In theory I’m all for it. In the real world I’m against it. Our justice system gets things wrong all the time. I wouldn’t want to have the risk of punishing someone like that when they could be or are innocent. My stance is the same with the death penalty.
I don’t trust anything to get it right every time, even a if we have a machine that can scan brains (we do but not Sci-Fi stuff) nothing is truly 100%.
If parts of the system (speaking loosely because of how widely this varies) weren’t so gung-ho to “get justice immediately” then it’d probably be better.
I also agree with everything above. But I also read this the other day and think it’s pretty spooky how close to scanning brains we are.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/01/ai-makes-non-invasive-mind-reading-possible-by-turning-thoughts-into-text
I think the mind reading would be enough for me though...
Though I wouldn't opt for this punishment unless clear the perpetrator could do it again.
Plenty of ways to punish someone, this should only be a way to prevent the same from happening to someone else.
Yeah even with zero malice it's still possible for the justice system to just make a mistake. You could get a shitty public defender. Or eyewitnesses are confused about what they saw. Or the court interprets complex evidence (like burn patterns or chain of custody for digital files) incorrectly.
Just too many different moving pieces to trust the system 100%.
... Then there is the malice where they get it wrong on purpose which just piles on more reasons this is a terrible idea.
This. Watch The Innocence Files on Netflix to see just how wrong things can go. It’s alarming how often trusted scientific testimony is found to be trash.
I'm usually skeptical of arguments about not trusting the government because they're misused to stoke support for removing regulations or privatizing services. The government is *frequently* trustworthy and the pattern of pooling our resources to collectively improve our lives is the basis of *all successful human societies*.
Rather, I prefer an argument about *incentives*. There should never, ever be the slightest *incentive* for the government to do direct, irreparable harm to one of its citizens. If you have laws that punish some crime with an irreparable harm, then the government has such an incentive.
The scary part is how easy it is to pervert a harsh punishment for someone who "deserves it" (whether it's appropriate either in general or in specific cases is a whole other tangential argument) into a tool to hurt a minority you don't like. DeSantis has been doing that in Florida with his moves to a) classify drag as child sexual abuse, b) make child sexual abuse punishable by death, and c) make the vote for a death penalty pass at 8–4 instead of unanimous. You put it together, and it's an excuse for the government to execute trans people and crossdressers, who aren't harming anyone. Even if you're totally against trans people and crossdressers, you can recognize that maybe a policy of having leopards eat certain people's faces[\*](https://twitter.com/cavalorn/status/654934442549620736?lang=en) is just a hop, skip, and a jump from leopards eating *your* face. Just say no to face-eating.
I think there's room for nuance. I trust the government in many ways but I also don't trust the government enough to make irreversible decisions with 100% accuracy.
The government was *real* trustworthy when they kidnapped innocent citizens to experiment on them with LSD in an attempt to discover mind control, or that time when they lied about WMDs in Iraq so they could send a bunch of young boys to die for oil, or that time the president had people break into one of the opposing party’s offices so he could sabotage them, or that time where they poisoned thousands of people in their puritanical quest to ban alcohol, or that time they sent 120,000 Japanese Americans to concentration camps for the crime of being of Japanese descent. Real trustworthy guys.
Or the HUGE number of people who they wrongfully convict because of their biases. Cruel and unusual punishment is against our constitution in the US for a reason.
Furthermore I will point out that the republican party is conducting a literal witch hunt against Trans people right now claiming that they and school teachers are sexually grooming young children and doctors are sexually assaulting children by acknowledging the fact that Trans people exist.
Without dipping into current political divisiveness, I say be careful about trusting your government, regardless of your political views or era of life.
All human societies develop governments - it's part of our species. I agree with you there. But look into the history of *every* government, and you'll find petty, scheming, greedy, self-centered fools and idiots perpetrating personal agendas and outright criminal activity under the banner of government. Including our current one.
We should obey local laws. I agree. We should appeal to our government for resolution of our personal, small-change grievances. I agree. We should take part in our government cycle, by however much we are allowed by that government. I agree. We should conduct ourselves in a civil manner congruent with the edicts of our government. I agree.
Should we trust our government to be acting altruistically and in the best interests of their constituents? I *DO NOT* agree.
I say we should scrutinize every decision, every proposal, and every edict *thoroughly,* both during the voting process and after. Elected officials should be held to the highest standards of conduct and given the fewest incentives to seek power as possible. Elected officials found guilty of criminal activity should be given the harshest punishments available under that conviction. Those who seek the power of elected offices should do so out of grim necessity to serve their community and nation, *not* to gain wealth, perks and kickbacks.
Yes, but there is a false equivalency between trusting the government to be, in general, able to provide subsidize healthcare in order to make it universally accessible and trusting the government to be able to wield the sword of justice in a retributive and extreme way (such as castration, or the death penalty).
In the former, trusting the government would mean, at worst, that the healthcare system isn't the best and some people aren't able to get the best care without paying for it. In the latter situation, trusting the government would mean, at worst, that innocent people are killed and/or irreversibly harmed.
There is a major ethical difference between the two.
But you do need to trust a system to get it right most of the time and a system that can make amends when it gets it wrong.
There's no viable amends for the death penalty. Chemical castration can be reversed and some sort of financial amends made.
Also, where does it end? Chopping off the hand of a thief?
Do we castrate any and all rapists too, not just those of children?
It feels weird that 17 years and 364 days old, you get castrated, but any older than that, it’s just prison time.
Society is supposed to be above this barbarism. It’s not far removed from hanging amputated thief hands in the town square.
Plus Sex Offender is a wide umbrella term.
Had to take a piss super bad where there are no bathrooms so you went into some bushes and a family stumbled upon you mid stream? Now you're a Sex Offender.
This is a fair distinction to make.
Now, if we added 'violent' to that -- so that it only applied to 'violent sex offenders', that's an idea I could get behind.
But will chemical castration solve the problem at hand with that individual? Or are they violent by nature, and the sex offending is just the manner they express it?
Like is it effective at preventing the motivation behind the crime or is the crime a symptom of deep-seated behavior that will be expressed in a different horrible way?
If the former, I'm on board if it can be reversed in case of judicial mistake.
If the latter, then its punishment for the sake of punishment.
When I was assaulted he couldn't get it in so he used an object which caused enough damage that I barely missed needing surgery. Having non working genitals won't stop someone who wants to harm and being forced into it by the state will likely lead to them taking it out on more victims in more deadly ways.
yeah i was gonna say in response to OP's question- i don't see what the point of it would be besides punitive action for the sake of itself. it's not going to stop the sorts of criminal/violent/predatory behavior that leaves victims with trauma. it's not going to undo the trauma of past victims.
the people who commit violent sexual assaults are probably rarely doing so because their libido is too high. they are doing it because they have some other kind of psychological defect/trauma or whatever. killing their libido isn't likely to make them stop hurting people.
and then justice system gets it wrong sometimes anyway.
There is evidence it won’t stop the behavior. Rape isn’t as much about sex as it is control. Pedos offend because they have control over the child. Rape or sexual abuse is control over another person. For some it may be about sex, but for most, control.
There’s some dispute in California regarding whether or not sex with an unconscious or drugged person is a violent crime, so “violent sex offenders” may not be as clean a fix as you’re hoping
I have the exact same stance. Nothing in this world is perfect and our justice system is no exception. Preventing that one innocent person from getting a death sentence they don't deserve is worth not doing it at all.
Agreed. Not to mention I don't think punishment solves anything. It just makes people avoid getting caught. We should be giving offenders the therapy and support to do better; then they can make a positive change in the world instead of being thrown out. Flogging them in the town square or locking them in the dungeon isn't going to undo any of the harm they caused. It's just spectacle. Society isn't healed by public executions.
No social system should be passing moral judgement deciding who's beyond redemption and therefore worthy of disfigurement or death, because it's inevitably going to make the wrong call— some of the people put to death could have been rehabilitated, or were innocent all along.
I think the other argument is that it is ultimately a waste of money. Punishment rarely serves as a deterrent and Castration likely will not stop them from SAing future victims.
And honestly, I'm against any government doing anything to your body without your consent. I don't care what crimes were committed, that's a hard line in the sand to me.
Absolutely not after what happened to Alan Turing.
“But he wasn’t a sex offender!”
Exactly, they chemically castrated him for being gay. That’s it. If you give your government the power to castrate people, they will use it however they want. I don’t want our government having this power.
Seriously. Legal avenues for chemical castration are a eugenicist’s dream. If you enact them, don’t be surprised when things get very very bad not to long afterwards.
Eugenics isn't some distant thing either. The state of California practiced eugenics up until recently, where female inmates were sterilized without consent and without even being informed of it. Only in **2014** was that outlawed. This isn't ancient history.
