"Crimes against humanity" possible charge against Breivik

Evo

Sad that it often takes something like this to take the blinders off of people's eyes and force change.

drankin

I really hope you are right. This guy has no concept of the value of human life. Having the depravity of mind to shoot at children for more than an hour. Why would we as a society tolerate letting a person like this breath among us? It makes no sense to me at all.

ThomasT

Yes, and the problem for any legal system is that there's no way to ascertain if an offender is genuinely remorseful. There's also no way to ascertain if an offender has been 'rehabilitated'.

In the Breivik case it's clear that the offender can't reasonably be allowed back into the general society.

arildno

indeed.
I do NOT say that considerations of rehabilitation should be banned in judiciary processes.
But, it is a dangerous fallacy to make "the hope of rehabilitation" the sole justification for, for example punishments in general, but in particular prison sentences.
And Professor Mathiesen has for years talked about the "cruelty" of the prison and fails in the respect P. Mathiesen dogmatically asserts is The justification of the prison, namely its rehabilitative effect.

But, it is the vert PREMISE Professor Mathiesen and his ilk that is flawed here, and whenever they are challenged at it (that rehabilitation is NOT the fundamental justification of punishment in the first place), they wring their hands and say: "How can you be so CROOEL and Inhumane??"
And that, unfortunately, has been the level of public discourse on these issues in Norway for decades.

arildno

This is one of the most important THEORETICAL points in the fundamental criticism of the Notwegian system:
Wholly subjective psychological phenomena that cannot be ascertained the presence of are somehow to be given greater weight in handing out punishments than distributing them out according to a (well-ARGUED for) scale of proportionality to the type of ascertained rights violation committed.

It is, as I see it, subvertive of the possibility to improve the objectivity of the judiciary system.

zomgwtf

While I understand you're Norwegian I don't think you exactly understand the justice system in Norway.

Yes, it is based more on rehabilitation than retribution BUT they still keep people deemed to be threats to society locked away. Breivik will not be getting gold stars for good behaviour in prison and he more than likely will never be allowed out. He poses a very real and serious threat to society in Norway and has demonstrated this in his manifesto (if you've read it) and in his interviews with the police after the fact.

Just because a system is based on rehabilitating criminals does not mean that they will fail to protect society. You say you wish that Norway had a more American approach to all this. Oh really? I suppose you would like to have a 70+% recidivism rate instead of sitting on one of the lowest in the world? There's a jail in Norway... an island jail, which treats inmates extremely well and it actually DOES have the lowest recidivism rate in the entire world at %16.

There's nothing wrong with Norways justice system it works perfectly fine and it will continue to work perfectly fine. I do not see this case posing any threat to the laws or system set up there.

arildno

Blather.
Japan has, on all accounts, INCLUDING death penalty a much stricter penal system than the US.

It has a crime rate comparable to..Norway.

Furthermore, you have already bought into the silly premise that rehabilitation should be some sort of PRIMARY justification for a penal system.

But it shouldn't be, and thus, the whole issue of recidivism rates is really..irrelevant.
(not that it matters much, but China&Japan have extremely low recidivism rates as well)

zomgwtf

Oh it shouldn't? So when someone who fell on hard times and started dealing cocaine goes to prison they should be raped beaten and released out into society and we should all be shocked when they commit crimes again?

Japans recidivism rate is around 40% I believe... that's pretty high compared to 20% from Norway and 16% from that prison I spoke of which specifically aims to rehabilitate criminals.

It's quite sickening that people think that people should be punished SO harshly (as if being removed from society and losing many many years of their life isn't punishment enough already). There are special cases where rehabilitation won't work or isn't in the best interest of the system (such as this case IMO) but these are so rare that who cares about them? Why make a system of punishing everyone so extremely that they'll just get out with no new skills and be forced back into a life of crime based on a few extremely rare cases?

The best part is those rare cases those people won't even be reintroduced into society more than likely.

arildno

Well, if you don't like the prison system, how about expanding proportionality scales with, for example, a specified number of lashes from the whip?

