Party Vibe

in the UK it may result in a juvenile Caution + ending up on sex offenders register; and has been the case for about 10 years; although I think it requires one of the parents to press charges and in the case of a consenting relationship even the cops try to discourage this as the other family can of course make a counter allegation.

I think similar legislation exists in other EU countries. DK may have exemptions in case of consent and maybe the two teenagers being of similar age but there is then the risk of abusers slipping through the net (if you read the reports on court cases of old offenders being pulled up many committed their first offences as teens).

Unfortunately this rise in teenagers on the offenders list leads to the further moral panics as they get older (especially when they apply for University as many unis now need CRB/DBS chekcks); worse still there are also incidents of Cautions being given for bad offences involving violence (including sexual violence) which really should go to Court. This means that employers can now be equally judgmental about folk with cautions as those who have been to Court and cautions may be being abolished so as not to seem too soft.

It is very difficult to get verifiable info as all juvenile cases in the UK are under reporting restrictions; but from what I’ve heard amongst those who may have kids at high school as well as more trustworthy news reports with off the record comments by teachers etc (and also knowing a few teachers) cops in UK try their hardest to stop sometihing relatively minor going too far. To be fair the Eastern constabularies picked up on the risks of grooming and online sexualisation as soon as broadband became widely available (having a big British Telecom monitoring centre in the region helps).

There are still a lot of teenagers on the register; unfortunately the bulk of them have committed unpleasant offences against each other. As an example of how bad it is the middle class Latitude festival caused at least 3 rape allegations; of which one may be still outstanding.

Most high school kids in my region wait until they are 18 or are smart enough not to bother with this stuff at all (even young adults can find it leads to problems if a relationship goes wrong)

I get the impression US simply does not beleive in privacy for anyone of any age especially if it gets in the way of business – I’ve read about some supposedly legitimate marketing campaigns by startups using young adults personal info and thought “Christ on a bike, you would get arrested for doing that anywhere in Europe”.

The UK has just about the right level of protection for juveniles (including not publishing full names unless its a really serious crime). Reporting of adult court cases is less good as home addreses are published, I know of defendants in (non sexual) cases who have had their houses targeted for criminal damage and burglary folllowing news reports.

The rest of the EU has slightly more protection but does not use it to “bury bad news” when the cases are serious enough (such as the rise in domestic and interpersonal violence amongst Dutch teenagers in the last few years).