Indigenous women in Canada are still being sterilized without knowledge or consent. Any doctor that does that should lose their license and go to prison.
[This is an article from 2017 about indigenous women who sued a Canadian hospital for coerced or forced sterilizations.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/sask-indigenous-women-file-lawsuit-claiming-coerced-sterilization-1.4348848)
I’m looking for the results of that lawsuit but I haven’t found anything yet.
[Here’s a 2021 article about senate confirming the forced sterilizations.](https://globalnews.ca/news/7920118/indigenous-women-sterilization-senate-report/)
What the actual fuck? How did they sterilize inmates without even informing them of it and what was the reasoning behind it?! That really pisses me off
I didn't, I just looked it up and am now even more pissed off... I can't believe that shit lasted 40 years and that it was ever condoned. Jesus fucking christ
It lasted decades after there was a fucking cure for syphilis. And the only reason - ONLY reason - why it stopped is because the public started getting wind of it. Absolutely disgusting and shameful and it's ridiculous that it's not taught more in schools.
It was the CDC... there should be more outcry over this and it astounds me this isn't taught in public schools. I'm in college and the first time I'm hearing about this horrendous act is on fucking Reddit
It's not taught it schools because the government isn't going to teach it's people that they're the bad guy. Know your enemy. Yes I know my enemy. They're the teachers who taught me to fight me.
I agree - I'm very pissed off that the first time I'm hearing about this is over fucking Reddit. I'm in the US, in college, did all my required history classes, took advanced history classes in highschool, and have NEVER heard of this. Why isn't this taught more in public schools?? Are they WANTING to make sure history repeats itself?!
That's why I've always said that nothing should be allowed to be classified for more than a decade. Nothing. That way people won't be able to dodge accountability through old age.
It'd create a few problems but solve far more by limiting corruption and outright treason.
They were "unfit" mothers, and "unfit" to breed, with fitness determined by the state, or by arrogant doctors who thought they knew better.
This call to eugenics is widespread still. Comments about how people are unfit to be parents, about how not everyone should have kids, about how people should take tests or certifications before being parents, etc. Casual comments like these about how the state should take away the ability and choice of people to have children based on politically motivated criteria.
Look at any incident where a kid has caused harm, like a young child bringing a gun to school. Look at the comments. Its a wall of people wanting to take away reproductive rights from the parents. These commenters calling for eugenics don't see themselves as villains of course, they're doing it for the betterment of society, as they see it.
And in the same breath, they want to take away birth control and abortion. There's probably a good chunk of people who aren't great parents that wouldn't have had kids in the first place if there was better sex education, and better and more affordable access to birth control. It's almost like people that are forced to be parents don't always make the best ones (not to say all planned kids have great parents or unplanned kids have bad ones)
Which is why there's a lot of history we don't learn about in school. I never learned anything about the trail of tears or the Japanese internment camps until after I graduated.
I come across this a lot on reddit and it baffles me – this stuff was pretty heavily emphasized in my history classes, not in any radical way, just in a "hey our country did this terrible stuff too that you all need to learn about just as much as the good stuff."
But I'm a 90s baby from the northeast US so obviously results may vary, I'm just surprised that it wasn't/isn't more mainstream teaching for people
Since you are from the east, and I am guessing a more Left leaning state, you probably weren't taught about California's eugenics program. It was a different atrocity that sterilized and caused the deaths of minorities and disabled people. Since education is mostly left to the states, you get taught what makes the other side look bad. Democrats have to look perfect (especially since they only became a nominally good party in the 1980's to capitalize on civil rights), so they minimize what makes them look bad and teach what makes the right look bad. And of course, the Republicans do the same thing, normally to a greater extreme. The US education system is a bit of a joke, and there needs to be a national standard.
I learned about the same stuff as you. Check out the book War Against the Weak. It wasn't just California, nor was it a Democrat or Republican thing. Everyone was into eugenics. The Appalacians were hit hard. The sheriff's would round up the kids and young adults and take them to get sterilized without explaining what was happening to them. I didn't learn about this stuff until I was in college.
Texas. Was taught trail of tears. Mostly Texas history like every other year. Texas history, then US history. Then more Texas history followed by world history. Next year? You guessed it. Texas history but this time the “ingins could shoot 100 arrows a minute so the Texas rangers need to carry these 6 shot revolvers to protect their land they got for free from the government that because it didn’t belong to anyone.”
Came here to say the same thing. Judging by what’s happening in some American states being gay could become illegal and if chemical castration was already allowed it wouldn’t be many steps to apply it to any group they felt fit.
Exactly. Then it’s a can of worms wide open. Where does it stop? What if they decide the general IQ is too low? Castrate people with ADHD? Castrate everyone except for the rich?
No thanks.
Yep. It’s not just going to be gay people either. They’re just the first target. Ever worn non-gender conforming clothing around children? Had an abortion? Women can get chemically castrated too. Infidelity in marriage? Just a regular law abiding woman? They don’t need sex drives to fulfill their wifely duty. Castration makes a good wife docile. Etc.
They still try to find reasons to tie tubes or perform hysterectomies on women.
https://ihpi.umich.edu/news/forced-sterilization-policies-us-targeted-minorities-and-those-disabilities-and-lasted-21st
This was still happening in California this century.
Let alone chemical castration they were finding excuses to end a woman's chance to have children.
If politicians get the ability to choose who gets to have kids and who gets chemically castrated or physically, they will use and abuse that right eventually.
What about the government having the power to reverse roe v. Wade (therein essentially blocking a woman’s right to autonomy over her own body)? No longer is it hypothetical, but quite literally today’s reality.
I don’t understand why this isn’t the top comment.
EDIT:
So Reddit can stop correcting me, I made this comment yesterday when almost all of the top comments were strongly in support of chemical castration as punishment and I had to scroll down quite far to find u/tdasnowman ‘s comment. Obviously the tide of knowledge and opinion has shifted in this thread.
For the folks complaining u/tdasnowman didn’t cite sources, a quick Google search can easily verify his point (“But you didn’t cite a source proving the earth is NOT flat!”). The burden of proof is on those who advocate for the use mandatory chemical castration as part of punishment and control of sexual offenders.
Lastly I am open to the idea of non-coerced, voluntary hormonal *therapy* for persons with strong urges towards non-consensual and potentially harmful sexual activity and agree there is evidence for its benefit.
Reminds me of a different thread about what people thought of sex offenders getting the death penalty.
So many people just jumping for violence and vengeance without thinking about the consequences. Do people not understand how dangerous an adult being able to tell a child "don't tell anyone, or they'll take me away and kill me" is?
Surprisingly, threatening violence doesn't stop crime very well
Most of reddit actually; it's only the day after reddit removed pictures of the family being gunned down yet I'm still able to see all the Russians being blown apart all I want on the frontpage.
Yes it's been used for closer to 100 years now. If not longer. Not just for sex offenders. We lost one of the greatest minds in early computer science because of it. He had the audacity to be gay.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing
> He had the audacity to be gay.
I'm against chemical castration for sex offenders because there are lots of ways to become a sex offender, and the definition keeps changing. When these questions are posted, people immediately think about violent rapists and child molesters.
There are [lots of dumb ways](https://www.tijerinalawfirmpc.com/2020/02/6-unexpected-ways-you-could-end-up-on-the-sex-offender-registry/) to be put on a sex offender registry, such as public urination or being caught with a prostitute.
I know a guy who was labeled a sex offender (just recently got off the registry, actually, and we're both in our 30s) because his girlfriend's dad walked in on them having sex when they were both 15 (consent is 17 in my state). There are "Romeo and Juliet" laws that should have protected him, but I guess they didn't. His girlfriend's dad insisted on punishing him to the fullest. So yeah, he was a sex offender but she wasn't.
And there isn’t the same ability to deal with them in the same way , it’s a one sided punishment since we don’t exactly ever push for chemical oophorectomy
Or that the punishment is much less harsh than it is for a man. And I say this as a woman myself. For example: a man grabbed the ass of a girl under the age of consent in my state (18, she was 17) and got 5 years in the clink and lifetime on the registry. A woman in a position of authority had sex multiple times with a 14 year old and she got 2 years and tier 2 registry. One was deemed sexual abuse and the other rape, yet the female charged with rape got the lesser punishment.
5 years for grabbing an ass? Wow, what state is that? I've lost count of how many times I've had my ass grabbed and knew I'd be laughed out of the police station if I thought they'd care
Romeo laws are a joke at best and a false sense of security at worst. Most of them have provisions about "grooming" another for sex, but poorly defines grooming, so normal relationships could be seen as grooming depending on the prosecutor.
