Castration Makes a Come Back

With Gov. Jindal putting sex offender policy front-and-center in Louisiana politics, the issue of castration has reemerged. The Daily Beast has more:

Should we “chemically castrate” sex offenders? Victims’ rights groups, Governor Bobby Jindal—and even some sex offenders themselves—say yes....

Frank Zimring, a law professor at University of California at Berkeley and an expert on sex crimes, also has qualms. He says the idea that all sex offenders repeat their crimes is a “folk belief,” and that recidivist rates are much lower than widely believed. He cites a Department of Justice study that tracked nearly 10,000 sex offenders—more than 4,000 of them convicted of child molesting—for three years after their 1994 release; the re-arrest rate for another sex crime was only 5.3 percent....

Also, experts say, both types of castration will only work for sex offenders motivated by sexual desire rather than anger and aggression. "If you have people who aren't primarily motivated by sexual arousal, you have to layer interventions to maintain safety," says Maia Christopher, executive director of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers....

And guess who else doesn't have much patience with chemical castration as an alternative to lock-up? Certain victims' rights groups. "If they want to castrate them, that's fine," says Debbie Savoie, vice president of the Massachusetts group Community Voices. "The main issue," she says, "is they're not locking them up long enough."

The article covers a lot of the arguments for castration and I've selectively excerpted the portions that I think are most powerful against castration as punishment. With sex offenders, every punishment that was old is new again. Civil commitment for reasons of "moral hygiene" was relegated to the dustbin of history, but reemerged in the 1990's as a means of incapacitating offenders. Registries for criminals failed as a result of the Court's decision in Lambert v. California. Banishment and scarlet letters disappeared for centuries. However, as with castration, old punishment techniques are making a come back.

Comments

[Daniel]

"Banishment and scarlet letters disappeared for centuries. However, as with castration, old punishment techniques are making a come back."

With one exception. And what an exception it is. And that is anything to do with gay rights. It never ceases to amaze me that for 2000 years pedophilia was considered exclusively a man/boy issue. Even until the 1920s the age of male/female consent was 10 years in England and didn't advance to the teenage years here in American until the mid-1900s. Now, when we talk about sex crimes we almost exclusively refer to male-female crimes. NMBLA almost never even enters the conversation.

It's interesting to me because there are many people in the gay rights movement who think that the movement hasn't lived up to its promise. And yet the reality is that without the development of the gay rights movement over the last 30 years, we would be having an entirely different conversation about sex.

Everything old is new again, except when it comes to gay sex.

[Dave]

Are you proposing that advances in gay rights has shifted the focus to male-female crimes? I counter that might be true in the secular world, but in the religious one there is still plenty of homophobia and the male-male aspect of pedophilia is still at the forefront.

Still, that is a fascinating remark, one which I think deserves further study.

[m Andrea]

The vast majority of sexual violence is committed by males, so obviously that is where reasonable people would place the emphasis. When the percentages are so skewed along gender lines, it is dishonest to act as if an outlier requires an equal attribution of criminal activity. Given the prevalence and long pattern of sexism, trying to hide the fact that females are far less likely to commit sexual violence is also misognyistic. Put the blame where it belongs!

But I opened up comments to discuss recidivism rates. Three years is far too short a timespan to be considered relevant. Upon release from prison, a convict must find a job and a place to live. He also has to find access to a vulnerable child suitable for his purposes. He must spend time gaining the child's trust. Then the child has to have time to think about what is going on, and maybe find someone to confide in. The caretaker may rationalize or minimize the child's description and may or may not report to the police promptly, if at all. The police department may begin an investigation, sometimes lasting for years before gathering enough evidence for an arrest.

All of this takes a great deal of time, far more than three years. The only situation where none of this time is needed is when the convict commits a stranger-abduction, which as you surely know is far less common than the first scenero.

Obviously, if a study only looks at three years, then of course the recidivism rate will appear "low".

[Dave]

"He also has to find access to a vulnerable child suitable for his purposes." Provided that those are his intentions immediately upon release. Your argument presumes quite a bit.

[vivian]

Sex offenders usually wait until they feel safe, so while they feel that they are being watched--they won't act on their impulses. A successful serial child predator has to establish himself with a safe personna, someone who is unnoticed in a family neighborhood. Often that would be a ice cream vendor, yard maintainance, or construction. Jobs that would not raise adult's suspicions. Jobs that give him an entry into a neighborhood and a chance to select his prey. Predators can get away with many rapes if they are careful.

[Dave]

And you're basing this information on. . .?