La castrazione chimica è un tipo di castrazione, solitamente non definitiva, provocata da farmaci a base di ormoni.
Fu sviluppata come misura temporanea preventiva per stupratori e pedofili ed è applicata come parte della pena di reati a sfondo sessuale, in diversi paesi, inclusi gli Stati Uniti. La castrazione chimica viene considerata meno brutale e disumana della castrazione vera e propria. Alcune associazioni per i diritti civili, però, ne contestano l'applicazione. In particolare l'ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) sostiene che sia contraria alla costituzione degli Stati Uniti.
Al di fuori dell'ambito della prevenzione e repressione del crimine, la castrazione chimica viene eseguita come fase preliminare nel trattamento ormonale per il cambiamento di sesso, da uomo a donna, nei soggetti transessuali. In questo caso, la trasformazione è irreversibile dopo circa sei mesi dall'inizio del trattamento farmacologico.
Il farmaco più in uso attualmente è il Depo-Provera. Agisce sul cervello inibendo gli ormoni che stimolano i testicoli alla produzione di testosterone.
wikipedia.itChemical Castration: A Return to the Dark Ages
By Larry Helm Spalding
Legislative Staff Counsel, August 1997
For decades after the fall of Nazi Germany and the discovery of the infamous medical experiments of Dr. Josef Mengele, it constituted a periodic embarrassment. An enraged judge would condemn a defendant convicted of a sex crime to castration. The sentence would be disallowed on appeal, and a relieved public would laud itself for living in more enlightened times.
Well, the definition of enlightenment has changed. During the 1997 Regular Session, the Florida Legislature overwhelmingly passed a bill imposing weekly injections of a sexdrivereducing hormone called DepoProvera on paroled sex offenders. Judges were also authorized to order this form of "chemical castration" for firsttime offenders.
What changed was the perception of sex offenders as compulsive recidivists. For years, a notorious Texas inmate, Larry Don McQuay, begged the state to castrate him, saying he had molested over 200 children and would resume when released from prison. There were also experts like Dr. Fred Berlin, founder of the Sexual Disorders Clinic at Johns Hopkins University, who noted that molesters may have a recidivism rate as high as 65%.
Dr. Berlin cited domestic and European studies in which the recidivism rate fell below 15% when participants were chemically castrated. Such statistics attracted the attention of Rep. Mark Ogles (RBradenton) who, having watched the California General Assembly enact a chemical castration statute in 1996 (a law which is currently under legal challenged by the ACLU of Northern California), introduced HB 83 early in the 1997 session. Rep. Ogles talked of prevention, not punishment.
"We are simply trying to stop sexual offenders from committing additional crimes," he said.
The ACLU of Florida, which stood virtually alone in opposing the bill and which is expected to file its own legal challenge to the new law in the future, argued that the involuntary use of chemical castration is unconstitutional. Our position essentially is that:
1. Mandatory chemical castration interferes with an offender's fundamental right to procreate and the right to refuse medical treatment.
2. Although judges will be required under the new law to have the inmate submit to a medical examination to determine whether he is "an appropriate candidate for the treatment," it will be the trial judge, not the examining physician, who will make the ultimate decision whether the inmate must receive weekly injections of this nonFDAapproved, experimental drug as a condition of probation or parole.
3. Judges, not doctors or even the convicted sex offender himself, will determine when, or if, the use of the experimental drug can be discontinued.
4. "Cruel and unusual punishment" analysis strongly suggests that mandatory chemical castration is not a medical treatment, but rather an additional form of punishment for sex offenders.
5. The state may not, without their consent, expose individuals to potentially dangerous medical side effects. The physiological effects of DepoProvera include temporary diminution of erections and ejaculations and a reduction in sperm count. The drug may also cause diabetes, gallstones, hypertension, fatigue, weight gain, cold sweats, nightmares and muscle weakness. The long term effects are unknown.
6. Determined sex offenders can, in all probability, reverse DepoProvera's effects with other drugs.
7. Castration fails to treat the psychological roots of sexually deviant behavior.
8. Unlike other conditions of parole or probation, submission to the treatment is not subject to the statutory maximum periods of incarceration. It can be ordered for life.
These concerns should have weighed heavily with the Florida Legislature. In fact even Dr. Berlin, who favors the availability of voluntary chemical castration, opposes the Florida law. "There are many sex offenders for whom this is not going to be appropriate or useful," he said. "In effect, the legislators are practicing medicine without a license."
Public Law 97184 calls for the chemical castration of defendants convicted of sexual battery. The act permits the court to sentence any defendant convicted of sexual battery to the treatment, but it requires the court to sentence a repeat offender to undergo chemical castration.
The Florida Department of Corrections will provide the services and financial means to facilitate the administration of the treatment. If the defendant fails to submit to or refuse to appear for treatment, the defendant is guilty of an additional second degree felony.
The new law is scheduled to take effect on October 1, 1997.
Forget the legal argument. What is wrong with the chemical form of castration: using a pill or an injection to reduce the sex drive of dangerous people?
The members of the Florida Legislature think that they can prevent repeat sexual offenders by utilizing this method. It sounds wellintentioned, but the Legislature needs to realize just how inappropriate this solution is.
Chemical castration assumes that sexual offenders, after losing their sexual drive, will stop molesting children or attacking women. Unfortunately, that simply is not true. Anyone with an elementary knowledge of psychology can tell you that there are many other reasons why offenders commit sex crimes. These are not individuals looking to score on a Saturday night. They are sick, not desperate. Reducing their sexual drive does not necessarily solve the problem.
Sexual assault is not about sex that is a myth. This law reinforces the stereotype that men are sexcrazed individuals and that child molesters and sexual predators need to be drugged to control sexual impulses. In reality, sexual assaults are about violence, power and the humiliation of a survivor or victim.
Eliminating sexual desire or a body part, for that matter seems like a quick fix. No more trying to squeeze extra convicts into already overcrowded jails. No more spending money to feed and clothe another felon sentenced to life. Just get rid of the testes. But this law avoids the real issues.
The United States penal system effective or not is designed to protect society from harmful members and to rehabilitate those who can eventually rejoin society. Chemical castration does not make sex offenders ready to face society.
Getting to the root of the problem, via psychological treatment, is crucial if offenders are ever going to be contributing members of society. Counseling should be as much a part of the penal system as jail time is it is a more civilized way to deal with criminals than physical mutilation is.
Of course, counseling is a longterm proposition, one which should be instituted at the time the inmate is first incarcerated or placed on probation, and it is expensive. That may explain why funds for inmate counseling is such a low priority on our legislators' todo list, and why any form of mandated counseling is conspicuously absent in the new law.
In sum, virtually everything which was assumed about sex offenders and about castration, chemical or surgical, by the Florida Legislature when it enacted Public Law 97184 is a myth, a leap of faith, or just plain wrong.
This leap of faith is too big for our society. We cannot base a horrific new punishment on a faulty premise, and we cannot allow our disgust to cloud our judgment. These sexual offenders are sick and their actions are reprehensible, but we cannot start down a dangerous path of reactionary punishment that serves no purpose.
ACLU article on chemical castrationwiki-english per approfondire 
secondo me può essere un buon metodo per ridurre l'impulso a molestare, anche perchè pare che molti pedofili o stuprtori l'abbiano addirittura richiesta per smettere, erano recidivi ed "era più forte di loro", ma applicata ora come ora in Italia sarebbe completamente senza senso e non eliminerebbe un problema le cui radici affondano altrove. voi che dite?
