Chemical castration is not the answer
I read Brad Foster’s letter on chemical castration (Mailbag, June 2025) with some interest and I found myself agreeing with him. As someone who regularly struggles with depression and the issues that serotonin imbalance can cause, I worry about the impact of a drug that forcibly reduces serotonin levels. Would the government pay out if a sex offender taking the intended concoction became severely depressed and committed suicide? Any doctor worth the title should be up in arms at the mere idea of such a drug being administered by force. And let’s not pretend otherwise; this is precisely what would happen if it is made a mandatory condition of release.
Then there’s the moral implications. Can the government justify stopping sex offenders ever having sex again, even those of us who have put themselves through high-intensity courses like Kaizen? Persistent shoplifters can still shop. A person who killed with a vehicle can still drive. The whole approach of using sex offenders to set an example to placate the public needs to stop.
Talking about the courses, does this drug make them irrelevant? The main purpose of a course is to reduce risk, and this wonder drug can reduce risk in the form of a pill or an injection. Why does a man need to spend six months digging into his past, dragging up painful memories and experiences to prove change, if at the end of the day he is going to be told ‘Thanks for that, but now you need to take this if you want to get out’?
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So, if a thief steals, do we do what many countries in the middle east do? Do we cut off the thiefs right hand with a machete? What if the thief steals again? Do we cut off his left hand before we send him/her to prison for the third offense?
I agree with Robert, “This is just a stepping stone to what they (the government) will eveneventually do to other felons or citizens.”
First it was the registry against SO’s, then it was the registry against “cruelty to animals”, in some states. And I think there’s another registry, in some states, for something else, but it escapes my brain at the moment (someone else may know).
SO’s have ALWAYS been the testing pool for crimes and punishment ever since it was conceived and implemented.
Notice how they always target men with such medieval punishments but not women even though women commit sex offenses, too. There’s no such thing as equal justice.
I hate to say this but truth be told just because they chemicly castrate someone that dies not mean they can’t find other ways to abuse someone sexualy. For one thing the second thing is what about female sex offenders ? Can’t exactly chemicaly castrate them now can ya ? If someone has it in the head to use sex to assault another nothing will stop them not a registry and not chemical castration. After all they say its a crime of control or violence not sex
The registry is used to test how the public will respond to what they are allowed to do before citizens say something. This is just a stepping stone to what they will eventually do to other felons or citizens.
They would still keep us on the sex offender registry
Anyone who supports such a bizarre, draconian measure as chemical castration should seek professional help for their irrational hatred. No such thing should be entertained in our legal system. Ever.