http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/24/us-norway-breivik-idUSBRE87N09A20120824

 

Cheers,

 

MAB

Maybe not http://news.yahoo.com/q-norway-massacre-case-093654113.html

 

Cheers,

 

MAB

Time to bring back capital punishment?

Understanding what drove and enabled him to act that way is the major task. Well, now they have time to study.

 

Thumbs up to Norway on how they've handled the case. There is no good outcome after someone has killed other people, there is no possible repair, no relief. But there is a great burden in always sticking to the rule of law. Those Norwegians, the people, politics, even the press with few exceptions, have set a mark and even in their great pain, they stood brave and honest to themselves, as a society.

 

In my eyes, with letting the insane guy explain how wrong he actually is, they've done more than any punishment could do. I don't kill people because it's against the law, I don't kill them because 'we don't do this'.

Time to bring back capital punishment?

 

Only if that would bring back the victims. Since it won't, and it's unlikely that capital punishment would have deterred Breivik what would it accomplish? Killing people is wrong, by not killing Breivik we elevate ourselves above his level.

 

On a side-note, Norway has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world, so their criminal justice system seems to work pretty well, even if it seems 'soft' to some people.

Only if that would bring back the victims. Since it won't, and it's unlikely that capital punishment would have deterred Breivik what would it accomplish? Killing people is wrong, by not killing Breivik we elevate ourselves above his level.

 

It guarantees one thing though, he'll never get the chance to kill someone again!! That said a life sentence without parole would have been more appropriate for what he done.

 

Edit: Just reading about his accommodations three (8 square meter) cells instead of one, Gym equipment, Laptop Computer! You get less in a Hotel room!! Why is he getting special treatment from any other prisoner?

I wont say execution is the solution,but surely his crimes warranted a much harsher penalty than what he has received!

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

In my opinion all worst murderers should be either executed or kept in prison for rest of their life... In here Finland our legal system sucks, even worst murderers rarely sit longer than 15 years. Whole idea of letting murderer back to normal society and expecting him/her to become a good law following citizen is totally absurd idea, these people never change.

 

As an example a man named Juha Valjakkala (today Nikita Fouganthine) went and brutally murdered Swedish family. He had also committed crimes before that, and got the longest sentence in history of modern Finland, 20 years in jail. In 2008 he was let free and after that he has gotten sentences from smaller crimes almost every year... Driving when drunk, abuse, threatening people and list goes on... Now police is investigating if he plaid part on another murder in Sweden, that happened in 1988 and it seems that guy who got sentenced for that in fact was just mentally unstable and did not in fact make that murder although he admitted doing it.

 

But my point is that some people should be never put back into normal society... It's just endangering lives of innocent people. This country has already enough examples where people who have gotten serious sentence before go and commit murder.

 

And these sentences I have talked about are of course all for brutal murderers... In this messed up country from manslaughter you get usually 8 to 9 years, and if it's the first time you commit serious crime you sit usually half of the sentence, around 4 years for killing a human being... So actually you get longer sentence from economic crimes and such than from killing people.

 

Myself I really don't have much respect at all towards this horrible law system, in certain situations it seems that in some cases only way to get rightness in this country is by acting yourself... Finland should get same kind of laws that Singapore has, minus all totally absurd laws such as ban of chewing gum.

And Breivik? In my opinion best sentence for him would have been sentencing him as a mad person to mental hospital and putting him into small room where he would have no connect to outside world at all, no way of knowing how long he had been there and nothing to do. He would be just force-fed and forcefully kept alive, as prisoner in his own body. That would be even worse than dying I think.

It guarantees one thing though, he'll never get the chance to kill someone again!! That said a life sentence without parole would have been more appropriate for what he done.

 

Edit: Just reading about his accommodations three (8 square meter) cells instead of one, Gym equipment, Laptop Computer! You get less in a Hotel room!! Why is he getting special treatment from any other prisoner?

 

AFAIK the only special treatment Breivik is getting is that he's not allowed to talk to other inmates. Norway's prison system is notoriously 'soft'. However it is also very effective. I'll take actually preventing recidivism over satisfying people's desire for vengeance any day of the week.

... I'll take actually preventing recidivism over satisfying people's desire for vengeance any day of the week.

 

+1.

I think a good way to start is asking about the history of the death sentence but, first of all, the meaning of sentence in a justice system. Note that it's called justice system for a reason and also note that the death sentence itself is either gone, 'paused to infinity' or still there but questioned.

Ask yourself why if you like and really use the historical path of especially the countries which got away from that thinking.

 

As we may all agree, killing or torturing the guy won't bring back anything for the people which have lost their loved ones. But that's not all there is.

 

The individual from within a society carries two burdens. His own and the one he transfers to that society. So the question always is why that one individual acted that way and which role society played in allowing, developing and, sort of, tolerating this ill behaviour way up to the extend of fulfilling his deadly plan.

The answers to that, if they are there, aren't convenient ones, so looking for them is a noble and hard task. In today's world, this process starts with a trial, not with simple imprisonment.

 

The very nature of a society doesn't aim at punishing the ones which were wrong, but at avoiding wrong attitudes in the first place. Prevention doesn't come from control, but from stability even if a security industry tries to spread another message, mainly with massive repeat counts. The words radical and extreme are connected to those attitudes, one describing the very far end of the 'tolerate margin' and the other one already speaking about an exceeded limit.

 

More on the case, even if Mr. Breivik was held in a hotel (which he is not), the difference between a hotel and a prison doesn't come from the equipment, but from the fact that you can't leave the latter.

 

If I was a press guy, I would surely spread the message on how well and 'soft' he is handled. Not because I'm evil, but because the discourse created leads to click counts on my side. So I'm not really surprised that the 'like in a hotel' and 'soft' tenor comes up here and there.

 

The sad part about this is that one loses the view on what Norway actually did and showed. How a society handles it's wrong ones. This begins with the 'he's one of us' confession, therefore responsibility. And it doesn't end with just killing him.

 

In fact, that they stood up for their view on how to treat humans, even the wrong ones, is the most admirable statement and also the most painful one a country can make. They will never be able to get the dead people back, but they do their best to establish stability again by not just blaming the one guy, but, to a certain extend, themselves.

 

Mr. Breivik did not win by acting extreme, he did not drive the Norwegian society to let go of their morale standards and he did not lead them to re-invent torture or any other extreme means of 'justice'.

 

In fact, he clearly stands as the insane one, the extreme one, acting in full believe of doing the right thing and, by this, being as wrong as can be. And he's a living example, a picture to look at, a reminder of what can go wrong. It's not easy having them around, but it's too easy to just kill them and thinking the case was closed.