Sterilisation Of Sex Offenders Opposed

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31062, 18 May 1966, Page 1

Sterilisation Of Sex Offenders Opposed

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 17. Church leaders in Wellington today came out in opposition to proposed medical treatment for persistent sex offenders. The Bishop of Wellington (the Rt. Rev. H. W. Baines) said sterilisation would not protect the community from convicted criminals.

“The sterilised psychopath is as dangerous as the unsterilised,” he said.

Society, especially the young, needed protection from such people. But other kinds of medical treatment and psychiatry deserved consideration before sterilisation.

Bishop Baines was commenting on a report that the Government was considering a system of voluntary medical treatment for some sex offenders.

Bishop Baines said that men convicted of sex offences who voluntarily accept psychiatry

and medical treatment could look forward to rehabilitation without endangering society or losing their own personal dignity. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Wellington (the Most Rev. P. T. B. McKeefry) said sterilisation as an indispensable means of ensuring the non-recurrence of gravely criminal actions could be defended in theory. But castration for that purpose could not be defended, he said, when less drastic measures were available.

Archbishop McKeefry said: “It would seem to be a strange contradiction if a society so advanced as ours still has to consider penal castration as an indispensable measure.”

Rendering impotent the mentally unfit would be a violation of rights which had not been forfeited by guilt. In some cases the pervert was not fully responsible for his behaviour, Archbishop McKeefry said. “It would be strange, if a medically advanced society could not be defended against such perverts by measures that were less drastic to their integrity, their psychological equilibrium, and to their chances of a return to normal life.”

The superintendent of Porirua Hospital, Dr. M. G. McKay, said that treatment might not be the proper course for offenders of the lower intelligence group or those who were violent or sadistic. “Certain types of hormones and tranquilizers would be well worth trying.” (Earlier reference, page 27)