Poland, in response to a shocking case of incest, is set to table legislation which will enable judges to sentence paedophiles to chemical castration. The bill, if passed, will be the first of its kind within the European Union and will spark intense debate both in Poland and the EU.
The case, involving a father who had two children with his daughter, was compared to that of the Austrian Josef Fritzl — who kept his daughter locked in a cellar — and outraged Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk enough to act immediately. A furious Tusk set the wheels in motion which gave rise to the draft legislation that is to be put before the Polish cabinet shortly.
Knowing my readers as I do, I’m sure that many of you lot will be saying “good job and while you’re at it throw in the rapists and other sex offenders”. On second thoughts knowing you lot it will be more like “shoot the lot of them”.
Returning to reality, this is going to receive enormous resistance from many groups including, but not limited to, the medical profession, lawyers, human rights groups and social workers. As opposed to them every genius and their dog. For example in Poland, if you read the article, the proposal received an 84% approval rating. Along the lines of comedian Rowan Atkinson in Not the 9 o’ clock news when asked what they could do to combat football hooliganism kept responding — “Cut off their goolies”.
As we saw in the article there are compelling alternatives which are not quite as drastic as chemical castration. Britain, for example, is looking at the encouraging results of testosterone reduction in sexual offenders being applied in Scandinavian countries. In Germany’ subject to the perpetrators cooperation’ they utilise therapy coupled to medication.
South Africa has been looking at this issue in earnest since 1999 with instances of magistrates ordering chemical castration in lieu of prison sentences. This has drawn criticism from some quarters which believe that it violates the constitutional rights of the parties concerned. It must be noted, in this regard, that the process can be reversed or used for a limited period.
Also into the mix must be factored studies which have shown that on occasion the procedure fails and the party concerned continues to offend.
Which leaves us with a balance of convenience equation — should the public’s right to be protected from sex fiends outweigh the right of these offenders who are protected in the constitution?
Should their abhorrent acts be deemed to be a waiver of certain protections afforded to them by the constitution?
If so, do you think that chemical castration is the best method of reducing the horrendous statistics of sexual offences in South Africa?
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28 Responses to “Chemical castration for rapists?”
As Rowan so rightly says: “Cut off their goolies!”
Cut off their goolies. Seriously, if someone takes away a child’s innocence (nevermind rights) in particular, chemical castration is the least we should do. I for one hate violence but cut off their goolies!
Michael Trapido on September 26th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
@ Coen@
I don’t think you could possibly sound much more stupid than you already do, when you say “I for one hate violence but cut off their goolies!”
@ Everyone else who advocates castration:
What the fuck. people. Get a grip. Retribution is NOT a valid component of justice.
People’s sexual orientations (hetero, homo, paedo, etc.) are determined in early childhood and in the total absence of that individual’s consent. Paedophiles are responsible for their actions, but their urges alone don’t make them morally reprehensible.
It is only in -this particular- moral climate that ‘children’ are deemed incapable of consent and thought not to possess ’sex’ until adolescence. In other cultures ‘child sexuality’ is and has been seen as perfectly fine. It is NOT a given that children are incapable of consent; in fact it is very much debatable. (As easy as it is to see today’s moral attitude as protecting children, it is also easy to see it in another light: disempowering them. All you need to do is allow your present moral assumptions to be questioned.)
We tend to see our moral assumptions as absolute rights, when in fact they are largely contingent. The high approval rating shown for this heinous punishment merely reflects the majority’s knee-jerk moral puritanism (read: unreflecting ignorance) that operating in this myopic atmosphere.
Paedophiles are not demons; they are humans. Their urges are not their fault any more than gays’ urges are their fault (or any more than straight people’s urges are their fault!). That people under 15 are deemed incapable of informed consent, and that their sexual partners are immediately deemed criminals, is more absurd than truly sensible.
