Because fuck everyone's body autonomy. The government controls you.
As a note, this is only for sex offenders who assaulted under 13's
Do you have the impression that its physically damaging or painful? What do you think chemical castration is?
What is the alternative you'd rather have?
Not doing that because it's barbaric regardless? I'd rather torture not be something used as it's cruel and unusual.
Got falsely accused for molesting a child? Too bad, you're being castrated.
The alternative is "not chemical castration, ever". Took a while to think of it.
In what way is it torture specifically? I'm not making a statement here, what do you believe chemical castration is? What do they do when they chemically castrate someone?
It isn't permanent, its a dosage of drugs that temporarily reduces sex drive.
It's not surgical castration for one thing. It does not actually castrate them. The name is actually fairly misleading.
Another alternative is prison which extremely easily could lead to them being killed
I'm not saying chemical castration is the most moral option, however there are few good ways to deal with people who sexually assault minors, which is what the law is directed towards.
You can easily make a case against using drugs by force to argue against it.
After reading some of your articles my position has softened. Sorry if I came across like an asshole. The power of ignorance, innit.
I don't know how I feel about the state forcing chemical castration on a predator, but I can't argue with the results.
To be fair Alabama is a really fucked state and the name "chemical CASTRATION" is intimidating
I think if you were falsely accused of being a 'sexual deviant' and your judge was using that word, you'd probably shit your pants.
However having had quite a same reaction myself, its surprisingly not nearly as bad as it sounds.
Rather than removing a thief's hand, why not teach them how to live without theft? What's 'very much likely to lead them to committing an offense again' is finding out 'why are they doing it to begin with'.
Not all those who molest do so because it gets them off sexually; for some it's about control and punishment. It's a chemical band-aid fix and its barbaric.
You could sign into law that they're forced to go live in a rehab center built by the state specifically for pedophiles and the like where they are to stay indefinitely until ruled 'cured'. There's a variety of ways you can do this other than reaching for the Nerve Stapler.
What leads them to committing an offense is psychological and should be dealt with psychologically. Would you agree that we have to deal with the violent by injecting them with chemicals that make them perpetually 'too tired to attack people'? Would you agree that we should deal with liars by numbing their mouth to the point that they're unable to speak? Should we deal with male sexual assaulters by forcefully administering blood-pressure reducing pills to ensure that their genitalia can't function?
Just how much would you like the State to go around messing with people's bodies as a 'quick fix' to the problem of those people? Where do you draw the line?
I am 100% in support of allowing pedophiles to OPTIONALLY AND HAVING BEEN INFORMED, to use this as a part of rehab.
You either
Stay at a rehab center without CC
Get to be outside of the center however have to return while on CC
Is that a fair position for me to have? Would you rather they never have this on the table at all?
You can find out why they're doing it while they are on CC.
This is an extremely bad faith statement that frames CC as something permanent and final.
Removing a thief hand is permanent. CC ends when you stop taking the drugs.
I'm not even going to dignify it with much more than that. If you want to pretend this is something else then I don't think you're being honest at all.
Argue that forcing someone to take drugs is immoral, but don't try and manipulate words to make CC seem more threatening and terrible than it actually is.
Ok, what about it is barbaric? Have you read my posted articles?
Instead of making a statement, make an argument.
How is forcing someone to stay at a center that much better than giving them the option to leave?
There are potential permanent effects depending on how long they're on CC. Again, though you might not have seen my edit, we use it on cancer because cancer is cancer and people generally don't care about things like 'increased risk of cardiovascular disease, osteoperosis, whole-body muscular atrophy, and blood pressure problems' when the alternative is literally death.
I've known about chemical castration for a long time. You are removing a fundamental part of a human being to 'solve the problem'. It is no different than 'removing your ability to feel angry by putting you on state-administered dopamine as an alternative to staying in prison'. It solves nothing and fundamentally changes a person in an unhealthy fashion. You're not helping them deal with their problem, you're removing their ability to misbehave. That is fundamentally the same as removing a thief's hand because they steal.
