Across Florida and throughout America, law enforcement is cracking down hard on those they suspect may be engaging in Internet sex crimes, especially those involving children. These suspects, even if they are innocent, are often treated similarly to those who have been convicted of the most serious criminal allegations imaginable. This vilification of sex crimes suspects is not unique to American cases.
For example, countries including Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Argentina and Israel utilize the process of chemical castration for deterring sex crimes against children. Sometimes the process is offered as an option for incarcerated inmates to reduce their sentences and other times it is used forcibly on suspects and detainees.
Shockingly, states including Florida, California, Texas, Iowa, Montana, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Georgia and Oregon all legalize some form of chemical castration.
According to CNN, “Chemical castration involves administering medication — via injection or tablets — to take away sexual interest and make it impossible for a person to perform sexual acts. The effects are reversible, after the person stops taking the drug.”
Increasingly, European nations are backing away from the practice, as it is being categorized more and more as a human rights violation. It is unclear how shifting opinion globally will impact the ways in which chemical castration is practices in the United States.
However, it is certainly a trend worth paying attention to. When suspects and convicts are either forced or incentivized to alter their bodies in a fundamental way in order to make others feel safer, some measure of this calculus simply isn’t adding up.
Source: CNN, “Using chemical castration to punish child sex crimes,” Madison Park, Sep. 5, 2012
