Germany rejects demand to stop castrating sex offenders

criminals who had opted to have the procedure.
It pointed out the results of a 1997 study that tracked the history of 104 sexual offenders ‘who subjected themselves to castration in the decade between 1970 and 1980. Their reoffending rate was three per cent,’ the German authorities explained, ‘as opposed to 46 per cent for a control group.’
The scheme is voluntary.
Against the backdrop of such results, Germany is not thought likely to buckle under EU pressure anytime soon — particularly as the country’s worst child serial killer and rapist, due to be sentenced next week, has evoked strong public support for the policy.
On average there have been five such castrations every year over the past decade.
A government spokesman said: “Germany defends the procedure on the grounds that surgery helps where illnesses connected to an abnormal sex drive must be treated, or in order to counter the risk of future unlawful offences being committed by sexual offenders and/or violent offender.
“As far as the federal government is aware, there are quite a number of scientific studies on the criminological long-term effects of surgical castration”.
There are no plans to remove it from the constitution although Berlin said it would be agreeable to talks on the issue.
Germany was criticised in a report issued by The Council of Europe’s anti-torture body, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT).
In its own words it regards itself as ‘influential in setting the EU political agenda, but it has no powers to pass laws’. In its report on castration it said; “The CPT must express its fundamental objections to the use of surgical castration as a means of treatment of sexual offenders. Surgical castration is a mutilating, irreversible intervention and cannot be considered as a medical necessity in the context of the treatment of sexual offenders.
“In the CPT’s view, surgical castration of detained sexual offenders could easily be considered as amounting to degrading treatment.’ The EU recommends the “liquid cosh” approach — chemicals which effectively destroy a sex offender’s libido thus, goes the argument, rendering him harmless.
In Germany, sex criminals aged over 25 have the option of surgical castration if the operation is cleared by an expert and it stresses it is not a punishment, but an option.
The programme has its roots in the days of the Third Reich when the Nazis sterilised thousands of sexual criminals — most of them forcibly.
Many experiments were carried out in concentration camps to find ever quicker and cheaper ways of performing the procedures.
In 1969 it was modified under the West German legal code whereby the offender must give his consent, be informed about the implications and side-effects of castration and be informed about other treatments.
Nevertheless, Berlin agreed to ‘examine if the issue should be discussed.’ Besides Germany, the Czech Republic is the only other of the 47 Council of Europe member states which gives sex offenders the option of physical castration.
Next week in Germany sees the sentencing of a youth worker called Martin Ney who has confessed to the rape and murders of three small boys and the sexual assaults of 20 others. — Daily Mail.