Abstract: This chapter presents the historical data supporting bilateral orchiectomy as a possible treatment modality for individuals who have committed sexual crimes or who have paraphilic disorders. Although the idea of orchiectomy, or surgical castration, evokes strongly negative emotional responses in many individuals, several reviews of biological treatments for sex offenders examining recidivism data from European studies have concluded that castration had very significant positive effects on recidivism. Castration for control, domination, punishment, mutilation, social advancement, and political reasons has been practiced since antiquity and has been the subject of several reviews. Some of the literature refers to “medical castration” or “pharmacological castration,” by which is meant the use of hormonal or gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist therapy to reduce testosterone to castrate levels. Some of the literature on the treatment of prostate cancer also refers to androgen deprivation therapy, which has the aim of reducing testosterone to castrate levels, and which can be accomplished by surgical or medical castration.
Publication Year: 2020
Publication Date: 2020-11-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 1
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