Anders Behring Breivik, Norway Murderer, Wins Human Rights Case

An anonymous reader writes: Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has won part of his lawsuit against the state over his solitary confinement in a high-security prison, the Oslo district court ruled on Wednesday. Breivik, who killed 77 people in a shooting rampage and bombing attack in 2011 (the country's worst acts of violence since the second world war), was served with "inhuman or degrading treatment," the court found, adding that his conditions must be eased. The court said that the prison violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Brevik had noted that "solitary confinement, as well as frequent strip searches and the fact that he was often handcuffed while moving between cells, violated his human rights." The court, in addition, also ordered the government to pay legal costs of roughly $40,600 for the right-wing extremist. The Guardian reports, "Although Breivik is detained in a three-cell complex where he can play video games, watch TV and exercise, judge Helen Andenaes Sekulic of the Oslo district court ruled that the Norwegian state had broken article 3 of the convention. The prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment "represents a fundamental value in a democratic society", she said in a written decision. "This applies no matter what -- also in the treatment of terrorists and killers."

Comments

Rule of law

[OffTheLip]

Norway style. It's that simple really.

Re:Rule of law

[SumDog]

He his human. A human murdered those people. You are literally de-humanizing him because you don't want to accept the fact that another human, much like yourself, committed horrible crimes. He deserves to be treated like a human. That's the difference between us and his victims.

Re:Rule of law

[Lumpy]

dude most of the people around you can commit the same crime he did. they are just not motivated to or are afraid of getting caught.

People in general are horrible evil animals. keep that in mind.

Re:Rule of law

[fiannaFailMan]

People in general are horrible evil animals.

False. The Breviks of this world are an exception to the rule. Humans evolved to cooperate. Those who didn't pull their weight were generally less fruitful in the reproductive stakes and those anti-social traits remain rare.

Re:Rule of law

[Wootery]

Don't be absurd.

Civilized people have a huge issue with killing. Modern militaries have trouble getting their soldiers to actually shoot to kill.

Re:Rule of law

[TWX]

He his human. A human murdered those people. You are literally de-humanizing him because you don't want to accept the fact that another human, much like yourself, committed horrible crimes. He deserves to be treated like a human. That's the difference between us and his victims.

See, while he's homo sapiens, there's a point when the monstrosity of the crime committed, coupled with the complete lack of doubt that he was the perpetrator, is why I do not support ridding the world of the death penalty. I don't want that penalty to be one of retribution though, I want such a penalty to be akin to putting animals to sleep.

I don't necessarily support the death penalty for one-time murderers, especially those who personally knew the victim, as there are cases when the homicide committed was essentially the final step in a series of escalating events by both people. Such a murderer is probably not going to kill anyone again as the circumstances that led to the murder were extraordinary.

I am much more in favor of the death penalty as an option when the murderer kills people that are unknown to them, or are little more than casual acquaintances. That shows a person that's willing to kill for no reason, rather than at least having a reason like in my previous example. Someone willing to kill for no reason once may well be willing to kill for no reason again.

Re:Rule of law

[sh00z]

Are Norwegians (including their convicts) such pacifists that it couldn't be argued that he needs "protective custody?" Jeffrey Dahmer killed less than 77 people, and he survived, what? Two years with the general prison population?

Re:Rule of law

[Wootery]

But you've failed to deal with all the other arguments against the death penalty.

For a start, execution is more expensive than long-term imprisonment. (If you doubt this, do some reading.)

Executing nutters like this doesn't act as an effective deterrent, as crazies can't be deterred.

There's also the issue of accidentally killing the wrong person, which is always a risk with the death penalty, but admittedly doesn't seem like much of an issue in a case like this.

Re:Rule of law

[haruchai]

I'm all for treating like a human but this is too much coddling. The guy is a mass murderer but is treated better than someone spending a weekend in jail for drunk driving except for the length of stay.
I believe he considers himself a political prisoner? Fine, let's offer 4 Syrian political prisoners his Norwegian jail cell subject to same conditions & length of stay and he can have 4 cells in a Syrian prison for his exclusive use.

Re: Rule of law

[rickb928]

I'm a Christian, and I agree entirely. Inhumane treatment is indefensible, no matter how we feel about the prisoner. Yes, that includes my government's treatment of various prisoners all over the world. And the vast majority of Christians I know would agree.

Now, if you don't think the treatment actually *is* inhumane, your argument is there, in definition. I actually don't, but I'm neither Norwegian nor European, and have limited influence on that...

Re:Rule of law

[jklovanc]

For a start, execution is more expensive than long-term imprisonment. (If you doubt this, do some reading.)

This is caused by the long drawn out appeals process. Maybe in cases like this some levels of appeal can be skipped so as to get to the highest authority faster.

Re:Rule of law

[khasim]

There's also the issue of accidentally killing the wrong person, which is always a risk with the death penalty, but admittedly doesn't seem like much of an issue in a case like this.

And that's the catch. Once you allow the death penalty for a specific crime/situation that will be used as justification for applying it in "similar" instances.

Which will, in turn, be used to apply it in slightly less "similar" instances.

And so forth.

We cannot TRUST the government NOT to abuse its authority. So we have to LIMIT that authority.

Re:Rule of law

[religionofpeas]

you don't want to accept the fact that another human, much like yourself, committed horrible crimes.

I accept that. I also accept if other humans punishes him harshly for it.

Re:Rule of law

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

> There's also the issue of accidentally killing the wrong person....

This combined with the way lawyers work (in the USA) is, by far, the biggest reason I am against the death penalty. There are far too many tales of exhoneration for me to even begin to consider it without serious reform.

Re:Rule of law

[religionofpeas]

Maybe in cases like this some levels of appeal can be skipped so as to get to the highest authority faster.

A few shots in the chest by the arresting officer would do the trick.

Re:Rule of law

[Fragnet]

What is the point of this harsh punishment? To discipline him? Cure him? Make him kill himself? What? The role of prison should be to get dangerous people off the streets. You can't stop them being dangerous people in future.

Re:Rule of law

[religionofpeas]

We cannot TRUST the government NOT to abuse its authority. So we have to LIMIT that authority.

That makes no sense. If you can limit the government's authority, then trust is not needed.

Re:Rule of law

[johannesg]

Last week I visited the monument of Che Guevara in Santa Clara, Cuba. And while I was making photos, I suddenly wondered: if this guy can get a monument, will Breivik get one in the future? After all, they both killed for ideological reasons. And while Breivik is currently in jail, the way the political winds are blowing in Europe, it is not impossible that he will be considered an early revolutionary a decade from now - with all the respect that comes with such a title.

Re:Rule of law

[Stephan Schulz]

Are Norwegians (including their convicts) such pacifists that it couldn't be argued that he needs "protective custody?" Jeffrey Dahmer killed less than 77 people, and he survived, what? Two years with the general prison population?

Western European prisons, and Scandinavian prisons in particular, are very different from the US hellholes. They don't dehumanise inmates to nearly the same degree, and as a result, most prisoners don't behave like crazy monkeys fighting a turf war. The rate of incarceration in Norway nearly ten times lower than in the US, and the level of recidivism is only 20%, as opposed to nearly 80% in the US.

Re:Rule of law

[religionofpeas]

What is the point of this harsh punishment?

To get revenge, deter others, and to prevent him from doing it again.

You can't stop them being dangerous people in future.

Sure you can. Just bury them in the ground, and bury their heads somewhere else.

Re:Rule of law

[TWX]

But you've failed to deal with all the other arguments against the death penalty.

For a start, execution is more expensive than long-term imprisonment. (If you doubt this, do some reading.)

I am not calling for this for a cost savings. I am calling for an executing for someone like this because the real danger the individual poses outweighs everything else.

Executing nutters like this doesn't act as an effective deterrent, as crazies can't be deterred.

Again, I am not calling for executing this person because of a deterrence effect. I am calling for this person's execution because of the real proven danger this person presents.