MICHAEL, we know courts to have sentenced innocent people to death or life imprisonment for crimes they did not commit. How do you remedy the situation where a convicted person is later found to have been innocent? Or do the courts and society simply take it as collateral damage and simply move on?
Sentletse Diakanyo on September 26th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Another plea for fact over emotion: the Polish prime minister is not proposing ‘cutting off the goolies’ of paedophiles, but reducing their testosterone levels. Chemical castration is a sensationalist term: their penises and testicles will remain 100% intact; their sex drive will be drastically reduced or eliminated.
Nevertheless, I still maintain it compromises their human rights. And it is only the most blinkered of individuals who would maintain that a paedophile is not a human.
Because rape has very little to do with sex, but lots to do with anger, power, rage etc etc, chemical castration does not work. To be crude - if they can’t use the natural method - they will rape with an instrument like a bottle. Reducing testosterone might work if it reduced anger and rage - does it?
Incest,however, is not just rape - it is much more complex.
The biggest problem is re-attaching said goolies when there has been a miscarriage of justice and an innocent person gets the chop? Very tricky thing, reattachment.
Would you consider being put onto a sex-register more humane or less humane than CC.
Remember this is a temporary measure. Lyndall I hear you on the emotional side and Paddy II I don’t think the guys calling for cutting of their goolies etc are really picturing a person but rather thinking in abstract. Which misses the point - these are human beings living among you.
Less testosterone does usually mean less rage - when there’s a distinct hormonal component. But no one wants to castrate them to prevent rape, they want to do it to make them feel powerful (and because it’s cheap and easy); same reason people are put to death in other countries, no? They’d equally be prevented from molesting children by keeping them in jail, wouldn’t they?
Sure, paedophiles are human. But as with everything else, there are lines. ‘Statutory rape’ where there’s a relatively small age difference between the two parties gets someone put on a sex offenders register. It’s stupid, beyond stupid. But old men raping four year olds is surely no ‘natural desire’ to be looked at alongside consensual sex between adult males, there’s just no comparison.
So the question is not about whether a public database or imprisonment or chemical castration is more or less humane. It’s about whether certain punishments fit certain crimes and whether we classify crimes and punishments differently depending on the victim’s rights, the crime and the perpetrator and his/her motives.
Let’s face it, justice isn’t about prevention insofar as an individual is concerned. If it was, there would be a lot more focus put on rehabilitation in prisons - there isn’t. Proof that it’s merely about prevention in a societal context (if you do this, we’ll put you in a bad place); and about retribution (if you do this, we’ll put you in a bad place to make you feel bad).
If databases (of sex offenders or otherwise) are as bad as chemical castration then the entire population of the UK is about to be quasi-castrated anyway, so we’ll see how that pans out. I bet it doesn’t make crime go down.
In all the comments not one has been said about the victim of this crime, Forget these people human rights, They gave it up when the raped a child, Why should i as a survivor have to meet the person who abused me, or even see him and her, I am tired of people not caring about what a survivor wants, In allowing paedophiles out you will mentaly torture victims and survivors are you happy to allow this
Michael Trapido on September 27th, 2008 at 9:47 am
@Paddy II
So sorry I was dumb, what was I thinking. But you know, in my stupidity I have worked with children and children that became adults that was molested when they were young, and although I don’t understand the term, “Paedophiles are people too:” due to you know what, their lives where in general pretty messed up. Not theoretically, analytically or ’suck nonsense out of my thumb’ messed up. And using swear words to bring the point across also sends a bit of a violent message. WTF. CUT OFF THE GOOLIES Paddy…
PaddyII,
Having intercourse with a 1 year old girl, sodomising a 2 year boy? You lost your ‘human rights’. I AM a most blinkered person. Chemical castration - I’m all for it.
Seems to me that sex offenders are as much reviled in general as they are in prison.
Paedophiles are in serious trouble as soon as the prison door closes behind them.
One of my Zulu clients when I visited him at Diepkloof used to tell me that he was charging R50 a klap for a certain well publicized prisoner who the public couldn’t get to except via him.
