I’ve received a couple of comments to the castration post below that I’d like to share. First, "jack" of Gideon’s Guardians points out that Alabama isn’t the only state to propose such legislation. Apparently, Sen. Shurden of Oklahoma consistently introduces this bill. The closest it ever got to becoming law was in 2002, when it passed both houses but was vetoed by the Governor.

Under Shurden’s bill, the jury would have to determine if the crime meets at least two aggravated circumstances as outlined in the legislation. Aggravated circumstances would include the rape of a child, rapes resulting in significant physical injury to the victim, gang rapes and previous convictions for sex crimes. In addition, a DNA test positively identifying the defendant as the rapist would be required before castration could be ordered by a judge.

Susanna writes,

I agree with you 100% when you say "I’m just against sensationalist legislation that doesn’t take into account data-driven reality and logistics." Setting penalties for crime is driven more by the election cycle than any coherent philosophy or even practical goal setting. The problem is that what is in place keeps failing, so public reaction pushes harsher penalties that just create more chaos. Somewhere, some governmental entity needs to fund more investigators, faster trials, fully staffed correctional programs and parole officers with fewer offenders to track so they can genuinely track the ones they’re assigned. Then we can see what does and does not truly work, and adjust from there.

Very true. This, ofcourse, can be said of the entire correctional system in general. Before legislation is passed calling for castration, we need to figure out what is wrong with the current system and how to fix it. Why is it that this has become national news only very recently? What were we doing right in the past and what is wrong now?

Which brings me to the past. Buck v. Bell specifically. We know the case – "three generations of imbeciles are enough". David Schraub of The Debate Link invokes Buck in determining that Alabama’s proposed law probably would be constitutional. I haven’t read Buck in a while (I’ll do it during lunch), but if my memory serves me right, the rationale in Buck was to prevent furthering the line of the "feeble-minded" by sterilizing Carrie Buck, so that she could not reproduce. Far more than prevention of crime, the underlying rationale was to "cleanse society", so to speak, of the feeble-minded and mentally ill. Justice Holmes writes,

The statute then enacts that whenever the superintendent of certain
institutions including the abovenamed State Colony shall be of opinion
that it is for the best interest of the patients and of society that an
inmate under his care should be sexually sterilized, he may have the
operation performed upon any patient afflicted with hereditary forms of
insanity, imbecility, etc., on complying with the very careful
provisions by which the act protects the patients from possible abuse.

We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the
best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call
upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser
sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to
prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the
world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime,
or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those
who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.

Additionally, the argument still stands that castration as a punishment in cruel and unusual and in violation of the 8th Amnd; cruel and unusual having been defined as changing according to evolving moral standards in society, no?

Please correct me if I’m wrong. I’m going to think about it some more and maybe post later.

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