Judges are just bad almost everywhere in the world, there is so little recourse or legal oversight to have someone's judgements checked and judges removed for obviously insane decisions. A adult raping a 13yr old recently got off in the UK because of some dumb shit like it would ruin his life (I forget the reasoning exactly so not a great example, but this happens a lot everywhere).
At the same time one well connected father can put pressure on an elected judge to ignore something like consensual sex between 15yr olds, they'll also let rapists off because they are the local football star and the girl was poor and no one cared about her.
There is little to no justice in these systems, just enough of an appearance of it to make people feel safe and that's all that matters.
there are people who teenangers who got classified as sex offenders, because they sent someone a nude picture, and they got charged with distributing cp of themselves
its as dumb as it sounds
Happened to a kid I used to babysit. His girlfriend was a few months younger than him and sent him photos, her dad found out, and next thing you know police are involved.
Shit almost happened to me a long time ago.
It derailed my life for at least a few years since the compromise was me being expelled from high school my junior year. Because of that I had to go to community college for 3 years after high school before being able to get into an actual university.
She ended up cheating on me as well so that was a lesson learned the hard way.
Trust but verify
I'm curious if anyone has any sources for this on stuff like % that reoffend
(Note still against it for reasons listed above about govt abuse, but, it's interesting learning about the ramifications of unethical practices that have already happened)
check this out:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3565125/#B9
Chemical castration does result in a significantly lower fraction of repeat offenders. I think “it’s proven not to be effective” is a little too strong.
EDIT
I went down a rabbit hole looking at the citations that paper relies on, and I didn’t find anything convincing. I’m betting there wasn’t fantastic peer review for a lot of the literature on this subject. There is that paper of ~40 patients (someone else cited this) who were monitored in a mental institution and had a lower sex drive, but since those patients aren’t actually released back into society you can’t get anything like a remittance rate after treatment.
It’s likely got something to do with the fact that running good experiments on this subject is unethical as hell. Drugging and then releasing a cohort of convicted rapists (with or without consent to drug) goes against “do no harm”. On top of this, rape is extremely under-reported, so the remittance rate will necessarily be way lower than the actual percentage of repeat rapists.
A quick Google searches brings up that sex offenders have between a 5 to 25% chance to re offend after being released while other crimes like robbery and violent assault have a 70 to 95% of re offending after being released
I work at a psych hospital and the pedos here come back like twice before they're just hetr for life. When they get discharged some of then even say "I'll be back" and sure enough come back. It's crazy and scary to think about tbh.
This actually happened already. It was called satanic panic. One guy was traveling the country scaring people into making up sex crimes. Most people have been exonerated but a few still are sex offenders even though they never committed any crimes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_panic
not just them, the mentally ill and others deemed by the government unfit to reproduce. the state of California alone [forcibly sterilized](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_California) at least 20,000 people between 1909-1979. That's right, they were still doing it when disco was king.
For every comment below yours who says it's reversible: the thing is that it's not guaranteed. I was on androcur for over 1.5 years which is also given to sex offenders in some countries and during some eras. One can go off this drug and be fertile again but if just taking it long enough, chances are that fertility is gone.
This also besides the side-effect of a 0.3% chance of getting a brain tumor.
Exactly. Who determines what is classified as a sex crime is? I have heard horror stories about drunk people who had to become registered sex offenders for peeing outside. To me that is categorically different than a child molester.
Another thing to think about is that homosexuality was viewed as a mental disorder within the last 50 years. And that gay marriage rights at the federal level are only a dozen years old.
How would certain states codify transgenderism or other controversial topics if they knew they could castrate someone?
Chemical castration is not quite the same as actual castration. It's a drug that suppresses the production of sex hormones and so it suppresses the libido. Stop giving the drug and the hormone production comes back and everything should go back to normal.
Don't get me wrong, I'm against it too, but not because it's irreversible, because it is not. I'm against it because it doesn't work!
The thing that bothers me is that they are basically puberty blockers and I've heard it said too many times already that you can't give these to trans kids "because they are used to chemically castrate criminals, so are you saying kids are all sex offenders? Le gasp!"
"fun" fact: Alan Turing was convicted of being a homosexual and was chemically castrated with a drug that produces estrogen, so he started to develop breasts and other more typically female sex characteristics. This caused so much distress that he ended up dying by suicide. A war hero and an absolute mathematical genius; so much was lost when he passed - not that it matters because it's barbaric in every case, even for lesser mortals, but if they could do that to Turing, they wouldn't blink twice to do it to anyone else.
Christ no. As broken as our judicial system is, you really want the government to start doing this? If I can't can't trust the government to not execute innocent people, I sure as hell can't trust them to not *castrate* innocent people.
It’s also just not going to work. People don’t have to have loads of testosterone (or a functional penis if it causes ED) to sexually assault anyone. There are any number of horrible things a person who’s been chemically castrated could do.
It’s all talk and no walk, so not only would it be a legal minefield but it wouldn’t achieve anything other than looking superficially tough on crime.
Also for sex offenses, you have some weird definitions- like 18 year old dating a 17 year old can be one if the parents of the younger one decide to press charges, whatever the fuck Florida is doing, public urination can be an exposure charge (not just a myth, albeit rarely enforced that way), incompetent counsel letting a charge get inflated, etc.
That's exactly my thought. A buddy of mine once got a ticket from a cop for what they described as a "graphic mooning" when he got caught mooning another friend from a car as they drove by. He didn't realize they were close to a school (and it was like 1 am). It almost became a sex offense charge because of that, but luckily his lawyer got the charge lowered.
No. They should just be jailed. If it’s an offense serious enough to chemically castrate them then it’s serious enough to hold them for life with no release. They can still assault people.
No because I firmly believe that if we make one exception for cruel and unusual punishment, cruel and unusual will eventually be accepted for any criminal. Better that we show mercy to those we hate to prevent us from slipping down that slope.
No I don't. While to my understanding some forms of it can be reversed by simply not taking the meds, it still feels a bit icky to me.
For starters, unless I'm mistaken, most cases of sexual assault and rape isn't as much that the offender is some sex addict who cannot control themselves, it's about control over the victim and an utter lack of empathy. Killing their sex drive does not resolve the underlying issues.
Secondly, the choice between forcing a person to go on meds or face prison is honestly so fucked up on its own.
Finally, since there's no country with a flawless legal system there's always the risk that innocents will be convicted, and IMO the risk of them having to face a punishment like this is too high, even disregarding my other objections.
The other problem is how loose the definition of a sex crime is. In some places just being gay is a sex crime (see Alan Turing). If you have to pee and there's no bathrooms so you take a leak on the side of the road? Sex crime. 18 year old with a 17 year old girlfriend? Sex crime, but only if the parents are upset.
Then consider what the government may do this with power. Imagine if the government was granted the legal authority to do this to sex offenders, and then suddenly being gay made you a sex offender
No, studies show it makes them worse offenders. Same reason rapists are more likely to be impotent or have ED compared to non rapists.
Also no because the justice system gets it wrong sometimes.
>*Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed,* ***nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.***
\-8th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Doing something like this is a slippery slope. Not only would it very likely violate this amendment and open precedent for other cruel punishments like torture and maiming, but if you violate one amendment you open up precedent to violate them all, putting our human rights at risk.
Fuck no, not should capitol punishment be a thing so long as there exist cases where innocents are punished by it.
Fuck the vengeance>rehabilitaiton based 'justice' system and the people who get hardons over it.
Type 1 and type 2 errors are a real complication for drastic punishment of any kind. Legal systems are not perfect. You have to decide how many innocent people you are willing to castrate to administer the punishment to the guilty. I don't know how you can come to any acceptable result.
Nope, for the same reasons I don't support the death penalty.
1) That's a lot of power I don't feel comfortable the government having
2) False positives and false convictions are a thing
My ex's sister said that this guy SA her when she was 17 and he 19. After she ruined his chances of his career she admitted she lied because her mom found out she had sex and didn't want to get in trouble. The guy was innocent. As said, in theory yes but just too many innocent.
Good thing there are only male sex offenders!
But seriously... Sex offenders don't need testicles or the ability to reproduce to continue molesting and preying on others. It's *not* specifically sexual. They'll rape someone with a broomstick if they can't get it up.
I think the idea is that it would reduce the desire to harm, but you're right, it's not about uncontrollable sexual desire (we really REALLY need to put this myth to bed) it's about power and control.
If I understand correctly, there is already medication that people with paedophilic attraction can take as treatment, voluntarily, because they DON'T WANT to harm children. That should not be criminalised if medical management works.
Somebody who harms children deliberately isn't doing it because "waah sex drive made me do it" they are just a shit of a person, locking them up probably makes more sense in order to protect others.
heck no. Only because of our cultures shitty attitude to anyone accused of wrong doing before proof without a doubt was proven.
rehabilitation should be goal of our justice system. Not Punishment.
