StudentLedTutorial#5–PointFormSummary.docVIP

Student Led Tutorial #5 – Point Form Summary Against: Should serious sex offenders be castrated? By: Andrew Chan If castration becomes an alternative to imprisonment, sex offenders may elect to undergo castration as punishment for their crimes. Government interference with an individual’s ability to reproduce implicates constitutional rights to privacy and procreation. It also violates the guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. Privacy right no explicitly mentioned in constitution, but the Supreme Court acknowledged implied right to privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment protecting individual’s autonomy. In Eisenstadt v. Baird, Supreme Court articulated, “Right of any individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion.” Interference with an individual’s ability to reproduce, whether permanent or temporary, clearly implicates the constitutional right of privacy. Castration, as an alternative to incarceration, whether surgical or chemical, violates the right of procreative freedom. To render a convicted sex offender sterile is to deprive him of his right to procreate, which according to Justice Douglas in Skinner (v. Oklahoma) as “one of the basic civil rights of man.” Castration is a prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment provided by the Eight Amendment. In the Supreme Court of South Carolina, since castration constitutes physical mutilation, it satisfies the cruelty requirement of the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Effectiveness of castration as a punitive measure is being challenged. According to recent studies, approximately forty percent of rapists and pedophiles will repeat their crimes. Primary criticism of castration: it fails to address the anger and hatred motivation sex offences against women and children. Castration only removes one channel of aggression. Not reassuring for the victim to know that the violent offender who injured him/her will be back on the street upon completion of a st