Registering Sex Offenders - What's the Point?

[Greenday]

I thought that chemical castration was in use in the US. I could be wrong though...

I don't know of any places where it's mandatory, but it certain places, you can receive it and get out of jail early. I heard there was a problem with the sex offenders not taking their doses when they got out of jail.

[Dreamstalker]

Ah. Yeah, I'd think enforcement would be an issue, unless it was made a condition of release/parole (and even that might not work).

[Boozy]

I don't know of any places where it's mandatory, but it certain places, you can receive it and get out of jail early. I heard there was a problem with the sex offenders not taking their doses when they got out of jail.

I thought volunteers for chemical castration had to show up at a certain place and time for their meds, as a condition of parole. If they don't show up, a warrant goes out for their arrest.

Of course, what happens with that warrant depends entirely on how easy they are to find, and how many resources the police have to find them.

[Jester]

The problem with chemical castration as I understand it from what is being said on this thread (and this is the most I've heard about it), it is only effective if the subject continues to take the doses of chemicals necessary to continue to effect the castration. In other words, there are a lot of ways for it to go wrong. Such as the subject cheating or finding a way around it. Imagine that....a convicted criminal finding a way to cheat the system or doing something underhanded that they are not supposed to be doing. Shocking, I tell you!

But when I commented about the effectiveness of castration vs. rape, I was not referring to chemical castration. I was referring to what one poster had said--actual castration. As in, "cutting their damn balls off." Would that be effective in practice? I think it would. Would it be an effective deterrent? Hard to say. Would it ever be legal in this country? Not a bloody chance.

[Greenday]

I still don't see how cutting some guy's dick off will stop him from raping a woman later on. Rape isn't about getting it on. Rape is about control. And you don't need a dick to rape someone.

[Jester]

No one said anything about cutting a guy's dick off, Green. The discussion was about castration, which is about removing a man's testicles. Testicles produce testosterone, which drive both sex drive and aggression, two of the things that drive rape. No, rape is not a sexual crime per se, but it is a sex crime in the sense that it gives the rapist sexual gratification.

See, rape is not about "getting laid," it is about having power, of course. We know this. But what you need to understand is that, while it is not about sex, it is still about sex, at least in the mind of the rapist. He is looking for a sexual high he can't get from regular sex.

In theory (and I don't have the scientific date to support or refute this), if you remove the testosterone, and thus the majority of the sex drive and aggresive behavior, you remove the URGE to rape, and thus prevent the rapist from raping.

I hope that all makes sense. I am, after all, a bartender, NOT a psychologist.

[AFPheonix]

That's because you're not a woman.

However, I think your other points are valid.

Females are not the only ones who get raped, nor are males the only ones who commit rape.

[Jester]

Females are not the only ones who get raped, nor are males the only ones who commit rape.

This is true. However, the vast majority of rapists ARE, in fact, men. Whether the victim is male or female, adult or child, rapist, like serial killer, is a heavily male dominated "profession," statistically speaking.