If the law is as this article says it is, then I don’t think it will stand up to a “cruel and unusual” constitutional challenge.
Right, and since “all men are potential rapists”… :eek:
Ugh. This makes me, literally, queasy. I might, in the heat of anger, blurt out a wish that a rapist loose his genitalia, but in the cold light of legislative process, it’s a horrid, Biblical idea.
We all know what happened here. Louisiana wanted to put child rapists to death, but the Supremes (Justice Kennedy) said that they couldn’t do it. Now they want to try this. Louisiana is wanting to go old school on child rapists and is making a statement that jail just isn’t enough. Good for them…
Great incentive, this is, for the rapist to murder his victim so as to remove a witness against him.
Lotta recreational outrage going on here…
Anybody got any evidence that castration reduces the rate of sex offenses?
I’ve not found compelling evidence to say it does so far.
Chemical castration can be effective in reducing the sex drive and reducing unacceptable behavior for select individuals who are motivated to change their behavior. It’s not been shown to be real effective in changing behavior in other folks.
Physical castration has the same lack of evidence, and really can’t be counted on to change sex drive anyway, since the adrenal glands generally produce enough testosterone to enable the individual to have erections, even without testes. They won’t impregnate their victims, but all other bets are off.
And testosterone is available thru legitimate and illegitimate sources also.
I’m pragmatic. Show me that this castration can actually reduce sex crimes and recidivism while sparing the innocent, and I’ll consider it. Not consider doing the procedure, you understand. Just not objecting to it.
Oh, and good luck finding a doc who is willing to do these medical procedures on someone without their informed consent. That’ll be grounds for license revocation in most, if not all, states.
Peachy. Take a psychopathic personality with totally sick issues about power, sex and dominance. Offend the very symbol, fight the pathological rage same way you fight a fire with kerosene. Having accomplished this, at some point you turn him loose with $50 and a cheap suit and tell him to behave.
Oh, this will work. Uh huh. I’m just about totally opposed to capital punishment, but if you do this, you may as well kill him, rather than turn him into a meat timebomb.
This is not the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. On the other hand, I’m kinda old.
But you can’t kill him per Justice Kennedy, so Lousiana has to come up with a more creative option.
And, you don’t need a doctor for this. A CO forcing pills down his throat works just fine…
Because if a person rapes someone they should be severally punished. I would prefer he be made a eunuch, but this is better than nothing.
I am asking here because I really do not know but I recall reading somewhere that rape is not a sexual crime but a violent crime.
Yes, they are sexually assaulting someone but it is not about them getting their rocks off. It is about abusing the woman.
If so would reducing sex drive matter one whit to a rapist?
I’m pragmatic, too, but not that pragmatic. We have no division of Pre-Crime here. We don’t, as some have already pointed out, chop off hands so thieves can’t steal.* Even if someone has broken the law once (or twice), we have a system of “serving your time” and then, with some amount of supervision, you’re free to follow or break the law again. Anything else is punishing people for potential future crimes, not ones they’ve already committed.
If a rapist, or even just a person who fears they *might *rape, *requests *chemical or physical castration, I have no problem with that. But I have a big problem with our legal system mutilating people out of anger and fear, yep, you betcha. Whether or not it “works”. (Which I agree hasn’t been proven.)
And, not at Qadgop, but, please people - not again with the “rape is a crime of violence, not sex”. SOME rape is not about sex. Some is. Put the broad brushes down, please!
*The closest we do have which I can think of off the top of my head is forbidding some spammers, hackers, and the like from using a computer as a condition of their release, or child molesters from registering and staying away from playgrounds, which, for similar reasons, I’m not fond of either. But even those don’t include actual mutilation of the body.
Why dont we just kill every one who is convicted ofa crime.?
This terrifies me. Castration? Seriously? Why should it be the government’s place to lawfully disfigure some one? Aren’t we more enlightened than that?
And, while I don’t have sympathy for the rapist, all my outrage comes from the wrongly convicted. As long as there’s any possibility of an innocent slipping through the system, then all punishment should stop way before physical disfigurement.
This is a much-debated point, on the Dope and elsewhere. I can believe that a serial rapist commits his crimes for violent dominance reasons, but a guy who goes too far and does something terrible to his date? I’m less convinced.
Most of us regard prison as pretty severe punishment. So how isn’t this revenge? Especially since you’re now advocating doing medical procedures without doctors geting involved (and I doubt that’s going to happen). And by the way, for jtgain - I don’t think this is a one-pill thing. It’s a sustained dosing, and doing that without getting doctors involved is more complicated.
I’m in agreement with everyone else. The Supreme Court will knock this down. If, in some parallel universe, the punishment was actually permitted, it would be a crime against humanity and should be treated as such.
I disagree with this. Rapists rape because they’re horny bastards who don’t care how their victims feel. (I do agree that castration would lead to an increase in crime, as most extreme punishments tend to do.)
I don’t think this is what anyone here is disagreeing with - Anyone out there disagree that rapists should be severely punished? [Ben Stein]Anyone? Anyone?[/Ben Stein]
I would say there should be limits to punishment though. i.e. You can’t do whatever you want to a person just because they’re a criminal. Punishment should be limited to things that protect the public from the criminal (lock them away) or prevent recidivism on release (rehabilitation programs, possibly chemical castration for some crimes.)
It’s not clear to me at all that physical castration serves either of those needs.
As I understand it, they get their rocks off by abusing the woman. I’ve never really understood the desire to classify rape as a crime with no connection to sex. The overlap has always been apparent to me.
Anyway, this punishment sounds all righteous and everything, but it’s utterly pointless if it gets tossed at the first constitutional challenge and wouldn’t actually have a deterrent effect even if used (I’d like to see some stats on the effectiveness of chemical castration, too).
Looks like election-year posturing to me.
It solves 2.5 inches atavistic feelings. Commit a crime ,someone must be horribly punished or dead. Then his perverted idea of justice is met. It is a society at it’s lowest level.
This law strikes me as kind of ignorant.
Fully adult men who lose both their testicles to cancer have other organs to make up the slack in testosterone production, and often report no diminished sex drive or ability.
Or, for that matter for non-rapists who are accused to injure or kill cops or guards escaping, or trying to. Or possibly some woman if they even think she’s going to falsely accuse them.
Threaten people with sexual mutilation, and you can expect heavy panic reactions, and plenty of ruthlessness. Even among people who normally wouldn’t even consider violence. And especially among people who are cynical about the justice system; not everyone buys the “Oh, I don’t need to worry if I’m innocent” routine.
Here comes an anecdote!
I’m good friends with a police detective who investigates sex crimes against children. I asked him why he chose that specific type of crime to investigate, after requesting to be taken off of adult rape investigations. He said “because kids don’t lie as much.”
He went on to explain how frustrated he got by the huge numbers of false rape accusations, and the fact that he had to do thorough investigations for a crime he knew did not happen, with accusers that who were motivated by spite or protecting their reputation or a million other things.
Imagine yourself in that situation. You’ve pissed off a woman so much that she accuses you of rape, and your jury happens to be a group of people exactly like you, who are delighted by the prospect of chemically chopping off your nutsack. If that doesn’t put things into perspective, I don’t know what can.