Some Sex Offenders Seeking Castration in Bid for Freedom

Desperate to win their freedom, a small but growing number of California’s incarcerated sexual predators are seeking surgical castration, an operation all but banished from the criminal justice system decades ago.

At least 15 repeat offenders across the state have requested the operation, convinced that it is the only path out of detention facilities in an era of toughened punishments for sex criminals.

They are among the hundreds of men who have served out their full prison terms but, under a 1996 law, remain in custody indefinitely because judges, juries and psychologists deem them a continuing threat to society.

Castration doesn’t guarantee the men’s freedom, but they believe that courts can be swayed to release them if they prove in dramatic fashion that they will lead changed lives.

Over the last three years, two California men have walked out of mental hospitals after being castrated, including an Alameda County pedophile freed three months ago after prosecutors and state officials determined that he no longer posed a threat.

“If that’s what they want to do . . . they should be able to get it,” said Alameda County prosecutor Nancy Davis, who concluded that the castration made the man--twice convicted of fondling children--unlikely to strike again.

Earlier this year, judges approved castration for two inmates in San Bernardino County, though neither has yet undergone the operation. A third offender’s request is pending in a Butte County courtroom.

A Florida sex offender received a reduced sentence in 1999 after undergoing the operation. Last year, a Georgia judge ruled that if a two-time child molester were ever released from prison, he would have to be castrated. The ruling has been appealed. Sex offenders in Illinois, Ohio and Arkansas have also sought or received the surgery.

In Texas, which in 1997 became the first state to offer castration on a voluntary basis to repeat sex offenders, three men so far have applied to have the operation. The state passed its law after a public outcry over officials’ refusal to castrate a notorious child molester who had pleaded for the operation.

“I think that’s what the public is looking for,” said William Charles Thiel, an Orange County child molester who is seeking castration. “I want out.”

Castration, the surgical removal of the testicles, is legal, but most prison systems prohibit the operation for inmates in their care. Determined sex offenders have mounted legal challenges for permission, launching cases that have forced courts nationwide to grapple with the question of whether the ancient surgery serves a role in a modern society.

Ethicists say no, arguing that the castration of incarcerated men amounts to legalized medical mutilation. Many doctors refuse to perform the operation, judges usually won’t authorize it and attorneys often refuse to help clients seeking it.

“They are so desperate to be free that they will do just about anything to gain their freedom,” said Liz Schroeder, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. The organization’s Arkansas chapter recently failed to stop the castration of a rapist seeking the surgery in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Supporters of the procedure point to numerous studies indicating that recidivism rates for castrated offenders often are below 5%. In 1952, a California Assembly study reported that none of 60 San Diego County men who agreed to be castrated as part of a probation program re-offended. One oft-cited German study reported a 3% recidivism rate for castrated offenders, versus a 46% rate for non-castrated offenders.

Victims’ rights groups and some law enforcement officials, however, are already looking warily at the practice. Castration drastically reduces a man’s levels of testosterone--a hormone that is associated with aggression--but it is not a cure-all, they warn, particularly for some of the most violent offenders. There’s no guarantee that the surgery will change lifelong behavior, which experts say is based on psychological factors as well as physical ones.

Offenders, they say, could artificially boost their hormone levels through medications such as easy-to-apply gels and arm patches.

“These are the worst of the worst sex predators,” said Marc Klaas, a victims’ advocate whose daughter was abducted and murdered in 1993. “If we throw these guys back into society, innocent people could become guinea pigs in a very dangerous social experiment.”

‘This Place Is a Dead End’

Most of the sex offenders seeking castration are housed at Atascadero State Hospital near San Luis Obispo. Thiel has been there longer than almost any of them.

He has been in and out of prison since 1962, spending half his 60 years behind bars. Living mostly in Long Beach’s Belmont Shore neighborhood, he was convicted four times and racked up numerous parole violations.

Most of his convictions were for molestations of boys younger than 15 years old.

Thiel said most of the victims never reported the crimes. Two who did were from Huntington Beach. They were molested in 1968 at a lake when Thiel was 28 years old. One boy was 11 at the time; the other 9.

Thiel served six years for those crimes, was paroled and then committed other sex offenses within two years. He spent nearly a decade in state prison for those crimes. But when his term ended, a judge deemed him likely to victimize others and committed him indefinitely to Atascadero under the 1996 sexual predator law. That was four years ago.

The former oil rig worker now views castration as his only way out. His requests have been rejected by two judges so far, but he is appealing.

“I want to be able to live any life I’ve got left with as much freedom as possible,” said Thiel, a heavily tattooed man with long brown hair. “This place is a dead end.”

Like other inmates, he is evaluated every two years for potential release. But the record bears out Thiel’s bleak assessment: Out of nearly 300 committed sexually violent predators, only one has been released since 1996.

