Louisiana legalizes surgical castration for felons

fooferdoggie

fooferdoggie

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Not to be outdone by forcing public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom, Louisiana governor Jeff Landry signed another new bill this week legalizing the state-sponsored surgical castration as an un-cruel and totally usual punishment for certain sex offenders. From The Advocate:

Under Louisiana's new castration law, those eligible for such a punishment must have been convicted of one of the most serious sex offenses, and their victims must have been under 13. Eligible offenses include rape, incest and molestation.
[…]
Offenders who receive such a sentence may refuse the procedure, in which case they would face an additional three to five years in prison.
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The problem is, some innocent guy is going to get his bits chopped off when the governor ignores the fact they’re innocent and refused to step in.

I really have no concerns for the guilty, it’s the innocent when the problems step in, and we know for a fact our current system isn’t above locking innocent people up for decades or even sentencing them to death.
 
The fact is, sex offenders don’t do it for the sex. They do it for the control. They will find other tools to hurt and control others. Castration is a waste of time.
 
Alli said:
The fact is, sex offenders don’t do it for the sex. They do it for the control. They will find other tools to hurt and control others. Castration is a waste of time.
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Well yes, but you don't expect the GOP to understand that. They tend to think the females deserve it for some reason or another.
 
GermanSuplex said:
The problem is, some innocent guy is going to get his bits chopped off when the governor ignores the fact they’re innocent and refused to step in.

I really have no concerns for the guilty, it’s the innocent when the problems step in, and we know for a fact our current system isn’t above locking innocent people up for decades or even sentencing them to death.
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The problem I have with this is that we have an absolutely awful track record when it comes to "compulsory sterilization" and how it tends to be weaponized against minorities. While this tries to skirt the line by making the felon choose more punishment or sterilization, the point is that the goal is to have the choice made under the threat of additional punishment, which to me amounts to coercion. And so when the inevitable human rights lawsuits appear, they'll claim "but they chose this" as a way to deflect from the fact that bills like this are more about vengeance than it is about justice.

That's not even getting to the point where if I believe in bodily autonomy, this is just another way to erode that. Or the fact that we have the right trying to define more things as sex crimes that put you on the offender list, which creates a dangerous conflation if we start expanding the crimes that fall under bills like these (Florida has a capital punishment statute for similar crimes right now, which I find less distasteful than this).

As Alli says, it's a waste of time. If you need to remove the individual from society to prevent them from victimizing more people, do that. But we should be moving away from this sort of thing, not re-normalizing it as a form of punishment for "undesirables".
 
I also don't understand the rationale for sterilization - a "preventive" measure against future sex offenses?

That would be pretty useless, since it's easy to compensate with testosterone supplements...???

I guess it's more "old testament" eye for an eye.
 
cbum said:
I guess it's more "old testament" eye for an eye.
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Given the opportunity, I'm quite sure that they would gladly adopt the Bible as the official rulebook for the state. Once they get rid of all the rules that they normally choose to ignore. You really only need to keep the bits about gays going to the gallows, a woman's place being on her back with her legs spread, the parts about how men are totally awesome and should be in charge, the stuff that lets you control those who don't obey, and that non-believers are basically trash to be disposed of. You also need to leave in the part about a man of middle-eastern descent being a White American who came to save other White Americans a couple millennia before America became a thing. That's not all in the Bible of course, but they don't know that. They would keep the "love your neighbor" part, but they would use it for "Well Jimmy took that bit a little too seriously with Sally, but 'God's Will'. Also he's a good kid with a bright future ahead of him and wouldn't it be a shame if... blah, blah, blah".

Just remember the golden rule and all will be well: You don't have to obey God, you just need to make sure everyone else is obeying him whether they want to or not.
 
I know this isn't exactly a response to what you are saying, but the moment you brought up the Bible I couldn't help but think of this bit from the KJV.

An eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth would lead to a world of the blind and toothless.
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We should probably work on our existing problematic prison and justice system before adding fun new ways of medieval mutilation and punishment.

I can see it now, some poor 19 year old black kid who pissed off the wrong person over something mundane - like a simple breakup - gets accused of raping a white girl and is moved swiftly from accusation to the castration table, while some 19 year old suburban white kid rapes underage kids, pleads down to misdemeanor battery and gets probation - you know, because they “deserve a chance”.
 
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