A Virginia state legislator wants the state to consider castrating sex offenders so they don’t have to spend all that money keeping them locked up indefinitely in psychiatric “hospitals” after they’ve completed their prison sentences.
From the HuffPo:
Republican Sen. Emmett Hanger’s bill would require the state to study the use of physical castration as an alternative to civil commitment for sexually violent predators.
The civil commitment program’s budget grew from $2.7 million in 2004 to $24 million this year. Gov. Bob McDonnell has proposed spending nearly $70 million over the next two years to meet the increasing demands.
According to the article, Texas and Louisiana already allow for physical castration.
It’s interesting to see government officials in a quandary over the high cost of using the gimmick of civil commitment to heap additional punishment on people who have already paid for their crimes. There is no doubt that they would have no compunction about summarily executing sex offenders at the end of their prison term if they could only devise some fiction that could justify it.
And the public would applaud.
Thanks to Maggie McNeil for the link.
