UK will roll out chemical castration for sex offenders

LONDON -- The British government is to rollout the use of medication to suppress the sex drive of sex offenders, as part of a package of measures to reduce the risk of reoffending and alleviate the pressures on the prison system, which is running out of space.

In a statement to Parliament Thursday following the release of an independent sentencing review, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said so-called chemical castration would be used in 20 prisons in two regions.

“And I am exploring whether mandating the approach is possible," she said. “Of course, it is vital that this approach is taken alongside psychological interventions that target other causes of offending, like asserting power and control.”

Though the review highlighted the treatment would not be relevant for some sex offenders such as rapists driven by power and control, rather than sexual preoccupation, Mahmood said studies show that chemical castration can lead to a 60% reduction in reoffending.

It's been used in Germany and Denmark on a voluntary basis, and in Poland as mandatory for some offenders.

The recommendation was part of a wide-ranging review led by former justice secretary, David Gauke. As well as looking at ways to cut reoffending, Gauke recommended reforms to overhaul the prisons system, which is running at near-capacity.

One of the first things Mahmood did as justice minister after Labour returned to power after 14 years last July was sanction an early-release program for prisoners to free up space. She says she doesn't want to do that again and set up the review and appointed a Conservative predecessor to oversee it.

The review recommended that criminals could be released from prison earlier than currently, while judges could be given more flexibility to impose punishments such as driving bans. It also recommended that sentences of less than 12 months would also be scrapped, apart from exceptional circumstances such as domestic abuse cases.

It also called for the immediate deportation for foreign nationals handed a three-year sentence or less.

The review called for higher investment in the probation service to allow officers to spend more time with offenders for their rehabilitation and extra funding for the tens of thousands more offenders being electronically tagged in the community.

Mahmood responded by giving a 700 million-pound ($930 million) a year for probation within years.

“If the government doesn’t put the resources into probation that is necessary, then the risk here is that we won’t make progress on rehabilitation that we need, and there will be a public backlash against it," Gauke said.

The prison population in England and Wales has doubled over the past 30 years or so to nearly 90,000. That's despite a fall in crime rates and is driven in part by the fact that longer sentences are being handed out amid pressure to be tough on crime.

Robert Jenrick, the justice spokesman for the Conservatives, was clear in his opposition to the proposals and warned that scrapping short sentences would be effectively “decriminalizing” offenses like burglary, theft and assault. And tags, he said, are as useful as “smoke alarms putting out bonfires” when it comes to stopping reoffending.

Alongside accepting any changes, the government has said it will embark on a big prison building program, partly to replace some that have been used since Victorian times in the late 19th century.