Is chemical castration the way to prevent sex crimes?

Throughout history, castration has been used to punish sex offenders. Of course, the use of a knife for this form of punishment isn’t used in Democratic countries but chemical castration is. Even that kind of castration causes a shudder in the consciousness of many libertarians in the country. Not only is "chemical castration" in the thoughts of legislators and judges across the country, it is also actually happening. California, Arizona and Florida for example each passed a law that mandates chemical castration as a condition of parole for repeat sex offenders and the discretionary chemical castration of paroled one-time sex offenders.

Child molesters, rapists, and other sex offenders are perceived as among the most vile members of society. It is not surprising; therefore, that the Florida Legislature revived an ancient method of turning these condemned men into temporary eunuchs.

Let me say right from the onset, chemical castration is a misnomer. The organs remain intact. The only thing that is removed is the desire to have sex. The lawmakers in Florida advocated the use of drugs, not the surgeon’s scalpel, to accomplish their objective. Further, the chemical castration is not permanent. The statute mandates court-ordered weekly injections of a sex-drive-reducing hormone to qualified repeat sex offenders upon release from prison and while they are under the authority of the parole officials or the courts.

Although this news may shock and surprise some, upon a closer examination and unraveling of the issues, chemical castration may not be such a bad idea after all and may be here to stay as part of our jurisprudence.

While medical advances have made chemical suppression of the sex drive possible as a treatment for some sex offenders, the procedure is not free from criticism by medical, psychological, and psychiatric professionals.

The Arizona Supreme Court first used the term “chemical castration” in reference to a punitive measure for sex offenders in 1982. The media referred to the court-imposed administration of medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) to sex offenders as ‘chemical castration’ hence the term stuck.This chemical is a synthetic progesterone more commonly known as the female contraceptive Depo-Provera, the brand name used by the manufacturer, the Upjohn Company. In adult males, studies have proven that the prolonged use of MPA can reduce testosterone to the level of a prepubescent boy.

In Florida, the statute holds that ‘in lieu of treatment with . . . (MPA), the court may order the defendant to undergo physical castration upon written motion by the defendant providing the defendant’s intelligent, knowing, and voluntary consent to physical castration as an alternative penalty.’

For example, if a convicted sex offender is sentenced to twenty years in prison (and that kind of sentence is not unusual in many states of the USA) the felon may be given the opportunity to accept as an alternative to imprisonment, physical castration. A convicted sex offender in Canada many years ago, asked the court to permit doctors to physically castrate him as an alternative to a long term of imprisonment. The court refused his request. I doubt that there would be any doctors in Canada willing to undertake such a task, even if the prisoner gave his permission since their peers would consider the castration of the prisoner as a form of punishment.

In a famous American case, (Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 536 (1942) the court struck down an Oklahoma statute that authorized the sterilization of recidivist criminals. That decision was not made in favor of the prisoner because forced sterilization on a prisoner in the United States would be just as heinous as forced sterilization by the Nazis in Germany. The Court held that the Oklahoma law permitting the sterilization of habitual criminals violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The state law invidiously discriminated against the indigent by exempting defendants who had repeatedly been found guilty of white-collar crimes. The sterilization of women in mental hospitals in Saskatchewan occurred the 1930s, much to Canada’s shame. In Florida, the defendant does, however, have a choice: he may choose surgical castration in lieu of chemical castration but it is unlikely that many defendants will choose this option unless they are being sentenced to prison for a great many years as an alternative.

The issue facing society is whether mandatory chemical castration is a medically acceptable and constitutionally permissible alternative to incarceration for sex offenders. If applied as an alternative to imprisonment, would it reduce the number of incarcerated prisoners? Considering that it costs the taxpayers in Canada at least $50,000 a year to incarcerate each prisoner, this alternative would weigh heavily on the minds of the average taxpayer.

In 1995, as many as 97,460 forcible rapes were reported to the police nationwide in the United States, representing the lowest number of reported rapes since 1989. The arrest rate for all sexual offenses (including forcible rape but excluding prostitution) dropped 16% between 1993 and 1998. In 1998, 82,653 arrests were logged for all sexual offenses, compared to 97,955 arrests in 1993. Let’s say for argument sake that 75,000 persons in the USA were convicted of rape in any given year and the cost of incarcerating each of them was $50,000. That would cost 37.5 million dollars for the first year and 75 million for the second year with the additional 75,000 convictions and 112.5 million for the third year with another 75,000 convictions. If you extrapolate into the many years that would follow, you are looking at billions of dollars a year it would cost to incarcerate that many sex offenders. Obviously, there has to be an alternative to consider because to imprison that many offenders over a period of time would cost more to imprison these felons than it would cost the Americans to conduct a full-scale war.

Nowadays in Canada, some sex offenders who are child molesters or whose sex crimes did not include assault causing bodily harm, are given conditional sentences; that is their homes are their prisons. (except when going to work, grocery shopping, going to church or to a doctor or dentist) But unless they are given some form of treatment for their problems relating to their uncontrolled sex drives, there is a chance that they will re-offend again. For example, in the United States, sex offenders are about four times more likely than non-sex offenders to be arrested for another sex crime after their discharge from prison –– 5.3 percent of sex offenders versus 1.3 percent of non-sex offenders. These figures would probably apply to those who are under house arrest also.

Chemical castration would appear to be the solution to this problem, however it is not a permanent solution. Once the chemical treatment stops, there is nothing to prevent the offender from re-offending again since committing more sex crimes is a direct result of a compulsion that many of these sex offenders have no control over.
If the courts order chemical castration to be permanent, that is, to be applied until the offender is at least 70 years of age (when the sex drive is greatly reduced) the offender would be denied the opportunity to procreate and that could have a disastrous effect on his married life. Further, it’s unlikely that such a court order would survive a constitutional challenge.

I must confess that thus far, I cannot find an absolute solution to this problem. Chemical castration is temporary, permanent castration is out of the question and physical castration is too obscene to even consider. There may however be a solution to this problem.

Cigarette smokers put a patch on their arms or chew a special kind of chewing gum that takes away the desire to smoke cigarettes. Alcoholics can take a certain pill that will induce vomiting when they ingest alcohol.

It is conceivable that some day in the future, sex addicts will be able to place a patch on their arms or on their upper thighs that will put synthetic progesterone into their system that will reduce their sexual cravings. And those who wish to have it on occasion; can remove the patch for a day or so and their desire to have sex will return. For those felons on probation or parole who are under a court order to have the synthetic progesterone continuously injected into their bodies will have to keep the patch on for the week until they have it removed by their probation or parole officer for the next patch. If for example, the patch turns a certain colour after being illegally removed, the authorities will know and they can deal with the felon as having breached his probation or parole.

Taking the pill to induce vomiting when ingesting alcohol is not enough to stop the cravings. That is why Alcoholics Anonymous is so effective. It seems to me that the same applies for sex addicts. They too need similar treatment. With the combination of the ingestion of synthetic progesterone into their bodies and psychiatric counseling in their minds, this may be the solution needed to reduce the number of sex offenders walking our streets and living in our homes.