There's also the issue of accidentally killing the wrong person, which is always a risk with the death penalty, but admittedly doesn't seem like much of an issue in a case like this.

Exactly, it is not a danger in a case like this. As far as I am concerned, it would be acceptable for the issue of execution to be forwarded up to higher courts in a given nation. The court under which the convict was originally tried is probably not as-able to determine the sentence. Have an intermediate court review the conviction without a specified sentence to determine if the convict's special circumstances warrant execution or not. Choose to recommend, and auto-appeal this to the high court for final decision. Then let a combination of the prosecution and law enforcement make requests to determine when the execution will occur, based on any other pending cases, and then schedule it. If either court finds against execution, the original court proceeds to conventional sentencing.

Spree killers and serial killers would basically be the only parties for whom this would apply. The killer either needs to kill more than one person in short order, or needs to kill more than one person over time.

Re:Rule of law

[Princeofcups]

Maybe in cases like this some levels of appeal can be skipped so as to get to the highest authority faster.

A few shots in the chest by the arresting officer would do the trick.

That's always worked in Chicago.

Re:Rule of law

[starless]

I am much more in favor of the death penalty as an option when the murderer kills people that are unknown to them, or are little more than casual acquaintances.

Like drone pilots??

Re:Rule of law

[Fragnet]

If that were true the countries with the harshest punishments would have the lowest crime.

Re:Rule of law

[GameboyRMH]

Ah, but modern society has an ideal breeding ground for anti-social traits - in positions of power. It's been that way since agriculture was invented, in fact.

Re:Rule of law

[sjames]

You wouild only add more as the focus shifts to determining if it is a case like this and the inevitable appeals.

Re:Rule of law

[jklovanc]

A few shots in the chest by the arresting officer would do the trick.

That would be "executing officer" as not arrest would have been attempted.

We need a system somewhere between street justice and endless appeals.

Re:Rule of law

[religionofpeas]

That would be "executing officer" as not arrest would have been attempted.

You don't know what was attempted.

Re:Rule of law

[DutchUncle]

How can execution EVER be more expensive than imprisonment? The legal process, maybe; the execution, very simple. For what the state is spending on incarcerating and guarding and caring for this mass murderer, it could probably house an entire family in an apartment. Certainly there is some deserving veteran's-survivor family or charity case more worthy of support than this guy.

The "accidentally killing the wrong person" argument is legitimate, and is dealt with by including fuzzy-logic scoring for degrees of certainty in the decision of incarceration vs. execution. In this case, involving killing many people over multiple instances (not all killed in one single action), with complete certainty that this is the correct guilty party, the decision seems straightforward.

Re:Rule of law

[DutchUncle]

dude most of the people around you can commit the same crime he did.

"Can" (mere physical ability)? or "Could" (might actually consider doing it)? What really matters is, they don't. Whether it's the positive reason that they hold the impulse at bay, or the negative reason that they fear punishment more than they want to commit the crime, they don't do it. This guy didn't have the self-control, and is therefore an active ongoing danger, much like a vial of active plague virus or an outdated nuclear reactor.

Re: Rule of law

[PopeRatzo]

And the vast majority of Christians I know would agree.

Vast majority? No.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/150...

A majority of Christians still support the death penalty, although the number is falling. I applaud your convictions, though.

Re:Rule of law

[farble1670]

much like yourself, committed horrible crimes

Not at all like me. You perhaps, I can only judge by your posts.

Re: Rule of law

[farble1670]

And the vast majority of Christians I know would agree.

And the old "correlation is not causation" applies here. Supporting the death penalty has nothing to w/ being a Christian, since that is not new-testament morals. It has to do with the majority of Christians being republicans, and republicans supporting the death penalty.

Re:Rule of law

[Anonymous Coward]

Revenge is an awful reason, it only reduces us to the same level as the perpetrator.

Re:Rule of law

[jklovanc]

It would add one more and may eliminate quite a few. The added level could be extremely simple as it could be a number of objective tests that if any one fails it goes back to the regular appeals process.

Re:Rule of law

[farble1670]

Executing nutters like this doesn't act as an effective deterrent, as crazies can't be deterred.

It's not only about deterrence, it's about appeasing the wronged (relatives, friends, etc). It's also about furthering the idea of a safe society which is essential to having a productive tax-paying society.

Re: Rule of law

[geek]

That's a poll of Americans, not Christians. As a Christian myself, I waver on this topic but by and large, i don't know many Christians who are for the death penalty who haven't been affected by some violent crime.

If they did the poll asking if they were Christian, you would see a large number of people say yes, but if you then filtered it by how many actually attended services on any type of regular basis or who'd even read the bible, the number would drop significantly.

Re:Rule of law

[William Baric]

He is human, but the mere fact of being human should not grant any right. This idea that we have rights only because of some genes is just delusional.

Re:Rule of law

[TWX]

Execution is more expensive only because of the nature of how Death Row is run in the United States, and how appeals processes are handled.

Running the court proceedings is expensive. Running the court appeals process is expensive. Judges and lawyers for both sides cost a lot of money if they're any good at their jobs. Now, figure that there are probably 20 people working to support the judge, and possibly a half-dozen for each attorney for capital crimes.

Part of what makes it so damn expensive is that the appeals process is necessary because too many people are sentenced to die without overwhelming evidence, and a lot of people either have their sentences reduced or are exonerated entirely after their original convictions. Stop overusing the death penalty and it would probably cost less to use, since you would have much more ironclad convictions, so the appeals process wouldn't have to take as long as it does or to cost as much.

Re:Rule of law

[TWX]

People can give-up their rights. One can argue that the taking of the life of another waves one's own right to life.

Re:Rule of law

[William Baric]

You argument is called a slippery slope fallacy. Do you know what a "fallacy" is?

Re:Rule of law

[William Baric]

As someone who did his military service, I can say you have no clue what you're talking about.

Re:Rule of law

[BlueCoder]

I disagree. I believe that killing a person can be humane. Like turning off a light.

Keeping a person confined and without liberties is punishment. Wanting to end your life in but not being able to is fitting punishment.

I would prefer prison for all criminal homicide. But to be honest it can be is quite costly on a society. So I endorse the use of capital punishment even if there may be innocent people that are convicted. But in the later case I would like to see officials held responsible for wrongful convictions. Further they should be required to spend differing amounts of time in the same prisons and conditions they would subject anyone else to. Their identities know and unknown to the other prisoners such that they receive no special protection.

Of the conditions described I believe some homeless people would willingly subject themselves to those conditions to get off the street.

P.S. The strip searches are probably necessary to protect the guards but I think more so to keep the prisoner from committing suicide in a moment of rash judgement.

Re:Rule of law

[Ghostworks]

He his human. A human murdered those people.... He deserves to be treated like a human.

Well said! Now, let's take away his exercise bike and X-Box, and throw him into a shared cell in the rape factory, the way his basic human dignity demands!

Re:Rule of law

[GeekWithAKnife]

You're obviously confused. Idealists often are in the face of reality. It doesn't quite fit into neat little boxes.

He is born a human. He is biologically human. Ethically, socially behaviourally he has no humanity. That's the whole fucking point of being a human.

Much like myself he could, in some wild theory plot the murderer of children for months but very much unlike myself he actually went ahead and did it.

No, to entertain the thought he is human is very dangerous. He deserves no better or worse than the treatment of a convict
dependent on his crimes

We have minimum security for such things as theft and more serious conditions for murderers.

What conditions do you propose are fitting for a person that has murdered so many under the motives he had?

It's always easy to be dispassionately idealistic. After all there's a perfectly logical and reasoned case behind it right? Breivik too has a dispassionately idealistic and supposedly reasonable explanation for his actions. He's just a person, like you, right?

I hope you never have to endure the loss that so many parents have endured. Tell them about the reasoned and logical argument. About how we are better than him by treating him especially nice. I'm have a feeling like-minded people like him are less deterred now than they were before his actions.

