Chemically castrating sex offenders

Yup fine with surgical castration too, the numbers speak for themselves really don’t they.

It’s refreshing to hear an emphasis on men changing their behaviour, rather than women staying in/covering up.

Just give them a big dose of anti psychotics, I’ve known several on them and it makes them into zombies.

Some really interesting points here. I was comparing in my head to sterilisation of parents who repeatedly have kids taken in to care and wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Youre right, it’s a tough dilemma but you’re idea about a financial incentive is an interesting one

@plantsnpants sometimes those kids have one safe, normal parent, and one dangerous sex offender parent. The government appears to be trying to guarantee that these children end up becoming criminals by not protecting them from sex offender parent until after that parent has abused them: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/mums-fury-new-law-fails-31676381.amp , thereby guaranteeing that the poor kids are as screwed up as possible.

If we want to reduce offenders in this country, sex offenders need to be kept away from everyone's children, including their own. In an ideal world we would just exile all the sex offenders to an island so they can all abuse each other while the rest of us live in peace.

Labour must have news to bury, like a u-turn on the winter fuel allowance or giving up the Chagos islands, they're out blowing the reform dog whistle loud, what's their next announcement, they going to look at ways of legally sinking dinghies in the Channel?

This is a really interesting idea…

It won’t happen ( at least not mandatorily).

Its the dead cat to distract from the rest of the document and its been very successful. Pretty much every news outlet today is identifying it as a dead cat whilst going on to spend much air time debating it.

But it is doing something. And that is all that matters .... 🤔

You also have the incredibly complex problem of sex offenders with learning difficulties / dementia and special needs - where they themselves lack capacity

The only way to solve the issue is to literally stop them being born - there are generations of dysfunctional and abusive families which drain the state of resources.

often (but not all) children born into dv relationships or abusive / neglected households grow up to have complex needs and many of them sexually or domestically offend. The effect of this trauma shadows their lives and impacts their ability to parent future generations

the country can’t stop people breeding and despite addiction these people have lots of children- I know of one alcoholic who was pregnant with her 9th child after her others being taken into care.

its a seriously complex issue which takes generations of investment and intervention to have an impact

one thing I would support is giving a financial incentive to people to get sterilised who have had kids taken into care- this would save a fortune and prevent so much abuse

we have to balance human rights and also the impact on society - it’s a really tough dilemma

I understand that there are not enough prisons.

I am fed up of criminals(who have committed the worst offenses) being released early for a multitude of reasons. Why the hell should a man be given early freedom when they have ruined the life and possibly the innocence of another adult or child.

I dont care of they repent or now want to change. They had a choice not to harm someone but did it anyway.

Realistically there is no room in prisons for the amount of sex offenders. People viewing abusive images don’t go to prison unless they have been caught multiple times. There’s no room for them all. You can’t keep them in prison forever. That’s the case with almost all offenders. You have to consider the risk the person poses when leaving prison because you can’t possibly hold them all forever.

More prisons need to be built and are being built but it’s not the whole answer to this problem.

Castration has been shown to reduce offending by a much greater degree than the courses etc they tried to put on (which sometimes increased offending). Men commit sexual offences for a whole range of reasons but sex drive is one factor which if removed theoretically will reduce reoffending. Many offenders will agree to it voluntarily.

Im not sure about forcible chemical castration. I suppose it feels a little off when the state is injecting someone against their will but when you consider the awful things that person has done and the lives they’ve ruined…. Additionally mental health patients are sometimes adminstered drugs forcibly (albeit for their own good) so there is some precedent.

I am supportive of this in general but think a LOT more prisons are needed. We don’t need early release. We need more prisons and more men to behave.

The state does this already by imprisoning people.

Agree with this. These drugs should not be used as an excuse for early release. As others pps have written, it doesn't remove the desire for power and control.

The tories left a mess in the prisons system. Trying to work out a way to release sex offenders early should not be the answer to that problem.

We just need more prisons and stronger sentences and none of the concurrent sentence nonsense. If prisons can turn a proft, they're costing too much.

I don't really care if they can be rehabilitated, I'd rather they were off the streets.

All this stuff about rehabilitation of sex offenders feels like conversion therapy - you are what you are.

It says surgical castration reduces rates to 2-5%.
It's a discussion piece on physicians views, they haven't done a trial on chemical castration. The outcomes from this current research will be interesting. Of course it won't show the effect of chem castration alone- part of the reduction in reoffending (if that happen) would be that it's a self selected group who are extremely motivated to stop themselves reoffending (by volunteering).

Might work for those who really really do not want to commit an offence in the first place - those are rare, and rarer still for them to come forward and seek help before an offence is committed, for a variety of reasons.

As a way of suggesting it is ok to reduce sentences/release early, violent rapists etc - it's terrible.

If the desire is more about control/power/causing terror/pain, it'll stop nothing.

Hope you get yours soon!!!

Let them cuddle a cat first to get the oxytocin flowing, then they get to take the cat home.

Now I want another cat 🐈 😁

They are but vile people do vile things with cats. They need their oxytocin shots before they are allowed a cat.

I miss our cat so much. We are moving house this year. As soon as we settle in, I am off to the local cat rescue.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3565125/

This suggest chemical castration reduces reoffending to 2-5% vs normal recidivism rates of 50%. We should do this, thats a lot fewer people (by which I mean women and children) harmed. This also suggest that behaviour is primarily driven by sex drive not just some way of obtaining power over people. Yes rape is used to humiliate but sometimes men just want sex and they don’t care how they get it or can only be aroused by forcing someone.

I understand the argument against it but we have centred the rights of criminals to such an extent that it’s practically legal to rape in the UK now. We need to push back against this. And no I don’t think a rapists rights to bodily autonomy outweigh the rights of woman and children to not be harmed. I just couldn’t give a shit anymore, they have already proved they can’t function in society wothout harming people, we need to start protecting the majority from the minority. I never would have taken this position 20 years ago but here we are, I’m fed up.