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For folks that are shocked by this it called âthe rule of lawâ. The law prohibits this treatment so it cannot be. No King or man can change that because the law rules. I come from Northern Europe and this doesnât bother me a bit. No one in Norway gives a shit about Brevik but they do care about themselves and their society. Heâs a monster but they donât want to be. If its wrong when he does it its wrong when anyone or culture does it. Brevik will not taint the Norwegian the way bin Laden did the American.
Law rules in Norway. Itâs a not a slogan there.
Beware of what you wish. Seems to me he runs the risk of getting killed in the general prison populace. He better hope the guards have his back.
I donât know what Norwegian prisons are like. Maybe the populace is very polite. Whatever it is, Iâm sure it is a world away from our prisons.
I hope he gets the opportunity to meet with the other inmates of the prison. I also hope that he is crushed to death by the inevitable stampede of well-wishers. I know this probably makes me a bad person.
A whole lot different from ours. Probably the most notable differences areâŚa whole lot less people per capitia end up there, and when they do go, they donât come backâŚNorway has the lowest rate of recidivism in the world.
No doubt the Norwegian system is much more humane than ours â however, in regards to recidivism -Brevik is not a candidate for rehabilitation. He is psychopath. He might learn to fake remorse â but I do not think he can ever be trusted to roam free in society again and yet one day he will. This decision of the Norwegian court does not inspire my respect. I think Brevik is the rare case in which at the very least, life imprisonment was called for and the death penalty probably should have been applied if only to protect the public from ever having to deal with the creep again. Instead, they bent over backwards to attend to his tender sensibilities.
Holy comfy-digs Batman! Iâm pretty sure I have paid money to stay in worse places than that (Hereâs looking at you Quality Inn!) I have to admit, I love it and hate it at the same time. For everything south of murder and rape, it looks great. But for murderers and rapists, a lot of these people can never be reformed.
People like Breivik, people who do something so heinous that it can never be forgiven, how can you just let them walk after their sentence? He murdered children. A lot of them. He targeted kids. For political reasons. That is not something you do if there is anything working properly in your brain. If ever there was a candidate for olâ squirty, it is him.
It doesnât look like Norway has ever had to deal with a Bundy. Or a Gein. Or a Dahmer. Or a Rader. These people are the monsters hiding in the closet of society. It may be something truly wrong with our society that produces these âpeopleâ but they are not created by the failures of our justice system. How would Norway deal with it if they were getting one of these every two years or so like we do? Would they still feel good about releasing them in 21 years?
That being said, for most crimes short of murder and rape, this looks like a really good way to turn people who may have had a run in with the law due to poor decision making, or circumstances that got out of their hands, into productive citizens. This, to me, looks like an ideal model for our lower and middle security prisons.
I donât know what Norwegian prisons are like
BBC had a piece about that Anders Breivik: Just how cushy are Norwegian prisons? - BBC News
I think Brevik is the rare case in which at the very least, life imprisonment was called
that is not what this is about:
âIn her ruling, judge Helen Andenaes Sekulic said the right not to be subjected to inhuman treatment represented âa fundamental value in a democratic societyâ and also applied to âterrorists and killersâ.
Breivik had challenged the government over his solitary confinement, which saw him kept alone in his cell for 22 to 23 hours a day, denied contact with other inmates and only communicating with prison staff through a thick glass barrierâ.
I didnât misunderstand their reasoning. The judge is following the letter of the law. I disagree with the wisdom of that law as written if it prevents their judiciary from acting in the best interests of society â and that means protecting innocent people from a murderous psychopath. That Brevik will see freedom in 17 years is a failure of their system, not something to be held up as the vanguard of human rights. The goal of their penal system is to rehabilitate and release, which I agree is both humane and practical â but Brevik is the rare case which shows the need for the law to flexible enough to deal with special circumstances. The original decision to keep him isolated was a wise one in this instance because he has a particularly dangerous and malignant ideology and he does not feel any remorse. Its all about his desires â the lawsuit being just the latest example. If you think about this in terms of public safety, this man should be prevented from proselytizing â both within and outside the prison. If he was so lonely for companionship, perhaps giving him a pet rat might have been a safer bet â but then what about the rights of the poor rat? Of course, Brevik is their very own homegrown monster - and they have every right to deal with him as they see fit. If this decision satisfies the families of those murdered children, then who am I to take exception?
