Louisiana Gov. Jindal Authorizes Chemical Castration Of Sex Offenders

Rising Republican star Bobby Jindal signed legislation allowing judges to force convicted rapists to undergo chemical castration, the Louisiana Advocate reports:

"I am glad we have taken such strong measures in Louisiana to put a stop to these monsters' brutal acts," the governor said in a prepared statement.

Jindal signed Senate Bill 144 into law on the day that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Louisiana cannot execute people who rape children under the age of 12.

The governor blasted the high court's decision.

"I am especially glad to sign (SB144) into Louisiana law ... on the same day the Supreme Court has made an atrocious ruling against our state's ability to sentence those who sexually assault our children to the fullest extent," he said.

Jindal, the country's youngest governor and the first with Indian roots, is often cited as a potential Vice Presidental nominee for McCain. He has spoken out in defense of intelligent design and written about his participation in an exorcism.

Comments

[Fotios]

So, if this were a nation-wide law, both Kobe Bryant and the Duke Lacross boys might never be able to have kids.

Those are just two well-known examples of where whores regret having sex and decide to cry rape. I have no problem with castrating actual rapists, but it is undeniable that several people are in jail for rape, when they were actually the victims of false accusations.

Proving rape is not an exact science. In most cases it is one person's word against another, and I would hate to remove someone's nuts on shakey evidence like that.

[loupbouc]

Skinner v. State of Oklahoma, Ex. Rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535 (1942), held that forced punitive sterilization is unconstitutional. Only with the most disingenuous legal dancing could the current Supreme Court hold valid the Louisiana chemical castration statute, which provides a form of punitive forced sterilization.

In an earlier comment, I referenced an early 20th Century Supreme Court decision upholding forced non-punitive sterilization of an "idiot" whose family line had produced mentally handicapped offspring for four generations. The case was Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927). Justice Holmes (the Cout's very most over-rated jurist) said "Three generations of imbiciles are enough." Skinner overturned Buck v. Bell, to the extent that Buck v. Bell suggested the constitution permits punitive forced sterilization.

[Mort]

Those of you crying foul here have probably never had one of your children abused by a pedophile. Never felt the helplessness of their lost innocence and damaged lives. Never known the gnawing anger, or the pain of watching the system turn their back on the victims and lavish mercy and consideration on the criminals.

Please try to remember one thing while you trip over yourself to protect the offenders... what you do and say may be a slap in the face of the people they brutalized.

[escobar]

Trouble is how many innocent people are wrongly convicted...even of this.

[Mort]

They're a small percentage. and are a reason to be more vigilant, not benevolent.

[Snoop2]

I guarantee that bill he signed will never hold up when challenged by a defendants attorney.

As for intelligent design, exorcisrms and god knows what else this possible VP (voodoo president) would do I think he would be great at running gitmo! BTW - why are these weirdos always from places like Louisiana or Arkansas?

[loupbouc]

I propose that pedophile sex offenders be sentenced to become Trappist Monks sent on missions to Jesuit seminaries nestled in the Andes and supported by herding and milking Llamas, Alpacas, and Roman Catholic Cardinals.

[bluevalentine]

hehehe...but don't ya know, that there will no chemical castration of the Catholic priests. (rolling eyes)

[Bobbygoode]

I would tell McCain to PLEASE choose this right wing freak for VP, whose election to governor was all part of "Operation Katrina", wherein a huge hunk of the Democratic base was literally swept away, or moved away, and never came back. But the flipside is, if the ticket somehow wins (or should I say steals) the election, the elderly McCain -- who will be 10 years older than old man Eisenhower was in the 1950's (and had serious medical crises, with Nixon a heartbeat away) -- could keel over any second.... then we'd have bigger trouble. Jindal trouble. This anti-science, pro-castration, pro-death penalty, pro-exorcism wingnut would seek out people to the RIGHTof Scalia for the SCOTUS.

[loupbouc]

Nonsense!

The case is bad as lopping off the equipment.

The male's anatomy changes dramatically, as if in preparation for sex-change. The chemically castrated male develops breasts, suffers unfortunate weight-change, fatty tissue like a woman's, at the belly, butt, thighs, feminine facial effects, musculature alteration...

Also, much higher risk of certain cancers.

Impotence is horrific, for many. Note the market of Viagra and similar drugs.

Then too, surgical castration is not as it was. The testes are removed through a slit in the low abdomen. The testicle-sack remains intact, but empty.

So, we can expect that if "society" thinks chemical castration is okay, it will think such “enlightened” surgical castration is, also, especially because no progesterone injection means less cancer risk.

The Supreme Court has not ruled out execution methods other than lethal injection. In the US, twenty jurisdictions provide execution methods other than lethal injection, though most or all provide also lethal injection (which is, itself, not necessarily constitutional). The federal government is one of those jurisdictions. The provided alternatives are: Electrocution, Lethal Gas, Firing Squad, and Hanging.

So, one can expect castration alternatives, since each method has peculiar benefits and costs.

One ought feel horror when one reads such sophistic “sophistication” as: "Oh, it's not so bad. Just huge alteration of hormonal balance, heightened cancer-risk, grotesque body changes, and impotence. A small price to pay..."

[bluevalentine]

No horror hear.
So let them have a choice, chemical castration or wack it off...

I totally support this idea.

[bluevalentine]

Oh, and a choice is more than the victim children had about ANYTHING!

[ElPerro]

Define "Pedophile"

Are we just talking about 40 year old guys who have a taste for 12 year olds?

