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In 1934 Norway joined the few countries that have legalized castration. It was not intended to introduce castration as a punitive measure, but rather to establish legalized opportunity to use castration as a therapeutic procedure. The operation is performed at the subject's request, but may be performed at the request of another person, a provision for the insane and the mentally defective. For these cases, such authorities as hospital or prison directors or a chief of police may request castration. Actually, it is obvious that the choice is never quite free; there is always some incentive such as the hope of escaping a prison sentence or some other confinement. Apart from such conscious and obvious rewards, there is of course every reason to suspect that unconscious motivations exist—guilt above all.
This book is an account of follow-up studies of two hundred and sixteen men and twenty-eight women who were legally castrated during fourteen years. The indications for castration were mainly, but not exclusively, sex offenses. Another indication has been the need to pacify psychotic patients whose behavior in mental hospitals