It is not a medical practice at all. That is like asking if hunting is a good veterinary practice.

Tough to start w/ Colson's column since he begins with a deductive fallacy. I hate it when he does that b/c he knows better.

Ultimately that doesn't mean he's wrong, but I saw little benefit in the column to advance any understanding or discourse on the subject.

As Colson often writes, the State is in place to stem the advance of evil. Does castration achieve this?

One objection to this is simply that it would likly fail of it's purpose. Ottoman harem guards(back then they did it the old fashioned way of course) were, from what I read, not devoid of desire, merely devoid of ability to go beyond heavy petting. If this is still the case with this method, then the offender will continue to be a bother. He will certainly be limited, but not necessarily limited as much as one might think. If so then it's only argument is the obvious Mikado-like retribution.

It is justice pretty clearly. The proper accusation is that it might be justice devoid of mercy.

As for revenge, well yes. One of the purposes of the state is to efficiently outsource revenge so that people won't have to rely on blood-feud to provide their detterant.

However the implication that corporal punishment is out of place in the American justice system is faulty. It was long there. New England had a tradition of limiting it to thirty nine lashes max(tar and feathers were far more nasty but that was vigilanteism not legal).

That custom at least wasn't so bad; 39 lashes or less is arguably more merciful then a long prison sentence. And I have sometimes thought that offering the convict that as an option might not be a bad idea in cases where it is not obviously necessary to sequester the convict from the community.