In Alabama, convicted pedophiles may have to give up more than their freedom to be released from prison — castration may soon be part of the exit exam.
Alabama House Bill 365 would require people convicted of sexually assaulting children under the age of 12 to be surgically castrated before leaving prison. State Representative Steve Hurts has proposed this bill—or one similar to it—every year since 2011. The bill is seen as a preventative measure to keep convicted abusers from harming anyone else. It has flaws, however, as castration does not guarantee a removal of sexual desire and urges.
Wayne DuMond, a man on trial for rape, was castrated by vigilantes. Gov. Mike Huckabee pardoned him in 1999, and upon release he raped and murdered Carol Sue Shields. His castration did not save her life. He also allegedly raped and murdered Sara Andrasek, but died before the charges were formally filed.
From a legal perspective, this proposed course of action has been heavily criticized on an international level. The Council of Europe’s Anti-Torture Committee has criticized other countries for surgically castrating sex offenders. Both the Czech Republic and Germany have castration — chemical or surgical — options for convicted sex offenders.
Beyond the ethical ramifications of a humiliating and often ineffective treatment, this bill functions with the idea that only men sexually assault children. In an ideal world, there would be no abuse. In a flawed world that we wish to make ideal, only one type of person would be an abuser. As a society, we like to imagine those depraved enough to rape and sexually assault children to be dirty men with no friends or family. We want to rewrite reality because reality on sexual abuse isn’t pretty.
Women abuse children just as men do. While men do abuse children at a significantly higher rate than women, there is no way to get a firm number on how many women abuse children because of reluctance to report these crimes. Women abusers hide easily. Women are allowed more unsupervised visitation with children and inappropriate and abusive incidents can be easily disguised as misguided attempts at child care.
Current numbers place women as abusers between 0.4 and 4 percent of the total number of convicted sex offenders. That said, most sex offenders never see a court room, let alone a prison cell. Chemical or surgical castration attempts to stop the epidemic, but it ignores the men it doesn’t stop and the women who cannot be castrated.
This bill, like its predecessors, almost certainly won’t pass, but it’s time to open up the discussion about female abusers.
– Holly Baer