He is unworthy of this wonderful treatment reserved for much nicer people that have only murdered one or two others for perhaps much more justifiable causes. The punishment should at least relate to the crime if it cannot fit it.

To conclude; I categorically reject your claim he is a human. We are not "de-humanizing" him he has dehumanized himself.

Re:Rule of law

[mrclevesque]

"Again, I am not calling for executing this person because of a deterrence effect. I am calling for this person's execution because of the real proven danger this person presents"

What is the "real proven danger" of someone in solitary confinement or in prison, and what evre that level of "real proven danger" there is no data to support your idea that he is more of of threat than other prison inmates.

Re:Rule of law

[tnk1]

I'm not a big fan of Che Guevara myself, but let's just say that Che had a bigger following than Breivik is ever likely to. He was speaking to and fighting for a cause that had widespread sympathy in Latin America, even if I think it was a bad ideology. I don't see there being the same support going for Breivik's idea in Norway.

I also don't think Che ever went on a one man killing spree in a camp.

Che was an adept organizer, not simply a "visionary soldier" (read: ideological murderer). He's famous less for killing people than he is for his organizing of people to do that killing.

That said, it is hard to say how things will go. If something radicalizes Europeans to that level and in that same way, yes he could be seen as more sympathetic. It's still hard to see anything short of a new fascism lionizing him.

Re:Rule of law

[Blaskowicz]

I like to think that if some country like Iran got rid of the death penalty it would be great news.
See, why not give death penalty to child rapists? After that where to put the line in the sand? Even death penalty for adultery makes sense because think-of-the-children. I would like to reserve the death penalty to those who cut the spaghetti in half : that pisses me off and you can't uncut the spaghetti. Well regardless full abolition is easiest since there are no edge cases.
Some countries may retain death penalty for high treason only but is that such a good idea?, I would almost agree but the exceptional circumstances it might be used in might be a good occasion for misusing it (such as a putsch situation).

Re:Rule of law

[Anonymous Coward]

25 bucks at madame Fifi's massage parlour?

Re:Rule of law

[mrclevesque]

"It's not only about deterrence"

Right deterrence doesn't work

"it's about appeasing the wronged"

That's part of the problem

"It's also about furthering the idea of a safe society which is essential to having a productive tax-paying society.
Flag as Inappropriate"

A society that promotes the killing its members (or bogus logic) is a society that doesn't maximize safety or productivity for its tax-paying members

Re: Rule of law

[mrclevesque]

Excellent point.

Re:Rule of law

[Hognoxious]

What is the "real proven danger" of someone in solitary confinement or in prison

You're only safe till the next election

Re:Rule of law

[rastos1]

He deserves to be treated like a human.

Since English is not my first language I'll give you the benefit of doubt and ask for an explanation: What does the word "deserve" mean? What did he do to "deserve to be treated like a human"? Get born? Or something else that was not undone by his acts?

Re:Rule of law

[Pfhorrest]

Slippery slopes actually exist in law. They're called "precedent". A fundamental principle of common law legal systems whereby something having been done before explicitly justifies doing similar things later. Coupled with fuzzy human judgement about similarity and you have a very real slippery slope that is is in fact prudent to beware of.

Re: Rule of law

[TWX]

Which is why I approach the matter as one would approach a dog that mauls people without cause. The dog is put-down if it attacks people, because we're concerned with what that dog will do to people based on its previous behavior. We generally don't put-down dogs that have a single incident unless that single incident is pretty debilitating to the victim, but we do put down dogs that either cause greivous harm, death, or have a pattern of attacks. We cannot tolerate the behavior ever happening again, so we euphemistically, "put the dog to sleep." We don't shoot the dog, we don't paralyze the dog before putting in the killing-drug, we don't gas the dog with something that will cause the dog to experience liquid filling the lungs before death, we don't shock the dog. We either gas the dog with something that displaces oxygen so it dies quickly and relatively painlessly, or we inject a drug cocktail that puts the dog under as it stops essential heart and lung involuntary responses so that the dog dies.

Mr. Breivik's actions, that he was proud of carrying out, are worthy of being, "put to sleep." We don't do this out of retribution, we do this because this individual is too great a threat to be allowed to live.

Re:Rule of law

[fnj]

So in other words, religionofpeas, you agree completely with khasim, but you are too muddled/confused to realize it, and prefer to criticize his crystal clear point.

Re:Rule of law

[TWX]

You'll note that I specifically want capital punishment to be reserved for particularly egregious homicide cases. I can't think of a single society or religion that endorses homicide among private individuals without very specific reasons. If the bar is set even at common examples of homicide then your entire argument is negated.

Re: Rule of law

[PopeRatzo]

You're right. The Barna Poll I was looking at showed a 42% support for the death penalty among Christians and only 32% of Christian millennials.

Re:Rule of law

[mrclevesque]

Ha! maybe your right for someone who's rapt sheet looks more like Side Show Bob's

Re:Rule of law

[vivian]

I would like to reserve the death penalty to those who cut the spaghetti in half : that pisses me off and you can't uncut the spaghetti.

It appears that even Pastafarians have their extremists...

Re:Rule of law

[Fragnet]

But you just asserted that it's a deterrent. Are you now suggesting crime and punishment are not correlated?

Re:Rule of law

[BasilBrush]

Not only did Brevik have reasons, he wrote a very long manifesto to spell out why he did it, which he released at the time of the crimes. Clearly they are not reasons that you or I would agree with, but your argument is just based on falsehood. `

Of course Brevik's reasons are probably those of an insane man. But executing people for the result of insanity is even less humane than executing them as retribution.

And the phrase "putting animals to sleep" is another falsehood that doesn't belong in a debate on executions. The animals aren't put to sleep, they are killed. Using euphemisms suggests wooly thinking.

Re:Rule of law

[BasilBrush]

He's got a clue, he's just got his time frame wrong. Back before the second world war, he was correct. Most soldiers deliberately shot over the enemy's heads. Only about 5% shot to kill. Modern soldier training methods have been specifically tailored to overcome that resistance. To turn people into unquestioning killing machines. One of the reasons for the Vietnam atrocities.

Re: Rule of law

[Carewolf]

And the vast majority of Christians I know would agree.

Vast majority? No.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/150...

A majority of Christians still support the death penalty, although the number is falling. I applaud your convictions, though.

Not in Europe, and European Christians wouldn't consider anyone reading the bible literally a true Christian, more a Muslim Christian if anything, because what separates Christians from Muslims is that they read their holy book literally.

Re:Rule of law

[Carewolf]

dude most of the people around you can commit the same crime he did. they are just not motivated to or are afraid of getting caught.

People in general are horrible evil animals. keep that in mind.

No, psychopaths only make up 5% of the population. Though psychopaths themselves until they selfidentify think they make up 100%.. Maybe you should see a psychiatrist or just die?

Re: Rule of law

[rickb928]

I'm Republican second....

Re: Rule of law

[PopeRatzo]

Not in Europe, and European Christians wouldn't consider anyone reading the bible literally a true Christian, more a Muslim Christian if anything, because what separates Christians from Muslims is that they read their holy book literally.

American evangelicals and Pentecostals don't consider European Christians to be Christians.

Re: Rule of law

[farble1670]

Oh wow. What a coincidence.

Re:Rule of law

[brewthatistrue]

"deterrent depends less on the severity than it does on the certainty, and immediacy"

http://www.amazon.com/review/R...

When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment
by Mark A. R. Kleiman
August 1, 2010
http://www.amazon.com/o/asin/B...

Re: Rule of law

[rickb928]

That I put my faith first?

If I put politics before all, would you expect me to be a Democrat, or an atheist?

Re: Rule of law

[rickb928]

For me, Conservative and Republican are interchangeable...

And yes, the Party's leadership has abandoned the Party's principles.

Re:Rule of law

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You have to love people who deconstruct their own arguments/answer their own questions before you get the chance to do so. :D Saves a lot of time.

