A male prisoner convicted of raping a child will be chemically castrated before being released into society.
Ryan Clark, 34, is serving a 35-year sentence after admitting to felony charges, including second-degree rape of a juvenile and the molestation of a child.
Clark pleaded guilty on March 1 and was sentenced on Tuesday.
The prisoner must register as a sex offender for life, forfeit all parental rights, never contact his victims and submit to being chemically castrated upon release.
Chemical castration uses injections of medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA), which reduces testosterone levels to suppress a man’s libido.
The treatment will begin a week before Clark is released.
Tangipahoa Parish District Attorney Scott Perrilloux released a statement confirming Clark’s guilty plea came a day after the jury had been selected for his trial.
Perrilloux also revealed how police caught Clark:
“On July 16 of 2020, the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office was notified of indecent behavior between Clark and a juvenile by a person the victim had confided in. The person also explained this behavior had taken place for more than a year. The juvenile was then interviewed at the Children’s Advocacy Center in Hammond and was able to detail the incidents. A possible second victim was also discovered.
“Clark also has a prior conviction of Misdemeanor Carnal Knowledge of a Juvenile… He was sentenced to 128 days in the parish jail for that charge in 2015.”
MPA is also used as birth control for women and can be combined with other drugs to treat menopause symptoms.
Since the 1990s, the drug has been touted as “treatment of the sexual offender,” according to an article published by the American Journal of Criminal Law.
The report notes: “The class of sexual offenders known as paraphiliacs [sexual deviants] can be treated with an antiandrogenic drug called Medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA), which chemically castrates the offender.
“The paraphiliac offender undergoing this treatment is no longer motivated to commit sex offenses and is more amenable to psychotherapy that can enable him to reintegrate into the community… MPA treatment will minimize the offender’s commitment as a sexual psychopath and allow him to continue his rehabilitation. Treatment with MPA could also be considered an acceptable condition for probation.”
However, the report noted a “lack of information on MPA’s long-term effect.”
The drug was legalized as a form of male castration in Louisiana in 2008.
Then-Governor Bobby Jindal approved the drug for criminals guilty of certain felonies, including molestation of a juvenile, forcible rape, second-degree sexual battery, aggravated incest, and aggravated crime against nature.
In 2019, Alabama passed a bill on the chemical castration of child sex offenders a year after Oklahoma legislators bided to do the same.
However, a study in the Journal of Korean Medical Science argued that involuntary castration might constitute human rights violations if viewed as punishments instead of treatments.
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