Castration as a punishment for rape.

Great Debates
1

Many androgen-related studies have suggested that testosterone not only affects the strength of a man’s sex-drive, but also his sensitivity to the threat of punishment, and his ability to be empathic with other people’s suffering. That is, heightened testosterone levels could be a determining factor towards a man’s propensity to rape.

Sexual offenders who were surgically castrated have shown a strong reduction in sexual thoughts, masturbation and frequency of coitus. This is, of course, pretty much an irreversible process.

An alternate procedure is chemical castration. This involves giving the offender Depo Provera (progestrone, a female hormone) on a regular basis to inhibit testosterone production. An analysis of the history of these offenders has shown that only about 2-5% of chemically castrated men reoffend, in comparision to 60-70% of the non-castrated. The Depo Provera process is reversible: stop giving hormones and testosterone pops back to normal sooner or later.

There has been some research that questions the effectiveness of such methods. Their premise is that such treatments incite violence psychologically. A reaction at being violated, so to speak. The large part of the studies I checked out, however, seemed to indicate that castration was pretty effective in reducing sexual impulses. So, even assuming many of the castrated offenders do reoffend owing to their need for power, or their anger, or any such reason, you still end up with many who don’t reoffend on account of reduced desire.

The reason I give these facts (references can easily provided upon request) is because I wish to know whether you consider it acceptable to interfere thus with a human being. Are the sex offender’s human rights being violated when one fiddles with his body as punishment? On a continuous scale, where does the line of acceptability stop - at incarceration, at chemical castration, at surgical castration? How about degree of crime? Since children are considered so sacred in all societies, should a child molestor be judged more harshly (i.e., be castrated) than a man who rapes a woman?

I believe there are laws that validate castration in the United States. (I am ignorant about the details, please note.) This fact puzzles me. If the United States doesn’t believe in chopping a man’s hand off for committing robbery, why does it believe that castration, surgical or chemical, is a valid punishment for rape?

What do you think?

2

As I understand it, rape is not “about” sex but about control, cruelty and/or revenge - it is an act of hateful rage, not one of sexual release.

Sure, this operation might well prevent reoffense but then again so would a full frontal lobotomy or indeed amputating the offender’s arms. It is the lack of personal control which is the cause - I see no reason to distinguish sex offenders from violent crime offenders in this respect.

I move for “cruel and unusual punishment”.

3

Maybe it the offender could be offered a choice between prison and castration?

4

It seems like they’re blaming the genitals for the crime.

5

“surgically castrated have shown a strong reduction in sexual thoughts, masturbation and frequency of coitus” … he he, you’re not for real. :smiley:

Cite please, especially to the second number. It seems very high, and leads me to believe more could be done in rehabilitation.

I think you said it yourself. We don’t chop off peoples hands or feet, neither are we giving them drugs which render their hands or feet unusable. Why should we cut off balls, or render them unusable? I’m not saying the option shouldn’t be available for deeply mentally disturbed persons who is completely out of control, but in general, no.

There is another side to this. Rape conviction still gets overturned due to contaminated rape kits, failure to test for a complete DNA string, or simply lack of DNA evidence (mistaken identity). And what’s the side-effects of chemical castration?

Also, I believe that these drugs are expensive, do you believe tax payers should pay for it?

6

I think they should do it on live tv as a warning.

7

And if it should turn out later that the man was wrongly convicted?? It’s happened before.
I’m against it. There should be no castration. And no choice for the prisoner. I think it’s the definition of cruel and unusual.

8

He said it was reversible.

More expensive than prison?

I can’t believe I’m defending this. Well, looking like I am… Good point, it’d be good to see some citations about chemical castration.

9

Are you serious or sarcastic?

For that matter, it would make sense to have electroctutions live for the same reason, but you don’t. I guess some things are too ‘ick’ even for USA TV. (You don’t, do you? Tell me you don’t.)

10

Reversible, but with side-effects for the wrongly convicted? That was my question.

“More expensive than prison?” - I believe we are discussing administering drugs after a prison sentence is served out, that is, for a fixed number of years or maybe for the rest of the convict’s life.

11

This has already happened. I don’t remember the name of the case or which state it was in.

Several men who were sex offenders were given the chance to carve significant portions off thier sentances by agreeing to surgical castration.

IIRC, it was like knocking a 20 year sentance down to 5 or something similar. It caused quite a stir and of course the case was appealed. The men wanted to do the procedure. However, I don’t recall how it turned out on appeal or if it actually happened.

There are a couple of problems.

  1. Getting a doctor to do the procedure. Since there isn’t any medical reason, this can be viewed as a violation of the “do no harm” oath.

  2. Cruel and unusual punishment. I would certainly think that a judge ordering the castration to be performed would be considered cruel and unusual. Hence the choice offered to the sex offender. However, many still think it’s cruel and unusual to even offer it.

I think it’s a good idea if properly done. Sex offenders do have high repeat crime rates. The choice is theirs to serve the full sentance or accept castration. Once castrated, they pose less risk to society so they should be released earlier. However, IMO, they should still serve some time in prison.

12

The data are distilled from articles by Heim (1981), Feinstein (199?). I made one typo, though, so thank you for pointing it out. The second figure should be 40-70%. Paedophiles seem to fall at the higher end.

Anyway, I was wondering if one of the legally-inclined Americans on this board could explain why some of the states in your country have considered castration an acceptable procedure.

