Punishments for Sex Offenders

Punishments for Sex Offenders
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Introduction
Crime is as old as man kind. All over the world, all societies are faced with the challenge of dealing with criminals who are becoming smarter day after day. Our forefathers also faced the same challenge and it is for this reason that we view crime to be as old as mankind. No society, even the most religious abiding can claim to be crime free. As a result, there has been a lot of discussion on why people commit crime, thus leading to theories of crime that try to explain why some people are more likely to commit crime than the others (Amlin, 2008). As a result, this paper will critically evaluate the alternative punishment for sex offenders, such as chemical and physical castration and the Sex Offender Registry among others.
Alternative Punishments for Sex Offenders
Crime Theories
There exist a number of theories that try to explain the prevalence of different group of people being more likely to commit crime than the others. Some of these theories give details on reasons that lead to some people committing crime and others not. For example, biological theory claims that some people do possess genes that make them more likely to commit crime. In this regard, we ask ourselves why sex offenders exist in all parts of the world. Unlike the social set up theory that attributes offenders to their social orientation; biological theory goes miles further to associate law breaking to genetic make up.
The correctional institutions have greatly failed to achieve the desired results across the world. This calls for other strategies to be put in place to aid in reducing the rate of recidivism to the offenders. Putting someone in custody does not necessarily mean their behavior will change. In some research, it has been found that such people end up hardening rather than changing and improving their behavior. Some of the reasons associated with these findings are the fact that most of correctional facilities lack adequate program to inculcate the attitude of change to the criminals.
Sex offences on the other hand are on the rise. From developed to developing countries, the problems are escalating despite there being laws that are enforced to discourage their behavior. Owing to the fact that recidivism rate is high, it therefore means after sex offenders are through with their sentence, they pose a threat to the general population with the probability of committing the same offence again. Owing to these factors, it is important to come up with measures that will protect the society from their behavior. Victims of sexual offences take time to recover from the stress they go through. Some even don`t recover at all and live with the memory of what happened till they die. Sexual offences range from unlawful penetration to attempted rape and rape it. In some instances, research has shown that most victims fail to report the crime to avoid being labeled in the community.
In order to protect people from such occurrences, sexual offenders need to be subjected to punitive measures that will leave them with no chance of committing such a crime in their life. Such measures include castration and use of chemicals to make them inactive. By doing so, communi...