OT: Norway Justice is um bizzarre

[mattola]

Norway killer Anders Breivik ruled sane, given 21-year prison term - CNN.com

this guy kills 77 people and gets 21 years in prison with a chance of parole after 10 years?

WOW

 

[dash]

Was Christina Pedersen the presiding judge?

 

[sabresfaninthesouth]

Right below that though, it does say that his sentence could be extended, potentially indefinitely, if they still think he presents a risk.

 

[elocomotive]

Seems odd, but they are big on rehabilitation in Norway. And their murder rate is one of the lowest in the world.

On the other hand, in the U.S. we dish out long-term punishments and have a massive prison population, and yet our streets are not even close to as safe.

 

[forty_three]

That seems odd.

I wonder if Prison in Norway is actually punishment. As opposed to here where Prison is a step up from some Inner Cities.

 

[Indian Chief]

Seems odd, but they are big on rehabilitation in Norway. And their murder rate is one of the lowest in the world.

On the other hand, in the U.S. we dish out long-term punishments and have a massive prison population, and yet our streets are not even close to as safe.

Yes, but if that was the difference maker, we wouldn't have an astronomical rate of recidivism among those criminals that we do attempt to rehabilitate. Like pedophiles.

I wonder if Prison in Norway is actually punishment. As opposed to here where Prison is a step up from some Inner Cities.

Chris Rock once said something to the effect of, "If you live in an old project, a new jail ain't half bad."

 

[dash]

A smirk and fist clenched salute?!?

 

[scotsman1948]

That seems odd.

I wonder if Prison in Norway is actually punishment. As opposed to here where Prison is a step up from some Inner Cities.

According to the article, he will be in virtual isolation but will have his own exercise area and access to a computer and tv. that doesn't sound like punishment to me

 

[Eddie_Shack]

Seems odd, but they are big on rehabilitation in Norway. And their murder rate is one of the lowest in the world.

On the other hand, in the U.S. we dish out long-term punishments and have a massive prison population, and yet our streets are not even close to as safe.

There was an interesting piece on the radio today about that. The US has almost a QUARTER of the world's prisoners. Our prison population absolutely dwarfs every other nation on earth. We have more people in prison than communist China. We also have more prisoners behind bars with mental illness than any other country. Conservative estimates put that number at 30%, some as high as 50%. Now I am in no way saying that we should leave people with disorders out on the street because they have a mental problem, but what exactly does locking someone up with no frontal lobe function do for the prisoner? They don't learn anything. We don't "fix" them.

There was some interesting stuff as well about tumors and their effects on human behavior. Google Charles Whitman, and what they found in the autopsy.

There was another story about a guy who was in his 40's, married, happy, and started to develop pedophilia. He started acting out, getting violent, assaulting people, tried to ****** his prepubescent stepdaughter. They imprisoned him, then found he had a brain tumor. They removed it, he was cured for about a year, then when symptoms came back they found they had missed some of the tumor., and it had grown again. They removed that, and he's been fine ever since.

By no means am I advocating mental illness as some sort of "get out of jail free" card, but at some point we need to figure out how to change people's behavior, not just sentence them to 4-6 years of hard labor, crappy food, and anal r*pe.

 

[juliansteed]

Are you fucking kidding me?????

That's just a little more than 3 months per person that he killed! That's assuming he serves the whole thing which I have a feeling that he won't.

 

[juliansteed]

Seems odd, but they are big on rehabilitation in Norway. And their murder rate is one of the lowest in the world.

On the other hand, in the U.S. we dish out long-term punishments and have a massive prison population, and yet our streets are not even close to as safe.

That's interesting. But what is the cause of that correlation (assuming there is one and that it's not just coincidence)? Could it be that they aren't as harsh because they don't need to deal with it as often and therefore it's not considered as much of a problem? Or does their "slap on the wrist" penalty somehow result is the desired rehabilitation?

 

[Dacks]

That's interesting. But what is the cause of that correlation (assuming there is one and that it's not just coincidence)? Could it be that they aren't as harsh because they don't need to deal with it as often and therefore it's not considered as much of a problem? Or does their "slap on the wrist" penalty somehow result is the desired rehabilitation?