13

If you can somehow get the definition of rape back to the “forcible sexual assault” it used to be and remove the “I woke up hungover and feeling dirty” definition that it has come to encompass, then we can talk. Until we can solve the sexual politic issues, we aren’t going to make progress.

14

I don’t quite see why that issue is pertinent to my question, DaveX. Wrong thread, perhaps?

15

I guess it was an expanse on what spooje said concerning about wrongful conviction.

16

I think this is all really a matter of perspective. Namely, which is worse:

a. rotting in prison for 30 years
b. rejoining society, but castrated

Option (a) seems to offer 30 years of torment, followed by no hope of societal reintegration, IMO. Option (b) seems to offer a severe bit of personal violation, followed by a chance at successful reintegration. Take your pick between evils.

This all raises the much larger, more fundamental issue, namely that no one in this country has any effing idea what our penal/corrections system is supposed to accomplish.

(a) remove dangerous individuals from society until such time that they can reasonably be seen as no longer being a danger (possibly removing them forever?)

(b) serve as a threat and example to deter other criminals from committing similar acts

© reeducate and rehabilitate wrongdoers so that they will become better human beings and citizens (related to -a-)

(d) exact revenge on wrongdoers

17

I think castration meets all of your criteria toadspittle.

The castration brings them to such time that they can reaonably be seen as no longer being a danger. With child molestors in particular, removing them forever seems to the the only other solution. Thy have high recividism rates, and they are able even at an old age to prey on their young victims.

Castration serves as a pretty severe threat and example to other potential sex offenders.

Many would argue that castration isn’t “reeducating” or “rehabilitating” anyone. However, if it stops them from raping people or molesting children then yes I think it certainly has made them better human beings and citizens.

Castration seems like exellent revenge to me. Victims would get a certain satisfaction from knowing that in additon to jail time the offender was going to be castrated to prevent this crime from hapenning in the future. That literally the part of him that caused this to happen will be torn out.

18

Well, they weren’t really criteria, per se. I was trying to point out the many different things people assume the justice system covers, some of which are exclusive (i.e., vengeance vs. rehab).

19

I’m affraid I don’t get why castration would render harmless a rapist, I mean, it’s not as if he can’t then obtain legally or not testosterone shots, thus rendering the effects of castration totally useless.
Maybe if his hormonal levels are monitored for a long time after, it could work.

20

I’ve often heard that rapists are repeat offenders, so I did some googling to find out what the spin is all about.

It came out harder than I thought to find som reliable, unbiased data, but I did manage to find one comprehensive report with statistical data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/soo.txt

The report is from 1997. The data in the report are from the 1980’s and 1990’s.
The point of interest is of course: Is is true that 40%-70% of all rapists are repeat offenders, as aasna indicated with his two cites (Heim, Feinstein)? Note: On this issue, the report only covers “rearrested”, and not “reconvicted”, but the data offered in the report is more than enough to make a judgement.
The basic numbers:

The number of rapists rearrested suspected of a new rape, while on probation:
“A 3-year BJS followup of a sample of felony offenders placed on
probation found that … about 3% of probationers under conditional supervision after conviction for rape were re-arrested for a new rape within 3 years”

The number of rapists rearrested suspected of a new rape, probation not an issue [same data sheet]:
“For nearly 8% [7.7% to be exact] of released rapists, the new arrest for a violent crime was another charge for rape.”

Breakdown of rape arrests of convicted rapists per year during the 3 year period:
“During the followup period, which began in 1983, the prison release cohort accounted for 3.8% of all the rape arrests that took place in the 11 States in 1983, 2.4% of all the rape arrests in the 11 States in 1984, and about 1% of the arrests for rape in the 11 States in 1985 and 1986.”

The number of convicted rapists rearrested versus total number of convicts rearrested:
“While about 41% of violent probationers were re-arrested within 3 years of placement on probation for a new felony offense, an estimated 19.5% of rapists were re-arrested for a new felony within 3 years.”

But rapists were more likely to be rearrested for rape than other convicts:
convicts on probation: 3 percent versus 1.5 percent.
probation not an issue: 7.7% versus 1% of “murderers, robbers, and assaulters”

As I already mentioned, the repeat offender data is based on rearrests, and not on reconvictions. So the actual number of repeat rapists are even lower than what’s outlined above. Overall, the report has the following data on rape-arrests versus convictions:
Arrestees for rape 100%
Felony prosecution sought 80%

… result:

  • Convicted 48%
    Felony 40%
    Misdemeanor 6%
    Other 2%

  • Not convicted 32%
    Dismissed 29%
    Acquitted 2%
    Other 1%

So, in less than half of the arrests for rape a conviction is actually secured. This would decrease the number of repeat rapists from: 1) for rapists on probation: From 3% to 1.5%, and 2) when probation is not an issue: from 7.7% to 3.8%, roughly.

Finally, one important point to have in mind is that the data above is based on the most violent convicts: those serving time in state prison. The data does not include convicts sentenced to jail terms or to probation. The breakdown here is: prison: “just over two-thirds”, jail: 19%, probation: 13%.
Based on this study by the Justice Department is should be safe to say that the number of convicted repeat rapists are less than 5% of all convicted rapists, and not 40%-70% as the OP, aasna, said.

So if 2%-5% of chemical castrated are repeat offenders (this according to the OP), chemical castration doesn’t seem to offer much of an improvement.