by Shelby Talcott
Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill into law Monday that will require some sex offenders to undergo chemical castration.
This new law requires convicted sex offenders who have committed acts against a child under the age of 13 to begin chemical castration a month before they are released from custody.
They will have to pay for the treatment themselves and it will continue until a court decides that treatment isn’t necessary anymore. Convicted sex offenders can’t be denied parole because they don’t have the funds to pay for castration, CNN reported.
The law states that if a sex offender stops treatment before being legally allowed to, they will violate the terms of their parole and be returned to custody. The bill is for people who commit these sex crimes after Sept. 1, 2019, according to CBS News.
Chemical castration is defined as “the receiving of medication, including, but not limited to, medroxyprogesterone acetate treatment or its chemical equivalent, that, among other things, reduces, inhibits, or blocks the production of testosterone, hormones, or other chemicals in a person’s body,” according to the legislation. It is taken through injections or tablets and makes it impossible for someone to perform a sexual act.
Republican Alabama state Rep. Steve Hurst introduced the bill in an effort to protect children. He has said that he would prefer physical castrations.
“I’d prefer it be surgical, because the way I look at it, if they’re going to mark these children for life, they need to be marked for life,” Hurst said to WSFA News. “My preference would be, if someone does a small infant child like that, they need to die. God’s going to deal with them one day.”
The signing of this bill follows Alabama’s new abortion law, signed by Ivey on May 15, which is considered to be the most restrictive abortion law in the U.S. This law makes it illegal to have an abortion except if the mother’s health is in serious risk. There is no exception for incest or rape cases.
Alabama is the seventh state to have castration laws for certain sex offenses.
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Shelby Talcott is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Shelby on Twitter.
You obviously misunderstand me, Mr. Allen. Anybody, male or female, who rapes another person, especially a child, deserves severe punishment. You don’t have to be a male to be a dangerous sex predator. Likewise, you don’t have to be a female to a victim of such a reprehensible crime. Rape is rape, especially if done to a child.
I support victims’ rights just as much as the next person, but I don’t want prosecutors making circuses out of these trials. We saw how unscrupulous prosecutors in the 1989 Jogger Rape case enabled the real rapist to get off scot free for several years because the prosecutors chose to send five INNOCENT young men instead to prison for the other person’s crime. Apparently, making headlines and fanning racial hate was more important to these prosecutors and politicians (including Donald Trump) than in apprehending the real rapist.
As for castration, it would only eliminate one’s sex drive, but not the perpetrator’s will to dominate and degrade a victim. Sex crimes are mainly NOT about gratification, but about control and humiliation of a victim in the most intrusive way possible. A castrated person would still be capable of inflicting physical harm and of having the will to brutally dominate a victim.
The answer is to lock up these people for a very long time, in some cases, even for life.
But stooping to barbaric punishments will destroy the legitimacy of our country. We don’t want stoop to the level of Joe Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Idi Amin, et al. Indeed, these blood-lust types of punishments can easily lead to the lynching of innocent people whose only evidence against them is wild rumor. Only a hundred years ago, this country had an epidemic of lynchings by “respectable” people that claimed the lives of many innocent persons. Many of these lynchings were like family picnics (“wholesome” entertainment) where people would get advanced notice of a lynching and come from miles around to witness and to take body parts from the lynching victim home with them as souvenirs or even to eat (like cannibals).
Yes, help the victim and lock up the perpetrator, but we can do it without barbarism.
Governor, this isn’t Saudi Arabia. This is still the United States in case you have forgotten and punitive mutilations have no place here, you disgusting Nazi!
What about the rights of the people who have been subjected to the sexual violence these predators have inflected. How about you being sexually assaulted and let’s see how you feel about it. I know too many women that have been raped, some before they were 18 years of age. Unless that has happened to you, sorry, I don’t give your comment any credibility!