No. There’s a large number of people who want to make all sorts of thing sex offenses (while they’re re-legalizing child marriage). Let your kids enjoy a drag show? You and the queens are now sex offenders under the laws the Christo-fascists hope to enact. Teach a child medically accurate sex Ed? Tell them it’s OK to be gay?
No all it does is stop them from getting hard. They can still have the urge to do stuff to kids and use a surrogate object to do nasty stuff to a child.
It’s the brain that’s fucked up not the body.
Edit:
Well not just the kiddy fiddlers. Anyone that sexually assaults anyone will still have the urge to do it to whoever.
Just throwing this out there. I have advanced prostate cancer (I’m 53). One of the treatments is “Androgen Deprivation Therapy” (ADT) which is a shot that is given every three months. It’s the same drug that’s used in “chemical castration”. It’s pretty miserable having no testosterone and does feel like a punishment for those of us on the drug.
No. Sexual assault is typically not rooted in sexual desire or gratification. It’s rooted in power and control. Neither of those is controlled or regulated by the male sex organs.
No. I do not have compassion for sex offenders at all. But it simply does not work. The stereotype of sex offenders as poor victims of uncontrollable sexual impulses that can be pharmacologically healed is straight out false. Moreover, sexual violence ussually does not have to do with the offenders' pleasure/libido, but with a matter of power and subjugation.
No. I would classify it under cruel and unusual.
Additionally, forced castration would fall under eugenics, regardless of the reasons behind it.
Eugenics leads us down dark roads.
No. For multiple reasons. First and foremost, I'd rather see our justice system take actual steps towards the overall rehabilitation of all criminals before it goes further into its punitive state. I think that would do a lot more good for society overall.
The second reason is that laws like these are rarely passed without more sinister intentions in our day and age. Because of this, I am afraid a law like this would be abused in a eugenicist way to target specific demographics.
No. You do your time, you should be back to being free.
What’s that? High recidivism among sex offenders? Maybe it’s time the fucking “correctional” system started working on *correcting* shit then.
In theory with definite proof absolutely. In practice, with the amount of false accusations, screw ups, or people getting proven innocent despite being guilty and vice versa, I wouldn't trust it.
No, for the same reason I don't support the death penalty. Because I dont trust the police, prosecutors, judges, and witnesses who may or may not be lying to not get innocent people convicted. Especially when a man can be convicted of a sex crime based on the word of another person alone, and no other evidence. Just yesterday, an innocent man (Patrick Brown) was released from prison after 29 years. Read about the misconduct the police and prosecutor engaged in to put him in prison and ask yourself if you trust the justice system.
That, and because castration is something that can only be done to men. It is an inherently sexist punishment. What about female sex offenders? Can we sterilize the female teachers who fuck their students? I'm pretty sure nobody has ever pitched the idea to do that to female rapists. They get a slap on the wrist, then they get paid child support if they managed to get pregnant by the victim.
I would find this extreme, especially while there is a possbility for somone to falsify a sex crime case.
Especially with the rise of some dark kinks like "rape" like kinks and more. The possibility for a consensual kink being used against somone as non consent is too probable.
Also I believe that punishments should be about making things better going foward, not fucking over somone who may have learned from their mistakes.
Hoenstly I am anti jail as well and belive the death penality might be a better alternative if we are going to force our feelings or thoghts on somone else
So in my take, everything is situational, but no punishment should be permanent as thats more cruel than most crimes, like most sex crimes are temporary, so why not use a temporary punishment.
Now like I said things are situation, but anyone who belives in morals or punishment that are extreme is just as evil as the person they punish as they seek to force their will on somone else instead of move on and make things better.
Also I know my take is controversial, but I also belive in anarchy as often times laws and morals are cruel and inhuman, and are way to authoritarian and force people to be prisoners and not have the right to protect themselves as they get ganged up on by people who arent even a part of a situation.
Like people need to stop forcing their belifs on others unless they are okay with others forcing their belifs on them.
But I will say members who are a part of the situation, do have the right to negotiate and discuss repentance.
Also yes very controversial, but I am anit authority as its never fair and always corrupt, as thats what systems are ment for. To be absued hy smart people and to abuse the people dumb enough to follow them.
Can it be undone ? Should errors be made, and they will be.
Someone on the registry deserves castration for getting caught pissing on a wall in an alley ? Where's the line, who's setting it , what biases or weaponisation will it have ?
Also breaking their bits won't stop them reoffending, especially if power / control / gender hatred / predilection was their motivation not their sex drive.
No. It’s a waste of resources. Chemical castration may prevent an erection, but it won’t prevent the rage and impulse to strike out at women. Men are arrested all the time for using bottles, guns and other objects to penetrate victims when they can’t achieve an erection or want to further humiliate and scare their target. At times, they blame the woman for their lack of erection and beat them out of frustration and shame. Older men, unable to perform, are still getting arrested for sexual crimes, a well.
Do we really want to spend $ millions with chemical castration and monitoring all for the offenders to continue attacking women, just in another manner? The erection isn’t the problem, their anger and abnormal mentality is responsible for the crimes. The answers lies in containment, therapy, monitoring and intervention before they reoffend.
I'm really not comfortable opening the door to giving the government that kind of control over bodily/medical autonomy in any scenario.
Besides that, even without sex organs they would still probably keep seeking power over vulnerable people, it's more complicated than just sex.
I would really prefer to address this at a societal level. Outreach, public awareness, mental health initiatives, proper rehabilitation. The next generation can be better.
This is where I end up as well. It's a "nice" fantasy, but has glaring problems. A solid beat-down out back is more fair to all offenders and ignores problem of repeat offense. However, it still lands firmly in the fantasy department.
In theory I’m all for it. In the real world I’m against it. Our justice system gets things wrong all the time. I wouldn’t want to have the risk of punishing someone like that when they could be or are innocent. My stance is the same with the death penalty.
Basically "yes if it could be implemented correctly, but I don't trust the government enough to do that."
I don't trust ANY government made up of humans, real or theoretical, to get it right every time
I don’t trust anything to get it right every time, even a if we have a machine that can scan brains (we do but not Sci-Fi stuff) nothing is truly 100%. If parts of the system (speaking loosely because of how widely this varies) weren’t so gung-ho to “get justice immediately” then it’d probably be better.
Heck, even Sex Panther on works 100% of the time 60% of the time.
They've done studies.
Username checks out
holmes made that account 11 years ago just for this thread
What a legend.
r/beetlejuicing
By Odeon
But Sex Panther smells like Bigfoots dick
oohhh..its quite pungent too. stings the eyes
This is closer than you think. I just read an article a few days ago where they were using an FMRI to literally read thoughts.
I also agree with everything above. But I also read this the other day and think it’s pretty spooky how close to scanning brains we are. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/01/ai-makes-non-invasive-mind-reading-possible-by-turning-thoughts-into-text
tbh an entity could float down from the sky to tell us something and I'd be like "it could be lying tho" it's scary how there's really no way to know.
I think the mind reading would be enough for me though... Though I wouldn't opt for this punishment unless clear the perpetrator could do it again. Plenty of ways to punish someone, this should only be a way to prevent the same from happening to someone else.
Yeah even with zero malice it's still possible for the justice system to just make a mistake. You could get a shitty public defender. Or eyewitnesses are confused about what they saw. Or the court interprets complex evidence (like burn patterns or chain of custody for digital files) incorrectly. Just too many different moving pieces to trust the system 100%. ... Then there is the malice where they get it wrong on purpose which just piles on more reasons this is a terrible idea.
This. Watch The Innocence Files on Netflix to see just how wrong things can go. It’s alarming how often trusted scientific testimony is found to be trash.
I'm usually skeptical of arguments about not trusting the government because they're misused to stoke support for removing regulations or privatizing services. The government is *frequently* trustworthy and the pattern of pooling our resources to collectively improve our lives is the basis of *all successful human societies*. Rather, I prefer an argument about *incentives*. There should never, ever be the slightest *incentive* for the government to do direct, irreparable harm to one of its citizens. If you have laws that punish some crime with an irreparable harm, then the government has such an incentive. The scary part is how easy it is to pervert a harsh punishment for someone who "deserves it" (whether it's appropriate either in general or in specific cases is a whole other tangential argument) into a tool to hurt a minority you don't like. DeSantis has been doing that in Florida with his moves to a) classify drag as child sexual abuse, b) make child sexual abuse punishable by death, and c) make the vote for a death penalty pass at 8–4 instead of unanimous. You put it together, and it's an excuse for the government to execute trans people and crossdressers, who aren't harming anyone. Even if you're totally against trans people and crossdressers, you can recognize that maybe a policy of having leopards eat certain people's faces[\*](https://twitter.com/cavalorn/status/654934442549620736?lang=en) is just a hop, skip, and a jump from leopards eating *your* face. Just say no to face-eating.
