Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/04/29/louisiana-rapist-sentenced-to-50-years-imprisonment-and-physical-castration.html
…
6 Likes
That’s nuts!
(sorry)
9 Likes
Words fail me, but I hope that poor girl can find a way out of that nightmare, with plenty of counseling and support.
16 Likes
Nothing about this story is good. None of it.
I’m really sick of living among people who think that the solution to violence is MORE violence. 
And this isn’t just about “the south”, but about some not insignificant swath of the country who gets off on cruelty.
Agreed.
38 Likes
I feel so lucky to live in such a modern, enlightened countr-- oh, wait.
1 Like
This is gross and crazy. Is there any chance of parole/early release that would actually make the physical castration “necessary”?
On top of all the other anger, allow me to add that castration does not prevent people from sexually abusive behavior. I’ve worked with some men who benefited from chemical castration but the vast majority of offenders I’ve known, it wouldn’t have stopped them from finding a different way of hurting people. Barbaric and ineffective…the motto of American justice.
14 Likes
(also, Flea)
3 Likes
Are we taking bets on when Louisiana will pass a law allowing them to amputate the hands of shoplifters? (Actually I’d only be a little bit surprised to learn they already had one).
Crime against humanity. And beyond.
8 Likes
Perfect example of why coercing people to make such choices is evil. He is also very much not the kind of voluntary decision or the sort of sexual drive I was referencing. In case there is any doubt, I’m speaking about men who choose, of their own free will and without a coercive plea over their heads, to chemically suppress their pedophilic arousal. I certainly don’t want anyone thinking I agree with how Turing was treated.
4 Likes
Not at all. I don’t think that. My point was simply that coercion into that is a bad idea. I don’t know if someone choosing that helps, but there are likely other means of dealing with that. But i’m not convinced that a desire to rape children is somehow a natural orientation or should be treated as such. I’m guessing it’s more likely to manifest in people who themselves were raped at children. Therapy isn’t a cure-all, but it has to be better than chemical castration. 
In general, cruelties in the criminal justice system doesn’t seem to be a great way to deal with recidivism. We should really try other things. Other countries have with better successes.
7 Likes
It seems the castration only happens if he’s released, which wouldn’t be until he’s 104. If he actually manages to live that long, I wonder if they’d seriously bother. Besides which, in 50 years our criminal justice system and standards might be completely different, assuming there still is a criminal justice system, United States, or human life on planet Earth.
1 Like
I assumed that wasn’t your intent, though it seemed important for me to make sure more casual readers couldn’t read that into my comments.
There is a growing body of evidence that pedophilic arousal is a diatheis-stress scenario. The men who have such anrousal are very much more likely to have been victims themselves, though they are victims who have a certain genetic predisposition to begin with. That piece seems to be a big portion of what distinguishes most people who are abused as children and do not continue the cycle from those who go on to offend. James Cantor is a Canadian neuroscientist who is doing some excellent work on the subject, though we clearly know far less than we’d like to.
For some people, the thoughts are so strong and their fear of acting on them so great, they make the choice to eliminate the libido completely. It’s not something I think is anywhere near universally helpful. But I’d say around 5-10% of the men I’ve worked with have found it to be a life changing positive and adjunct to therapy. Though it clearly has to be the choice of the person, not something cruelly forced on someone by a court that only grasps punishment.
9 Likes
Apparently not:
This seems like just another way to destroy people’s lives. Is there any evidence that something like this prevents crimes? Or is this purely about vengeance?
8 Likes
Remember, in the US a punishment has to be both cruel and unusual to be found unconstitional. I’d argue this is both.
As to actually implementing it, any surgeon engaging in the procedure would immediately lose their license.
3 Likes
The two new laws described in the linked article which greatly reduce parole both took effect today.
As I’ve mentioned previously, Louisiana’s new governor (Jeff Landry) and the republican super-majority in the legislature have openly declared that Louisiana is now the front line of the worst of current right-wing agenda. It is a really scary time for the state
9 Likes
apparently there’s an argument that parole boards are opaque and capricious. so relying on parole is unjust. but then, so are our insanely long sentences that exist even for victimless crimes like drug offenses
the laws sound quite complex. i’m not sure if i’m understanding it correctly, but it sounds like there are 16 states without parole.
eta:
didn’t they also get rid of public schools? ( or maybe just in new orleans, or something? )
1 Like
The Supreme Court agrees with you. Or they did in 1942 when they ruled in Skinner v Oklahoma that punitive sterilization of criminals violated their 14th Amendment rights. As far as I know, that decision is still good law, so I do not understand how sentences like this are allowable.
Bizarrely, SCOTUS had previously held that forced sterilization of the mentally unfit was just fine (Buck v. Bell 1927) and that case hasn’t ever been overturned, either. So technically, sterilization for eugenics purposes is Constitutional, but sterilization for punitive purposes is not. This is pretty good evidence that SCOTUS’s bullshit is not a new phenomenon.
12 Likes
