Keep It In Your Pants

Last week Poland announced it would allow forcible castration of its pedophiles upon release from jail.

Poland, I think I love you.

According to an article in Reuters, "Under the law, sponsored by Poland's center-right government, pedophiles convicted of raping children under the age of 15 years or a close relative would have to undergo chemical therapy on their release from prison."

As much as I would like to believe in Poland's answer to the problem there is something its government is not taking into consideration. Many sexual offenders commit crimes against people they know. That's right - unlike what most people today believe, children are often attacked by someone they know (a parent, grandparent or relative, or babysitter). According toAllAboutCounseling.com, "the most commonly reported perpetrators are fathers and stepfathers. Brothers, sisters, mothers, babysitters, and uncles are also among the most common abusers."

But let's examine Poland's solution. In a study on chemical castration, where pedophiles were given Depo-Provera, a common birth control for women, the researchers discovered: "Depo-Provera has been proven to inhibit the abilities of pedophilias to assault children. The progesterone in Depo-Provera counteracts the biological tendencies that lead men to rape children. By lowering testosterone, Depo-Provera reduces sex drive. Males can have sexual intercourse but do not want to. Depo-Provera also decreases aggressive tendencies by reducing testosterone. '[T]he castrated criminal would be more docile and have a better opportunity to be rehabilitated, educated, and to become a worthwhile citizen.' Castration removes the biological and chemical tendencies that are intrinsically linked to the desire to rape in males."

That isn’t even the most convincing part of the study. “When used as a mandatory condition of parole, chemical castration decreases the occurrence of repeat offenses from 75 percent to 2 percent.” (Who's laughing now, huh, Poland?)

I completely understand we walk a very fine line here and border on fascism if we start performing such radical procedures on people. For example, what if a person is innocent but wrongly accused? We cannot go around castrating everyone who we think committed a crime. However, what about the men who are repeat offenders? Wouldn’t you feel safer knowing they were in a program that lowered the rate of recidivism?

Talk to me, people. Tell me what you think about this issue.