traditions and customs of the normal and on that judgment are sent to
prison.

Many sex crimes are charged to children in the adolescent age; children
who have no knowledge of sex and its development and are helpless in the
strength of their newly-discovered feelings. This class of offenders is
almost always the inferior and the poor who are moved by strong
instincts which they have not the natural feeling, the strength, the
education, nor the desire to withstand.

While most crimes against persons are not directly due to economic
causes, still the indirect effect of property is generally present in
these crimes as well as others. The fact that the poor and defective are
generally the subjects of prosecution and conviction in these offences
shows how closely economic conditions are related to all crimes.

Other criminal statutes are of more modern date, and as a rule involve
not much more than adultery, except in regard to the age of the girl
offender, which is generally placed below eighteen. Still the sex age of
neither boys nor girls can be fixed by a calendar. It depends really
upon development, which is not the same with all people or in all
environments. Many girls of sixteen are more mature and have more
experience of life than others of twenty. Most laws provide that below
sixteen one cannot give consent and that a sexual act is then rape. It
is doubtful if there should be any intermediate age between sixteen and
eighteen, where an act is not rape but still a minor offence.