The Supreme Court decided to hear arguments on Gundy v. United States on Monday, March 5 — a case brought by a sex offender from Maryland.

Gundy protests the implementation of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act. Enacted in 2006, SORNA’s recent passage yields some difficulties for the government to enforce for all sex offenders convicted before the act was passed and the registry was set up. The wordiness in the Act delegates the Attorney General to decide if and how a sex offender convicted before 2006 should register himself or herself with the government. Gundy claims that this portion of the Act is unconstitutional and alleges that the decision should be legislated.

This case is not exactly a boon for the #MeToo movement. While Gundy is not objecting to the registration portion of SORNA, he is jeopardizing a system that protects millions of sexual assault victims and the general public.

Unfortunately, in this case, Gundy has a point. His due process rights, as a sex offender convicted before 2006, are being infringed upon because of one bad portion of an otherwise crucial piece of legislation. SORNA, while necessary, has a few weak spots. But it is just one of innumerable badly written pieces of legislation regarding sex crimes.

Take the Illinois criminal code of 2012, for example. While sexual assault is defined fairly clearly, sexual abuse is not. One type of sexual abuse is an act of sexual conduct committed by the use of threat or without consent. But “sexual conduct,” as described by the criminal code, can range from touching someone through clothing to sexual penetration. Such a broad range of crimes all fall under the same charge and thus receive the same sentence: They are all considered Class 4 felonies.

While it might seem that this definition is simply ensuring that sexual predators are punished to the fullest extent of the law, it actually can have an adverse impact on sexual assault cases. Since the definition of sexual conduct takes an all-or-nothing approach to sentencing sex crimes, a severe sentence may lead a judge not to sentence a sex offender at all. This kind of hypothetical is a reality all over the country because of vague statutes like the one above. Lumping a huge range of crimes into one charge results in fewer convictions of sex offenders, which endangers the public at large.

Take the famous Stanford sexual assault case. Brock Turner, a student athlete, was convicted of three charges of felony sexual assault. But he was only given a 6-month prison sentence. When pressed, Judge Aaron Persky expressed concern for Turner’s reputation and future should he be given a longer sentence.

Obviously, the perpetrator of such a horrendous crime should not be pitied so. Judge Persky decided on the lighter sentence because he thought that a more extreme one would be uncalled for. He was wrong. But his inclination to doubt the severity of sexual crimes is shared throughout the criminal justice system.

This inclination for leniency is proven by numbers. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, only 1.1 percent of all rapes in the U.S. are referred to prosecutors. Only 0.7 percent lead to a felony conviction, and only 0.6 percent of rapists are incarcerated. These numbers are staggeringly low but speak volumes about how we legislate sexual crimes.

Illinois is not alone in its vague sex crime laws. In fact, this kind of ambiguity is quite common across the country when it comes to sexual assault and sexual abuse charges. It is the status quo, and the numbers say that the status quo isn’t working. What is needed is a more nuanced legislation of these charges — a spectrum of sex crimes with specific, detailed explanations and sentences that are strictly enforced.

Kyra is a freshman in LAS.

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