When you say certain states, Florida..., offer chemical castration as an option, what does that mean? Can an inmate request that in order to be released?
In Florida chemical castration is mandatory but judges still don’t use it, and California and Texas have allowed surgical castration, at the request of the offender, and they have been released.
Surgical castration for sexual offenses has been done for hundreds of years across cultures, it was halted in the US after WWII.
Here’s some background on how chemical castration law came about and just how much some judges neglect to follow the law’s mandatory usage when sentencing repeat child sexual offenders.
On May 4, 2005, convicted Texas child molester Larry Don McQuay was released from prison. Again. McQuay, who had been a school bus driver in San Antonio, Texas, had been initially sentenced to eight years in prison for molesting a six-year-old boy in 1989. McQuay begged the state of Texas to surgically castrate him so that he would not repeat his crimes, which he admitted included molesting over 200 children. McQuay stated that when he looks at a child, “I see a sex object..I hate the things that I do. I’m just scared that it’s going to happen. That’s why I want to get the surgery.’ ” His request was denied.
McQuay’s letters from prison prompted the citizen’s organization, Justice for All, to help him raise the funds to obtain the surgery privately.
Although the organization was successful in raising the funds, they could find no physician who was willing to perform the surgery.
In 1996, after having served six years of an eight-year sentence, Larry Don McQuay was released from prison for “good conduct”, even though he had stated that he would not only molest again, but kill his victims to prevent them from testifying against him. Dismayed at the Texas court’s denial of McQuay’s request to be castrated prior to his release, California Assemblyman Bill Hoge introduced a bill in 1996 that was overwhelmingly passed by the California legislature requiring “chemical castration” of paroled, repeat child molesters.
Florida wasted no time in getting its own chemical castration statute on the books. In October of 1997, the legislature enacted section 794.0235, Florida Statutes, which permits Florida’s courts to order periodic administration of medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) injections for individuals convicted of sexual battery and mandates such a court order upon an individual’s second conviction. The controversial theory behind the statute is that forced administration of large doses of female hormones into male sex offenders who are placed on probation will significantly reduce the likelihood of recidivistic sexual offenses.
On April 12, 2005, some seven years after Florida’s statute was enacted, Susan Maher, Deputy General Counsel for Florida’s Department of Corrections (DOC), briefed the Senate Justice Appropriations Committee on the status of the implementation of Florida’s chemical castration statute.
Maher reported that
from the time the
statute was enacted in 1997 until the day of the briefing, circuit judges had failed to order chemical castration in 104 of the 107 cases in which such order had been statutorily mandated.
https://ir.law.fsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1163&context=lr
Different State Approaches to Castration for Sex Offenders
Both the California and Florida statutes provide for mandatory injections for repeat sex offenders, as well as discretionary injections for first-time offenders. Despite the mandatory language in the Florida law, the law has apparently been invoked only a few times since its passage in 1997.
In California, at least 15 repeat sex offenders have requested surgical castration as a way to avoid
indefinite incarceration and over the past three years, two offenders have been released from state mental hospitals following surgery.
Pursuant to a 1997 law, Texas permits surgical castration of offenders. By May 2005, three men had undergone the voluntary procedure. Candidates must be at least 21 years of age, have had at least two sex offense convictions, and have undergone at least 18 months of
sex offender treatment, including Depo Provera injections, to understand how their bodies might react with less testosterone.
Chemical and Surgical Castration for Sex Offenders - FindLaw
