Carolyn Cocca notes at the outset of her book that she is interested not only in the nuts and bolts of morality policy but also in how the narratives about those policies circulate and justify, in this case, the regulation of sexuality. The book breaks ground in its sustained attention to an issue that has been insufficiently addressed by political scientists.

Cocca is interested in morality politics and the political battles and strategies with respect to statutory rape laws at the state level during the last 30 years, but she begins with a brief history of statutory rape laws in the United States. After a cursory review of the period prior to the twentieth century, she turns her attention to the two “waves” of feminist advocacy for reform: the effort early in the twentieth century to raise the age of consent, and the late-twentieth-century efforts to add age-span provisions and gender-neutral language. The first wave was fairly successful (though not without controversy), and most states raised the age of consent from the previous range of 10 to 12 years to 16 to 18 years. The second wave is the period that Cocca studies in more detail in the rest of the book.

As the author's introductory discussion notes, feminist reformers were not of one mind regarding the goals for reform of statutory rape laws. Some were concerned that consensual relationships between teens close in age were being needlessly punished. Others were more concerned with making the laws gender neutral and ensuring that provisions such as “promiscuity” exemptions were eliminated. As her empirical work shows, it was not only feminists who influenced the reform of statutory rape laws. Conservative groups and lawmakers, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, became a significant influence on the reform of statutory rape laws.

The three empirical chapters look at three specific policy changes. In Chapter 2, Cocca addresses the addition of age-span provisions that, as she puts it, “decriminalize teen sex.” By 1999, 43 states had added such provisions. In Chapter 3, she examines the effort to make statutory rape laws gender neutral, which all 50 states had adopted by the year 2000. It is interesting to note that these changes were often driven by notorious cases of older women engaged in sexual relationships with teenage boys. The fourth chapter looks at the effort to increase statutory rape prosecutions in the 1990s, driven by concerns over teen pregnancy and its supposed role in “welfare dependency.” Using data and feminist analysis, Cocca makes clear that the set of logical, behavioral, and policy connections required to make the leap from statutory rape law to welfare policy is tendentious at best, but this did not deter 10 states from implementing such policies.

Cocca examined legislative histories in all 50 states, as well as state and federal court decisions regarding statutory rape. She also selected three states for case studies of each empirical policy arena: Georgia, California, and New Jersey. She is careful to outline and to justify her quantitative methodologies, and the book thus has the kind of appeal needed to lend legitimacy to its findings with political scientists unconcerned with gender. However, the author also seeks to address an arena of policy of particular interest to feminists and those who study gender politics. She acknowledges the conflicts among feminist groups over whether, how, and when to advocate for changes in statutory rape law. But she is not always as clear as she might be about what factors lead to particular feminist organizations becoming involved, or not, in this policy question. The book also raises more questions than it answers about the relationship between feminist concerns and morality policies.

Nor is the empirical work as careful as it might be. Cocca takes great care to indicate her methods for the empirical work and her method of selecting the three case-study states. However, case studies require methodological attention as well, and nowhere does the author describe her approach. From the sources cited, it seems that the approach varied: Bill files are cited for some legislation but not all, and the interviews are not listed anywhere, although they are occasionally cited. For media reports, which are important to the analysis, her New Jersey case study relies on articles that appeared in the New York Times, but not on any New Jersey–based news sources. I have now lived in New Jersey long enough to know that the Times, while it is the newspaper of record, certainly does not pay attention to New Jersey politics as keenly as do New Jersey news sources.

Despite these shortcomings, the author has provided a useful initial study of this policy area. That there are more questions to be addressed is an indication that political scientists, especially those concerned about gender, should expand their attention to morality policy, including the politics of statutory rape.