---
kind: "section"
citation: "34 U.S.C. § 12392"
title: "34"
title_heading: "Crime Control and Law Enforcement"
number: "12392"
heading: "Enforcement of statutory rape laws"
release: "119-102"
date: "2026-07-12"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/34/12392"
units:
  - "Subtitle I — Comprehensive Acts"
  - "Chapter 121 — Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement"
  - "Subchapter III — Violence Against Women"
  - "Part E — Violence Against Women Act Improvements"
---

# §12392. Enforcement of statutory rape laws

- (a) **Sense of Senate—** It is the sense of the Senate that [States](/usc/34/11103.md?p=7) and local jurisdictions should aggressively enforce statutory rape laws.
- (b) **Justice Department program on statutory rape—** Not later than January 1, 1997, the [Attorney General](/usc/34/10307.md?p=1) shall establish and implement a program that—
  - (1) studies the linkage between statutory rape and teenage pregnancy, particularly by predatory older men committing repeat offenses; and
  - (2) educates [State](/usc/34/11103.md?p=7) and local criminal [law enforcement](/usc/34/12291.md?p=a-23) officials on the prevention and [prosecution](/usc/34/12291.md?p=a-28) of statutory rape, focusing in particular on the commission of statutory rape by predatory older men committing repeat offenses, and any links to teenage pregnancy.
- (c) **Violence against women initiative—** The [Attorney General](/usc/34/10307.md?p=1) shall ensure that the Department of Justice’s Violence Against Women initiative addresses the issue of statutory rape, particularly the commission of statutory rape by predatory older men committing repeat offenses.

## Source credit

(Pub. L. 104–193, title IX, § 906, Aug. 22, 1996, 110 Stat. 2349.)

## Notes

### Editorial Notes

### Codification

Section was formerly classified to section 14016 of Title 42, The Public Health and Welfare, prior to editorial reclassification and renumbering as this section.

Section was enacted as part of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, and not as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 which enacted this chapter.