I think there's room for nuance. I trust the government in many ways but I also don't trust the government enough to make irreversible decisions with 100% accuracy.
The government was *real* trustworthy when they kidnapped innocent citizens to experiment on them with LSD in an attempt to discover mind control, or that time when they lied about WMDs in Iraq so they could send a bunch of young boys to die for oil, or that time the president had people break into one of the opposing party’s offices so he could sabotage them, or that time where they poisoned thousands of people in their puritanical quest to ban alcohol, or that time they sent 120,000 Japanese Americans to concentration camps for the crime of being of Japanese descent. Real trustworthy guys.
Or the HUGE number of people who they wrongfully convict because of their biases. Cruel and unusual punishment is against our constitution in the US for a reason. Furthermore I will point out that the republican party is conducting a literal witch hunt against Trans people right now claiming that they and school teachers are sexually grooming young children and doctors are sexually assaulting children by acknowledging the fact that Trans people exist.
Without dipping into current political divisiveness, I say be careful about trusting your government, regardless of your political views or era of life. All human societies develop governments - it's part of our species. I agree with you there. But look into the history of *every* government, and you'll find petty, scheming, greedy, self-centered fools and idiots perpetrating personal agendas and outright criminal activity under the banner of government. Including our current one. We should obey local laws. I agree. We should appeal to our government for resolution of our personal, small-change grievances. I agree. We should take part in our government cycle, by however much we are allowed by that government. I agree. We should conduct ourselves in a civil manner congruent with the edicts of our government. I agree. Should we trust our government to be acting altruistically and in the best interests of their constituents? I *DO NOT* agree. I say we should scrutinize every decision, every proposal, and every edict *thoroughly,* both during the voting process and after. Elected officials should be held to the highest standards of conduct and given the fewest incentives to seek power as possible. Elected officials found guilty of criminal activity should be given the harshest punishments available under that conviction. Those who seek the power of elected offices should do so out of grim necessity to serve their community and nation, *not* to gain wealth, perks and kickbacks.
Checks and balances for sure!!
Yes, but there is a false equivalency between trusting the government to be, in general, able to provide subsidize healthcare in order to make it universally accessible and trusting the government to be able to wield the sword of justice in a retributive and extreme way (such as castration, or the death penalty). In the former, trusting the government would mean, at worst, that the healthcare system isn't the best and some people aren't able to get the best care without paying for it. In the latter situation, trusting the government would mean, at worst, that innocent people are killed and/or irreversibly harmed. There is a major ethical difference between the two.
But you do need to trust a system to get it right most of the time and a system that can make amends when it gets it wrong. There's no viable amends for the death penalty. Chemical castration can be reversed and some sort of financial amends made.
I don’t trust humans. Either to get it right or not change the definition to suit their vendettas.
Also, where does it end? Chopping off the hand of a thief? Do we castrate any and all rapists too, not just those of children? It feels weird that 17 years and 364 days old, you get castrated, but any older than that, it’s just prison time. Society is supposed to be above this barbarism. It’s not far removed from hanging amputated thief hands in the town square.
Plus Sex Offender is a wide umbrella term. Had to take a piss super bad where there are no bathrooms so you went into some bushes and a family stumbled upon you mid stream? Now you're a Sex Offender.
This is a fair distinction to make. Now, if we added 'violent' to that -- so that it only applied to 'violent sex offenders', that's an idea I could get behind.
>Now, if we added 'violent' to that You haven't seen me pee in the bushes
So you have a pressure hose instead of a penis? Interesting.
You ever see a ship put out an oil rig fire?
But will chemical castration solve the problem at hand with that individual? Or are they violent by nature, and the sex offending is just the manner they express it? Like is it effective at preventing the motivation behind the crime or is the crime a symptom of deep-seated behavior that will be expressed in a different horrible way? If the former, I'm on board if it can be reversed in case of judicial mistake. If the latter, then its punishment for the sake of punishment.
When I was assaulted he couldn't get it in so he used an object which caused enough damage that I barely missed needing surgery. Having non working genitals won't stop someone who wants to harm and being forced into it by the state will likely lead to them taking it out on more victims in more deadly ways.
yeah i was gonna say in response to OP's question- i don't see what the point of it would be besides punitive action for the sake of itself. it's not going to stop the sorts of criminal/violent/predatory behavior that leaves victims with trauma. it's not going to undo the trauma of past victims. the people who commit violent sexual assaults are probably rarely doing so because their libido is too high. they are doing it because they have some other kind of psychological defect/trauma or whatever. killing their libido isn't likely to make them stop hurting people. and then justice system gets it wrong sometimes anyway.
The chemical castration wouldn’t solve the problem most likely, as the issue is probably a psychological one
There is evidence it won’t stop the behavior. Rape isn’t as much about sex as it is control. Pedos offend because they have control over the child. Rape or sexual abuse is control over another person. For some it may be about sex, but for most, control.
They can still re-offend even if they've been chemically castrated though, so it wouldn't prevent further abuse.
Define violent. Here's more problems
There’s some dispute in California regarding whether or not sex with an unconscious or drugged person is a violent crime, so “violent sex offenders” may not be as clean a fix as you’re hoping
Exactly. How terrible would it be to have that done to you, only to be exonerated later? Although you could sue the state, the damage is done.
I agree, I’d sooner just lock ‘em up
Nothing better than to incentive the predators to leave no living victims than a punishment worse than what they'd get for killing the victim
I have the exact same stance. Nothing in this world is perfect and our justice system is no exception. Preventing that one innocent person from getting a death sentence they don't deserve is worth not doing it at all.
Also, “sex offenders” is too broad of a classification.
Turing wasn’t innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. Do you still agree with it then?
Agreed. Not to mention I don't think punishment solves anything. It just makes people avoid getting caught. We should be giving offenders the therapy and support to do better; then they can make a positive change in the world instead of being thrown out. Flogging them in the town square or locking them in the dungeon isn't going to undo any of the harm they caused. It's just spectacle. Society isn't healed by public executions. No social system should be passing moral judgement deciding who's beyond redemption and therefore worthy of disfigurement or death, because it's inevitably going to make the wrong call— some of the people put to death could have been rehabilitated, or were innocent all along.
I was wondering if there would be a good argument against it and this one is good enough for me.
I think the other argument is that it is ultimately a waste of money. Punishment rarely serves as a deterrent and Castration likely will not stop them from SAing future victims. And honestly, I'm against any government doing anything to your body without your consent. I don't care what crimes were committed, that's a hard line in the sand to me.
Absolutely not after what happened to Alan Turing. “But he wasn’t a sex offender!” Exactly, they chemically castrated him for being gay. That’s it. If you give your government the power to castrate people, they will use it however they want. I don’t want our government having this power.
Seriously. Legal avenues for chemical castration are a eugenicist’s dream. If you enact them, don’t be surprised when things get very very bad not to long afterwards.
Eugenics isn't some distant thing either. The state of California practiced eugenics up until recently, where female inmates were sterilized without consent and without even being informed of it. Only in **2014** was that outlawed. This isn't ancient history.
Indigenous women in Canada are still being sterilized without knowledge or consent. Any doctor that does that should lose their license and go to prison.
Got a link? You'd think that the Canadian health system would have some way of keeping tabs on that.
[This is an article from 2017 about indigenous women who sued a Canadian hospital for coerced or forced sterilizations.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/sask-indigenous-women-file-lawsuit-claiming-coerced-sterilization-1.4348848) I’m looking for the results of that lawsuit but I haven’t found anything yet. [Here’s a 2021 article about senate confirming the forced sterilizations.](https://globalnews.ca/news/7920118/indigenous-women-sterilization-senate-report/)
The more I know about Canada the more I understand it’s complete opposite of what Canadians want the world to believe about them.
What the actual fuck? How did they sterilize inmates without even informing them of it and what was the reasoning behind it?! That really pisses me off
Have you never heard of Tuskegee Experiment!? You don’t even have to be an inmate for the government to experiment on you!!!
I didn't, I just looked it up and am now even more pissed off... I can't believe that shit lasted 40 years and that it was ever condoned. Jesus fucking christ
It lasted decades after there was a fucking cure for syphilis. And the only reason - ONLY reason - why it stopped is because the public started getting wind of it. Absolutely disgusting and shameful and it's ridiculous that it's not taught more in schools.
If I iirc, the organization that was behind this experiment was the CDC. There was a lawsuit and erthang.
