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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13752
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I'm watching a BBC documentary on anger at the moment. One participant stated that, in the 1930s, castration had been used as a punishment for minor crimes such as, he said, shoplifting, and, in some cases, for masturbation.
I was thinking Nazi Germany.
He said it was the USA.
I have headed for Google with no success to find documentation to back up the claim. I can't discount it because the BBC has no reason to be lying over this, but I can't find any citations either.
Anyone better at Googling than I am able to help me?
I'm not looking for "rights and wrongs" though a discussion is obviously fine! I'm just looking for a citation in a reliable source.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Wikipedia - see under "compulsory sterilisation" is a good place to start.
The USA did use castration and female sterilisation on criminals, but mainly on the "eugenically unfit", with the last such abuse occurring in 1981.
It's a horrifying subject, which many are in denial about!
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13752
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There is a somewhat large technical leap between sterilisation and castration, though. The speaker was very specific about it being castration that was performed, which "reduced anger".
It would have increased mine!
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I'm not sure about "reducing anger" in general - it sounds a bit of an urban myth to me. But the castration of male repeat offenders certainly occurred.
"[12] See, e.g., Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 536 (1942) (striking down an Oklahoma statute that authorized the sterilization of recidivist criminals). Although Skinner is often cited as the leading case on sterilization, the Court did not address castration as a constitutionally impermissible, barbarous punishment. Instead, the Court held that the Oklahoma law permitting the sterilization of habitual criminals violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The state law invidiously discriminated against the indigent by exempting defendants who had repeatedly been found guilty of white collar crimes." for example (which is a footnote to http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/frames/252/spalfram.html , which otherwise deals mainly with "chemical castration") makes this very clear.
I haven't - in a quick search, and a run through my bookmarks (this is a subject that repels and fascinates me) - found anything specifically dealing with anger, but it seems that a lot of the discussion about castration (either surgical or chemical) for violent sex offenders has discussed this indirectly (depending on whether rape is seen as sexual, or as primarily anger/revenge violence, for example).
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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unsui
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Likes it here |
Registered: September 2007
Messages: 338
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[Updated on: Fri, 24 October 2008 17:33] |
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