Raffaele Nevi, a Forza Italia spokesman whose party sits in Giorgia Meloni’s governing coalition, has pushed back on Italy’s plan to allow chemical castration for convicted sex offenders. On January 3, 2026, he said: “There are constitutionality problems. Our legal system doesn’t allow corporal punishment.”
Italy’s government has repeatedly agreed to study hormone-blocking treatment for convicted sex offenders, but those commitments haven’t produced a law. The measures approved so far require consent and contain no offer of a shorter sentence in exchange for treatment.
The push comes from Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s League party. It proposes temporary, reversible treatment that suppresses testosterone, with the stated aim of preventing further sexual offenses. Supporters argue it could protect potential victims, particularly children.
The lower house approved a study-committee motion on September 18, 2024. The government accepted another League commitment in May 2025 after the earlier initiative had produced no action. In December 2025, League politician Riccardo Iezzi acknowledged that the original commitment wasn’t binding and had brought “no concrete legal change.”
On September 2, 2026, Justice Undersecretary Andrea Ostellari said the government had accepted 2 more League orders for a technical working group. He said “the will should become a proposal.”
A separate proposal, Senate bill 839, would allow people convicted of specified sexual offenses to request androgen-blocking drugs. Mara Bizzotto filed it on August 2, 2023; its official dossier still listed examination as “not started” on September 27, 2026.
That bill also complicates the consent question: it would allow a judge to order treatment if a psychiatric assessment found someone legally incapable of consenting. Its accompanying note describes at least 3 years of therapy, followed by psychotherapy after the drugs stop. Those provisions belong to the proposed bill, rather than the study commitments already approved.
Critics question both consent and the constitutional limits on punishment. Opposition politician Simona Bonafè has argued that the proposal revives corporal punishment.
The dispute reaches inside Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s coalition. An October 10, 2026, report said her government had instructed Salvini to use “blocco androgenico,” meaning androgen blockade, instead of chemical castration. Justice Minister Carlo Nordio had himself described chemical castration in 2019 as “a return to the Middle Ages.”