Experts ‘would refuse to take part’ in mandatory castration for sex offenders

33 comments

1. So a maybe dumb question here. Would castrating a paedo make him not a paedo anymore? Presumably there’s some element of what makes them like that that isn’t just a hormonal thing?

2. Also no surprise really. I am not comfortable with the government having the power to do this.

3. It’s totally unethical and I find it hard to believe most judges would be on board with handing life sentences to people, because that what I this amounts too, no spent convictions, whole life being monitored for compliance and suffering the side effects which are akin to death in some cases, as history has told us in the past attempts at this nonsense.

   Then there is the apparent increase in miscarriages of justice, plus the potential for malicious application, ie, someone frames someone else for it. Plus, the known cases where women, often young women, lied about who did what and when, often from trauma but sometimes from malice, too.

   I’m not convinced this would do all that much either. The core problem isn’t waiting until after there are victims, it’s getting in BEFORE there are victims, and then what is left to be angry about. For the most part, it’s a treatable problem if caught early enough.

4. It’s painful watching this labour government try and appeal to some imagined caricature of a voting demographic.

   I can just picture them coming up with the messaging.

   *’What do the Poor’s hate then chaps? Immigrants, nonces, trans people!’.*

5. I didn’t mind the idea so much when it was voluntary, but mandatory is sick.

6. While sex offenders will be given anti androgens, so that they “Aren’t a threat”

   Trans women are denied anti androgens because “reasons” and if they do get those anti androgens they are “a threat to real women”

   While NHS workers are all too happy to deny trans people healthcare and go against science, international guidelines and basic moral conscience. All to happy to demand unethical treatment instead

   But will refuse unethical treatment of sex offenders.

   It would be nice it NHS workers had half the empathy that they show sex offenders, to trans people

7. I don’t know about this whilst I do think those guilty of this crime deserve punishment I don’t think this would work. Can’t we just microchip people?

8. “Doctors are not agents of social control” – exactly.

   Chemical castration only has an impact on antisocial behaviour if it’s paired with intense psychotherapy. And even then, it only [reduces reoffending by 60%](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crmkv3jezzdo).

   I wish society would stop focusing on if the *next* child is abused. We are waiting for victims, and even then, getting the offender prosecuted and found guilty is a mountain to climb.

   Before anyone comes at me, no, I do not love sex offenders and I am not a sex offender. I’m just someone who volunteered to support women and children who had experienced sexual violence. I don’t think any of them will be comforted by this plan.

9. I’d support introducing it only in cases where it can be proven in some way 100% that the accused is guilty. I’d imagine there are a miniscule number of cases where that is found to be the case.

10. How long after this goes through will they suggest extending it to other crimes because “well there is some evidence that it lowers aggression and technically some of the effects may be reversible (don’t look at all the side-effects though)…”

11. The bottom line is that mandating castration (chemical or otherwise) is unethical and wrong.

    It doesn’t matter how awful they are, or how few prison spaces we have left.

12. Becuase their code says to do no harm, which this would cause. If someone chooses this then all power to them but there are many issues with mandatory castration here. If we are not going to bring back the death penalty because of the risk of miscarriages of justice then the same should apply to mandatory castration.

13. [deleted]

14. I don’t see the issue. As far as I’m aware, no one has ever been wrongly convicted of any crime in this country.

15. It’s a cheap political stunt trying to pander to the mob. Absolutely ridiculous

16. Bring back Rishi Sunak, and I say that as a socialist. This government is horrific and evil.

17. believe it or not, not everyone in prison for a crime actually committed the crime. even if it was morally justifiable for the government to castrate ANYONE against their will, there no guarantee you’re not going to castrate completely innocent people. as if it would stop them being rapists or pedos in the first place!

18. [removed]

19. [removed]

20. What happens if a woman lies to have revenge on an ex?

21. I’m sure I read somewhere that this scheme would be used as a voluntary procedure that would contribute to some kind of rehabilitation process

22. You know what might reduce sexual abuse? Actually fucking locking people up. I’m sick of seeing pedos get suspended sentences and the government say “ah well, maybe if we open up the possibility of punishments to state abuses of power maybe that’ll help!”

    Lock the fuckers up! If you commit one sexual offence of a minor, you get locked up for life, whole life tarriff. If you rape one person, whole life tarriff. Not enough prisons? Release people who are in for petty, low-level crimes, build more prisons, stop the career criminal factory that is prisons in this country. At least that’s a workable plan.

    I’m sick of the uneducated morons of this government refusing to listen to anyone other than their own internet-assembled ideas of what they reckon is probably the case. IT’S NOT ABOUT SEX. Pedos and rapists aren’t people with sexual desires who lose control, they’re abusers who get off on power. If you lower their libido, they’ll abuse people in other ways. Misogyny won’t be solved by showing a fucking Netflix drama in schools, it needs actual work by someone with two brain cells to rub together, which I don’t think this government has between the lot of them. “We’ve literally tried nothing and it’s not worked” seems to be the motto.
    This continued insistence that it’s a sexual thing is *exactly why this is such a big issue*.

23. Too right they should refuse. It’s up there with lobotomies in terms of cruel and unusual punishments.

24. I actually find the ethics of this fascinating, I mean, personally, I lean towards hedonism, so, I kinda believe the option one should take is that that maximises pleasure and minimises pain.

    And chemical castration, could maximise pleasure and minimise pain, if it was voluntary. I think if it was forced on someone, then you’d have to ask how certain you are that you are avoiding pain for others in the future. To what extent can you *know* these guys will reoffend if not for this intervention.

25. Perhaps experts would agree to take part if the law had better presentation? It’s all about marketing after all.

    Maybe give it a catchy British name? What about “Turing’s Law”? Everybody likes Turing!

26. I dont really see an issue with this to people have been proven a danger to kids. Thats more important than a nonce gettting a hard on surely

27. Such a load of softies in here. We’re talking about paedophiles here. You know, people that sexually abuse children. Why do you care so much about them? Very worrying…

28. What is going on with this country?

    We are using polygraphs during probation.

    Now we want to use mandatory castration?

    (BTW, both are not supported with any scientific evidence.)

    Is this government a clammy violence phantasy out of the Telegraph forum?

29. This is not mandatory and seems like a sensible policy for prisoners who have urges they wish to suppress. No this isnt a nice policy and it would be wrong to be mandatory but giving prisoners the decision surely makes sense

30. >Doctors are not agents of social control. It would be ethically unsound to use medication to reduce risk rather than to treat a health indication

    …huh, guess psychiatry really has changed

31. Given the rate of serious crimes, the slow court system, the lack of prison spaces, the criminality that continues within prisons (including serious injury) and terrible rate of repeat offences a harder stance may need to be taken.

    If people do not fear consequences things will get worse.

32. Most reasonable people says they want the worst things to happen to pedophiles and child rapist but when the government take a step in that direction you get people defending their rights.

33. A horribly authoritarian measure framed in such a way that any pushback against it can be decried as supporting noncery. What the fuck are we doing?

Comments are closed.