Castration for sex offenders?

Don't knock castration, said Michelle Cottle in The New Republic. Europeans are locked in a debate over the Czech Republic's castration of some sex offenders, which the Council of Europe's anti-torture committee says is barbaric. (read The New York Times' story) But some dangerous predators simply can't be "cured" of their horrific impulses without a little surgical help.

"Surgical castration of sex offenders went out about 100 years ago," said The Scottish Daily Record in an editorial. But chemical castration could be just the thing to stop violent sex offenders from repeating their crimes. Several American states and European countries are trying it—it might sound "radical," but "the civil rights of innocent victims far outweigh those of serial sex offenders."

Nobody wants to be put in the position of defending sex offenders, said Alex Whalen in the University of South Alabama's The Vanguard, but haven't they been "dehumanized" enough already? We already make them register with authorities, and alert their neighbors. Chemical castration just pushes the "public humiliation" too far.

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