WTF? 21 years?

[Raven]

What the actual fuck? Essentially probation in 21 years time? For killing 77 people?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

Norway? Really?

 

[DaGaffer]

What the actual fuck? Essentially probation in 21 years time? For killing 77 people?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

Norway? Really?

This was known from the start. Its the maximum available sentence.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Him surviving 21 years as a kid killer in a prison is unlikely.

 

[Mabs]

However, that can be prolonged at a later date if he is deemed to remain a danger to society.

 

[Chilly]

What the actual fuck? Essentially probation in 21 years time? For killing 77 people?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

Norway? Really?

I think it's very civilised that you have to keep re-examining the person and the case to keep them in prison for life. Being able to sentence someone to die in prison in 40 years time seems quite arrogant, frankly.

 

[Raven]

However, that can be prolonged at a later date if he is deemed to remain a danger to society.

Hence the "essentially probation" bit

And no it isn't, prison is not just about rehabilitation it is also meant to be a punishment. Without the death penalty there should be a life long prison sentence.

 

[cHodAX]

And no it isn't, prison is not just about rehabilitation it is also meant to be a punishment. Without the death penalty there should be a life long prison sentence.

That is where we went wrong, when we let prison became about rehabilitation instead of punishment. The moment that changed the shoe was on the other foot and the criminals have been kicking us with it ever since.

 

[Job]

A Serbian military guy from the war got twenty years for genocide, mass rape and sodomy.
Always been a problem for me that one, the term 'paid their debt to society' is so fucking meaningless and an insult to the victims, murderers owe me nothing, they owe everything to the relatives of the victim, let them decide, I'll back em, whatever they chose.

 

[Embattle]

I think it's very civilised that you have to keep re-examining the person and the case to keep them in prison for life. Being able to sentence someone to die in prison in 40 years time seems quite arrogant, frankly.

If you solely believe in prison as a form of rehabilitation.

 

[Wij]

A Serbian military guy from the war got twenty years for genocide, mass rape and sodomy.
Always been a problem for me that one, the term 'paid their debt to society' is so fucking meaningless and an insult to the victims, murderers owe me nothing, they owe everything to the relatives of the victim, let them decide, I'll back em, whatever they chose.

Sodomy? Not rape?

 

[TdC]

Prisons in Norway are, tbh, an example of how things should be done. That said I do not think Brevik is ever going to be free again.

 

[Raven]

..and for the record I don't think there should be a death penalty simply because errors can be made. While it is quite obvious that he did kill all these people there are cases that get quashed later on due to dodgy evidence.

I would have absolutely no problem with the death penalty if there was a way of proving guilt without human error or corruption.

 

[Job]

Sodomy? Not rape?

That's what my..sorry their charge sheet read.

A simple prison sentence just isn't a deterrent to someone who is motivated enough to commit such a crime, he'll sit in prison, writing a book, having visits from like minded people and passing on his ideas.
Now if they tied him to a bed for 40 years with a gag over his mouth and allowed the relatives to give him 20 painful electric shocks a day with remotes at their leisure.
That might put someone off.

 

[Wij]

Obviously their laws are different but I don't get it.

 

[Killswitch]

To be honest, the whole thing seems wrong to me somehow. The US (apparently) spends around $70,000,000,000 a year on prisons at an average cost of $30,000 per prisoner per year. It would literally be cheaper to pay someone to follow each convicted felon around every day and poke them with a stick if they look shifty!

I don't believe prison is a good deterrent...then again I don't believe that the death penalty is either. There is no noticeable difference in murder rates in the US between states with and without the death penalty. This is doubly-true when you're talking about a religiously or ideologically motivated person like Breivik or one of those American loons who bomb abortion clinics or whatever. At best prison protects the public from specific threats, but it's retroactive and the benefits are unclear. There might be 10 more people in Norway polishing their firearms and waiting for an opportunity to kill some folk and Breivik might, if released today, never do anything bad again for the rest of his life (although that's not the way to bet in my opinion).

I don't know what the answer is, but it's clear that prison doesn't work. In fact in more cases than you might think there is evidence that putting people in prison INCREASES crime, for example when a drug dealer, pimp or gang leader is put away there is often a violent struggle to claim their "turf" (or "bitches" or whatever). Similar story with burglary where opportunistic theft can often increase in an area when a prolific offender is jailed. Plus when someone leaves prison they are forced to declare their conviction for a number of years, making them essentially unemployable. This adds a further burden on the stretched welfare system AND almost invariably leads to re-offending.

It would be cheaper to give everyone convicted of a first offence a guaranteed (but shitty) job and then having incredibly harsh punishments for repeat offences (second conviction = chemical castration, third conviction = death penalty perhaps?) and then invest the massive savings into preventative measures like education, front-line policing and social work. It still seems incredible to me that I (as an IT Manager of a pretty small company) can be paid more than pretty much any social worker, nurse or teacher in the UK.

 

[Job]

Well most states don't have it, if you read what the fuckers get the death penalty for, you'd walk ten miles across broken glass in your bare feet to buy a lottery ticket which if you won would give you the chance to buy a beer for the guy who pulls the lever.

 

[Killswitch]

Well most states don't have it, if you read what the fuckers get the death penalty for, you'd walk ten miles across broken glass in your bare feet to buy a lottery ticket which if you won would give you the chance to buy a beer for the guy who pulls the lever.