He may not - it is possible to extend his sentence if he still is deemed dangerous at that time.
Denmark and Norway are pretty similar, A Danish criminal, who killed 4 police officers, spend in all 33 years in prison, even when Denmark has a nominal limit of 16 years as âlifetimeâ. ( If you are considered âinsaneâ you can be put in an closed mental institution for an âindeterminateâ time, which may well be for the rest of your life, but this is not a prison-sentence). (BTW, we donât have the âmultiple lifetimeâ sentence practice (or in law), we hear about from the US).
OK â that is good to know there is some discretion to protect innocent people. Thanks for clearing that up.
The focus of Norwayâs penal and legal system is not about extracting revenge. They donât HAVE a death penaltyâŚlike the vast majority of the globalized world. Their focus is on repaying the damage done from a crime and ensuring it doesnât happen again. And, as far as recidivismâŚits hard to argue that they have it all wrong when they have the lowest rate in the world.
Which is a much more complex question than merely looking at the penal system. Norwayâs society is fundamentally different from ours in sooo many wayâŚeducation, healthcare, social services, cultural background, a relatively homogenized population, etc, etc.
For all those reasons, we canât say âLets do it the Norway wayâ. But we can probably still learn a few things by considering how rest of the world deals with these issues.
Obviously. I am not a big proponent of the death penalty - but I do think in rare egregious cases such as politically motivated mass murder then I think a society should have the right to protect itself from such a monster â life imprisonment or in the case of genocide, I think the death penalty is a just outcome. Brevik is a Hitler in his own mind. Its hard to feel any consideration or compassion for such a creep. But I do understand that Norwegian society sees itself as being morally correct. I wonder how the families of those murdered children are feeling about their governmentâs treatment of Brevik.
I donât think its even a matter of being morally correct, as much as it is they think what they have works for them. And its hard to argue that it doesnât. Thatâs one of the things I remember in my travels in Europe, is most Europeans are much more concerned with what works in government, than they are in moral positions in government. There were exceptions of course, but its a much more pervasive attitude than anything I see in America. Both sides really do do itâŚeven when we stake out a position that is empirically proven to be better, we always bring in the moral argument too.
By and large, and the article I linked touched on this, they are fine with his sentence.
"Overall, Norwegians, even some parents who lost children in the attack, seemed satisfied with the sentence, The New York Times reported. Still, Breivikâs sentence, as is, put him behind bars for less than 100 days for every life he took, as The Atlantic noted. On the other hand, if the system doesnât determine Breivik ârehabilitated,â he could stay in prison forever. "
Because if he is not determined to be rehabilitated, they just add 5 more years on to his sentence, and continue repeating that process until he is or he dies.
Inherent in their laws is the underpinning of morality â much of it good, but also, a kind of relativism that drives me crazy. I have been married to a Norwegian for over 20 years â and Lutheranism is a intrinsic to the culture. My husband is an atheist â but his family is very religious. Really nice, well-meaning people â but I am very used to hearing the line âwe are all sinnersâ as a way to disengage from feeling strong emotion. I think the laws in Norway reflect this aspect of the culture. And thatâs good in most cases â it detaches justice from retribution. But, we are all creatures of our own culture and I happen to be jewish. So when I see a Nazi-sympathizer such as Brevik act upon his beliefs in such a cruel way, I recognize that I cannot be objective about the kind of crime he did or sympathetic about his living conditions.
Wonder if Norway is trying to get him into the general prison population. Mostly he killed youngsters. I bet his life expectancy in the GP isnât all that long.
Absolutely.