Senate committee discusses bill that would clarify state's definition of rape

INDIANAPOLIS—The Indiana Senate Corrections and Criminal Law Committee Tuesday approved a House bill regarding the “elements of rape.” The bill provides clarification of what the lack of consent is.

House Bill 1079, authored by Rep. Sharon Negele, R-Attica, talks about where and how to define consent. This bill provides that a person commits rape if the other person engaging in sexual activity with them has “expressed a lack of consent, through words or conduct, to sexual intercourse or other sexual conduct.” It also makes it so that a person commits rape if they pretend to be a different person and engage in sexual intercourse with someone.

“Indiana currently does not have a law defining consent,” according to the advocacy group Women4Change. “This means that sex without consent is not a crime in Indiana unless there is a proven use of physical force, threat of force, or incapacitation.”

According to RAINN, Americans are affected by sexual violence everyday: “Every 68 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted. And every nine minutes, that victim is a child. Meanwhile, only 25 out of every 1,000 perpetrators will end up in prison."

Read more: https://www.thestatehousefile.com/politics/senate-committee-discusses-bill-that-would-clarify-states-definition-of-rape/article_030b5344-8eb5-11ec-991b-ab885dd95ad3.html