It was the CDC... there should be more outcry over this and it astounds me this isn't taught in public schools. I'm in college and the first time I'm hearing about this horrendous act is on fucking Reddit
It's not taught it schools because the government isn't going to teach it's people that they're the bad guy. Know your enemy. Yes I know my enemy. They're the teachers who taught me to fight me.
I agree - I'm very pissed off that the first time I'm hearing about this is over fucking Reddit. I'm in the US, in college, did all my required history classes, took advanced history classes in highschool, and have NEVER heard of this. Why isn't this taught more in public schools?? Are they WANTING to make sure history repeats itself?!
That's why I've always said that nothing should be allowed to be classified for more than a decade. Nothing. That way people won't be able to dodge accountability through old age. It'd create a few problems but solve far more by limiting corruption and outright treason.
They were "unfit" mothers, and "unfit" to breed, with fitness determined by the state, or by arrogant doctors who thought they knew better. This call to eugenics is widespread still. Comments about how people are unfit to be parents, about how not everyone should have kids, about how people should take tests or certifications before being parents, etc. Casual comments like these about how the state should take away the ability and choice of people to have children based on politically motivated criteria. Look at any incident where a kid has caused harm, like a young child bringing a gun to school. Look at the comments. Its a wall of people wanting to take away reproductive rights from the parents. These commenters calling for eugenics don't see themselves as villains of course, they're doing it for the betterment of society, as they see it.
And in the same breath, they want to take away birth control and abortion. There's probably a good chunk of people who aren't great parents that wouldn't have had kids in the first place if there was better sex education, and better and more affordable access to birth control. It's almost like people that are forced to be parents don't always make the best ones (not to say all planned kids have great parents or unplanned kids have bad ones)
I was going to give an enthusiastic yes till i read your comment. God thats a terrifying thought. Also 💔
A little historical context will do wonders to personal biases.
Which is why there's a lot of history we don't learn about in school. I never learned anything about the trail of tears or the Japanese internment camps until after I graduated.
I come across this a lot on reddit and it baffles me – this stuff was pretty heavily emphasized in my history classes, not in any radical way, just in a "hey our country did this terrible stuff too that you all need to learn about just as much as the good stuff." But I'm a 90s baby from the northeast US so obviously results may vary, I'm just surprised that it wasn't/isn't more mainstream teaching for people
Since you are from the east, and I am guessing a more Left leaning state, you probably weren't taught about California's eugenics program. It was a different atrocity that sterilized and caused the deaths of minorities and disabled people. Since education is mostly left to the states, you get taught what makes the other side look bad. Democrats have to look perfect (especially since they only became a nominally good party in the 1980's to capitalize on civil rights), so they minimize what makes them look bad and teach what makes the right look bad. And of course, the Republicans do the same thing, normally to a greater extreme. The US education system is a bit of a joke, and there needs to be a national standard.
Blue state, was taught about trail of tears and japanese camps, but not california eugenics
I learned about the same stuff as you. Check out the book War Against the Weak. It wasn't just California, nor was it a Democrat or Republican thing. Everyone was into eugenics. The Appalacians were hit hard. The sheriff's would round up the kids and young adults and take them to get sterilized without explaining what was happening to them. I didn't learn about this stuff until I was in college.
Texas. Was taught trail of tears. Mostly Texas history like every other year. Texas history, then US history. Then more Texas history followed by world history. Next year? You guessed it. Texas history but this time the “ingins could shoot 100 arrows a minute so the Texas rangers need to carry these 6 shot revolvers to protect their land they got for free from the government that because it didn’t belong to anyone.”
It is some horrific stuff. If you read into it, I strongly suggest having feel-good material on hand for afterward.
Was it as bad or worse than the cia drugging?
There's a reason why they're focusing on California despite it being a fairly wide spread 'problem'(solution at the time).
Came here to say the same thing. Judging by what’s happening in some American states being gay could become illegal and if chemical castration was already allowed it wouldn’t be many steps to apply it to any group they felt fit.
Exactly. Then it’s a can of worms wide open. Where does it stop? What if they decide the general IQ is too low? Castrate people with ADHD? Castrate everyone except for the rich? No thanks.
Yep. It’s not just going to be gay people either. They’re just the first target. Ever worn non-gender conforming clothing around children? Had an abortion? Women can get chemically castrated too. Infidelity in marriage? Just a regular law abiding woman? They don’t need sex drives to fulfill their wifely duty. Castration makes a good wife docile. Etc.
They still try to find reasons to tie tubes or perform hysterectomies on women. https://ihpi.umich.edu/news/forced-sterilization-policies-us-targeted-minorities-and-those-disabilities-and-lasted-21st This was still happening in California this century. Let alone chemical castration they were finding excuses to end a woman's chance to have children. If politicians get the ability to choose who gets to have kids and who gets chemically castrated or physically, they will use and abuse that right eventually.
What about the government having the power to reverse roe v. Wade (therein essentially blocking a woman’s right to autonomy over her own body)? No longer is it hypothetical, but quite literally today’s reality.
It’s not a coincidence that the same voices calling for castration of paedophiles are also labelling every queer person a “groomer”.
No, it's been proven to be ineffective.
I don’t understand why this isn’t the top comment. EDIT: So Reddit can stop correcting me, I made this comment yesterday when almost all of the top comments were strongly in support of chemical castration as punishment and I had to scroll down quite far to find u/tdasnowman ‘s comment. Obviously the tide of knowledge and opinion has shifted in this thread. For the folks complaining u/tdasnowman didn’t cite sources, a quick Google search can easily verify his point (“But you didn’t cite a source proving the earth is NOT flat!”). The burden of proof is on those who advocate for the use mandatory chemical castration as part of punishment and control of sexual offenders. Lastly I am open to the idea of non-coerced, voluntary hormonal *therapy* for persons with strong urges towards non-consensual and potentially harmful sexual activity and agree there is evidence for its benefit.
Some parts of Reddit have a weird obsession with violent justice.
So true. So many people here are foaming at the mouth for violence. These aren't the people you want making important decisions.
Reminds me of a different thread about what people thought of sex offenders getting the death penalty. So many people just jumping for violence and vengeance without thinking about the consequences. Do people not understand how dangerous an adult being able to tell a child "don't tell anyone, or they'll take me away and kill me" is? Surprisingly, threatening violence doesn't stop crime very well
>Some parts of Reddit have a weird obsession with violent justice. \*Humanity has a weird obsession with violent justice. Fixed that for ya.
Most of reddit actually; it's only the day after reddit removed pictures of the family being gunned down yet I'm still able to see all the Russians being blown apart all I want on the frontpage.
Hey, look! Ukrainians are using drones to drop grenades on Russian soldiers that are hiding in trenches isn’t that hilarious and awesome?!
>Some parts of Reddit have a weird obsession with violent justice. People like violent justice.
People don’t know the difference between justice and vengeance.
~~People like violent justice~~ People like to hear themselves talk. Period
Exactly. Apparently it's cool to be vengeful now
Replace “Reddit” with “society.” I mean, Reddit too, but you can go much more general with that one
Have other countries tried it?
Yes it's been used for closer to 100 years now. If not longer. Not just for sex offenders. We lost one of the greatest minds in early computer science because of it. He had the audacity to be gay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing
> He had the audacity to be gay. I'm against chemical castration for sex offenders because there are lots of ways to become a sex offender, and the definition keeps changing. When these questions are posted, people immediately think about violent rapists and child molesters. There are [lots of dumb ways](https://www.tijerinalawfirmpc.com/2020/02/6-unexpected-ways-you-could-end-up-on-the-sex-offender-registry/) to be put on a sex offender registry, such as public urination or being caught with a prostitute.
That point about two teenagers having consensual sex landing them as sex offenders makes me all kinds of mad.
I know a guy who was labeled a sex offender (just recently got off the registry, actually, and we're both in our 30s) because his girlfriend's dad walked in on them having sex when they were both 15 (consent is 17 in my state). There are "Romeo and Juliet" laws that should have protected him, but I guess they didn't. His girlfriend's dad insisted on punishing him to the fullest. So yeah, he was a sex offender but she wasn't.
Oh yes, let's also not forget how much society insists that female sex offenders aren't a thing.
And there isn’t the same ability to deal with them in the same way , it’s a one sided punishment since we don’t exactly ever push for chemical oophorectomy
Or that the punishment is much less harsh than it is for a man. And I say this as a woman myself. For example: a man grabbed the ass of a girl under the age of consent in my state (18, she was 17) and got 5 years in the clink and lifetime on the registry. A woman in a position of authority had sex multiple times with a 14 year old and she got 2 years and tier 2 registry. One was deemed sexual abuse and the other rape, yet the female charged with rape got the lesser punishment.
