Castrating Sex Offenders

by Matt Kelley · 2009-02-08 05:30:00 UTC
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A major European human rights watchdog rightly criticized the Czech Republic this week for the country's policy of castrating people convicted of sex offenses. Nearly 100 surgical castrations have been carried out in the last decade, and the number of "chemical castrations" is unknown. This is just another ineffective and harsh punishment of sex offenders, and it's not limited to the Czech Republic.

About eight U.S. states - including California, Florida, Texas and Louisiana - allow some form of chemical castration for repeat sex offenders. I couldn't find solid numbers on countries using the practice but this site lists Sweden, Denmark and Canada among them. The U.K offers castration in exchange for early release. South Korea opened a clinic last month for "voluntary" chemical castration of sex offenders. Of course, if they don't go along, their sentence is longer. There provisions are not so voluntary, and they're ripe for injustice - torture on one side of coin and a long sentence on the other. What would an innocent person choose?

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was blabbing away this week about how he is making life hell for sex offenders, whom he often calls "monsters." He proudly mentioned his success in getting a chemical castration bill through the state legislature last year.

This week's report on Czech torture, from The Council of Europe, says in part:

"Surgical castration is a mutilating, irreversible intervention and cannot be considered as a medical necessity in the context of the treatment of sex offenders," the committee said in a report.

"...Given the context in which the intervention is offered, it is questionable whether consent to the option of surgical castration will always be truly free and informed,"

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
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