It's horrendous. I remember Maggie talking about one case where (and I might get the exact details wrong) there was a 14 year old girl who had become pregnant to one of her abusers. You'd think that would be a pretty open and shut case for rape, but they charged him with a lesser crime because it would be easier to get a conviction (I don't know how much easier it can get), and he ended up with a pretty mediocre sentence as a result. Apparently it's pretty common in these cases to not go for a rape conviction because it's easier to get them on some other charges, and that's when you end up with those outrage-inducing sentences of a few years for someone who basically ran a child trafficking ring.