While I agree many of our punishments are too harsh, it seems absurd to me that Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 people in Norway, only received a sentence of 21 years in prison.
Maybe because I'm American. Are Norwegians ok with this?
I am a Norwegian and this is to me a completely sensible decision. I agree with the intent of the law and don't think there should be exceptions for extreme cases.
The other replies have outlined the fact that Breivik won't get out of prison unless he happens to not present a danger to society. Punishment has three purposes: Punishing the criminal to deter repeat offenses, having a preventive effect on other criminals and protecting society. All of these reasons are sufficiently represented after Breivik's trial.
Increasing the term to life with no parole wouldn't have any effect except increase the stakes for someone who happened to be wrongfully convicted. 20 years in prison is in effect a life sentence in the sense that the life of the criminal would never be the same afterwards. And as others have said, our justice system is focused on rehabilitation, not "getting back at" the criminals. People who do these kinds of violent crimes don't care if the sentence is 20 or 100 years.
I have to say that as someone from the UK I've been really impressed with the level headed approach taken by Norway to this case.
As any court lawyer will tell you "Hard cases make bad law" - what we suffer from in the UK is a very reactive approach to law making where individual exceptional cases often drive the creation of laws through a media driven frenzy to have the government be seen to "do something". More often or not, as Norway has demonstrated, the right thing to do is to simply apply the laws that already stand.
I am impressed myself. Actually I find it really surprising that there haven't been more angry voices shouting for blood and that reason has won out. I have never seen a high-profile case play out in this way before, and I am really happy that the Norwegian people is largely standing by its principles.
Well said. The distinction Americans (myself as one of them) seem to have lost is the one between "rehabilitation" and "revenge."
We call prisons "correctional facilities" because at one point in time their purpose was to correct the behavior of offenders so that they could be reintegrated into society. Today they would be better termed "revenge facilities", because 1) nobody who enters a run-of-the mill American prison for any appreciable length of time is going to leave a productive member of society, and 2) as the Swartz case aptly demonstrates, there's no longer a sense of just and fair punishment, only maximum, nuclear, life-crushing revenge. (30+ years for downloading academic documents, millions of dollars for sharing a handful of songs on Kazaa--and that's just the HN-flavor "crimes".)
I really applaud the Norwegians for staying true to their principles in the face of a monstrous tragedy.
We really only have two options. Removing the convicted criminal completely from society forever - or rehabilitation. We have chosen the latter.
The horrible crime Breivik is convicted of is far beyond anything our lawmakers ever took into account, so this is a painful edge case, testing the bounds of our judicial system. Yet, apart from emotional outcries in the days and weeks immediately following the atrocities, changing the system has not been on anyone's agenda.
That said - if the authorities consider the rehabilitation to have failed, and the criminal is still dangerous after his sentence is served, they can keep him locked up for another ten years. And another ten years. And another ten years. But that is not punishment.
If he after 21 years is considered harmless he will be let out. And we must, reluctantly, accept that this is the price we pay for our low crime rates and low number of repeat offenders.
Michael Moore visited one of our minimum security prisons, where criminals may serve the last parts of their sentence. They are being slowly re-integrated into society through useful work and humane living conditions:
Be careful not to apply this to generally. American society is not like Norweigan society - we have a higher division between rich / poor, fewer social safety nets, and higher crime rates. Not only that, our prisons (because of how we run them) are basically places for criminals to mingle with other criminals and become better criminals. Not to mention we have a societal bias against anybody who came out of prison - for the aforementioned reason. We know our prisons don't rehabilitate.
I'm not sure simply applying the Norweigan solution would actually work here - there needs to be a more systemic societal change in order for that to work.
Having said that, consider me impressed with your society's level head.
Of course. The American system is in dire need of reform in the direction of actual rehabilitation, but adopting a carbon copy of the Norwegian system overnight would be a terrible idea. The current economic system of the United States pushes millions of people into a level of poverty completely unheard of in my own country. To this class, pursuing a lifelong criminal career may seem to be a reasonable option.
You face the same issues in the gun control controversy. I'm very much in favour of liberal gun laws in Europe. But there is a huge difference between giving guns to hunters and recreational marksmen - and giving guns to inner-city youth participating in organized crime, impoverished lumpenproles or xenophobic, rural jingos.
For what it's worth, the 'xenophobic rural jingos' in and of themselves don't cause a lot of gun crime. The drug trade is the primary source of gun violence in the US.
>>>> That said - if the authorities consider the rehabilitation to have failed, and the criminal is still dangerous after his sentence is served, they can keep him locked up for another ten years.
Hmm... how that works I wonder? I.e. somebody can be kept in the prison forever even if original sentence was, say, 10 years? How do you know if one is rehabilitated or not? It's not like criminal psychopath would have any problem telling whoever is in charge any words they want to hear and present as "sincere" picture of rehabilitation as he'd be required to get out.