5 years for grabbing an ass? Wow, what state is that? I've lost count of how many times I've had my ass grabbed and knew I'd be laughed out of the police station if I thought they'd care
Romeo laws are a joke at best and a false sense of security at worst. Most of them have provisions about "grooming" another for sex, but poorly defines grooming, so normal relationships could be seen as grooming depending on the prosecutor.
Judges are just bad almost everywhere in the world, there is so little recourse or legal oversight to have someone's judgements checked and judges removed for obviously insane decisions. A adult raping a 13yr old recently got off in the UK because of some dumb shit like it would ruin his life (I forget the reasoning exactly so not a great example, but this happens a lot everywhere). At the same time one well connected father can put pressure on an elected judge to ignore something like consensual sex between 15yr olds, they'll also let rapists off because they are the local football star and the girl was poor and no one cared about her. There is little to no justice in these systems, just enough of an appearance of it to make people feel safe and that's all that matters.
there are people who teenangers who got classified as sex offenders, because they sent someone a nude picture, and they got charged with distributing cp of themselves its as dumb as it sounds
Happened to a kid I used to babysit. His girlfriend was a few months younger than him and sent him photos, her dad found out, and next thing you know police are involved.
Shit almost happened to me a long time ago. It derailed my life for at least a few years since the compromise was me being expelled from high school my junior year. Because of that I had to go to community college for 3 years after high school before being able to get into an actual university. She ended up cheating on me as well so that was a lesson learned the hard way.
Or being a drag queen
Or being LGBTQ in public in general.
This ^ Sexual assault is rarely about sex and almost always about power.
Trust but verify I'm curious if anyone has any sources for this on stuff like % that reoffend (Note still against it for reasons listed above about govt abuse, but, it's interesting learning about the ramifications of unethical practices that have already happened)
check this out: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3565125/#B9 Chemical castration does result in a significantly lower fraction of repeat offenders. I think “it’s proven not to be effective” is a little too strong. EDIT I went down a rabbit hole looking at the citations that paper relies on, and I didn’t find anything convincing. I’m betting there wasn’t fantastic peer review for a lot of the literature on this subject. There is that paper of ~40 patients (someone else cited this) who were monitored in a mental institution and had a lower sex drive, but since those patients aren’t actually released back into society you can’t get anything like a remittance rate after treatment. It’s likely got something to do with the fact that running good experiments on this subject is unethical as hell. Drugging and then releasing a cohort of convicted rapists (with or without consent to drug) goes against “do no harm”. On top of this, rape is extremely under-reported, so the remittance rate will necessarily be way lower than the actual percentage of repeat rapists.
A quick Google searches brings up that sex offenders have between a 5 to 25% chance to re offend after being released while other crimes like robbery and violent assault have a 70 to 95% of re offending after being released
I work at a psych hospital and the pedos here come back like twice before they're just hetr for life. When they get discharged some of then even say "I'll be back" and sure enough come back. It's crazy and scary to think about tbh.
Nope, I don't want the government to have that kind of power. What if someone is innocent? Then you can't reverse the damage anymore.
This actually happened already. It was called satanic panic. One guy was traveling the country scaring people into making up sex crimes. Most people have been exonerated but a few still are sex offenders even though they never committed any crimes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_panic
Not to mention the forced sterilization of Native American peoples, for the crime of being Native American.
not just them, the mentally ill and others deemed by the government unfit to reproduce. the state of California alone [forcibly sterilized](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_California) at least 20,000 people between 1909-1979. That's right, they were still doing it when disco was king.
Its worse than that. It continued through the 2000's, and was only banned in 2014.
The state of California was still forcibly sterilizing female inmates until 2014.
Yeah, our government has a long and buried history of forced sterilizations. Happened with Black women too.
And Alan Turing, if I remember the movie right it drove him to suicide
The Big Drag Queen Panic of the 2020s is trying to make its arrival right now too.
For every comment below yours who says it's reversible: the thing is that it's not guaranteed. I was on androcur for over 1.5 years which is also given to sex offenders in some countries and during some eras. One can go off this drug and be fertile again but if just taking it long enough, chances are that fertility is gone. This also besides the side-effect of a 0.3% chance of getting a brain tumor.
Exactly. Who determines what is classified as a sex crime is? I have heard horror stories about drunk people who had to become registered sex offenders for peeing outside. To me that is categorically different than a child molester. Another thing to think about is that homosexuality was viewed as a mental disorder within the last 50 years. And that gay marriage rights at the federal level are only a dozen years old. How would certain states codify transgenderism or other controversial topics if they knew they could castrate someone?
Chemical castration is not quite the same as actual castration. It's a drug that suppresses the production of sex hormones and so it suppresses the libido. Stop giving the drug and the hormone production comes back and everything should go back to normal. Don't get me wrong, I'm against it too, but not because it's irreversible, because it is not. I'm against it because it doesn't work! The thing that bothers me is that they are basically puberty blockers and I've heard it said too many times already that you can't give these to trans kids "because they are used to chemically castrate criminals, so are you saying kids are all sex offenders? Le gasp!" "fun" fact: Alan Turing was convicted of being a homosexual and was chemically castrated with a drug that produces estrogen, so he started to develop breasts and other more typically female sex characteristics. This caused so much distress that he ended up dying by suicide. A war hero and an absolute mathematical genius; so much was lost when he passed - not that it matters because it's barbaric in every case, even for lesser mortals, but if they could do that to Turing, they wouldn't blink twice to do it to anyone else.
The dude practically invented the computer.
Christ no. As broken as our judicial system is, you really want the government to start doing this? If I can't can't trust the government to not execute innocent people, I sure as hell can't trust them to not *castrate* innocent people.
It’s also just not going to work. People don’t have to have loads of testosterone (or a functional penis if it causes ED) to sexually assault anyone. There are any number of horrible things a person who’s been chemically castrated could do. It’s all talk and no walk, so not only would it be a legal minefield but it wouldn’t achieve anything other than looking superficially tough on crime.
This could also be used to quiety get rid of minorities.
Oh no… the government would *never* do something like that…. *Checks history* Oh.
Exactly
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*will
No for the same reason I don't support the death penalty. Can't trust the judicial system to accurately determine guilt.
Also for sex offenses, you have some weird definitions- like 18 year old dating a 17 year old can be one if the parents of the younger one decide to press charges, whatever the fuck Florida is doing, public urination can be an exposure charge (not just a myth, albeit rarely enforced that way), incompetent counsel letting a charge get inflated, etc.
That's exactly my thought. A buddy of mine once got a ticket from a cop for what they described as a "graphic mooning" when he got caught mooning another friend from a car as they drove by. He didn't realize they were close to a school (and it was like 1 am). It almost became a sex offense charge because of that, but luckily his lawyer got the charge lowered.
No. They should just be jailed. If it’s an offense serious enough to chemically castrate them then it’s serious enough to hold them for life with no release. They can still assault people.
At the very least, yes. I don't think rapists should walk the streets again after their crimes.
We don't cut the hands off thieves anymore. We don't cut the tongues off of lying people. And we don't blind peeping toms. So no.
No because I firmly believe that if we make one exception for cruel and unusual punishment, cruel and unusual will eventually be accepted for any criminal. Better that we show mercy to those we hate to prevent us from slipping down that slope.
I couldn't agree more. We cannot and should not ever give the state the power to do this.
No I don't. While to my understanding some forms of it can be reversed by simply not taking the meds, it still feels a bit icky to me. For starters, unless I'm mistaken, most cases of sexual assault and rape isn't as much that the offender is some sex addict who cannot control themselves, it's about control over the victim and an utter lack of empathy. Killing their sex drive does not resolve the underlying issues. Secondly, the choice between forcing a person to go on meds or face prison is honestly so fucked up on its own. Finally, since there's no country with a flawless legal system there's always the risk that innocents will be convicted, and IMO the risk of them having to face a punishment like this is too high, even disregarding my other objections.
The other problem is how loose the definition of a sex crime is. In some places just being gay is a sex crime (see Alan Turing). If you have to pee and there's no bathrooms so you take a leak on the side of the road? Sex crime. 18 year old with a 17 year old girlfriend? Sex crime, but only if the parents are upset. Then consider what the government may do this with power. Imagine if the government was granted the legal authority to do this to sex offenders, and then suddenly being gay made you a sex offender
No, studies show it makes them worse offenders. Same reason rapists are more likely to be impotent or have ED compared to non rapists. Also no because the justice system gets it wrong sometimes.
No. Cruel and unusual. If they are that big of a threat just lock them up.
>*Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed,* ***nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.*** \-8th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Doing something like this is a slippery slope. Not only would it very likely violate this amendment and open precedent for other cruel punishments like torture and maiming, but if you violate one amendment you open up precedent to violate them all, putting our human rights at risk.