The problem is people think jail is about punishment. That doesn't work. There's very little evidence, if any, that tough crime laws, stiff penalties, long jail terms, even the threat of the death sentence, deter the type of crime they are meant to deter. This Breivik guy was going to commit this atrocity no matter what.

So that said, what should be the goal of prison? If your goal is punishment, then you're going to spend billions of dollars, and produce hardened criminals. If your goal is rehabilitation and reintegrating the offender into society, you save money and reduce crime. At least that's what most evidence shows us, as far as I understand.

The problem is, instead of looking at overall trends and statistical figures, everyone latches on to the sensational - the story about some convict who was let out on parole and offended again. It's always a terrible story, and seems so preventable - he (or she) should have been in jail longer. But there's a flip side. What about the criminal who is put away for twenty years, and then comes out and commits the same crime? Does anybody think, "Maybe if we had paroled them after five years and given them opportunities to get their life back on track things would have worked out differently"? No. Nobody has outrage about the inmate that was in jail too long and then committed the same crime.

It's counterintuitive, and it looks really bad and unreasonable in some cases, but overall, on a large scale, the Norwegian model is much more succesful in terms of overall crime, violent crime, and spending.

 

[juliansteed]

The problem is people think jail is about punishment. That doesn't work. There's very little evidence, if any, that tough crime laws, stiff penalties, long jail terms, even the threat of the death sentence, deter the type of crime they are meant to deter. This Breivik guy was going to commit this atrocity no matter what.

So that said, what should be the goal of prison? If your goal is punishment, then you're going to spend billions of dollars, and produce hardened criminals. If your goal is rehabilitation and reintegrating the offender into society, you save money and reduce crime. At least that's what most evidence shows us, as far as I understand.

The problem is, instead of looking at overall trends and statistical figures, everyone latches on to the sensational - the story about some convict who was let out on parole and offended again. It's always a terrible story, and seems so preventable - he (or she) should have been in jail longer. But there's a flip side. What about the criminal who is put away for twenty years, and then comes out and commits the same crime? Does anybody think, "Maybe if we had paroled them after five years and given them opportunities to get their life back on track things would have worked out differently"? No. Nobody has outrage about the inmate that was in jail too long and then committed the same crime.

It's counterintuitive, and it looks really bad and unreasonable in some cases, but overall, on a large scale, the Norwegian model is much more succesful in terms of overall crime, violent crime, and spending.

Forgot about this thread.

I think you make a lot of good points and agree with most of what you say. For me it has to be about both, rehabilitation and punishment. Of course there is no evidence to show that stiffer punishment would result in fewer crimes. Where would that data come from? We have no way of looking into an alternate universe to see what crimes would and wouldn't be committed anyway if stiffer punishment was handed out. The only evidence I need is my own personal experiences. I'm pretty sure at some point in everyone's life the fear of punishment should they get caught has stopped them from doing something. Obviously I'm talking about petty things in comparison to this guy, and it's not going to stop them every time. And it might not be the law that you're worried about. Maybe it's your parents, teacher, boss, significant other, referee etc. Sometimes people go ahead with it anyway, wouldn't do it even if there was no penalty, and sometimes the punishment is what stops them. I think it's unrealistic to think that stiffer punishment is going to prevent all serious crimes from happening but I think it's just as unrealistic to think it's not going to stop some. For what it's worth this guy surrendered to the authorities because he wanted to live. In hindsight, who could blame him knowing that he won't spend the rest of his life in prison?

That being said, what trumps both the punishment and rehabilitation aspects of his sentence for me is the fact that he's far less likely to kill anyone ever again if he spends the rest of his life behind bars. He's already shown what he is capable of doing. Maybe he will change but maybe he won't. I think he lost the right to be given the benefit of the doubt at the risk of society when he killed seventy-fucking-seven people. I'm not sure exactly how old he is but I think it's safe to say that even if he was to spend the rest of his life in prison that's still less than 1 year for each person he murdered.