Whenever highly publicized sex crimes occur in Korea the debate on chemical castration reemerges and politicians cash in on the popularity of appearing tough.

Reported recently was that the ruling Saenuri Party are “considering” making chemical castration mandatory for sex offenders. Naturally the liberal left human rights brigade will rise to defend the rights, and not the responsibilities, of the criminals while at the same time ignoring the rights of their victims.

Before sanctioning chemical castration they will need to do their homework on its effectiveness as opinions are clearly divided. They will need to decide whether castration is to be a punitive measure or a clinical one.

A woman who is married to a rapist will thus be affected and this is an area human rights’ groups will surely take issue with. Additionally side effects of the growth of breasts and loss of body hair could be construed as a cruel and unfair punishment in accordance with various international human rights charters to which Korea is signatory.

Chemical castration can in fact be reversed with injections of testosterone to help with an erection. But even if the offender is physically castrated by having his testicles removed, where 95 percent of testosterone is produced, there are no guarantees as the remaining 5 percent is produced in the adrenal glands.

But limiting the discussion on the effectiveness of castration is missing the point. The treatment depends largely on the cooperation of the offender, something which the threat of imprisonment is suggested to ensure. But what if he absconds, bearing in mind he is in fact suffering with anger and power issues and not sexual ones, as I mentioned in a recent letter?

Consider also, a large number of rapists suffer with impotence during the attack which results in them forcing the victim to perform oral sex or masturbation on the offender as opposed to intercourse.

When this occurs the crime is often classified as an oral rape or sexual assault but not an attempted rape. A significant number of convicted rapists are found to have previous convictions for sexual assaults, which may well have been wrongly recorded rape attempts.

It is therefore possible to take proactive steps and for the police to work with clinical specialists to identify those, under the age of 45, a point I shall return to, with previous convictions for sexual assaults and to interview them to gauge the potential risks of them becoming rapists; a preemptive strike.

The interviews will need to investigate the offender’s formative years’ experiences to ascertain unresolved issues involving women; perhaps sexual abuse by his mother, other female relative, teacher, etc. This is often an incident where he was “pressured” into sexual behavior and drives his anger against females. Addressing these issues is key to the clinical solution.

Quite often the excuse of alcohol is given as mitigation for the sex offence. “I was drunk, I am sorry.” This should be discounted because if it were relevant then we would struggle to explain alcoholic rapists who commit their crimes when sober. Instead investigators should examine the offender’s usual alcohol intake level and will probably conclude that it is the same. It is likely that the alcohol dropped the offender’s inhibitions at the same critical time that he was prone to commit the offence anyway.

Anger and power rape incidents greatly decline once offenders reach the age of 45, perhaps due to a natural slowing down of the body. Thus to avoid the drawn out debates and the uncertainties of castration I suggest terms of detention in specialist sex crime units which would carry the offender over the 45 years of age threshold. This would provide far better protection for the public, and while being punitive, the clinical issues could be dealt with during the incarceration.

Making this an election pledge to identify and treat “potential” rapists and to detain those convicted until they are deemed low risk would surely resonate with a very large percentage of the voting population as oppose to campaigning on a ticket of something “we might do.”

By Anthony Hegarty

Anthony Hegarty is a risk and security analyst in Daegu, Korea. He can be reached at helios@discreet-services.com. ― Ed.