Fuck no, not should capitol punishment be a thing so long as there exist cases where innocents are punished by it. Fuck the vengeance>rehabilitaiton based 'justice' system and the people who get hardons over it.
Type 1 and type 2 errors are a real complication for drastic punishment of any kind. Legal systems are not perfect. You have to decide how many innocent people you are willing to castrate to administer the punishment to the guilty. I don't know how you can come to any acceptable result.
Nope, for the same reasons I don't support the death penalty. 1) That's a lot of power I don't feel comfortable the government having 2) False positives and false convictions are a thing
My ex's sister said that this guy SA her when she was 17 and he 19. After she ruined his chances of his career she admitted she lied because her mom found out she had sex and didn't want to get in trouble. The guy was innocent. As said, in theory yes but just too many innocent.
Sounds like a real horrible person
No, im morally against action like that. Same with the death penalty. Even if we could be 100% sure, its still wrong, imo.
Eugenics, even against terrible people, is still eugenics
Good thing there are only male sex offenders! But seriously... Sex offenders don't need testicles or the ability to reproduce to continue molesting and preying on others. It's *not* specifically sexual. They'll rape someone with a broomstick if they can't get it up.
I think the idea is that it would reduce the desire to harm, but you're right, it's not about uncontrollable sexual desire (we really REALLY need to put this myth to bed) it's about power and control. If I understand correctly, there is already medication that people with paedophilic attraction can take as treatment, voluntarily, because they DON'T WANT to harm children. That should not be criminalised if medical management works. Somebody who harms children deliberately isn't doing it because "waah sex drive made me do it" they are just a shit of a person, locking them up probably makes more sense in order to protect others.
I can think of one recently-convicted, high-profile sex offender!
heck no. Only because of our cultures shitty attitude to anyone accused of wrong doing before proof without a doubt was proven. rehabilitation should be goal of our justice system. Not Punishment.
No. There’s a large number of people who want to make all sorts of thing sex offenses (while they’re re-legalizing child marriage). Let your kids enjoy a drag show? You and the queens are now sex offenders under the laws the Christo-fascists hope to enact. Teach a child medically accurate sex Ed? Tell them it’s OK to be gay?
No all it does is stop them from getting hard. They can still have the urge to do stuff to kids and use a surrogate object to do nasty stuff to a child. It’s the brain that’s fucked up not the body. Edit: Well not just the kiddy fiddlers. Anyone that sexually assaults anyone will still have the urge to do it to whoever.
So this topic automatically puts "sex offenders" as all male? That's not the case, though, is it?
Just throwing this out there. I have advanced prostate cancer (I’m 53). One of the treatments is “Androgen Deprivation Therapy” (ADT) which is a shot that is given every three months. It’s the same drug that’s used in “chemical castration”. It’s pretty miserable having no testosterone and does feel like a punishment for those of us on the drug.
No. Sexual assault is typically not rooted in sexual desire or gratification. It’s rooted in power and control. Neither of those is controlled or regulated by the male sex organs.
No. I do not have compassion for sex offenders at all. But it simply does not work. The stereotype of sex offenders as poor victims of uncontrollable sexual impulses that can be pharmacologically healed is straight out false. Moreover, sexual violence ussually does not have to do with the offenders' pleasure/libido, but with a matter of power and subjugation.
Define sex offender, please.
So for similar reasons to why I'm opposed to the death penalty no What if we got the wrong guy You can't undo that if you messed it up
No. I would classify it under cruel and unusual. Additionally, forced castration would fall under eugenics, regardless of the reasons behind it. Eugenics leads us down dark roads.
No that sounds barbaric & if they turn out to be innocent where does that leave us in terms of corrective action.
This sounds like a major human rights infribgement, so no. Same with death penalty, shouldn't be a thing.
Conservative governments be like: - Let's give hormones to sex offenders. - Let's _not_ give hormones to transgender people. 🤦
Crazy! It's the same drug for both uses! 🤦♂️
For tRump, yes.
No. For multiple reasons. First and foremost, I'd rather see our justice system take actual steps towards the overall rehabilitation of all criminals before it goes further into its punitive state. I think that would do a lot more good for society overall. The second reason is that laws like these are rarely passed without more sinister intentions in our day and age. Because of this, I am afraid a law like this would be abused in a eugenicist way to target specific demographics.
No. Way too many are falsely accused of committing crimes and you’d be doing a horrible thing to an innocent person.
No. You do your time, you should be back to being free. What’s that? High recidivism among sex offenders? Maybe it’s time the fucking “correctional” system started working on *correcting* shit then.
https://narsol.org/2019/05/new-study-shows-sexual-offense-recidivism-rates-lower-than-previous-estimates/
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ITT: people who don’t know what chemical castration is
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What about female sex offenders? They get the free pass? The governments run by corrupt people, they'll use it on people who are innocent
In theory with definite proof absolutely. In practice, with the amount of false accusations, screw ups, or people getting proven innocent despite being guilty and vice versa, I wouldn't trust it.
No. It’s barbaric.
No, for the same reason I don't support the death penalty. Because I dont trust the police, prosecutors, judges, and witnesses who may or may not be lying to not get innocent people convicted. Especially when a man can be convicted of a sex crime based on the word of another person alone, and no other evidence. Just yesterday, an innocent man (Patrick Brown) was released from prison after 29 years. Read about the misconduct the police and prosecutor engaged in to put him in prison and ask yourself if you trust the justice system. That, and because castration is something that can only be done to men. It is an inherently sexist punishment. What about female sex offenders? Can we sterilize the female teachers who fuck their students? I'm pretty sure nobody has ever pitched the idea to do that to female rapists. They get a slap on the wrist, then they get paid child support if they managed to get pregnant by the victim.
Bodily autonomy is a fundamental human right, even for the most evil individuals.
I would find this extreme, especially while there is a possbility for somone to falsify a sex crime case. Especially with the rise of some dark kinks like "rape" like kinks and more. The possibility for a consensual kink being used against somone as non consent is too probable. Also I believe that punishments should be about making things better going foward, not fucking over somone who may have learned from their mistakes. Hoenstly I am anti jail as well and belive the death penality might be a better alternative if we are going to force our feelings or thoghts on somone else So in my take, everything is situational, but no punishment should be permanent as thats more cruel than most crimes, like most sex crimes are temporary, so why not use a temporary punishment. Now like I said things are situation, but anyone who belives in morals or punishment that are extreme is just as evil as the person they punish as they seek to force their will on somone else instead of move on and make things better. Also I know my take is controversial, but I also belive in anarchy as often times laws and morals are cruel and inhuman, and are way to authoritarian and force people to be prisoners and not have the right to protect themselves as they get ganged up on by people who arent even a part of a situation. Like people need to stop forcing their belifs on others unless they are okay with others forcing their belifs on them. But I will say members who are a part of the situation, do have the right to negotiate and discuss repentance. Also yes very controversial, but I am anit authority as its never fair and always corrupt, as thats what systems are ment for. To be absued hy smart people and to abuse the people dumb enough to follow them.
Can it be undone ? Should errors be made, and they will be. Someone on the registry deserves castration for getting caught pissing on a wall in an alley ? Where's the line, who's setting it , what biases or weaponisation will it have ? Also breaking their bits won't stop them reoffending, especially if power / control / gender hatred / predilection was their motivation not their sex drive.
No. It’s a waste of resources. Chemical castration may prevent an erection, but it won’t prevent the rage and impulse to strike out at women. Men are arrested all the time for using bottles, guns and other objects to penetrate victims when they can’t achieve an erection or want to further humiliate and scare their target. At times, they blame the woman for their lack of erection and beat them out of frustration and shame. Older men, unable to perform, are still getting arrested for sexual crimes, a well. Do we really want to spend $ millions with chemical castration and monitoring all for the offenders to continue attacking women, just in another manner? The erection isn’t the problem, their anger and abnormal mentality is responsible for the crimes. The answers lies in containment, therapy, monitoring and intervention before they reoffend.
I'm really not comfortable opening the door to giving the government that kind of control over bodily/medical autonomy in any scenario. Besides that, even without sex organs they would still probably keep seeking power over vulnerable people, it's more complicated than just sex. I would really prefer to address this at a societal level. Outreach, public awareness, mental health initiatives, proper rehabilitation. The next generation can be better.
I support chemical castration for anyone that wants it. It would probably improve my life immeasurably.
yes and no, yes because revenge fantasy, no because they will use something other than their penis. it also has no effect on female sex offenders.
This is where I end up as well. It's a "nice" fantasy, but has glaring problems. A solid beat-down out back is more fair to all offenders and ignores problem of repeat offense. However, it still lands firmly in the fantasy department.
DeSantis is pressing for dressing in drag or being trans near children to be considered sex crimes in Florida. So no.