What is chemical castration? | EUROtoday

On May 24, 2025

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CThis resolution is not less than radical. On Thursday, May 22, British Minister of Justice Shabanana Mahmood mentioned mentioned that he’s contemplating making chemical castration obligatory for sure intercourse offenders, with a purpose to scale back the chance of recurrence and unclog overcrowded prisons. This venture, nonetheless within the state of reflection, relies on an experiment launched in 2022 in a number of penal institutions within the southwest of England, the place inhibitory therapies of libido are supplied on a voluntary foundation.

Chemical castration is outlined as “a medical treatment which aims to reduce the production of testosterone by taking medication”. It may also be described as “libido inhibitor”. The objective is to scale back the person’s sexual impulses, rendering their sexual activity much less frequent and supposedly, stopping that rapes or sexual assault could also be dedicated once more. The results of medication final so long as therapy is adopted. When the therapy is stopped, the results additionally stop.

Read too Chemical castration: the instance of the United StatesIn complete, round fifteen international locations enable chemical castration on the planet, in numerous kinds. But its utility varies. Indeed, some nations make it potential to felony an accused to chemical castration, resembling Poland (which imposes it for individuals acknowledged as responsible of sure sexual crimes, particularly the abuses on minors), South Korea, Indonesia or Estonia.

Towards a nationwide deployment?

In different international locations, such because the United Kingdom or France, therapies could also be prescribed as a part of socio-judicial follow-up, parole, judicial surveillance or security surveillance. But a French courtroom can not resolve alone to punish a person of chemical castration, which is taken into account a medical therapy.

Thus, a felony courtroom can pronounce an injunction of care towards a intercourse offender. In this case, his attending doctor can prescribe an inhibitory therapy of libido, with the consent of the accused. In the occasion of refusal, he dangers three years in jail, nonetheless, for an offense, and 7 years in jail for a criminal offense.

Read too For Marlène Schiappa, chemical castration is “not effective” “The report recommends continuing the drug treatment pilot project to manage problematic disorders of sexual desire,” mentioned Shabana Mahmood in entrance of the deputies. “I will go further with a national deployment, which will start in two regions and concern twenty prisons. And I examine the possibility of making this device compulsory, ”she added.

Sexual violence will increase

Make this technique obligatory would take an enormous step. Who raises the query of the effectiveness of the method on two facets: does it enable prisons to unclog, and permit, by a deterrent impact, to scale back the variety of sexual violence? Most international locations in Europe established chemical castration across the 2010s, resembling Poland in 2009 or Estonia in 2012.

In these two international locations, sexual violence elevated respectively by 13.5 % and 48.7 % between 2014 and 2018, in keeping with INSEE figures. In Germany, which additionally authorizes chemical castration, they elevated by 16.1 %. In France, this determine rises to 59.6 %. For Indonesia, which admits chemical castration, circumstances of violence towards ladies (87 % of whom had been sexual) elevated by 6 % in comparison with 2018 and 66 % in comparison with 2016.

Read too Prison rental: France within the footsteps of Denmark and Belgium? South Korea, additionally involved, has been confronted with an epidemic of digital intercourse crimes, in keeping with Human Rights Watch. In 5 years, the variety of sexual violence recorded has elevated 98 % within the United Kingdom. The deterrent impact of castration is due to this fact removed from apparent, even when different knowledge (higher consciousness, modifications in reporting practices) can clarify these figures.

“It will not settle anything in the long term”

Asked, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman pressured that “scientific evidence is clear that chemical treatments can be effective in treating dangerous offenders, which is why we extend their use”. On the query of effectivity, by corollary of recurrence, little or no knowledge exists.

In France, the recurrence charge for crimes generally was 8.1 % in 2019, however there isn’t any clear distinction for sexual crimes. On the occupancy charge of prisons, there too, no knowledge specifies the occupancy charge for sexual crimes. In 2023, nonetheless, European international locations confronted jail overcrowding, with occupancy charges exceeding 100 % in some like France (122.9 %).

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But, conversely, a rustic like Estonia has a really low occupancy charge (56.2 %), which doesn’t correlate jail overcrowding to the rise in sexual crimes. As of March 31, 2025, 14,863 individuals served a jail sentence for sexual offenses in England and in Wales, round 21 % of the grownup jail inhabitants. Pia Sinha, director of the NGO Prison Reform Trust, warned of “obvious ethical considerations” raised by the imposition of such therapy.

For the penalty lawyer Marcus Johnstone, “it will not settle anything in the long term” if there isn’t any extra funding for the psychological assist of intercourse offenders. Rehabilitation or punitive, British justice is, it appears, confronted with a thorny alternative.

https://www.lepoint.fr/societe/le-royaume-uni-veut-l-utiliser-pour-vider-les-prisons-qu-est-ce-que-la-castration-chimique-23-05-2025-2590387_23.php