Abstract
A central theme of the Maine Criminal Code is to "distinguish behavior that is merely socially undesirable from that which is sufficiently threatening to require the specialized effort of the criminal law to prevent it." Nowhere in the Code is this distinction more apparent than in the area of sex offenses, which encompasses a wide spectrum of degrees of social harm. At one end of this spectrum are acts which clearly involve dangerous behavior, such as non-consensual sexual acts and acts of sexual imposition on minors and incompetents. At the other end of the spectrum are sexual acts done in private between consenting competent adults. In between these two extremes are acts defined as public indecency and prostitution. The sex offenses sections of the new Code reflect the Maine Criminal Law Revision Commission's efforts to prevent an overbroad extension of the criminal law in this area and to limit criminal sanctions to those areas where such sanctions are widely and strongly supported by the community and where uniform enforcement is widely expected and encouraged. The sex offenses sections also reflect some generally accepted goals of codification, including simplification and organization of the laws, articulating rules unexpressed by statute and incompletely developed by the judiciary, eliminating vague, archaic, and ambiguous language, and effecting proportionality between the gravity of the harm and the penalty imposed.
First Page
65
Recommended Citation
Judy R. Potter,
Sex Offenses,
28
Me. L. Rev.
65
(1976).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/mlr/vol28/iss3/7