As regular readers of my journal will note, I do tend to visit the recurring theme of "unintended consequences." In a recent post, I noted the irony of how well-intentioned rules can, in many systems, occasionally thwart the very people that the system is theoretically supposed to help.

We have yet another example today from the headlines, this time involving criminal justice.

I have noticed that when it comes to the cases reported in the national media, statutory rape committed by male teachers (in secondary school) against female students tend to result in the male teacher being prosecuted vigorously, found guilty, and thrown in jail for a very long time. This is as it should be.

I have also noticed that when it comes to the cases reported in the national media, statutory rape committed by female teachers (in secondary school) against their male students tend to result in the female teacher being slapped on the wrist and told not to do it again.

These are trends in what I've observed and, the national media being what it is and my time & attention being otherwise directed, I don't really know whether these reports represent the majority of cases where teachers get caught flagrante delicto with one or more of their students.

Each case is special, and the reasons given by the respective sentencing judges vary, but the trends reported in the mainstream press seem rather clear. Male teacher? Monster who must be punished. Female teacher? Well, typically, we find that the woman is misguided, confused, disturbed, a victim, or has some other extenuating circumstance that mitigates her offense. Convicted? Typically, yes. Punished? Well, maybe not so much.

In the case of Debra Lafave, as reported by the Associate Press and elsewhere, the judge rejected a plea deal because he was horrified that the plea deal did not include jail time. Go, judge! But without the plea deal, the case would have to go to court, and the 14-year-old student victim did not want to testify. A psychiatrist told the court that the child suffered from anxiety as a result of the media attention. The state attorney's office dropped the charges, saying that it was unwilling to jeopardize the well-being of the victim in order to prosecute the case.

It is certainly understandable that a prosecuting attorney would not want to further harm a victim in such a sensitive case. But, was the best plea deal he could come up with one with zero jail time? I'm guessing so, since prosecution in another county led to a plea deal for the same defendant that also included zero jail time. Three years of house arrest was pretty much it. Inconvenient, sure, but it's hard to imagine a similarly light sentence for a man convicted under otherwise similar circumstances.

The media reports that the accused is being treated for bi-polar disorder. Are such mitigating circumstances reasonable to entertain if the perpetrator is a man? Oh, and by the way, this young woman is almost as photogenic as Mary Kay Latourneau, and I think that's a point worth noting. (Seattle media *love* to show the former Mrs. Latourneau's pics whenever they can. She's just *scrumptious*.)

Is there a double standard when it comes to statutory rape cases perpetrated by men as opposed to those perpetrated by women? A quick search through recent news articles reveals:

• Nicole Long in Ayersville, OH (who is referred to as "Melissa Long" in some news reports), was convicted of having sex with a student. She could have been given five years in prison, but instead, she learned in court this past Monday that she was sentenced to 90 days.

• Alas, Toni Woods, who is not so photogenic, pleaded guilty to several counts rather than pursuing a deal. She's going to jail for a minimum of four years and could possibly remain there for a full twenty.

• Last week in Philadelphia, Sara Singley served two days of her supposedly 30-day minimum sentence for her conviction of having sex with an underage student. [Note: the linked story indicates that the student is male, but other stories reference a female victim. See comments for additional discussion.] She was to serve the rest of her sentence under house arrest, because she'd had no prior record.

• ABCNEWS.com reports that Dang Van Dinh of Lafave's home state, Florida, was sentenced earlier this month to five years in prison for having sex with one of his underage female students.

• Last week, Stephen Sherman didn't get quite as good a plea deal offer as the above-mentioned Lafave. In exchange for pleading guilty, the prosecuting attorney in Brown County, WI, will recommend to the judge a mere 15-year prison term. Oh, and the judge isn't bound by this plea deal! He can sentence Mr. Sherman to up to 91 years in prison, if he so chooses. Stephen Sherman is 29 years old, by the way. Debra Lafave is 25, which pretty much makes them age-peers. Like Lafave, Sherman is being charged in two counties (and the other county hasn't weighed in yet for Sherman). Unlike Lafave, Sherman's life is pretty much done.

• In Nashville, local media look at how bail is set in such a way as to indicate a possible gender bias. (In the two cases that were compared, the man's trial has yet to conclude, so the cases can't be compared by their ultimate outcome just yet. That said, the woman's bail was set very low -- she pleaded guilty, but then was released after the first year of her eight year sentence -- while the man's bail was set substantially higher, even though he had fewer counts brought against him.)

• Here's an interesting one from Washington State. Robert Swalstad married his then 15-year-old student after getting her pregnant. The family of the child bride initially did not cooperate with prosecuters, but prosecutors did not give up the case (unlike what just happened in Florida). They eventually did convict him, and he was sentenced to six months in jail. The community petitioned to have him given a harsher punishment. (Since the charges were dropped in the Lafave case, I don't know what form community outcry could take, if there will even be any.) Teacher and bride have relocated their residence out of state, although Swalstad *is* currently sitting in jail.

I couldn't easily find many recent convictions of male teachers having sex with their students. Then again, what *is* the ratio of men to women in the teaching community? (You'd think that as a former teacher myself, I'd know; but my experience was both brief and very local to one specific school.) This ratio would have to be taken into account in any serious study of conviction rates and sentencing of sex offenders by gender.

Are the Lafave and Sherman cases truly comparable? I don't know. The victim won't testify against Lafave, but the victim in Sherman's case plus another, previous victim *were* willing to testify. The prosecutor had little else to go on in Lafave's case; Sherman, on the other hand, was dumb enough to videotape his crimes. The victims were the same age in both cases (14 years old), but then again: Lafave preyed on a boy, while Sherman preyed on two girls -- and there may be just as much of a bias about the gender of the victim as the gender of the perp. Lafave had a well-groomed legal team to defend her; Sherman can't even post $20,000 bail.

And what if, when all of the evidence is collected and compared, it turns that there *is* a gender bias when it comes to teachers having sex with their students? Is that appropriate? Apologists for unequal treatment will point out that female victims could get pregnant, while male victims are exposed to fewer life-altering risks. That women like Latourneau and Lafave are just confused or unbalanced women misguidedly looking for love (Latourneau was married when she committed her crime, by the way), while men like Sherman and Van Dinh are depraved perverts defiling the innocent flowers under their care. That women and men should be treated differently under the law because women and men are different by nature.

I strongly suspect there is a double standard, that the double standard is not entirely fair or reasonable, but that the double standard is also not entirely unjustified.

There was a judge in Florida who rejected such a notion. He said, in fact, that he was appalled by the notion that a woman should be able to plead guilty and yet serve zero time for such a serious crime. That a grown-up teacher having sex with a child under their care is a crime, regardless of the teacher's or the victim's gender.

Thus the law of unintended consequences was called into play once more.