different variants of $$\mathsf {PSM} $$ protocols which we believe to be of independent interest. Our results give rise to better $$\mathsf {ZAM}$$ protocols based on existing $$\mathsf {PSM}$$ protocols, and to better protocols for conditional disclosure of secrets (a variant of $$\mathsf {PSM}$$ ) from existing $$\mathsf {ZAM} $$ s.

Romeo, Juliet, and Statutory Rape.

Statutory rape is an important yet understudied topic. There is broad public support for the prosecution of older adults who engage in sexual relationships with minors regardless of perceptions of consent by either party. However, some scholars worry that expansive definitions within these laws have led to the widespread involvement of the justice system in the lives of similarly aged teenagers engaging in relatively normal sexual behavior, so called "Romeo and Juliet" liaisons. This, in turn, has called into question the legitimacy of national policies, such as sex offender registration, because of the presumption that registries are likely filled with these kinds of cases which may not represent the intent of legislatures and the public. Despite the importance of these debates, there is little research assessing the prevalence of Romeo and Juliet cases in official crime statistics or that analyze differences in characteristics of statutory rape as a function of victim-offender age differences. Drawing on more than 20 years of police data from over 6,000 police departments in the United States, this study found statutory rape cases were rare and Romeo and Juliet cases were even rarer. Multivariate models showed several distinctions between statutory rape cases as a function of the age differences between victim and offender. Of note, the odds that additional forms of sexual aggression occurred in the incident grew as the age difference expanded.

The Impact of Cultural Norms on HIV Transmission in Swaziland

The Impact of Cultural Norms on HIV Transmission in Swaziland

The effect of criminal convictions on real estate agent decisions in New York City

Prior research suggests that a felony conviction limits housing opportunities. This study used an experimental audit design to determine the effect of a felony conviction on real estate agent willingness to accept prospective clients. A male and a female ‘tester’ posing as apartment seekers called real estate agents in New York City to ask for assistance renting an apartment. Conviction type was manipulated such that testers posed as non-offenders (control) or as having a prior conviction for either drug trafficking, statutory rape, or child molestation (experimental groups) to measure the extent to which offense type influenced agent responses. Analyses indicated that a prior conviction was associated with a significant decrease in agent willingness to accept prospective clients, most notably for those with child molestation conviction. Agents were more willing to help prospective clients seeking more expensive apartments, although the time of year nullified the effect of cost. The results suggest that agents may be more concerned with the financial status of prospective clients than their criminal history but market forces override their decisions to accept a client. This study has implications for the ways in which the formerly incarcerated seek housing and how policy can address housing this population.

The Death Knell for the Death Penalty and the Significance of Global Realism to its Abolition from Glossip V. Gross to Brumfield V. Cain

