Of course, the consequences of criminal behavior can be grave no matter what the accusation is, but they are most grave, perhaps, in this area, possible exception of murder. Some people would – who are falsely accused have told me they would rather be accused of murder than be accused of this. It is a heinous offense that has elicited a visceral reaction by people who hear it from time immemorial, and so the consequences are, first and foremost, that you will maybe, and in all likelihood, will be incarcerated for a very long time.

The first-degree charge calls for a 150-month prison sentence for somebody with a clean record, and of course, there are ways that that can be aggravated to a much longer sentence. But it is not – you know, going down all the way to the lower offenses, it would not be uncommon for somebody to be able to get a probationary sentence for the gross misdemeanor, and sometimes even a probationary sentence for one of the lower felonies, but there are still grave consequences over and above incarceration. The person who gets charged and eventually convicted of a criminal sexual conduct crime is automatically a registered sex offender, virtually for the rest of their life, and that carries a stigma that is pretty easy to understand.

In addition to that, most of – you might get probation for one of the lower-level offenses, but only if you enter sex offender treatment, which is an onerous program. This is not a 28-day stay in a chemical dependency treatment center. Sex offender treatment generally takes months, and sometimes, years, and it’s a very unpleasant place to be if you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s a good place to be if you have a problem, and so the consequences are incarceration, registration – sex offender registration – and sex offender treatment, not to mention the consequences that come attendant with sex offender registration. Certain forms of sex offender registration means that you cannot live in certain areas, and when the person gets out of prison, you may have to sell the house and buy a house that’s not near a school before son, brother, husband can come home. So there are lots of severe consequences in this area.