Has justice been done?
 

Hard to understand the law at times, just saw that Anders Breivik was given 21 years (minimum of 10 to be served) by the court on Norway -he killed 78 people and injured many others -where's the justice in that sentence?

Anders Behring Breivik’s cell to be The k2p blog

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It just goes to show that stupidity amongst the judiciary is not confined to the UK. He should have been locked up in the most spartan, basic conditions for the rest of his life.

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I blame stupid judges giving out daft sentences. Look at this fella in the link below, jailed for 9 years but he wont be able to drive for the first 4 year of his jail term as he was also banned from driving for 4 years. Should his ban not start when he leaves prison?

BBC News - Jail for 180mph M6 chase driver Ben Westwood

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Whilst i agree there are well stupid judges, they can only sentence within the confines of that countries law, its the knobs that set these tariffs,were the real fault lies to me.:(

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There is no justice that would bring back those killed......or take away the trauma from the victims that lived.

It isn't our law...but then we haven't much room to gloat...our judicial system is just as flawed.

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It doesn't say in the article when the ban will start - it might be after his release.

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Cashy is right, there is no life sentence available to give in Norway and it's possible he will get a hard time from his fellow inmates or be kept apart from them for his own safety so it's not all a bed of roses.

When laws are made it's impossible to foresee how they will need to be applied - who would predict that one person would kill so many others at one time? And is it a worse crime than killing just one or two - it's still the taking of life however many it is.

Dianne, you asked the question, what would you do with him?

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Having several friends from Norway, they feel it is us who have the wrong justice system.
Despite what Breivik did, they have one of the lowest crime and Homicide rates in the world.
Their justice system is one of Rehabilitation rather than Punishment.

Personally I would just shoot him, it may be what he wants to become a Martyr, but it solves the problem.

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OK, well it shows that Norwegian lawmakers are just as stupid as ours. If a person murders in cold blood, whether there's one person or a hundred people involved, life should mean life.

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"You may get justice in the next world, in this we have only the law."

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I believe the death penalty is warranted in this case.

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Wynonie, I do agree that a life sentence should mean just that, in fact my question comes from a prompt on behalf of Less to avoid going off-thread on another post about a petition to enforce a life sentence.

It doesn't exist in Norway apparently and presumably they don't have cumulative sentences otherwise they way forward may have been to try him for each murder separately. There was no doubt about his guilt or his lack of remorse. I think the main question in debate in the trial was really his sanity - I agree with their verdict that he is sane and knew exactly what he was doing and that it was against the law, therefore he is punishable. I don't know about the Norwegian system but I wonder if he may have been detained indefinitely if proved to be insane - it would be a real contradiction if that were the case.

BG -I have never been in favour of taking a life for a life. From what you have written it would be completely against the ethos of the Norwegian justice system to go down that route and while I agree with the idea of Rehabilitation I also believe in Punishment with a capital "P"!

No comforts, hard work and isolation, apart from some form of re-education, would be what I would think appropriate, since you asked Sue. Ultimately, he should have to make some form of reparation to his victims and their families.

Looking at his face in court, during and after the verdict, I think the outcome was exactly what he wanted and had planned which shows that he had thought the whole thing through even to this point knowing how he would be treated.

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i totally agree

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Even though it is a very particular case and his guilt was absolutely beyond all reasonable doubt I still don't think his death would serve any purpose or solve anything. Would it make anyone feel better? I doubt it - but i also doubt that the justice which is being meted out to him will make any of his victims and/or their families feel vindicated either.

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If he had been declared insane, he could have been kept in a padded room eating through a straw and wearing a straightjacket and nappies forever, his manifesto would be dismissed as the ramblings of a madman, and that smirk would have been wiped from his face when sentencing was passed.

It seemed important to the families that he be declared sane, I don't know why.

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those pics. Is that an actual cell? Ive had worse hosing here in accrington in the past and had to scrimp and scrape to live to do that

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Strangely though, Norwegians interviewed including the victims' relatives seem satisfied with the sentence. Is it because they know this is the maxiumum sentence under Norwegian law or are they just more "enlightened" than us? Personally, I find it puzzling. :confused:

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Some crimes are so heinous that justice becomes impossible. Yes he deserves to die, but that is an easy way out for him when so many families have been condemned to a lifetime of mourning.

He must never be released, but life inside should not be made easy for him.

Maybe as part of his sentence he should be made to listen for many hours every day to the stories related by the families of the young lives he snuffed out. Who knows, somewhere in that twisted mind of his, there might lurk a conscience.

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It really is all quite contradictory then and hard to fathom why the families would not want him to be locked up and the key thrown away.

I believe I understand their thinking, up to a point, since declaring him insane would have made the murderer somehow less culpable perhaps and have diminished his responsibility. They wanted him to be seen to be responsible for what he did - which he undoubtedly was.

The contradiction lies in the fact that his sentence as a sane person is diminished with respect to what he would have faced as a madman...

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I've been saying that for years, that is a complete nonsense, the ban should start when he's eligible to be on the road, mind you I suppose he has rights:mad:

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The families would know that the max he could receive would be what he did get and yes I do think the Scandinavians are more "enlightened", for want of a better word which I can't think of, when it comes to such things.

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You mean like Brady and Huntley, these people don't have a conscience, when all's said and done Huntley has to be called mister by the warders he has all mod cons three square a day, no bills to pay, life's just a bowl of cherries for these people and they just lap up the notoriety:mad:

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I am sure that the courts can extend the sentence by five year periods added onto the end of the sentence, if they feel this man is still a risk.
It would have been much better for everyone if this man had taken a bullet himself.