Thiel insists that his sexual appetites have waned as he has grown older and that being castrated would fully curb them.

“I’m going on 60 years old. Sex is not a big thing with me anymore,” he said. “I’d be much happier just to go sit under a tree or listen to the sound of the ocean.”

But Thiel’s former neighbors doubt his sincerity. They remember him as a menacing man who peered at children over fences, drove a black Thunderbird with tinted windows and offered kids turns operating his remote-control toy car.

Parents were so frightened that they established a “safe-house” network of homes that children could run to if Thiel approached. He doesn’t deserve to be released, they said, even if he is castrated.

“So what? Even if [the operation] does cleanse him of deviant thoughts, he still has to be punished for his crimes,” said Mary Roger, a former neighbor of Thiel when he lived in Lakewood. Roger said she believes Thiel should spend the rest of his life behind bars.

“He still hasn’t paid his debt to society for what he did to children. That’s the worst crime you could ever do.”

‘I Should Have Done This a Long Time Ago’

Thiel and others seeking the operation often cite Delmar Burrows as an example. Burrows once faced potential life imprisonment but was released by a judge after being castrated in 1997.

“I should have done this a long time ago,” said the stocky, 300-pound former short-order cook from Sacramento. “I feel at peace and as a whole person now.”

For the last two years, Burrows, 37, has lived in a $33-a-night downtown Sacramento hotel. Police say he has stayed out of trouble and registers as a sex offender regularly, as required.

“At this point he seems to be playing by the rules,” said Sacramento police spokesman Chris Kuntz.

For much of his life Burrows didn’t. He was convicted three times in 14 years for fondling pre-pubescent boys, and in 1996 was committed to a state mental hospital. Fearing lifetime confinement, he asked Placer County Superior Court Judge J. Richard Couzens in 1997 to authorize the operation.

The judge said he was impressed with Burrows’ sincerity and thought the operation could help him. He ordered sheriff’s deputies to take Burrows to a Sacramento-area hospital, where the surgery was performed at no cost.

“If [Burrows] wanted to do it, I certainly wasn’t going to stand in his way,” said Couzens, a 24-year veteran of the bench. “I felt there was nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

Couzens later released Burrows after ruling that he no longer qualified as a “predator” under the sexually violent predator law. The judge said Burrows’ offenses, none of which involved sodomy or forcible behavior, were not violent. Couzens did not cite the castration as a direct factor in his release.

Prosecutors and others opposed to freeing men like Burrows argue that the operation does not always eliminate deviant sexual urges and that such offenders should therefore be closely monitored.

Though most of the body’s testosterone comes from the testes, other glands also produce the hormone. And because the amounts vary from man to man, castration opponents contend that it is difficult to predict who will commit more crimes.

“Given his history and mental diagnoses, it appears very likely that [Burrows] will re-offend,” said David Broady, the prosecutor who opposed Burrows’ release. Castration, he said, is an “overly simplistic” approach that may not work in men like Burrows, who has been diagnosed as borderline mentally retarded.

Others say Burrows could simply visit a pharmacy and buy hormone replacement medications that are used by men with low testosterone counts.

Or he could be a ticking time bomb if he is the type of sex offender whose fantasies stem from mental, not physical, disorders such as abnormal hormone levels. Studies show that a small percentage of sexual predators--often the most violent ones--are not affected by castration because their behavior is more psychologically than physically based.

Even the man who helped Burrows get castrated, Auburn County Public Defender Mickey Sampson, has misgivings. Initially opposed to the operation, he changed his mind after learning that Burrows had a long history of requesting the surgery. But he remains troubled that Burrows’ case may have inspired others to do the same.

“I became convinced that, in this instance, for this client, it was not a bad thing,” he said. “And I remain so convinced. I also remain convinced that it is barbaric.”

Nowhere is the debate more intense than within the walls of the Atascadero hospital, where officials expect the number of sexual offenders held on indefinite commitments to soar eventually from 300 to 1,500.

The issue reached a boiling point late last year when a male nurse stood up during a Sunday chapel service and recommended castration as a cure for deviant activity. Many inmates stormed out in protest, but others consulted him later on how to get the operation.

Proponents of castration say the centuries-long misuse of the surgery unfairly clouds the current debate. From their perspective, castration is a humane treatment for people seeking to rid themselves of largely incurable, and potentially dangerous, sexual disorders.

Society would benefit, they contend, because many castrated offenders could safely be released, sparing taxpayers the $107,000 a year it costs to house each inmate in a state mental hospital.

Burrows insists that he is permanently cured by the operation. Near the hotel where he lives, children are everywhere, playing video games, shopping, eating pizzas.

“I see those kids, but I don’t pay any attention,” he said as elementary school-age children walked across the street. “It does not faze me like it used to. I used to think bad things.”