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Just because castration can have an effect on recidivism for some forms of sex offenders (and please point towards a source because it does make the discussion
by belorn 6y ago
Just because castration can have an effect on recidivism for some forms of sex offenders (and please point towards a source because it does make the discussion more worth having), it does not mean it have an effect on say axe murderers.
Gun control may also have an effect on recidivism for gang related violence involving military weapons, but is unlikely to effect child sex rapists. Not everyone that work for once set of criminals work for an other set of criminals, nor are recidivism and aggressiveness the same thing.
And there are studies where violent criminals of the non-sex offending nature were given testosterone reducing drugs. It did not work.
> Regardless of what causes violence we have a huge undeniable discrepancy between males and females
That kind of research are plenty in gender research. Men are X more likely to be math professors, having a job, and a number of other gender stereotypical aspect. There is a lot of culture involved and it very hard to separate culture from biology.
But even considering what we know about biology, aggression and crime are not the same and female on female aggression tend to be different than male on male aggression. Culturally we tend to ignore the former and focus on the later.
And finally, there is some evidence that in many cultures male aggression get rewarded with social status, and in the challenge hypothesis, that would link aggression with testosterone through culture. Game theory experiment has demonstrated that testosterone can influence players to be more or less aggressive in an economic game depending on the design of the rules. If aggression is rewarded with maintaining status then injecting players with testosterone increase aggression. If the game is changed and it is cooperation that is rewarded, players with raised testosterone play more cooperative. All cited in that above book.
- auganov 6y agoQuoting from Heim & Hursch (1979): "Of 102 sex offenders, only three castrates (2.9%) relapsed into sex offenses. However, in only 41 cases was the period of observation long (5-10 years). Therefore, there was a maximum of 7% recidivism during this observation period. The recidivism incidence before castration was as follows: Of 102 subjects, 59 (58%) had relapsed." 2.9%/7% vs 58% (this one is on surgical on chemical) Fedoroff, J.P., Wisner-Carlson, R., Dean, S., & Berlin, F.S. (1992): "All patients received equivalent amounts of group psychotherapy. Of these, 17/46 (37%) relapsed. The rate of relapse among subjects receiving treatment with medroxy-progesterone acetate (MPA) was 4 out of 27 subjects (15%) whereas the rate of relapse among subjects not receiving MPA was 13/19 (68%) "[1] 15% vs 68% And since you bring up math professors, there's actually a study showing a single dose of testosterone improved spatial cognition in females [2]. Again I'm not opposed to cultural angles. I don't doubt that culture makes small innate differences look much bigger. But that's more philosophical/anthropological, it doesn't tell us much on whether a drug would or wouldn't work at scale. We could go on and deconstruct every psychiatric drug this way. [0] https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01541244 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01541244 [1] https://doi.org/10.1300/J076v18n03_10 https://doi.org/10.1300/J076v18n03_10 [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432815302680 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016643281...
- belorn 6y agoYes, surgical and chemical castration undoubtedly reduce sexual interest, sexual performance, and have likely a impact on sex offenders. Removing estrogen and testosterone seems to have an effect on sex offenders recidivism, although it does not work on everyone. This does not mean estrogen causes aggression. It mean estrogen is as a sex hormone, and sex hormones are connected to behavior which is relevant for recidivism. > I don't doubt that culture makes small innate differences look much bigger. But that's more philosophical/anthropological, it doesn't tell us much on whether a drug would or wouldn't work at scale. Understanding biology is needed in order to understand whether a drug would or wouldn't work at scale. Take Oxytocin as an example. A great hormone that makes mothers bond with their child. It has shown to improve prosocial, operate like an anti-depressant, improves trust, make people more generous, and even improve wound healing. It have been considered for use in everything from medicine to vitamin supplements. More modern research however find that there is a problem. It improves prosocial behavior for the in-group but it also create anti-social behavior towards the out-group. It increases trust with the in-group, and causes fear with the out-group. It make women increase parental behavior and at the same time increase racist behavior, and it makes perfect sense. It a hormone that is connected to the goal of sexual reproduction. It increase behavior that benefit offspring during the first years and it strengthen the bond between mother and the child nearest blood-relatives so that the child has the best likelihood to survive. It also protect the child against non-related individuals who is an increase risk of being a threat. Understanding what a hormone actually do is critical to understand its medical effect.