And how keeping somebody in prison for 10 years is not punishment?
The punishment can only last 21 years. If someone is kept in preventive detention the only puropose is to protect other citizens. The best comparision would be forced treatment of the criminally insane. Once they're deemed fit to return to society, they are free to go.
So it is basically the same as a life sentence, but with possibility of parole after 10 years with yearly parole hearings. I wonder what is the actual terms served (including those dying in prison) for crimes like aggravated murder, terrorism, etc.
He got "forvaring": a sentence with nominal duration, but which can be extended indefinitely [5 years at a time] if, after the expiration of the current period, the danger of repeating the offence still exists [i.e., the offender is still deemed to be dangerous to the society].
I believe that he's, for all practical purposes, locked away for lifetime. Given what happened to the 1st team of psychiatrists who evaluated him [0], I don't think any public official will be brave enough to declare ABB being "safe" for the society, ever.
[0] The 1st team declared him insane and got a huge amount of public criticism, which also lead to further debate about the role/power of psychiatrists in the courts. On a scale 1-100, they gave him a score that basically placed him in the "vegetable" range. It was unacceptable for the public that a "vegetable" can plan for so long such an attack. Obviously, the court had the same problem, and appointed another team of psychiatrists.
He was smart individual, who believed in his cause and acted upon it with his best intentions.
I can not imagine why he would be insane other than his beliefs do not resonate with widely accepted beliefs.
In my country if you say to doctor that you believe in aliens, you are labeled mentally insane and proscribed some mind numbing drugs.
Still, I pay tax for brave men and women to go and kill people in other countries and that is obviously fine.
I can not imagine why he would be insane other than his beliefs do not resonate with widely accepted beliefs.
How you personally define insanity might not make this apparent, but what you've said is a tautology. The inability to conform to societal norms is basically the yardstick for every mental illness.
I had a hard time wrapping my head around it when the mental disorders was defined to me as any inability to function within the bounds a society, because there are people on the mental disorder spectrum that can competently (if imperfectly) navigate society most of the time. Unfortunately the Wikipedia definition [1] doesn't capture the idea as well as I wish and I've completely forgotten how I used to articulate this concept back in the psychology/sociology classes I took.
Tautology it is, I never knew such a word existed :)
Thank you.
Recently I started to learn more about "mentally ill" people and it have brought me to understanding that what they say is most sane thing I ever heard, they do not hide or pretend or make up story just to go on and work/pay taxes/watch another TV series.
They Say directly what world is afraid of, what everyone wants just to hide, put away. And they act upon it if you ignore it. And in a sense, they express all our problems we want to stash away. They will continue do so, until we take all the monsters out of closet and will have a good talk about it.
I also do think that his acts are a consequence of his sincere beliefs and feeling of being powerless and censored [0].
And this is where the issue of being insane gets shady. A person acts from their beliefs, and the question is: how deviant these beliefs must be before the person is deemed insane? Not only that, but you must also ask for the justification for the belief.
Believing you'll wake up in the morning when you go to sleep: sane. (Justification: no evidence to the contrary; for a healthy person.)
Voices telling a schizophrenic person to murder somebody: insane. (Because the justification isn't "real" to "normal" people).
Believing that your homeland is under silent invasion of Muslims, with the help of politicians [1]: unknown. There are arguments both ways.
Believing that massacre/violence is the only remaining for you to escape censorship [0] and be heard: unknown, but probably insane. He probably could have attained a larger audience and influence had he been a better writer, like "Fjordmann" [extreme right opinions, no history of violence]. (In other words, he blamed external circumstances ONLY, instead of also trying to find the fault within himself.)
[0] As a foreigner who has lived in Norway for 8 years now, I have probably a different view than most Norwegians. Immigration is a touchy topic here, and "censorship" in the media is real, but very subtle: Whenever somebody criticizes immigration policies, even if it's most obviously NOT directed against a particular group, they're often dismissed as "racists", putting the end to the discussion. (Pure ad-hominem argument.) It doesn't help that such labels often come from members of the 3 currently ruling parties. (And remember that ABB's goal was to inflict long-term damage to the future development of a prevalent currently ruling party - Arbeiderpartiet.)
So, censorship is present here, only that it's in the form of public bullying and ad-hominems. There's rarely somebody who'll risk being called "racist" two times in the public.
It's almost impossible to have a factual, objective debate about immigration here. A debate which is truly needed, see the next footnote.
[1] Norwegian media paint an extremely biased picture of (muslim/african) immigrants here, in that that immigrants are most often mentioned in negative context. Also, there's almost a class difference in crimes: east europeans are thieves, burglars, pickpockets; africans and muslims are murderers, robbers, rapists.
Then they write about how police has difficulties keeping them out of the country, and you only rarely get to read about immigrants that get deported because they are criminals (yes, it happens very much!). On the other hand, they write often about cases where decent (law-obiding, well-integrated) foreigners get deported because they broke the "buerocratic" immigration rules, or were "just" illegal immigrants.