You see, blather psychology about "rehabilitation" introduces subjective criteria for meting out punishments UNSUITABLE in an objective system of law, so your fantasy is morally&intellectually corrupt to begin with..

arildno

BTW, you are STILL trying to sell your major point that "rehabilitation" is the very soul of the criminal system.
Noone but people like yourself are actually surprised that offenders will turn out re-offenders.

In Norway, in order to make the offenders unrecidivist, they ARE PUT ON SOCIAL WELFARE SINCE NO ONE WILL HIRE THEM ANYWAY DUE TO THEIR PERSONALITY DEFECTS.

That's the reason why you get those recidivism rates in Norway, we pay the criminals off to "be nice".

Evo

Oh come on Zom, you don't know anything about the Norwegian penal system. You know as much as anyone, including me, that can use google.

arildno

"Why make a system of punishing everyone so extremely that they'll just get out with no new skills and be forced back into a life of crime based on a few extremely rare cases?"
------------------
You could make prostitution legal, for example.
They don't need much "skills" to earn their keep through that activity.

I'm through with speaking with morons today.

zomgwtf

Well if you want to post statistics supporting your claim that the offenders are paid by the govn't to 'be nice' then perhaps you'd get somewhere.

Right now all your going on about is how bad guys deserve to be punished!!! Great...

I don't even get your comment about prostitution nor do I think that ad hom was necessary.

Also @ Evo, I don't know about that because I get all my information from people who live in Norway along with personal research. I guess through google research you can come up with the same information but I don't see how that matters? Regardless of how one comes across the information if it's valid it's valid. No one I've talked to from Norway supports this notion of harsher retribution vs. actually attempting to help the people. That includes people who have actually lost or had injured close friends in this attack.

ThomasT

Yes, I have to agree with your points. And thematic wrt improving the objectivity of the system might be tightening sentencing parameters. The judge's role in sentencing should be minimized.

Prison is a place to warehouse offenders away from the general society. Arguments for rehabilitation are prima facie nonsensical.

The most efficient way to deal with case's like Breivik's is to execute the offender.

ThomasT

I do. There's no rehabilitation technology. That is, there's no technology for changing attitudes. Nobody knows how to rehabilitate anybody, because there's no way to know if anybody's been rehabilitated.

Prison is also not a punishment in the sense that a 'punishment' would minimize the likelihood that the offense would be repeated. Again, there's just no way of ascertaining that wrt any given individual.

Prison is solely for keeping offenders out of society.

One reason the 'system' doesn't work too well (at least in the US) is that many prisoners are released early due to overcrowding.

I agree. It isn't that some prisoners' attitudes aren't changed for the better while in prison. It's that authorities have no control over if and when that might happen. But of course the authorities are probably not going to stop pretending that they do. And that's a big part of the problem. We humans have a lot of difficulty being honest with ourselves.

Yes, that's too bad. Mathiesen sounds like one of those people who means well (obviously, we'd all like for it to be possible to rehabilitate offenders in a deliberate and organized way), but who hasn't got a clue.

Today's prisons, at least in the US and I assume in Norway, aren't even close to being cruel. At worst they're inconvenient and a bit uncomfortable.

arildno

Everyone in Norway is allowed handsome social welfare (of various types and sub-types) in so-called "times of need".
That includes workophobics and criminals as well.
For them, "times of need" is, typically, for the rest of their lives..
And, many are happy with that.

"

arildno

"I don't even get your comment about prostitution nor do I think that ad hom was necessary. "

It shows that your premise that people who have been in prison "have no skills" by which they can earn their keep is simply wrong.

They can still spread their legs&mouths to earn a living.

People (neither you, me or them) have no "entitlement" to be happy, but "the right to seek happiness".
People like you have never understood that crucial difference, and think the state somehow have the responsibility to "save" and "make happy" their citizens.

It is a morally despicable, totalitarian mentality based on your desire that others should perceive you as a "moral hero" and Jesus figure.
I.e, in order to gain complete power over other people's lives, where you (in their best interests, of course!) can regulate the minutest details of their inner psyches.