California Governor Will Sign Chemical Castration Measure

Gov. Pete Wilson says he will sign a first-in-the-nation measure that will allow California judges to order sex offenders to undergo chemical castration.

The election-year measure breezed through the state Senate last week.

And while it must receive a final vote in the Assembly before Saturday, the last day of this year’s legislative session, it already has been passed there once. The new vote is only for concurrence in minor amendments made in the Senate.

“I am going to sign it,” Wilson said Tuesday during a brief meeting with reporters. “I hope it will be effective, and I am encouraged by European jurisdictions who have employed a very similar measure.”

Under the bill, a judge could order chemical castration, upon parole, for sex offenders found guilty of molesting a victim under the age of 13. Chemical castration would be mandated after a second conviction.

The bill would allow the sex offender to opt for permanent, surgical removal of his testicles instead of the chemical treatments, which are designed to end sex drive by lowering levels of the male hormone, testosterone.

A 1991 study of 626 sex offenders who were given the treatment over a five-year period by an institute in Baltimore found that fewer than 10 percent had commited sexual offenses again.

A Danish study of 117 sex offenders who had been surgically castrated found a recidivism rate of 4.3 percent over a period of up to 18 years, compared with a group of 58 noncastrated offenders, who had a recidivism rate of more than 40 percent, according to a Senate analysis of the Hoge bill.