Re:Rule of law

[ooloorie]

And you are a fraud who is trying to demonstrate moral superiority through platitudes.

Re:Rule of law

[mhotchin]

"War", by Gwynne Dyer

Episode 2 - "Anybody's Son Will Do".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Rule of law

[Agripa]

Western European prisons, and Scandinavian prisons in particular, are very different from the US hellholes. They don't dehumanise inmates to nearly the same degree, and as a result, most prisoners don't behave like crazy monkeys fighting a turf war. The rate of incarceration in Norway nearly ten times lower than in the US, and the level of recidivism is only 20% [businessinsider.com], as opposed to nearly 80% in the US.

Without a high incarceration and recidivism rate, how do they keep unemployment for lawyers and law enforcement officers low?

Re:Rule of law

[Dahamma]

If he is a human and he murdered 77 people, wouldn't killing him also be a human act?

In the end it's all bullshit anyway. There are no natural or "human" rights, there is only what society decides at the moment is "proper". In the end in this case hundreds of thousands of dollars (or krone, whatever) are spent debating how many hours a day this piece of trash gets to play video games in prison while a couple of billion other HUMANS in the world barely have enough food, shelter, and medicine to stay alive.

Re:Rule of law

[Dahamma]

JUDGE DREDD!

Re:Rule of law

[Dahamma]

Should depend on the reason for the crime. If you think about it, most crimes fall into one of a few main categories:

1. desperation: the risk is worth it because it can't get much worse. Most violent and property crimes against others are here - usually economics or addictions.
2. convenience: it's unlikely I'll get caught, so the risk is low. Non-violent crimes "of stupidity" (shoplifting, etc) or white collar crimes (Wall St bullshit).
3. sociopathy: I know it's wrong, but I just don't care. Serial killers, mass murderers, or other rare but terrible crimes.

This guy was clearly #3, so there is little chance he can be rehabilitated. IMO stick him in a hole or kill him, who cares, with 7+ billion people on the planet, many of whom would kill (maybe literally?) to be in a posh jail cell with good food, TV and video games, it seems absurd that this much time and money are being spent debating his "human rights conditions"...

Re:Rule of law

[Fragnet]

So why is it the murder rate in the US decreasing as more States lose the death penalty?

Re: Rule of law

[sg_oneill]

Not in Europe, and European Christians wouldn't consider anyone reading the bible literally a true Christian, more a Muslim Christian if anything, because what separates Christians from Muslims is that they read their holy book literally.

Islamic theology isn't "what in book=true. what not in book=shaitan". Theres a long long history of islamic theology based on interpretting the quoran as a symbolic and poetic document full of allegories and metaphors.

Just because some nutty goddamn jihadis seem to have skipped that part of theology class, doesnt mean super-fundamentalism is a feature of all islam.

Hell, look at the sufis. Its *all* symbolism for those mystical cats.

Re:Rule of law

[wvmarle]

There is indeed no correlation between increasing penalties and lowering crime rates. The obvious conclusion should be that longer/harsher penalties are not a solution to crime, and that solutions have to be sought in different ways. Somehow Norway seems to be doing quite well, overall.

Re:Rule of law

[jandersen]

...if this guy can get a monument, will Breivik get one in the future?

I think it is unlikely, and I think the reason goes all the way dow to our evolutionary roots, in a way. The forces that shape our society are not entirely random - looking at societies all over the world, one finds that there are a common core of behaviours that are universal, because they tend to help the survival of the group - the family, tribe or nation - as a whole, and they are rewarded by the group structure. This means that in the long run there are certain models of society that are more stable than others. A more equal and open society will be more stable, whereas a society characterised by inequality will tend to be less stable, and ideologies that favour discrimination or outright persecution of minorities cannot form the basis for a stable society. Which is why Daesh will ultimately fail, no matter what we do to fight them, and the similar ideology of a person like Breivik falls into the same category. Statues, of course, are erected by a society that has been stable long enough to want to commemorate their heroes, so I don't think we will ever see one of Breivik. And, building on these considerations, if there is a statue of Che Guevara somewhere, perhaps it is worth looking into why - I guess the answer will be that he actually did something to deserve it.

Re: Rule of law

[dave420]

You are claiming that all Muslims are fundamentalists, which is clearly not true. I weep for your education.

Re: Rule of law

[dave420]

So you are fine with dehumanising people if it suits you, and ultimately allows you to kill people you deem worthy of killing, regardless of how dangerous they are. I'd give you a list of the actors who have used such "logic" to further their aims, but it won't be pleasant reading. It includes one name you might have heard recently: Anders Breivik.

The guy's in prison! He's only a threat to people who have chosen to accept the threat, and who are suitably trained to prevent it from happening. This is what civilisation looks like.

Re:Rule of law

[dave420]

bark! bark! bark! Subtle racist is subtle...

Re:Rule of law

[dave420]

And one can argue it doesn't. So far the global consensus strongly disagrees with you.

Re: Rule of law

[mrclevesque]

Of course I accept "we wrongly acquit/pardon/whatever"

But as far as I can tell Breivik won't be up for parole any time soon, if ever

Re: Rule of law

[mrclevesque]

Yeah, it would be nice if he'd provided one

Re: Rule of law

[mrclevesque]

I'm not debating the fact that a culture that promotes things like revenge or the existence of evil ends up with dysfunctional behaviors, what I'm suggesting is that a culture that promotes things like hate and revenge is shooting itself in the foot.

Re:Rule of law

[TWX]

Of course Brevik's reasons are probably those of an insane man. But executing people for the result of insanity is even less humane than executing them as retribution.

It is not if one uses a result-based approach. He killed, what, 77 people, intentionally? it really doesn't if insanity was the cause of his choice or not, the ramifications of his choices, the result of his actions, is what matters. And that is that he intentionally killed 77 people.

And the phrase "putting animals to sleep" is another falsehood that doesn't belong in a debate on executions. The animals aren't put to sleep, they are killed. Using euphemisms suggests wooly thinking.

Cull. Kill. Execute. To be honest I don't care what you call it. In this circumstance, the intentional ending of a human life is justified.

Re: Rule of law

[farble1670]

No, that you are a Christian and a republican.

Re:Rule of law

[chstwnd]

surely you mean "...the difference between us and him." rather than "...us and his victims."?

Re:Rule of law

[friesofdoom]

"People in general are horrible evil animals. keep that in mind."

This is what I would call a great example of personal projection.
I believe quite the opposite - people in general are kind and compassionate, and certain circumstances messes them up and turns them bad.

Re:Rule of law

[Coren22]

Because clearly the government is executing rapists and shoplifters.

Re:Rule of law

[Sigvatr]

haha death isnt a penalty

Re:Rule of law

[dl_sledding]

Well, there's also the fact that people are the final jury in these cases, and they are given information that is relevant and considered true and correct at the time of the trial. The Innocence Project is showing that, at the time of the trial, the proper sentence may have been found, but future improvements in evidence gathering and processing may and, in some cases, will prove that the defendant is actually innocent.

Juries do their very best at making the "right" decision, but they are limited to the information at the time. There's nothing wrong with that, and it has proven to be the most "fair" way to deal with these situations in history. But things change and improve, and as tragic as it is that an innocent person is imprisoned for much of his life, it would be even more tragic if that person was put to death and was later found to be innocent.

Re:Rule of law

[WiltedPhoenix]

I agree with TWX in the idea that the death penalty should be maintained, but only in cases where rehabilitation efforts fail.

Deterrence and decrease of cost don't matter in such a case - when it is clear that a person CANNOT rejoin society AT ALL (as seems likely with Breivik, Norway treats criminals as people in need of help as a general rule), the death penalty makes sense. Humans are still animals; we put down rabid dogs* and other animals that would be dangerous in society after much less consideration and effort (although most would agree that humans deserve more consideration).

