Texas Prison frees repeat child molester after 8 yrs in jail

Man's request to be castrated led to state law

Texas penal system released repeat sexual predator (child molester) Larry Don McQuay, who had requested that the state chemically castrate himself so that he would hopefully no continue to experience sexual urges.

Read the details of the following news article from the Houston Chronicle (headline is linked) and tell me why this individual should ever have been released back into society, voluntary castration or not.

May 3, 2005, 9:15PM

Prison frees castrated child molester

Man's request to be castrated led to state law

By RENEE C. LEE and ROBERT CROWE
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Castrated and fitted with an ankle monitoring device, child molester Larry Don McQuay was released from prison with little fanfare this morning and escorted to San Antonio, where he'll remain under supervision in a work-release program.
His Houston-based lawyer, Paul C. Looney, said McQuay underwent surgical castration within the last year.
"He desperately does not want to re-offend and believes that surgical castration will be one of the tools that will help him from re-offending,'' Looney said today. "There's a lot of medical evidence that proves that it helps with impulse control, not necessarily sexual control, but he believes this will help.''
McQuay -- whose pleas for castration prompted the Legislature to make Texas the only state to permit the procedure -- walked out of a side door of the Huntsville Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice at 7:15 a.m.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said that to protect his safety, prison officials arranged for a two-vehicle caravan to transport the high-profile offender to Bexar County, where he drove a school bus and worked at Sea World before he went to prison.
Turned down for parole four times since beginning his sentence in 1996, McQuay left prison today after serving just eight years of his 20-year sentence. He's free because his time served and "good behavior" met state requirements for release under mandatory supervision, said Mike Viesca of the Department of Criminal Justice.
McQuay will remain under prison supervision until July 31, 2016. He is to be monitored around the clock under the state's Super Intensive Supervision Program, the highest level of offender accountability. McQuay will wear a global positioning system ankle bracelet and will not be allowed to leave the Bexar County Work Release Facility without the supervision of a parole officer.
In 1995, McQuay told Houston-based victims rights group Justice For All that he would kill his next victim if he wasn't castrated, group president Dianne Clements said. At the time, the group entered into a contract with McQuay to find a surgeon willing to perform the operation.
Clements said the group lost touch with McQuay, but when they attempted to learn last month whether he was castrated, he refused to release his medical records. That worries Clements, despite his lawyer's statement that McQuay had been castrated.
"Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn't. That's not confirmation. Confirmation is visual inspection of medical records," she said.
Clements said she remains uneasy either way.
"Regardless of the procedure having been done or not, Larry Don McQuay should be considered the same dangerous pedophile he was before," she said. "Is this a cure? I don't know. Will it somehow reduce fantasies McQuay is experiencing that cause him to molest children? Maybe. Maybe not."
"Unless he's behind bars, I don't think children are safe. Bottom line."
...
He asked to be castrated but was nonetheless paroled in 1996, leading Bexar County authorities to resurrect the original case and prosecute him for what he had done to the boy's older sister. Quickly convicted and sentenced 20 more years, he again asked to be castrated. He claimed he had molested children more than 240 times and promised to resume his attacks if released and kill his victims to keep them from identifying him. He later expressed regret over his statements, saying he was only trying to bring attention to his plea for castration.

... more at linked article

emphasis added

Asked to be castrated or no, this individual is one (probably of many) sexual predator(s) that should not have been released into society, at least not in my opinion.

I don't care what tracking and monitoring methods are being used, there is no way that the state of Texas can guarantee that it's citizens, nor the citizens of any other jurisdiction will remain safe from this individual. Because of that, this individual should have received the John Hinckley treatment - locked up in the asylum for good, after serving his time in jail.

Am I wrong in thinking that someone that threatens to kill his next victim should never get back into society?

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