[jaysay]

Originally Posted by Eric

You seem to be missing the point again ... the question is not about homicidal lunatics, it's about how they are dealt with by criminal justice systems. All "civilized" countries have their lunatic killers; here's one of ours:


Marc Lepine: The Montreal Massacre — The Target — Crime Library trutv.com

What can't be denied is that those countries which have no death penalty, which treat the incarcerated humanely, and which, in general, have in place government funded health care and education, old age security, welfare, disability pensions, unemployment insurance, workers compensation, etc, and a strong tradition of democratic government all tend to have low incarceration and recidivism rates, and low crime rates. Like it or not, and I know a lot of you don't like it, the punishment for major crimes in Norway (and Canada; and the UK) is a period of incarceration ... that's it; you lose your freedom.

I could subscribe to that Eric, if like in the States, Life usually means life, but in good old UK life is around 12 years, just a pity the poor sod that was killed won't be walking in the fresh air on their release day