As for getting the wrong person, yeah - this needs to be reserved for cases where attribution is crystal clear, and there should be a system specifically vetting proposed cases (such as Breivik's). In Breivik's case, attribution IS crystal clear - no evidence points towards anyone else, and Breivik has actually promoted his murders in a Manson-esque style. However (seeing as how he has been kept in solitary and constantly subjected to a US-style prison experience), I'd argue that he would not yet qualify for the death penalty, because of the lack of effort made by Norway towards rehabilitation (so far as I know).

*After the discovery of the Milwaukee Protocol for humans with rabies, experimentation with rabid animals could yield substantial medical benefits for humanity; we maybe should rethink this in particular.

Re: Rule of law

[Carewolf]

What?

When I was in high school, the teacher tried to say that Christians didn't take Genesis as truth and only a story for centuries. I disagreed and at the time, my research said the biggest shift of literal vs fiction belief happened in the 1950's, a mere 50 years before. Even 15 years ago, the literal belief in Genesis was double digits.

You should research harder. No major branch of Christianity has ever considered the bible to be the literal truth. Only some sects that were prosecuted for their heracy and later fled from Europe to the US did.

Note for instance that one of the key points of the New Testament is that Jesus corrects the Old Testament, literally contradicts it. And then ofcourse there are the two contradicting genisis stories, and the two contradiction stories of Jesus birth. No one who has actually read the Bible could possible believe it was the literal truth.

Re: Rule of law

[RockDoctor]

... or human, probably. After all, only Americans can be humans.

Re:Rule of law

[Wootery]

Two major questions remains here:

• -What's the advantage of execution over long-term imprisonment?
• -It normalizes killing in the civilian world, which may have negative indirect effects on society. A strong taboo on lethal violence is vital to civilized society, and eroding it may be indirectly costly (to violent crime rates, that is).

Some people also use the slippery-slope argument and the do you really want the government to have that power? argument, but I don't find either of them that compelling.

Re: Rule of law

[mrclevesque]

"If you were not so left you wouldn't have had this mass killer."

Yeah, right. The USA is more left than Canada

Re: Rule of law

[mrclevesque]

Good point

Why to everyone's dismay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are we supposed to be dismayed that the courts aren't going to ignore his human rights?
Or is this based on the french concept of prison, where basically you have no rights at all and can be treated like complete shit?

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[SumDog]

I hate how the article talks about how he has access to an xbox or whatever. Solitary confinement is very cruel and unusual. Removing all human interaction is one of the worst things you can do to a human, no matter their crimes. It should only be used when that inmate is in danger from the rest of the prison population.

Solitary confinement needs to be banned in the US, along with capital punishment. We're the only high income country that has capital punishment, and one of the few that has solitary confinement.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[FlyHelicopters]

I hate how the article talks about how he has access to an xbox or whatever. Solitary confinement is very cruel and unusual. Removing all human interaction is one of the worst things you can do to a human, no matter their crimes. It should only be used when that inmate is in danger from the rest of the prison population.

Solitary confinement needs to be banned in the US, along with capital punishment. We're the only high income country that has capital punishment, and one of the few that has solitary confinement.

Quoted for truth... I agree, the guy is a crappy example of a human being... but he IS a human being, and if you are going to torture him by putting him into a 7 foot by 10 foot concrete box, then you're really no better than he is.

Re: Why to everyone's dismay?

[Type44Q]

I just want to know how many people I need to off to get a free three-room pad and three free (and likely quite tasty) "hots" a day, not to mention video games... do you suppose getting the warden to agree to cough-up for a Vive and a couple of high-end cards in SLI would be out of the question??

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[HornWumpus]

Japan. You are wrong about everything else too. Fuck him.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[misexistentialist]

solitary superior to sodomy

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Anonymous Coward]

I find the best way to discover how true someone is to their ethics is to look for edge cases. One of the best edge cases is how they would treat someone they despise. Someone easy to treat poorly. In fact, someone you might enjoy treating poorly.

Apparently France fails this test and Norway passes it.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Wootery]

then you're really no better than he is

You were doing so well. Why finish with something so ridiculous?

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Captain Splendid]

Sigh.

Treating prisoners humanely, even someone as horrible as Breivik, isn't about them, it's about us.

We don't offer inmates creature comforts, proper nutrition, health care, and all those other goodies like lack of capital punishment not because of some myopic moral failing but because we've figured out that sometimes, the abyss looks back.

I'll use a first aid analogy: The very first thing you learn in a first aid course is not to go blindly charging in, ready to provide your life-saving skills. You're told to carefully consider the environment you're about to enter, mainly in order to avoid the fate of your victim, so that instead of heroically saving a life, you've gone and doubled the problem making yourself a casualty as well.

Sure, it would be easy to strap a mass murderer like Breivik into a chair, pump him with some nasty chemicals and be done with him. Or throw him a hole and ignore him unless something horrific happens to him, so we can then point and laugh.

But we don't, because one of the central conceits of a modern and humane justice system is the understanding that multiple wrongs don't magically turn into something right, ever. All those wrongs do is stain the innocent some more. They don't heal, they don't provide closure, they just extend the scope and reach of the original crime.

So we try and treat criminals as well we do, because it's vitally important for us not to give into the kind of urges, no matter how small, no matter how petty, that produce people and outcomes like Andre Breivik.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[fiannaFailMan]

Pretty much.

The French have the right idea in this case. There's no reason to pamper this monster and give him a lifestyle potentially better than law abiding citizens.

Recidivism in France is at 59%. In Norway it's 20%.

Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Wootery]

Long-term benefit to society is good and all, but, but, catharsis!

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[haruchai]

He was being treated pretty damn well already. There are a fuckton of American serving time for marijuana offenses that would love to have the conditions he's so unhappy with.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[alvinrod]

I can't speak for everyone, but I don't think I would care to interact with this person. Can you compel someone to interact with another human? If my job requires me to speak with someone I detest, I can tolerate them for that sake, but otherwise I prefer to ignore those with whom I have no desire to interact.

I also imagine that for someone like him, the kind of interaction most would like to have is the type where he's left with a shank in his body. Some criminals are loathed even among others and I can't imagine him getting along with anyone else in jail. Nor would I feel good about allowing outside visitors as outside of the usual muckrakers looking to peddle sensationalism, the only people I can imagine caring to speak with this person are the types who might feel compelled to act as he did or become followers of his misguided beliefs. That leaves scarce few people to interact with Mr. Breivik, and I suspect he has little care to interact with them either. Counseling sessions with a licensed therapist may do him good insofar that he might be able to come to terms with what a horrible person he is and show some remorse for what he's done.

While officially requiring solitary confinement is something that I can agree is immoral or needlessly cruel, that does not mean that anyone is owed human interaction. If someone has become such a terrible person that the rest of the world wants nothing to do with them, that's on them.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[wwalker]

Removing all human interaction is one of the worst things you can do to a human

Really?! I can easily think of a few hundred things you can do to a human that would be much worse than solitary confinement. Starting with shoving a sharp stick up any of the orifices of your choosing. Unless you enjoy that sort of thing, then it'll be less than a few hundred things that are worse.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[supernova87a]

Maybe this is a bit Rumsfeld-esque, but I don't really see what's so harsh about solitary. I experienced it for 5 years in grad school. I know what I'm talking about.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[FlyHelicopters]

Ask the relatives of those whom he killed...

Vengeance is not how we should be running civilization...

Of course those people are unhappy with him, but they shouldn't be the ones to do something about it.

He should have been executed or worked to death in a stone mine. He is _NOT_ a human being. He deserves nothing.

That attitude is why we still have war and violence in the world.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[RenderSeven]

I especially liked this part:

"Sample selection and definitions of recidivism varied widely, and few countries were comparable.
Conclusions: Recidivism data are currently not valid for international comparisons."

...but dont let that stop tyou from citing it as long as it supports your view, right?

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[FlyHelicopters]

Because it isn't... it is true...

If someone wrongs you and your response (after the threat has ended) is to the same to him in return, then you've just become him...

