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A Virginia lawmaker is floating a harsh idea for treating the state's convicted sex offenders: castration.
Republican State Sen. Emmett Hanger's bill would have state agencies study whether Virginia should start castrating sex offenders instead of confining them to treatment programs after they get out of jail.
Former Gov. Timothy Kaine vetoed a similar bill in 2007.
Hanger's critics call the idea barbaric, but he said it would save the state money and could provide a cure.
"I don't think it's radical at all," Hanger told the Associated Press. "It's just something that's not typically the thing you want to bring up in polite conversation, but again the whole subject area is not for polite conversation.
"We're talking about people who are so driven because of the tendencies from the chemicals and the hormones inside their body to perform heinous acts."
Virginia is one of 20 states with a civil commitment program, whose purpose is to keep violent sex offenders off the streets by allowing the government to keep them in custody – in psychiatric hospitals, for example – after they are released from prison.
The state's commitment program ballooned to $24 million this year, up from $2.7 million in 2004, and Gov. Bob McDonnell wants to spend $70 million over the next two years.
Hanger's bill wants state agencies to study the option of physical castration – cutting off a man's testicles or removing a woman's ovaries. Louisiana and Texas have legalized physical castration, while six other states allow for some form of castration of sex offenders, including chemical, which uses pharmaceuticals to stop a person's sex drive.
The bill doesn't only aim below the belt, though.
It also would require the state to consider changing the criteria for entering the civil commitment program, as well as creating housing options for those released, who are forbidden from halfway houses.
Some critics argued that castration would not be effective because it would not address the motivation that causes sexual predators to act on their impulses.
"When abuse and mutilation of a human being is presented as an acceptable alternative to responsible treatment and housing for those deemed as sexually violent predators, there exists a fault of reason," Mary Devoy, founder of Reform Sex Offender Laws of Virginia, told the AP.
Republican State Sen. Emmett Hanger's bill would have state agencies study whether Virginia should start castrating sex offenders instead of confining them to treatment programs after they get out of jail.
Former Gov. Timothy Kaine vetoed a similar bill in 2007.
Hanger's critics call the idea barbaric, but he said it would save the state money and could provide a cure.
"I don't think it's radical at all," Hanger told the Associated Press. "It's just something that's not typically the thing you want to bring up in polite conversation, but again the whole subject area is not for polite conversation.
"We're talking about people who are so driven because of the tendencies from the chemicals and the hormones inside their body to perform heinous acts."
Virginia is one of 20 states with a civil commitment program, whose purpose is to keep violent sex offenders off the streets by allowing the government to keep them in custody – in psychiatric hospitals, for example – after they are released from prison.
The state's commitment program ballooned to $24 million this year, up from $2.7 million in 2004, and Gov. Bob McDonnell wants to spend $70 million over the next two years.
Hanger's bill wants state agencies to study the option of physical castration – cutting off a man's testicles or removing a woman's ovaries. Louisiana and Texas have legalized physical castration, while six other states allow for some form of castration of sex offenders, including chemical, which uses pharmaceuticals to stop a person's sex drive.
The bill doesn't only aim below the belt, though.
It also would require the state to consider changing the criteria for entering the civil commitment program, as well as creating housing options for those released, who are forbidden from halfway houses.
Some critics argued that castration would not be effective because it would not address the motivation that causes sexual predators to act on their impulses.
"When abuse and mutilation of a human being is presented as an acceptable alternative to responsible treatment and housing for those deemed as sexually violent predators, there exists a fault of reason," Mary Devoy, founder of Reform Sex Offender Laws of Virginia, told the AP.
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1 comment:
i say if you are mentally unstable, cutting off something physical that you use to hurt others is not going to solve the problem.
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