A British government minister says she’s "not squeamish" about the idea of chemical castration for male sex offenders, and wants to make it mandatory. 

The UK is considering a range of options from a new report, which aims to cut the country’s prison population by 10,000 inmates to help alleviate chronic overcrowding.

"Problematic sexual arousal and preoccupation can be reduced via chemical suppressants and other medications, which can be prescribed for individuals who have committed a sexual offense under certain circumstances," the new report states.

Prisons in the south-west of England have been involved in a pilot program of chemical castrations since 2002, and Justice Minister Shabana Mahmood from the ruling Labour Party told lawmakers in parliament on Thursday that the program would expand to 20 more prisons in two other regions of England. 

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Prisoners would be given two drugs as part of the treatment: one limits sexual thoughts, while the other reduces testosterone and "problematic sexual arousal." Inmates would also have ongoing counseling to treat their psychological issues, such as a desire for sexual power and control. One recent study found that reoffending rates were up to 60% lower for prisoners who had received the treatment. 

"For some, offending relates to power, but for another subset of offenders, the combination of chemical suppressants and psychological interventions can, we believe, have a big and positive impact," Minister Mahmood told parliament. 

Initially, the option for chemical castration treatment would be only voluntary, and medical ethicists say it could be a problem to force doctors to treat an inmate who doesn’t want to have it done. In Britain, there is a strict tradition of informed medical consent where a patient can refuse medical treatment, and a doctor can’t ordinarily be forced to carry it out. 

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Sex offenders make up a significant percentage of the prison population in England, and at the end of March, more than 20% of inmates were incarcerated on sex crimes charges. The new report cautions that chemical castration "should never be used as a risk management tool or standalone rehabilitative offer, and it is only appropriate for a limited number of sex offenders".

Chemical castration is already being used in some other European prisons to treat sex offenders. Authorities in Sweden have been carrying out limited clinical trials on volunteers at a Stockholm prison, while in Germany and Denmark it is more widely used but still on a voluntary basis. In Poland, courts can pass a sentence of mandatory chemical castration for some categories of sex-offense prisoners. 

Thursday’s report, written by a former government minister from the Conservative Party, also made four dozen recommendations to try and ease prison overcrowding. 

These include giving fewer people jail sentences under 12 months and encouraging other types of punishment instead, such as community service or fines; developing new policies for early release with good behavior for inmates, and tagging all offenders who committed crimes of abuse against women and girls. 

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The opposition Conservative Party has criticized the new report, saying that by scrapping shorter prison sentences the government "is effectively decriminalizing crimes like burglary, theft and assault." 

"This is a gift to criminals, who will be free to offend with impunity," the party’s justice spokesman Robert Jenrick told reporters. 

However, the report has been broadly welcomed by the Howard League for Penal Reform, the world’s oldest prison charity.

"The government is taking an important step forward by accepting most of the recommendations from this important review," says Chief Executive Andrea Coomber, but she cautioned that "the prisons crisis will not be solved by half-measures." 

Senior police officers have cautioned that if there will be fewer prisoners behind bars, they need more resources to manage the risk that offenders pose outside of jail. 

President Donald Trump on Sunday criticized foreign countries for paying "nothing" toward the education of their citizens who are attending college at Harvard and other U.S. institutions.

This comes amid the fight between the Trump administration and Harvard for its plans to revoke the university's ability to enroll foreign students.

"Why isn’t Harvard saying that almost 31% of their students are from FOREIGN LANDS, and yet those countries, some not at all friendly to the United States, pay NOTHING toward their student’s education, nor do they ever intend to," Trump wrote early Sunday morning on Truth Social. "Nobody told us that!"

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"We want to know who those foreign students are, a reasonable request since we give Harvard BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, but Harvard isn’t exactly forthcoming," he continued. "We want those names and countries. Harvard has $52,000,000, use it, and stop asking for the Federal Government to continue GRANTING money to you!"

On Friday, a judge temporarily blocked the administration from canceling Harvard's student visa program after the university filed a lawsuit against the federal government.

Harvard argued that the policy would affect more than 7,000 visa holders — nearly a quarter of the student body — and that the administration's effort is a "blatant violation of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act," according to its court filing.

"It is the latest act by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the 'ideology' of its faculty and students," Harvard wrote in its complaint.

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The Department of Homeland Security moved to terminate Harvard's visa program after the university allegedly failed to provide extensive behavioral records of student visa holders the agency had requested.

The records sought include any footage of protest activity involving student visa holders, even if it's not criminal, and the disciplinary records of all student visa holders in the past five years. 

Requested records also include footage or documentation of illegal, dangerous or violent activity by student visa holders, any records of threats or the deprivation of rights of other students or university personnel.

Harvard called the new policy "pernicious" and accused the administration of departing from "decades of settled practice" and coming "without rational explanation." The university also said the policy was "carried out abruptly without any of the robust procedures the government has established to prevent just this type of upheaval to thousands of students’ lives."

At least a dozen Harvard students have had their student visas revoked over campus protest activity. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said before Congress on Tuesday that the administration has probably revoked thousands already and would "proudly" revoke more.

The administration has already frozen close to $3 billion in federal funding to the university, largely dedicated to research, over claims that Harvard has not adequately responded to alleged campus antisemitism in protests and has not moved to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

Fox News' Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.