Sure, if it is an active situation and you're acting in self-defense, that is one thing. But to hurt someone after they can no longer hurt you is barbaric...

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Fragnet]

Putting them in prison is removing them permanently.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Stephan Schulz]

He should have been executed or worked to death in a stone mine. He is _NOT_ a human being. He deserves nothing. Ask the relatives of those whom he killed... Inhuman handling.

Even some parents who lost children in the attack appeared to be satisfied with the verdict, seeing it as fair punishment that would allow the country, perhaps, to move past its trauma. “Now we won’t hear about him for quite a while; now we can have peace and quiet,” Per Balch Soerensen, whose daughter was among the dead, told TV2, according to The Associated Press. He felt no personal rancor toward Mr. Breivik, he was quoted as saying. “He doesn’t mean anything to me,” Mr. Soerensen said. “He is just air.” ...via the NYT.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[RenderSeven]

...and "[H]ow recidivism is defined has consequences for the results in any recidivism study, and since recidivism is often politically highly relevant, such definitions can easily affect policies. For example, we have provided both high and low recidivism rates for Norway – all being relevant and accurate – and while the lowest figures might be taken to overrate Norwegian criminal policies, the highest figures might be taken to debunk those policies. Thus, the consequences of the definitions for the results need to be made explicit."

- from "Pick a number: Mapping recidivism measures and their consequences" where the author notes that 20% and 54% (about the same as France) are both given figures for recidivism in Norway and both are cited depending on political objective. And this paper was the source cited in the paper you cited.

https://www.ssb.no/en/forskning/discussion-papers/_attachment/166596

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Wootery]

No. The comparison is preposterous. Have you forgotten that there are varying degrees of mistreatment?

Depriving a mass murderer of human contact is not even close to being the moral equivalent of murdering dozens of innocent people in a rampage. It's madness that you're suggesting that it could be.

no better than he is. Don't be absurd.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[sjames]

You want catharsis, try primal scream therapy.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[sjames]

It seems like you have this urge. A craving perhaps. To hurt someone very badly. How long have you had this? If you can't spend it on some unsympathetic character like Behring, who will you take it out on? Should we isolate you?

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[DutchUncle]

I don't want him treated badly; that WOULD be inhumane. I want him excised neatly and skillfully, as a surgeon excises a cancer.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[FlyHelicopters]

Depriving a mass murderer of human contact is not even close to being the moral equivalent of murdering dozens of innocent people in a rampage.

You might not think so... but unless you've tried it, you really don't know that...

Torture is wrong, regardless of the reasons.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[geantvert]

I hate how the article talks about how he has access to an xbox or whatever

A xbox? That is not a humane treatment! He was right to sue!

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[DutchUncle]

That attitude is why we still have war and violence in the world.

No. The criminal's attitude that individuals who never harmed him (or anyone else) are fair targets is why we have war and violence. The reaction that, by killing wantonly, the criminal has demonstrated a reason to be removed from society - permanently - is like the reaction to discovering bedbugs.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Rei]

Yeah, that the Nordic countries' prison systems for you ;) Remember the whole "Iceland jailed its bankers" meme? (actually they only got the real egregious fraudsters, but that's neither here nor there). Here's where they went to jail. There's no fences. They even went out for ice cream at one point recently. No need to do that any more, though, as the government recently changed the law to let them out early.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[DutchUncle]

Removing all human interaction is one of the worst things you can do to a human

You haven't watched any good movies or TV shows lately, I guess. There are significantly more creative things to be done.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Blaskowicz]

You concept of not being a human being does not make any sense to me. What does that even mean?
The closest notion is that of the Untermensch, which was a bunch of bollocks invented by power thirsty men. And yes Hitler was a human being. In fact no non-human animal is able to do what a Hitler or Breivik did which makes the notion of a non-human human even more meaningless. As for the relatives? It's not for them to judge. Hard feelings don't make murder legal. Only self-defense murder is allowed.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[dywolf]

who's gets to define what a monster is?
who gets to draw the line, and where?

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[dywolf]

As someone else pointed out: it's not about him.

It's about us, and what we become when we become a vengeful society lacking in forgiveness, incapable of hoping for change in a person.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Wootery]

Yes. Now stop ignoring my point: this is a matter of degree, and they're not even close.

Notice the way I didn't ever say it was OK?

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Wootery]

What on earth are you talking about?

The only point I'm making here is that solitary confinement is nowhere near as bad a moral crime as multiple murder.

Why are so many people insisting on misreading what I've written? I never said it was ok. I even spelled it out: there are varying degrees of mistreatment.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Wootery]

Depriving a mass murderer of human contact is not even close to being the moral equivalent of murdering dozens of innocent people in a rampage.

You might not think so... but unless you've tried it, you really don't know that...

Have you lost your mind?

You're seriously trying to argue that putting someone in solitary might be just as bad as murdering dozens of innocents? Seriously!?

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[FlyHelicopters]

Evil is evil...

Trying to create an "Evil scale" completely misses the point...

That is like saying person A is worse than person B, because person A only killed 10 people while person B killed 100.

It could be 1, doesn't matter.

Likewise, torture is evil, putting it in the same place as murder. I consider rape to be the same thing, and I'm not even a woman, but I understand that to women, it can be just as bad as murder.

The irony is all the people calling for the execution of this guy. As if killing him is somehow "good", but his killing of others is "bad".

Killing is evil if you have any other option, and in this case, we do.

You're either civilized or you're not, there isn't much middle ground there.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[sjames]

Because you seem to very much want to excuse what you consider the lesser mistreatment.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Wootery]

That is like saying person A is worse than person B, because person A only killed 10 people while person B killed 100.

Well, yeah. You really think there's something wrong with that reasoning?

It could be 1, doesn't matter.

So... the second murder has no moral consequence then? Are you sure about that?

I consider rape to be the same thing, and I'm not even a woman, but I understand that to women, it can be just as bad as murder.

It's serious enough that I'd consider it legitimate to use lethal force to prevent it. I still don't consider it the moral equivalent of murder, though. It seems obvious to me that murder is even worse than rape.

Also, bear in mind that male-male rape is a real occurrence. Rape isn't just a women's issue.

The irony is all the people calling for the execution of this guy. As if killing him is somehow "good", but his killing of others is "bad".

I happen to agree with you in opposing capital punishment, but the point you're making doesn't make sense.

We imprison kidnappers. Are you going to argue that's the moral equivalent of kidnapping? Of course not, because context is vital when evaluating morality.

You're either civilized or you're not, there isn't much middle ground there.

No. Get real.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[LynnwoodRooster]

I think killing 77 children shows that Breivik really doesn't know how to relate to other humans. He forfeit his right to human interaction when he decided 77 others didn't deserve to live.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Wootery]

Nope.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[LynnwoodRooster]

He actually has about 450 square feet (2 cells, each 110 square feet, and one living room at 230 square feet) to live in, not 70 square feet. In much of the world (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Manhattan, London)) that would be considered a fairly reasonably sized flat.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Maybe the problem is that when they are in prison they are able to corrupt and influence the minds of people who are only transitory in the prison system. Maybe those who turn to a life of crime after their first stint in jail do so because of the influence and "teaching" of those lifers. If you're sentenced to life in prison without parole, why should you keep the right to try to influence others? Especially when the crimes that got you committed in the first place were a "politically motivated" crime.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[FlyHelicopters]

Well, yeah. You really think there's something wrong with that reasoning?

Nope, not at all...

So... the second murder has no moral consequence then? Are you sure about that?

Yes... once I've killed your first child, I'm no more evil for killing your second one.

No. Get real.

That implies that my point of view is somehow not real... it is quite real. You're welcome to disagree with it of course, but I'm not "less real" because I don't think like you do.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Who gets to decide who lives and who dies? Who would just trust with such absolute power over life and death?