The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence regarding the death penalty, whether or not cruel, has most certainly been unusual in the annals of criminal punishment. In the short span of four years, the Court foreclosed and then reopened this form of punishment in Furman v. Georgia and Gregg v. Georgia. One year later the Court would categorically exclude the punishment for the rape of an adult. Five years later the Court would again preclude the punishment, for any defendant convicted of felony-murder who did not participate or share in the homicidal act or intent. In 1986 the Court would struggle with the Orwellian issue of whether and how a person must be competent to be executed in Ford v. Wainwright. In 1989, in two cases decided on the same day, the Court refused to find that the “mentally retarded” or juveniles were categorically exempt from the death penalty, in opinions that both embodied the “national consensus” test for death penalty restrictions and questioned its exclusivity as the determinate measure of cruel and unusual punishment. In the decade that followed, the ground began to shift under the Court’s jurisprudence in a number of ways. Coalitions opposed to the death penalty in specific instances and in general expanded to encompass international human rights advocates dedicated as amicus curiae or pro bono counsel to highlight the United States’ growing isolation in its official acceptance of the punishment. In 2002, the landmark case of Atkins v. Virginia would invigorate categorical exclusions from the death penalty, recognizing that the “mentally retarded” could not be subject to the harshest form of punishment. Roper v. Simmons would add juvenile offenders to the categorical exclusions. In 2008, rape of a child where the crime did not result, and was not intended to result, in the victim’s death, was added as an offense which did not qualify for the death penalty. In a span of four years, the Court would expand protection of juvenile offenders from life without parole, first for non-homicidal offenses, then for any offense. In addition, the Court found itself mired after Furman in what one commentator has described as “an unparalleled level of constitutional micromanagement” as to how the death penalty can be imposed procedurally and when it can be imposed based on the nature of the offense and the status of the offender. For the October 2015 term, the Court granted certiorari in a consolidated trio of cases and an additional case raising such procedural issues. The Montgomery v. Louisiana decision on January 25, 2016 applied the prohibition on life without parole for juvenile offenders retroactively, releasing prisoners who had spent their entire “adult” lives behind bars.Against this backdrop, the Court’s 2015 decision in Glossip v. Gross is a notable victory, as it were, for the death penalty. In the almost inevitable 5-4 split, the Court refused to find that the specific method of execution, a three-drug protocol begun with midazolam, constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The decision is at best a Pyrrhic victory for the death penalty, however, given the specificity of the method in question. More importantly, the majority opinion was largely eclipsed by Justice Breyer’s dissent, joined by Justice Ginsburg, which called for total abolition of the death penalty. This article also seeks to demonstrate that the opinion exemplifies the need for what might be termed “global realism” in recognizing that consideration of international legal norms and political realities is unavoidable in the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence. The method of execution itself was the unavoidable result of a refusal of drug suppliers outside the U.S. to continue supplying drugs for execution purposes, and Justice Breyer’s dissent brought to the forefront once again the isolation of the United States’ acceptance of the death penalty. Glossip v. Gross, thus, may be the beginning of the end of the death penalty due to a confluence of a shift in constitutional legal analysis from the “national consensus” analysis to proportionality and penological purposes served, empirical evidence that there is no national consensus in favor of the death penalty, a renewed recognition of the unreliability of decision-making whatever procedural prerequisites the Court imposes, and an overdue, forthright recognition of the significance of international norms and practices in determining “evolving standards of decency” under the Eighth Amendment. This recognition is explicit in Justice Breyer’s dissent, but also fundamental to evaluating what Justice Kennedy’s position might be on abolishing the death penalty, notwithstanding his joining the five justices in Glossip v. Gross.

The Extensive and Intensive Impacts of Criminal Law on the Incidence of Crime: Evidence from Expansions in the Scope and Severity of Statutory Rape Laws

Policymakers have often been explicit in expanding statutory rape laws to reduce teenage pregnancies and live births by teenage mothers, often with the goal of reducing associated welfare outlays. In this paper, we explore whether expansions in such laws are indeed associated with reductions in teen birth rates. In order to codify statutory-rape-law expansions, we use a national micro-level sample of sexual encounters to simulate the degree to which such encounters generally implicate the relevant laws. By codifying statutory-rape laws in terms of their potential reach into sexual encounters, as opposed to using crude binary treatment variables, this simulation approach facilitates the use of multi-state difference-in-difference designs in the face of highly heterogeneous legal structures. Our results suggest that live birth rates for teenage mothers fall by roughly 4.5 percent (or 0.1 percentage points) upon a 1 standard-deviation increase in the share of sexual activity among a given age group that triggers a felony for the elder party to the encounter. This response, however, is highly heterogeneous across ages and weakens notably in the case of the older teen years. Furthermore, we do not find strong results suggesting a further decline in birth rates upon increases in punishment severities.