If it was that bad then I'd imagine that the retributive thing would be to see them stuck in a 6'x4' cell for 23 hours a day for the next 40-50 years. Of course, it wouldn't actually undo anything they'd done previously so the only advantage to society beyond some morbid satisfaction is the idea that the next person wanting to do the same thing would be deterred. This has generally been shown not to be the case though. It's also very likely that the State meting out the "justice" has done far worse things than the guy in the chair...

 

[Job]

It's very hard to quantify the effect, people tend to get the death penalty for mind numbingly sadistic and unnecessary acts of violence, like those who kill for the buzz during low level crime.
You just HAVE to kill the fuckers, if only for the sanity of the populace.
A black guy in Texas robbed a McDonalds at closing time, tied the teenage staff in the freezer, including a pregnant girl who was picking up her boyfriend, he left, then returned a moment later and shot each one in the head, the Police picked him up as he walked out with few hundred dollars, they executed him.
No complaints here.

 

[TdC]

I always get sad when I see the idiocy of killing people after they commit a crime. I would rather they didn't have to lower themselves in that fashion in the first place. Perhaps I am a liberal hippie after all

 

[megadave]

There's an interesting series on the Guardian at the moment called Death penalty on trial.

Reggie Clemons is on death row and one of his friends has already been killed by the state due to the case, however there's no evidence or credible confession.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/22/reggie-clemons-case-examining-the-evidence

 

[Scouse]

That is where we went wrong, when we let prison became about rehabilitation instead of punishment.

Punishment doesn't work. Deterrents don't deter.

Rehabilitation is the only thing left - but don't kid yourself we do anything of the sort. We don't.

 

[Job]

He's been tried over and over again, but it would seem that a newspaper knows better, so really the accusation is that the courts are corrupt and they have decided on his guilt by ignoring evidence, but why, do they just want a fall guy, or they don't like him, or someone who wants him dead has influence, or they've put his name on the casket and it won't come off, if any are true, surely someone could expose it without sensationalist newspaper headlines get hold of it.

One of the stories told by Cummins, as related by police notes, was that Julie Kerry had stumbled into the Mississippi after
he startled her by trying to hug her. "He just wanted to hug her but she became startled, lost her balance and fell into the river," the police incident report records.

I mean ..really.

 

[DaGaffer]

Punishment doesn't work. Deterrents don't deter.

Rehabilitation is the only thing left - but don't kid yourself we do anything of the sort. We don't.

Maybe we just haven't exercised all the punishment options properly. I think we need revisit all the cruel and unusual options.

 

[megadave]

He's been tried over and over again, but it would seem that a newspaper knows better, so really the accusation is that the courts are corrupt and they have decided on his guilt by ignoring evidence, but why, do they just want a fall guy, or they don't like him, or someone who wants him dead has influence, or they've put his name on the casket and it won't come off, if any are true, surely someone could expose it without sensationalist newspaper headlines get hold of it.

One of the stories told by Cummins, as related by police notes, was that Julie Kerry had stumbled into the Mississippi after
he startled her by trying to hug her. "He just wanted to hug her but she became startled, lost her balance and fell into the river," the police incident report records.

I mean ..really.

I dont get what your point is there

 

[Scouse]

Maybe we just haven't exercised all the punishment options properly. I think we need revisit all the cruel and unusual options.

I think we do use cruel and unusual punishments - to the point of death. Also, if you look at the punishments in the other areas of the world, and in our own history (hanging, drawing and quartering anyone?), we can see that punishment is no deterrent.

Punishment doesn't work.

 

[Job]

What do you want it to do?
Simple retribution is all I ask of it..it's like empowering the victim, little Lisa couldn't be here muthfucka because you raped and beheaded her, so on her behalf is John, her good friend and lumberjack with a baseball bat.

 

[DaGaffer]

I think we do use cruel and unusual punishments - to the point of death. Also, if you look at the punishments in the other areas of the world, and in our own history (hanging, drawing and quartering anyone?), we can see that punishment is no deterrent.

Punishment doesn't work.

Work for who? The perpetrator? Probably not. The victim's families? Jury's out on that one. Be interesting to see if the families of Breivik's 77 victims got to kick him squarely in the nuts four times a year for the next 21 years (or until he expired from crushednutitis), how many would take up the option.

 

[Mabs]

Punishment doesn't work. Deterrents don't deter.

Rehabilitation is the only thing left - but don't kid yourself we do anything of the sort. We don't.

this is true, even Pierrepoint was against in the end saying it didnt work

but it DOES have a 0% re-offend rate,

 

[Scouse]

but it DOES have a 0% re-offend rate,

True. But a positive innocents-killed % rate

Work for who? The perpetrator? Probably not. The victim's families? Jury's out on that one.

By your own admission punishment doesn't work for the perpetrator. and the "jury's out" for the families.

So, given that we use punishment for all crime - from petty theft upwards - what's the point ?

It's a costly way of making fuck all difference.

I happen to agree with Teedles - the Norwegian justice system is far and away the best model I've heard about - because it actually has an effect, or return on investment. People do come out of it the other side rehabilitated with very low reoffending rates.

Our chavs come out of prison trained to commit crime and unemployable. Then reoffend...

 

[ECA]

We don't do rehabilitation because it's very easy to cut spending on prisons, and there is very little political gain for real reform.