Michael Trapido on September 27th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
@Paddy
Having sexual urges toward small children might be how the paedophile has been wired but it is anathema to act upon those urges for two reasons. The child’s awakening sexuality is always manipulated to the benefit of the manipulator - the adult. This causes all kinds of problems in later life. Ask any woman or man who was abused as a child. Somehow, children inherently know that the adult’s behaviour is wrong, but they are powerless, especially where the abuser is a parent. Second, those little bodies have simply not been designed to engage in sexual activity at such a tender age. The combination then of manipulation, and physical coercion is incredibly destructive and quite simply, inhumane. Of course children have sexuality, but it is budding sexuality which should only be engaged in when the young person has matured physically and where there is a consensual realtionship that will not involve manipulation, or physical harm. Paddy methinks you protest too much. I don’t have an answer, but I believe that you forfeit your rights when you impose them on those who have no voice to defend their own.
yes we’re all humans but when you abuse your rights by hurting innocent young children by scarring them mentally, physically and emotionally forever it doesn’t matter what the frame of mind of the perpetrator is, he/she must face whatever the punishment imposed on him/her.
as merciless as the molestor was to their victim so shall the law be merciless unto them in the same way.
Sandra Pow Chong on September 28th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
For starters, no one is talking about cutting anything off here. This is a chemical procedure that reduces testosterone production in men. It is the same drug that some women take for birth control once every three months.
It is completely reversible; all one has to do is stop taking the medication. As such, it requires constant oversight to ensure the drug continues to be used. This also means that if the judge gets it wrong, the situation may be corrected, and may even be less traumatic than prison.
My concern is how far this will be taken. As it is a testosterone inhibitor, it may reduce not only sexual, but violent tendencies. Will we expand the class of offenders using the drug to all those who commit violent and/or sexual crimes? And what if there is a link between testosterone and all crimes? The vast majority of the population in prison is male. Do we chemically castrate all of them and incarcerate only those for whom castration is ineffective?
Also, castration is a complete misnomer here. From what I’ve read, the drug would not interfere with a man’s ability to procreate or to enjoy the act of sex itself; it merely limits (and perhaps in some cases, eliminates) his desire to do so. Furthermore, it appears that the drug would have to be administered in very high doses to be effective.
I’m not sure where I stand on this issue. I think some very tough issues need to be resolved first.
As for cutting off goolies and whatnot, I would suggest looking into the problem of wrongful conviction and how many convicted rapists were cleared after DNA tests were done…what would be the recourse for them had they been physically castrated?
Just throw them in polsmoor prison for a few nights..
We will see how they like being treated at the hands of the numbers gangs. they will definately get a taste of their own medicine
Wow paddy II, the only person who would try to make an argument that children can consent to sex and fully understand the consequences repercussions before adolescence, is someone trying to justify their own actions. As a childcare professional I can tell you that the brain is not fully developed until 25, and that children sure as hell are not developed mentally enough to make sexual decisions (ESPECIALLY WITH A GODDAMNED ADULT) pre-puberty! They may very well do things differently in other cultures but that doesn’t make it right or scientifically accurate. To try to lay equal or ANY blame on a child is a sick thing. I for one am all for the death penalty for any kind of rapist. This chemical crap is far too lenient.
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By trade a criminal attorney he is now a politcal commentator and journalist full time.
"Traps Report" on the Richmark Sentinel is probably the largest news aggregator in the world. That includes Google, Huffington Post and Drudge.
If you click on the links of the Traps Report you should be up to date on all the latest news worldwide as well as local.
He is a director of the firm Turnbull and Associates.
He was born in Johannesburg and attended HA Jack and Highlands North High Schools. He married Robyn in 1984 (Mrs Traps, aka "the government") and has three sons (who all look suspiciously like her ex-boss).
He was a counsellor on the JCCI for a year around 1992.
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As Rowan so rightly says: “Cut off their goolies!”
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