The picture painted by the mainstream media could be summarized as such: "The government's immigration policy is to throw out decent, law-obiding foreignesr, and to protect the worst of criminals."
You rarely get to read about "immigrant success stories" in the mainstream media, even though most immigrants end up being "ordinary, boring (as in unexciting, average) people".
[2] Also, in recent issue of "Morgenbladet", there was an interview with a left-oriented person (forgot the name) who declared himself a communist. His theory is that the governments of the EU indeed do stimulate immigration from 3rd world countries, but the ulterior motive is to split the working class and lower labour costs. He is not against immigration, though, but for more cohesive society.
So, is he insane for believing that Europe is under muslim invasion / in silent war with them (one of the claims that he was deemed insane for)? I don't friggin' know.
Norwegian media bubble (Aftenposten, Dagbladet, VG) is a dangerous one. There are other newspapers, sure, but much lesser read.
To conclude with my last $.02 for what they're worth.. I'm far from being an expert in any of {sociology, psychology, media}, but in my eyes, ABB and his actions are by large the product of:
1. Norwegian mainstream media, i.e., their way of covering immigration issues,
2. The inability and/or unwillingness of politicians to have an orderly debate about immigration, not only with their citizens, but also between themselves. You know there's something wrong when those throwing "racist" labels (instead of arguments) win.
As you surely know, Breivik will be in a closed psychiatric ward after the end of his sentence until he is not a danger anymore, which means until he dies. In a justice system aimed at the safety of the public and rehabilitation, this makes sense. The public is safe and shit like plea bargain coercion is impeded. This is why I consider the Norwegian system a good one (Austrian here).
Exactly. And that is a very important distinction.
After 21 years he will have served his term. If afterwards he cannot be released into society he needs to be kept separate, but that is no longer a punishment. As such he will (or should) be treated well during this "safe keeping" following his sentence.
I gather most of them are, but you're missing part of the sentence: he's been sentenced to "forvaring", aka "indeterminate penalty". This means a baseline 21 years (as 21 years is the maximum determinate penalty outside of crimes against humanity) but it can be extended indefinitely, 5 years at a time.
It's not a penalty though. People who are severely mentally ill wouldn't just be allowed to wander about in society either. If someone poses a thread to them selves or others, then they would be kept under guard. But that is not to punish them.
How is this better than a life sentence? I think it's kind of disingenuous to pass this off as a "Well they're staying true to their morals!" if the end effect is that this guy spends his entire life in prison, with no chance of getting out in 20-30 years.
Those sentenced under forvaring can apply for parole after 10 years, and after 21 years the case is reviewed every 5 years (to decide whether the inmate is still dangerous to society) and parole can be applied for every year.
There is very much a chance of getting out in the timeframe, if the inmate reforms.
That's not accurate. He got the maximum sentence in Norwegian law, and the imprisonment can be extended indefinitely - it's unlikely he'll ever be released.
What do you propose? Putting the man in prison for life, or even executing him, is still poor punishment for killing 77 innocents, many of them children.
No sentence that can be carried out will match the magnitude of his crime. So why should 21 years be "absurd", but life in prison, or death, be "not absurd"?
I have no statistics, but I think the penalties in the States are much higher than in other countries. And my hunch is this is more of a historical/cultural thing, than any real cost/benefit analysis on what is best for society.
20 years for 77 murders, equals 3 months for each life. That also excludes all the other crimes he committed. If he knew he would get 20 years per person would he have murdered anywhere near 77 people? Plus how do the families of victims feel if their lives are only worth 3 month each?
I'm sorry you got downvoted, but you are in a nutshell describing the vast difference in the purpose of the justice system between Northern Europe and the US.
You frame it as a question of headcount and worth and vengeance. And from that standpoint you conclude that the vengeance exacted on Breivik was not enough, given his crimes.
But over here, the purpose of punishments in the justice system is ultimately about protecting society and rehabilitating criminals. Vengeance plays no part. And if he can be a productive member of society again after rehabilitation in prison, that's better than him taking up resources as a prisoner.
If its just about protecting society and rehabilitating why is the recommended sentence longer for murder than for say rape? The simple answer is that murder is seen as a worst crime, so you serve more time. So how can killing 77 not be worst than killing one person? There is more to the justice system than just protecting society and rehabilitation. If breivik was fully rehabilitated and no longer a threat after one year why not let him out?
> If he knew he would get 20 years per person would he have murdered anywhere near 77 people?
"In for the penny, in for the pound"?
If you get 20 for each, then after the 3rd or 4th you may as well go for as many as you want. Larger penalties don't discourage that sort of event at all.
Do you think he kept a head count and had set a limit beforehand based on the expected prison sentence? According to himself, he didn't expect to get out of there alive, and was prepared for life inprisonment if he did.
Maybe because I'm American. Are Norwegians ok with this?