In one you ensure that the underlying problem is resolved. In the other you ignore the problem and simply remove their ability to have it. One is far more disabling than the other and is, atop of that, unnecessarily abusive to a person's psyche and personality. The barbarism comes from a lack of civility and that lack of civility here is a lack of respect for a person's core personality and their right to make up and fix their own mind -- even if it requires convincing and time to do so.
It's akin to saying 'you can either go to a psychologist until you're cured or a psychiatrist to remove that part of yourself entirely to solve this problem'.
The only thing I'd say about this is, I just don't trust Alabama with an elastic band, let alone anything more than that
In my cynicism, I'm just seeing it as Alabama seeing the headsman finally coming for the private prison industry -- and so are trying to build 'new types of prison' that ensures the state continues to get that sweet drip of money from holding a huge amount of its population as criminals. Starting with sex offenders might be just how they get the lobster into the boiling pot, by starting it on a 'low temperature'. After all, 'they're sex offenders, why do they deserve real consideration. they're not really losing anything according to the State so what's the problem'.
Then we fast forward 50 years where 'chemical rehabilitation' is what Alabama's judges prefer sentencing to because the prisons and jails are still full so you get more of a reduced sentence if you willingly 'volunteer' for it, knowing that the alternative is the book being brought down on you hard because 'you're making our prison population problem worse, so we'll make your situation worse as a punishment':
"Chemical rehabilitation? I think it's great! I mean look at Bob. He used to go around beating women on a monthly basis and was completely out of control. These days he's nothing but happy all the time and wouldn't hurt a fly; damn right I think he should be forced to stay on those pills, look at the impact it's making on his life! He has so many friends now and everyone's life is so much better for it."
A 100 years from there someone will analyze Bob's life and see, quickly, that Bob wasn't happy -- he simply had his ability to feel angry removed -- and it will be seen exactly the same as a lobotomy that didn't require an invasive surgery -- and that act and all the people who supported it will be looked upon as Barbarians.
The article does a good job of hiding the ball for shock value here (as has the media as a whole), and it seems nobody here caught it: this is a condition of parole, not a condition of release. In other words, if you want to be released early, you have to take the treatment. But you aren't required to take it to be released - if you don't want it, just serve your full sentence.
Now obviously that brings up some questionable 8th Amendment issues, but the words "required" and "forced" and the like are a bit disingenuous.
And as to the Alabama-bashing, while I certainly won't disagree that Alabama sucks, it's worth noting that California was the first state to implement such a rule, back in 1996. Several other states have similar laws. Sadly, Alabama is not alone here.
If I remember right, an experiment with chemical castration was tried in the 1980s. It did not reduce the rate of repeat offense one iota, because the sickness is mental, not physical. Of course, Alabama's still living in the fucking stone ages, so I don't suppose they got the memo.
The idea that this is being done to solve the problem is pretty naive
Chemical castration can cause permanent infertility, it causes can permanent body changes like nipple and breast development, and it can give you osteoporosis.
AFAIK I think some of the side effects depend on the drug used, Spironolactone often causes breast development. It's less common with another drug called Leuprorelin.
The other side effects hold true regardless of the drug used, sex hormones are important for a lot of bodily functions, going without them for an extended period of time is pretty bad for your health.
You remember wrong.
South Korea introduced judge-ordered chemical castration for offenses against children in 2011. Recidivism rates dropped from 50% to 5% or less.
An American meta-analysis of six European castration schemes (and one older Californian scheme) from 1952 to 1991 found that all of them reduced recidivism rates from over 25% to 10% or less.
Sure, you get lower rates of repeated offenses, but if you think that we should deal with societal issues as just a numbers game then I got some bad news.
Trying to appease the numbers results in overall decrease in quality of freedoms and rights for individuals and increase in individuals being treated inhumanely. When you have the government force changes on your body so they can please the numbers and not worry and spend anymore money on you, it goes way down hill really quick. It opens up a whole lot of bad that we know certain people in the government would love to take advantage of.
You have to go at the source instead of trying to bandage up issues that can result in inhibiting people's rights.
We should never think the right way to solve a problem with a person is to change their body in any way. A person's body is theirs and theirs alone.
I dont see the government incorporating medical solutions for offenders being morally correct regardless of it being optional and not mandatory. If they want to do something to stop the offender from repeating their offense then helping them mentally is the best bet.
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