What Counts as Criminally Lewd Behavior?

By Daniel Taylor, Esq.

You may have heard the term “lewd behavior” in connection with someone being arrested for doing something somewhat less than decent.

But you may not know what criminally lewd behavior actually is. Lewd is typically defined as involving or being sexual conduct that is considered indecent or offensive. But at what point does someone’s sexually indecent or offensive conduct run afoul of state or federal laws?

What actually counts as criminally lewd behavior?

Indecent Exposure

The classic criminally lewd conduct is exposing one’s genitals in public. Most states have laws that make this sort of lewd conduct a crime, such as New York’s public lewdness statute that makes it a crime when a person “intentionally exposes the private or intimate parts of his body in a lewd manner or commits any other lewd act in a public place or in private premises under circumstances in which he may readily be observed from either a public place or from other private premises, and with intent that he be so observed.”

Peeping Tom

Another well-known …read more

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