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Fragnet]

In that case we'd better put all Muslims into solitary too because the prison system is one of the main sources of radicalisation in Western countries. If it's good for Brevik it should be a general rule.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[haruchai]

Mildly inconveniencing one of the worst people in the world is hardly a race to the bottom. He's living under better conditions than a LOT of humanity ever has, including hundreds of millions alive now that have never harmed anyone.
I've spent all but a few years living in advanced Western countries and too many of those years were with hardly any heat, incl 3 consecutive years where temps in my bedroom would get down to 40F several months of the year. There are a dozen homeless guys on the street outside my office every day who've physically suffered more for addiction, PTSD and mental illness than Breivik will ever undergo in prison for a horrific slaughter of innocents.

Do I want him dead? No. Beaten? Well, maybe a couple shitkickings might be good for him but I wouldn't do it nor ask someone else to.
What I most want is for him to accept that he's getting off fucking lightly for what he's done and be grateful for the justice system he's living under.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[BasilBrush]

And that sentiment means that you are more like Brevik than the average person is.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[BasilBrush]

Right. Because executing people worked out so well for the USA, didn't it.

There's no pattern of fewer homicides in countries and states with the death penalty. If anything it's the other way.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[sjames]

OK, but you asked what it seemed like that people were reacting to. So I told you.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Rande]

Depends on the person.
I've gone over 6 weeks at a time without physical human interaction. All that happened to me was that I started talking to myself. Some people do that even without being isolated.
That said, I accept that other people may well need daily human interaction to stay sane, just saying that if I was ever incarcerated, I'd be quite happy for extended periods of playing computer games, and would hate to have to interact with the type of people who bullied me at school (which is quite similar - trapped for hours in an institution where most of the other inmates don't want to be there and take their frustrations with this on other people, the guards/teachers don't give a shit and only get involved when there's broken bones or bloodshed.)

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Wootery]

Yes... once I've killed your first child, I'm no more evil for killing your second one.

You seem to agree that killing several people is worse than killing one person, but somehow you think that the evilness of the person isn't increased.

Why do you think it makes sense to impose a 'ceiling' on one of these, but not the other?

If given the choice between releasing an insane criminal intent on killing one person, and releasing an insane criminal intent on killing 50, who would you release?

Obviously the former, because... that criminal isn't as evil.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Ginguin]

Our decision would not be based on "evilness". The consequences of releasing the second are worse so we take the better of our messed up options and minimize the damage, but the people themselves are equally evil (they are insane criminals with 'intent to kill'). They turned in their 'empathetic human' card... Their decision to indiscriminately kill is what makes them evil, not the numbers after the decision is made. Our response when having to release one is just a matter of damage mitigation and consequence driven number-crunching.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Cederic]

Are you incapable of rational thought? Ok, lets play along.

Nobody is innocent. Shit, that's Catholic doctrine even before you consider the impossibility of leaving the house in the morning without breaking multiple laws.

Then there's their contribution to wealth inequality, the internalised racism and sexism, the burden they put on society as a child.

We haven't even considered the damage they do to the environment with their selfish breathing, walking and consumption of food and constrained resources.

So really you have to consider Breivik as a hero, as he's provided a far more permanent solution to this widespread guilt than even you seem to be suggesting he should receive.

And yet nonetheless you want him abused through the mental anguish of solitary confinement? You're a monster, you should be ashamed, why you deserve no less yourself.

Or maybe - just maybe - you could stop being such an argumentative cock.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Cederic]

I disagree - I have to, because otherwise I'd be obliged to point out that you're clearly too broken to live in a civilised society and.. well.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[RespekMyAthorati]

ATTENTION!
Some commie lefty guy has taken over FlyHelicopters account!

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Rick Zeman]

Right. Because executing people worked out so well for the USA, didn't it.

There's no pattern of fewer homicides in countries and states with the death penalty. If anything it's the other way.

And correlation is causation, right?

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[djinn6]

Homicides rate to death penalty in different countries are not comparable, since the propensity for crime are not the same from one country to the next. If anything, a country with more crime is more likely to pass laws allowing the death penalty, because it's seen as a deterrent. In other words, the causation goes the other way.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[FlyHelicopters]

It's about us, and what we become when we become a vengeful society lacking in forgiveness, incapable of hoping for change in a person.

Thank you, you said it well...

I believe that even this man, who killed so many, is not beyond redemption... Now maybe we cannot trust him again, and that's fine, but we and prove how much better we are by treating him like a human, even if he did really bad things...

"Everyone has a chapter in their book they do not read out loud."

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[FlyHelicopters]

The only point I'm making here is that solitary confinement is nowhere near as bad a moral crime as multiple murder.

I'm not convinced that is true...

The idea of being locked in a box for the rest of my life, deprived of all human contact, might well drive me insane. I may wish to die in such a situation, and not even have the ability to do that...

The idea that I could never again hug my children or wife good night, that I could never again be among people. I think I'd rather die. Killing me might be far more humane...

---

I've never done either, so I can only guess, but I suspect that locking someone up in a box for 40 years may well actually be worse than killing someone.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Wootery]

Did you forget the bit where he killed 77 people? Christ.

The guy is a multiple murderer. It's not like they took a random person off the street and put them in solitary.

Secondly, you are somehow forgetting how awful it is to murder dozens of people. I'm rather, uh, alarmed, by this.

We're talking about the murders of 77 innocent people. Imagine if someone murdered you, your family, and everyone you've ever considered yourself to be close to. (This is likely to add up to far less than 77, but no matter.)

And you seriously think that wiping out every last one of those people is no worse than putting a convicted serial killer in solitary?

Let's cut the crap already. It's simple: if you had to choose between putting a convicted multiple murderer in solitary, or slaughtering several dozen innocents, would you agree it's obvious that the former option is the lesser evil?

If yes, you've just proven my point.

If no, I worry that you are dangerously unhinged, and need at the very least to do some serious thinking about the value of human life.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Wootery]

you could stop being such an argumentative cock

Seeing as you are the one offering a parody of a counter-argument for no clear reason (your idiotic straw-man assumes crazy purist utilitarianism, and even then it's garbage), I hardly think you're in a position to be calling me argumentative.

Re:Why to everyone's dismay?

[Wootery]

Their decision to indiscriminately kill is what makes them evil, not the numbers after the decision is made.

So you're saying evilness is entirely a function of intent, and not of action/'success in evil'? It's not the case that the intent of all senseless killers is equivalent, though.

What about two criminals who successfully committed their crimes, but one set out to kill one random person, and the other set out to kill two? Or a million?

Hooray for Norway!

[PvtVoid]

Long-term solitary confinement is cruel and inhuman, and should be illegal. Period.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[tom229]

Hard to feel sympathy for someone that murdered over 70 children in cold blood, for nothing other than political ideals, when his main complaint is "they leave me alone for too long". By most people's sense of justice he should be hung up by his toes and beaten to death slowly by the parents of the victims. If you had children, or ever lost anyone to political murder, perhaps you'd agree. Now I understand your response is going to be about applying the law equally and how we must uphold basic human rights for all, so you might as well not even bother.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent post is the only one that's going to have this right. The psychological data on solitary confinement is pretty robust- regardless of whether he thinks microwaved food is torture, solitary confinement essentially is. Whether other "perks" of his imprisonment seem too coddling, keep in mind they're entirely separate from this issue.

And seriously, those of you who seem to be bloodthirsty capital punishment cheerleaders, at least you should recognize that were these circumstances duplicated in the United States, the guy would have a predicted survival time measured in hours once he was no longer segregated.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[TsuruchiBrian]

That's true if we consider the need to have the desire for vengeance satiated a basic human right.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[FlyHelicopters]

Hard to feel sympathy for someone that murdered over 70 children in cold blood

Having sympathy for such people is what makes us better than him...

By most people's sense of justice he should be hung up by his toes and beaten to death slowly by the parents of the victims.

We're not ISIS... if we want to be better than such people, we can't do that sort of thing...