A sociosemiotic approach to the legal dispute over the crime of whoring with an underage girl in China

AbstractFocusing on the legal dispute over the crime of whoring with an underage girl, the present study explores why many Chinese appeal to abolish the legal statute on the crime of whoring with an underage girl from a sociosemiotic perspective. The authors argue that the legislation of this legal statute neglects that the Chinese social system, including social customs and conventions, could also influence Chinese social semiotic systems. This legal dispute originates from the lack of an overview of the Chinese social, legal, and semiotic systems. By situating the dispute in the Chinese historical and cultural settings, the authors reveal why it is unreasonable to promulgate this legal statute. By situating the dispute in the Chinese and world legal settings, the authors further reveal the causal factors of this dispute: (1) labeling underage schoolgirls as prostitutes; (2) classifying statutory rape as crimes in prostitution; (3) the potential legal contradiction between the crime of rape and the crime of whoring with underage girl; (4) aiming to punish the perpetrator more severely and safeguard the underage girl more effectively, but giving rise to more similar crimes and doing more psychological harm to the underage girl by using language violence in reality. Therefore, the authors suggest that it be necessary to amend or modify, and to systematize some relevant legal provisions on sex offences against minors timely according to the social, linguistic, and legal realities.

State Misdemeanant, Federal Felon: Adolescent Sexual Offenders and the INA

At the age of eighteen, Alberto Velasco-Giron had sex with his fifteen-year old girlfriend. As a result, he was deported.To understand how this could happen, we have to back up a bit. In 1988, Congress amended the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) to state that any alien who commits an “aggravated felony” is subject to deportation. Since that time, Congress has continuously supplemented the definition of aggravated felony to include more and more crimes, the result being that noncitizens were subject to deportation for an ever-growing list of offenses. In 1996, the definition was revised yet again to include “sexual abuse of a minor.” And, on first blush, most would agree that an alien who sexually abuses a child should be removable from the United States.The problem, however, is that the term Congress chose to use was “sexual abuse of a minor,” not “sexual offense involving a minor.” As a result, some state convictions might involve both sex and minors, but may not necessarily be abusive. Statutory rape provides a prime example of this class of convictions. Today, statutory rape law is quite different than it was when first introduced. No longer is the crime gender-specific and no longer does the crime equally penalize all sexual activities with children under the age of consent. Instead, most states have enacted Romeo and Juliet exceptions, exempting consensual sexual contact between adolescents close in age from the harsher penalties that flow from other forms of child rape. In most instances, activities falling under such an exception qualify as either a misdemeanor or no crime whatsoever — the justification being that these crimes typically are not abusive in nature. Indeed, going back to Velasco-Giron’s case, although he was convicted of statutory rape, his crime was labeled a misdemeanor and his only punishment was unsupervised probation.Unfortunately, it would take the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) almost twenty years to recognize that statutory rape is not inherently “abusive.” As a result, during that time, immigration law largely required that individuals like Velasco-Giron be deported, equating their statutory rape convictions with “sexual abuse of a minor” and, thus, an aggravated felony under the INA. In 2015, however, the BIA reconsidered its earlier position and held that some “meaningful age differential” is required before a statutory rape conviction will categorically qualify as an aggravated felony.In the attached article, State Misdemeanant, Federal Felon: Adolescent Sexual Offenders and the INA, I argue that the BIA’s most recent interpretation, although a move in a right direction, is — just like its earlier interpretation — unreasonable and, thus, not subject to deference by the federal courts. Instead, the only reasonable interpretation of the term “sexual abuse of a minor” is one that is in accord with existing federal statutes defining the actual crime of “sexual abuse of a minor” — an approach that would exempt far more misdemeanor statutory rape convictions than the BIA’s “meaningful age differential” standard currently would allow. Such a conclusion comports not only with Chevron, but with principles of statutory construction and also the rule of lenity.Although some scholars have commented generally on the treatment of statutory rape convictions under the INA, this is the first article to analyze the aggravated felony provision through the lens of statutory rape law in the United States, focusing on the history and the development of that law as a means of better illustrating the mismatch between the BIA’s interpretation and the current understanding of statutory rape. This is also the first article to explore the impact of the BIA’s 2015 ruling, which attempted to modify and soften its earlier rulings — rulings the circuit courts had used to classify almost all statutory rape convictions, even those classified as misdemeanors, as aggravated felonies under the INA. Finally, this article is likewise the first to propose a comprehensive solution to the dilemma posed by having to discern which statutory rape convictions satisfy the requirement of “abuse” under the INA and which do not.