The deregulation march you're talking about is neoliberalism, and it hasn't just affected USA. And in a sense neoliberalism is capitalism's response to regulation.
It's not that regulation doesn't work per se, it's that the (political) hierarchy through which it functions is susceptible to being taken advantage of, and inevitably it will be (*has been) taken advantage of by the capitalist class to protect their economic hierarchy.
For democracy to truly represent the people it'd need to be federated from the ground up through free association. Large scale organisation and cooperation would be ephemeral, existing when/if the need arises and dissolving as soon as projects are concluded (or cancelled). But within the rigidity of the current system(s), where power is consolidated at the 'top' through processes we're lead to believe are necessary for 'order' (when their real purpose is of course control), horizontal forms of social organisation seem impossible (I like how Anark calls this - "hierarchical realism").
Is noone else gonna point out the absurdity that if the guy had been 1 year older, legally speaking there would've been nothing wrong?
The problem here is the grooming (which I think it's worth noting that adults can be victims of as well), the abuse of power dynamics, and particularly in this case the exploitation of another's inexperience for personal gratification.
But the article instead focuses on how the kid was "affected" by the teacher's "criminal actions", but then essentially just describes the kinds of consequences caused by the social stigma of student-teacher relationships. But this also happens in university, where it also carries negative social consequences, but not legal ones.
My point is simply that the legal system is a flimsy caricature of morality/ethics, and in articles like these it really shows.