Or are we also lumping in the 20 year old who beds a 17 year old.

The vast majority of us want to feed the first guy into a tree chipper. But most of us also don't want any kind of punisment at all in the second example. There is a slippery slope somewhere between those two examples that we had better recognize and deal with before we start using drugs to disconnect people's equipment

[HansMoleman]

At the risk of seeming to be splitting hairs, there's a big difference between a 'p(a)edophile' and a 'child sex offender'. The former is an orientation; the latter involves a crime. You may not particularly like "40 year old guys who have a taste for 12 year olds," but so long as they keep their tastes to themselves, they are not breaking the law. There is a large moral distance between - as someone below puts it - "having an urge to molest children" and submitting to such an urge. It worries me that the current hysteria surrounding child sexual abuse erodes this distinction, not least because of the very loose application of the term 'p(a)edophile' to describe child abusers.

[CelticDragon]

From predatorsafety.com:

How many victims does a child molester average?

Interviews guaranteeing complete confidentiality and immunity from prosecution, conducted by Emory University psychiatrist Dr. Gene Abel*, uncovered that:

* Male offenders who abused girls had an average of 52 victims each.
* Men who molested boys had an astonishing average of 150 victims each.
* Only 3% of these crimes had ever been detected.

[lolyla]

Immunity from prosecution and confidentiality are not the only factors in a child molestor detailing his sexual escapades. He may be lying, bragging, minimizing, remembering incorrectly, intentionally misleading the investigator. In the end you're basing your statistical argument on the testimony of individuals whose morality you've already impeached.

[CelticDragon]

I may be the only person here with practical experience in this regard, so here goes...

I am a transgendered woman, and I have experienced "chemical castration" as a part of transition from male to female. First, it creeps me out that the progesterone shots I received were essentially the same thing that molesting perverts got, but I was actually asking for them as a part of HBIGDA requirements to change gender (You have to be on female hormones for at least one year before any surgeon will touch you).
As a practical matter, it is not that big a deal. Your sex drive drops off a cliff, which I found to be something of a relief in some ways. You can still have sex (at least I could, but that is not the same for everyone), but you don't have the constant testosterone imperative of "NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!!" (hat tip to Billy Crystal, heh!) going on. It does not disfigure the anatomy which an actual castration or orchiectomy would. It can become permanent over time, but not immediately, which gives plenty of opportunity to gauge the effectiveness of the treatment.

I can't find it in me to have sympathy for sex offenders here. If somebody touched my son, he would have to pray he lived long enough to get the treatment. I have an SKS rifle and I'm a very good shot...

[bluevalentine]

Thanks Celticdragon for adding honesty and a real life touch to this article.


"....I'm a very good shot." hehehehe

[paleoimage]

IDiots like Bobby Jindal are the first ones to link the teaching of biological evolution with "Social Darwinism" . They make these false accusations in order to corrupt public opinion towards their overtly religious agenda. However, these same right wing, creationist folk are also first in line to promote "chemical castration" and a multitude of other fascist social controls.
That McCain would give Jindal the time of day speaks volume about the Republican parties continuing war on science, civil liberties and personal freedom. A vote for McSame is a vote to create "third world status" for our nation.

[karela]

Chemical castration has nothing to do with "castration". It's a prescription hormonal medication that removes the sex urge. That's a good thing if your sexual urge is only activated by six year olds. One in four girls and one in six boys in America is sexually molested before the age of eighteen. Pedophiles very rarely change their sexual orientation and almost never voluntarily stop going after children. The average pedophile molests 300 children during their lifetime. If a person molests children, it is less cruel and unusual to take away his right to have sex than it is to take away the next child's right to have a good life. In the case last week that LA gave the death penalty for child rape and the Supreme Court struck down---The man weighed 300 pounds. He was so vicious with an eight year old girl that her body was damaged to the point of never being able to have children. Her heart and mind are more severely injured. A twenty year jail sentence only delays but does not deter. When they get out, they want sex and for them, sex is a child. Removing the sexual urge by swallowing a pill is more than justified. We shouldn't be so busy protecting a child rapist's rights that we force our children to endure what that little girl and the next 299 little girls would have to endure from a man like this.

[CelticDragon]

Karela is correct on this. Chemical castration involves injections of progesterone (used as birth control in women) which interferes with the production of testosterone in men. The male sex drive is severely reduced, and the ability to get an erection is reduced or curtailed altogether. Over a long period of treatment, the effects can become permanent. I don't see where this is too high a price to pay for having an urge to molest children. Transgendered women undergo this regimen voluntarily during transition as a preparation for sex reassignment surgery ( I am a transgendered woman, so I have some experience here. It isn't that big a deal, really.).

If you can't control your sex urges in society, then you should lose your right to participate in sex. End of story. Buh bye.

[barriosbabe]

No drugging!

[surfcitysteven]

Not only is does he act weird, he looks weird. Should turn out the India-American base though.

[barriosbabe]

Nobody is talking about the bigger issue: What should a sensible evolved society do with mental case defendants? Personally I think we need separated out prisons (a la George Carlin). The idea of putting a Charlie Manson or child molester locked up with a common burglar is ridiculous.

[collprof]

Fitting candidate for McSame. He's tan as well.

Let's see..before I said it would 63/37. Now it's 65/35. Not only a landslide but a humiliation. Bring it on McSame.

And for all of you who don't know the prison population myths..one is very true. The life expectancy of a child rapist is less than that of a 1st Lt on the front line. 10 seconds. I would rather take the execution than face Bubba and his buddies.