A CHEAP SHOT AT PEDOPHILIA?

By DAVID VAN BIEMA

A decade ago, it constituted a periodic embarrassment: an enraged judge would condemn a criminal to castration. The sentence would be disallowed. And a relieved public would laud itself for living in enlightened times.

Well, the definition of enlightenment changes. Last week the California state legislature overwhelmingly passed a bill imposing weekly injections of a sex-drive-reducing hormone called Depo-Provera on all paroled, repeat child molesters. Judges could also order this so-called chemical castration for first-time offenders.

What changed was the perception of sex offenders as compulsive recidivists. For years, Larry Don McQuay begged the state of Texas to castrate him, saying he had molested some 200 children and would resume when released from prison. Experts like Fred Berlin, founder of the Sexual Disorders Clinic at Johns Hopkins University, noted that molesters may have a recidivism rate as high as 65%.

Berlin cites domestic and European studies in which the rate fell below 15% when participants were chemically castrated. Such figures attracted California assemblyman Bill Hoge, who, dismayed when McQuay's plea was denied, introduced the California bill. Hoge talks of prevention, not punishment. "We're trying to stop the child molester from striking again, period," he says.

But opponents such as the A.C.L.U. argue that chemical castration, even if reversible, is cruel and unusual punishment that violates what experts call the right to "bodily integrity." They question the state's right to expose parolees to potentially dangerous side effects, and to prevent them from fathering children. They claim that determined ex-cons could reverse Depo-Provera's effects with other drugs--and that castration fails to treat the psychological roots of pedophilia. In fact, even Berlin, who favors the availability of voluntary chemical castration, opposes the California law. "There are many sex offenders for whom this is not going to be appropriate or useful," he says. "In effect, the legislators are practicing medicine without a license."

--By David Van Biema. Reported by Jordan Bonfante/Los Angeles

With reporting by Jordan Bonfante/Los Angeles