ALABAMA LEGISLATURE PASSES BILL TO CHEMICALLY CASTRATE THOSE CONVICTED OF SEXUAL OFFENSES AGAINST CH

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Newsweek

ALABAMA LEGISLATURE PASSES BILL TO CHEMICALLY CASTRATE THOSE CONVICTED OF SEXUAL OFFENSES AGAINST CHILDREN 13 AND UNDER
BY DONICA PHIFER ON 6/4/19 AT 10:53 PM EDT

The Alabama state legislature has sent a bill to Gov. Kay Ivey that proposes sex offenders convicted of abusing children age 13 and under be required to undergo chemical castration before leaving prison.

The bill, known as HB379, would require the individual to pay for the injection but that a person will not be denied parole because of inability to pay the cost of the treatment.

"Under existing law, a person convicted of a sex offense involving a child which constitutes a Class A or B felony is not eligible for parole. This bill would provide that a person convicted of a sex offense involving a person under the age of 13 years who is eligible for parole, as a condition of parole, shall be required to undergo chemical castration treatment in addition to any other penalty or condition prescribed by law," the bill reads.

The bill applies to convicted offenders over the age 21, State Representative Steve Hurst, the Republican who introduced the bill to the Legislature, told WIAT-TV.


Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/alabama-legislature-passes-bill-chemically-castrate-those-convicted-sexual-offenses-against-1442218?piano_t=1

[guillaumeb]

1. Does Roy Moore know about this yet? eom

[procon]

2. Alabama Republicans are extraordinarily focused

on sex. They are trying to legislate every aspect of human sexuality and add their own, special Byzantine cruelties, presumably just for their own perverse pleasure.

Next law will require a political observer to attend every act of fornication to make sure the laws are followed. Oh, wait... Didn't someone already write a dystopian novel with a plot like that?

[Archae]

3. And those falsely accused?

"Eh, they don't matter..."

[Progressive Jones]

4. As much as I think they are morons down there in Alabama,

I have no problem with this. I'd go a step further, and make it surgical.
Sorry, not sorry.

[safeinOhio]

5. Surgery does not work.

Testosterone replacement found on the internet. Penal amputation does work.

[RockRaven]

6. I'm curious, but not curious enough to research the answer myself, does anyone know...

how much empirical evidence there is that this course of action is truly efficacious (i.e. when done, it produces the outcome which is the alleged goal of this new law)?

The reason I ask is that this is very much the kind of law which cannot be justified on the grounds of "well it just makes sense that it ought to work, even if we don't really have good evidence that it will" and yet that never stopped Alabama or Republicans before...

[Sgent]

7. Keeping in mind

that SCOTUS allows for the death penalty if the child is 12 or under, I'm not sure this is completely out of bounds legally. IMHO it falls under cruel and unusual, but with this court...

[spike91nz]

8. Last time i looked

Last time I looked over the data, there was little evidence that this approach worked. I think Denmark tried it as well, and stopped, I also recall reading reports on physical castration not really preventing the abusive behavior. The behavior is largely driven by psychological factors and/or their own history of abuse, and, like rape, has less to with sex than it has to do with power. The best efforts should be applied to the prevention of child abuse to short circuit the cycle. Sex education courses beginning in early in school might facilitate identification of abusers. Moving away from authoritarian mindsets and aggressive behavior would likely have more benefits than chemical castration. In the cases I am directly familiar with, the "chemical castration" did not work or, if it did, it was for a very brief period, as the behavior soon reemerged. There may be new research on this matter, but the previous studies appeared definitive, and Alabama has a history of applying simplistic solutions to complex problems

[Midnight Writer]

9. Another stunt. No one has ever lost an election by being tough on pedophiles. Now D's must defend.

[Cicada]

10. Partly based on false belief of high recidivism

I always thought pedophiles were very likely to resume. But a couple months ago I read an interesting article that this view was based on one completely erroneous source, repeated over and over, that the true recidivism rate is very low, like 3%. I have seen estimates that 4% of those convicted of crimes are innocent. So the method is not very effective, it does cruel things to innocent people, doing nothing works 97% of the time. On the whole I think it will do more harm than good.

[Pachamama]

12. Well bless their hearts: They have a law regulating a mans body and they also

...excluded children 14+....

[Celerity]

14. In 'Bama, 14 is prime courtin' age if mamma gives the thumbs up.

Ask Roy 'Shopping Malls Are My Tinder' Moore.

[pangaia]

13. But, but, why are they going after their own sexual abusers?

[IronLionZion]

15. Get Roy Moore first

and Jeffrey Epstein, and fundamentalist LDS church folks,

[Maxheader]

16. We don't need no russky fake videos during the runnup to 2020 voting..

We got enough whack entertainment by the suthn states..

Every time the winger religious freaks propose something like this, some
gop pervy gets caught committing the crime..

[Roy Rolling]

17. What about Women? Castrate them?

Alabama should work on something other than sex. They have sex on the brain.

[SergeStorms]

18. What if the person is a republican?

I imagine the law doesn't apply in that situation. Remember, IOKIYAR!

[The_Counsel]

19. Kay Will Be Tripping Over Herself to Sign THIS Bill, I'm Sure.

I mean...this actually makes too much sense, so they'll fuck it up somehow...