ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the punishment and treatment of sex offenders in the United States. It provides the primary punishments convicted sex offenders receive, and focuses on incarceration and castration. Historically, most forms of punishment have been used against sex offenders. These corrective actions have included capital punishment, corporal punishment, and incarceration. While corporal punishment for criminals was abandoned in the 1960s, capital punishment remained an alternative to punishing sex offenders into the twenty-first century. In 1944, chemical castration was argued to control the sexual drive of sex offenders. Chemical castration requires the use of pharmaceutical drugs to either reduce or entirely eliminate the sexual drives of offenders. Research that seeks to determine how effective sex offender registries and notification are at curbing sex offending has raised serious questions about the ability of sex offender registration and notification (SORN) to reduce sex offending and recidivism.
