Adolescence, Sexual Aggression and the Criminal Law

SUMMARY Criminal law and criminal policy history is perceived as an evolution of legitimation: from a morality paradigm before the Seventies of last century to a utilitarian concept of interdisciplinary enlightenment and rationality, and on to a factual paradigm of risk containment, security orientation and mere exclusion since the Nineties. However, in the area of sexual crime, and especially as far as “the protection of minors” is concerned, Western law appears to have undergone an additional paradigm change, namely in reverting to moralistic principles in disregard of scientific insight. This process, for which victimology appears to be the door opener, is reflected in legal doctrine and criminal policy, in law enforcement, in populistic media and politics. This evolutionary process is interpreted as symptomatic for a post-modern trend in the globalised society where sexual behavior on one hand is blatantly and abusively commercialised, and on the other hand, if deviant, represents the psychologically most expedient object of scapegoating and symbolic policy. The article finishes pleading for a return to the ‘project of modernity’ and to interdisciplinary studies rather than morality as a foundation for criminal policy.