I hated seeing his sadistic smirking self satisfied grin....but then that isn't his problem, it is mine....I guess I'll have to build a bridge.
I don't think he will come into physical contact with any other prisoners......just his keepers(for his own protection).

Personally, if I were in charge of his punishment, he would be worked for every minute he was awake. Doing something hard and heavy. He would not need that cushy cell with the keep fit gear......just a bed and a lavatory.

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well can't speak fer strangers, but if one of my family was murdered, it would sure as hell make me feel a bit better, n as fer no purpose again i disagree, it would save hundreds of thousands of taxpayers money.

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...but hopefully there's always the fear of a fellow inmate with a kettle full of boiling water lurking round every corner, and the fear that every noise in the night is someone coming at him with a knife while the warders are asleep.........

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Ya Margaret Hard Labour, see how much of a smile he's got on his arrogant gloating fizzog if they have him breaking rocks from sunrise to sunset

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Just read on the BBC web site, that this excuse for a human being has apologised to his white supremacist's friends for not killing more, he really is a piece of work

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Dream on,scum like that are in solitary.

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Hasn't he already been attacked a couple of times?

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Yeh Huntley has, but since i think solitary, Brevik is going straight in it.;)

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Maybe they should drop Breivik off unarmed on a Norwegian island, and let the victims families travel there by boat with whatever weapons they wish to take......

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How un-P.C.........What a great idea.:D

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21yrs for cold blooded murder of one person is lenient but 21yrs for murdering as many people you can manage, in this case 77, is a ridiculous sentence... why would anyone even try to "rehabilitate" this excuse for a human being?

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Ahh but he did apologise...........fer not killing more.:(

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Yes he did..and in doing so proclaimed to the world that in Norway you really can get away with murder.:(

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...and, unbelievably, he has a computer in his room. It's not connected up to the internet, but it has a printer, so he can type up his sick views, print 'em off and mail them out to other sickos (yes, he's allowed envelopes and stamps, too).


I don't call that "enlightened", I call it "lack of common sense". :mad:

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Trouble with you Wyn is your too flaming nice, stupidity would be much better:mad:

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They should have sent him to Guantanimo and stuck him in with the pink jim-jam wearing bearded ones.

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That would have been fun a white aryan supremacist being called to pray 5 times a day:eek:

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I have always been opposed to the death penalty, even in this case. It would be the easy way out for him... and he'd even be given a peaceful death, which his victims were cruelly denied.

It's sickening to know that his sentence is 21 years, he'd still be young enough to form a life for himself when he gets out :mad:

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I'm not opposed to the death penalty, why is his life so important? without him being kept in the world more money to be spent on suffering innocents.

Simplistic view? Well yes, I suppose it is, I would rather keep the starving in this World alive than anyone as sick as him, just imagine another Einstein could be going hungry because this animal is kept alive.

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The death penalty is another issue, the powers that be won't let the public have a vote on, because as with the vote on pulling out of Europe, they know the majority of people in this country would vote to bring back the death penalty. A sentence like the one handed out in Norway is a prime example of the punishment not fitting the crime, he should have got 21 years for each murder, to run consecutive then they could think of parole

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Maybe it has something to do with stats like these:


As The Right Bemoans Norway's Criminal Justice System, It Is One Of The Safest Countries On Earth | ThinkProgress

Something for the "throw away the key" and the "hang 'em high" crowd to mull over.

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Norway's population is less than that of London spread over a huge area, and its biggest city has fewer than one million people. It is also very prosperous thanks to oil and gas and has universal healthcare and free schooling among other social benefits. When you are there it feels very safe and I could detect little or no sign of an underclass.

Perhaps these are some of the reasons why crime is so low.

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Ya bet the families of the 77 people he killed are really pleased with with that:rolleyes:

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Interesting read, Eric.

Helps understand why they were all so totally shocked by what happened and yet respect their justice system in the end. If it works don't knock it...

I note that they can add on extra to the term he's serving 5 yrs at a time if he's deemed to be dangerous -I suspect this will be what will happen in his case.

"Enlightened" was a word used on here to describe the Norwegians - I think "civilised" is also appropriate.

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Whats civilised about some lunatic running round killing 77 people :mad:

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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 on 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.

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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

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Ok ... if you don't like Norway as an example; how about The Netherlands with its dense population (like you guys in the UK; living on top of one another;)).

And let's look at the "fry'em" capital of the world: the US. Admittedly it has a population of 300 million +; but, it is spread over a huge area. It is prosperous, thanks originally to oil. It now has Obamacare. Free schooling, among other social benefits ... however, when you are there you don't feel safe. I think I'd rather walk thru Damascus at nite than take a nice stroll through downtown Detroit.:rolleyes: And yet, many on this forum often look benignly on the US criminal punishment system. They see it as an answer to violent crime. And, at the same time, they ignore the facts: the country with the highest incarceration rate, some of the most dangerous prisons in the civilzed world, and the death penalty in many states still has a crime rate that is through the roof. More than 10,000 people in the states were murdered by hand guns alone last year:eek:

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Very eloquently put , Eric.

It's strange how civilisation and enlightenment go hand in hand with progress and the well-being of the population. Throughout history it has been seen and yet it is not recognised as being ideal because at some point a greedy few manage to spoil things for everyone else.

The majority benefit from sharing the fruits of the country and yet in every major civilisation the world has seen so far, the "few" manage to put the frighteners on and convince the masses that they are in danger from something other than the power crazy themselves.

There will always be some insane and dangerous people around but they are fewer and far between than films and TV series about serial killers would have us believe...the real problem lies elsewhere.