The Ministry of Justice will decide whether to introduce chemical castration and caning against sex offenders in three months, Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) said yesterday.
Tseng said he has reservations about introducing such initiatives given a lack of studies showing they could deter would-be criminals from committing such offenses.
Tseng made the remarks during a question-and-answer-session on the legislative floor yesterday, during which some Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers demanded the ministry follow the example of Singapore and use caning, or that of other countries which have made chemical castration mandatory for sex offenders.
The demand came after the recent rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl, for which a repeat sex offender, who had been convicted and jailed twice for other sex crimes, stands accused.
Responding to KMT Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華), Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said he has taken note of the appeal that more forceful measures be used to stop repeat sex offenders, such as denying them parole, enforcing chemical castration, or using a GPS device to keep track of their movements, adding that the government was studying the possibilities.
In response to KMT Legislator Kang Shih-ju (康世儒), Tseng said the ministry had discussed whether chemical castration or corporal punishment should be introduced.
Personally, he said, he thought the deterrent effect of this type of punishment was questionable.
Tseng said chemical castration might address the biological problem of the sexual desire that drives people to commit sexual offenses, but not their physiological desires, which is considered the main motive behind such crimes.
“Cases have shown that the motives of sex offenders go beyond biological sexual desires, while sexual perversion or the desire for revenge could be the motivations, which could explain why fingers, bamboo, and other tools were sometimes used in sex crimes. With that, some studies have argued that chemical castration is not effective in deterring sex offenders,” Tseng said.
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