Now I understand your response is going to be about applying the law equally and how we must uphold basic human rights for all, so you might as well not even bother.

Without such things as the rule of law, we might as well just be animals and kill each other for our stuff...

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

He will never be released, the sentence will be extended again and again until he dies in confinement.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[Moof123]

Let me think this through. If I am the family member of a murder victim, what would it say about me if I felt better and happier that the perpetrator was being badly treated on a daily basis?

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

If we exact vengeance on him, either by letting him into genpop so he can be slaughtered by the other prisoners, or by sentencing him to death, we will be murderers, no better than he his. This is the greatest test any modern system of criminal law can be subjected to.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

No. Capital punishment is murder, and if we murder him, we sink to his level. We must never do that.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Are you finished with your sick vengeance fantasies?

If that is actually, seriously what you would do, you are no better than him.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Having him sit alone in prison, with no means of spreading his sick ideas, is the greatest punishment you can give a narcissist like him. If you kill him, it's done and over (and you'll be a murderer), but this way he gets to know that his actions did not change a damn thing, that his actions (and him, by extension) were pointless.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[FlyHelicopters]

Punishments need to deter crimes.

Except all too often, they don't...

If the fucker killed 77 people, then anything up to and including death is fair game.

If true, then we're no better than he is.

You can continue to add to this list.

You are one sick fuck...

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[Sowelu]

You know this guy is a psycho neo-Nazi who's trying to radicalize other people, right? Martyr complexes are things that exist. If you torture this guy horribly, then the next guy will say "wow, society is awful, clearly the answer is _more_ terrorism, and I'll just shoot myself before they capture me".

yeah, tip: someone who commits a crime expecting to die in the process, isn't really afraid of the consequences afterwards.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[supernova87a]

Maybe this is a bit Rumsfeld-esque, but I don't really see what's so harsh about solitary. I experienced it for 5 years in grad school. I know what I'm talking about.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[religionofpeas]

We're not ISIS... if we want to be better than such people, we can't do that sort of thing...

I'd feel better if they were dead and we didn't have to worry about them anymore.

we might as well just be animals and kill each other for our stuff...

Animals only kill each other if it's in their own best interest. Humans do the same thing, except in a more socially complex environment.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[religionofpeas]

we sink to his level. We must never do that

Why not, exactly ?

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

You're right, of course, but I'm fairly sure a lot of prisoners would be willing to make an exception in his case.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Because then he will have achieved at least one his goals, to prove that his way of doing things is right.

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[butchersong]

I would expect that the solitary confinement was for his protection. If one of those had been my child, my only priority would be to get put in general population with that guy.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[religionofpeas]

Because then he will have achieved at least one his goals, to prove that his way of doing things is right.

I couldn't care less about his goals. He wouldn't be around to enjoy them, anyway.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[FlyHelicopters]

I'd feel better if they were dead and we didn't have to worry about them anymore.

So would I, but after looking at the thousands of convictions overturned years later when new DNA tests show the person rotting in prison was in fact not guilty after all...

I no longer trust any government to execute people.

I would rather let 100 guilty people go free than to kill one innocent person.

The question I ask myself is... Am I truly better than the killers, or am I just like them but have more guns than they do?

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

No, but extremists who share his views on immigration and politics certainly would.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

No, because it will contribute to an escalation of the acceptance of violence in society.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[rastos1]

There are first world countries where people, that did nothing wrong, do not have electricity, running water, food, shelter, medical care, ... People that are generally much worse off than him. That should be illegal too.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[tnk1]

I disagree. Sympathizing with him is only humane if there is something to sympathize with.

The only reason he is not dead is because to kill him makes us killers. We are not the same as he is and it is appropriate to not kill him.

He has to be incarcerated for everyone's protection, but sympathy is not required for him unless he really has some sort of true pathos that I am unaware of.

I don't think someone one needs an xbox and an HD TV to not be treated badly, but I agree that we should be working to actually take the time we have with such people in jail to try to get them to not re-offend. If that means those people having a decent standard of living in jail, I won't complain. However, I don't think he needs to be treated like a middle class schoolkid in jail to do that.

Now, the suggestion of solitary being extreme, I have to agree with. There have been times where I have been taken out of normal society for extended periods of time due to a schedule shift like working at night. Even though I was not incarcerated and did lots of things like play multiplayer games and hang out online, it severely decreased the number of people I was associating with and it was horrible. And I am not someone who needs lots of people around to be happy. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to actually be completely isolated except for some guards. Even an xbox and all the reading material in the world won't make that more tolerable.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[LynnwoodRooster]

Don't worry, I'm sure he'll sue over the ever-changing sentencing and the UN and others will uphold his position that it's not humane to constantly change his sentence. And he'll walk free because it's the humane thing to do.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[LynnwoodRooster]

So the answer to the psycho neo-Nazi radicalizing wannabe is to NOT keep him away from others? Let him proselytize and spread his message to others, 24/7, in confined spaces? Really?

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Justice is not an unfeeling iron fist, can it with the Judge Dredd fantasies.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Nope, ain't ever gonna happen. His sentence is "forvaring", which can be extended indefinitely to protect the populace, fully in accordance with the applicable human rights.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[Anonymous Coward]

Having sympathy for such people is what makes us better than him...

No numb nuts, not killing 70 children in cold blood is what makes us better than him

idiot

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Because it is likely that he will always be a danger to society, he's completely unrepentant.

The sentence includes mandatory re-assessment when a term is over, but you can be 100% sure that he will be found unfit to re-enter society at large, every time.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[plague911]

No. He killed innocents. He is not innocent. He deserves to die a slow tortuous death.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[plague911]

Violence is, and should be accepted in society.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[plague911]

That you are a fine and just person with sound enough self preservation instincts to actually survive.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[Prune]

And yet this humane treatment gives Norway one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world, at a mere 20%, making for an avoidance of enormous amounts of future crime by rehabilitated inamtes. What now, you shriveled little short dick chicken hawk?

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

His sentence is "forvaring", which can be extended. It's still the same sentence.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Yes, I think I'm better than him. No, actually I know I'm better than him, because I would never sink so low as to start killing innocent defenseless children for any reason, political or otherwise.

I would never take a human life, not even his. And the vast majority of Norwegians agree with me, which is why Breivik failed in his mission to change anything at all.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Why?

What purpose does violence serve, apart from making us distrust each other?

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

So who sets the thresholds? Are you really prepared to take a life? If so, you're no better than him.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

No one "gets off" on keeping Breivik in isolation, just as hopefully no one "gets off" on killing him.

And no one has any right to take a life, doesn't matter if it's capital punishment, war or any other circumstance. It's still murder. In some cases, such as self-defense, it may be considered manslaughter instead, or you may be found innocent because the danger to your own life was greater. In the end, whether a court has found you guilty or not, you have still taken a human life.

The taking of a human life can never justify the taking of a single other human life. Never.

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[plague911]

Society does. Yes I am. Yes I am. I have not killed innocents. That's all the criteria you need

Re:Hooray for Norway!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

If you're ready to take a life, you need serious help.

Huh

[ShooterNeo]

Obviously, in the USA (and most other countries), they would treat this man far worse. Most places he would have been executed.

With that said, while I'm not in favor of harsh punitive treatment in prisons IF it doesn't help prevent crime, nothing in the article sounds unreasonable. He is a dangerous killer - he killed 77 people. It's not unreasonable for his jailers to try to prevent it from becoming 78. He's so dangerous that making him wear cuffs when moving him between cells and preventing him from coming into proximity with other prisoners seem like reasonable precautions.

Isolation is torture - you might argue he deserves it - but maybe they could let him communicate with other prisoners without physical contact being possible? The lives of the other prisoners and the guards do need to be protected.

And they seem to have given him a treadmill, a video game system, a TV - a lot of stuff to ameliorate the isolation. They'd never do this in the USA - he'd be probably in a tiny cell waiting in silence for his execution.

Re:Huh

[SumDog]

The US is the only high income/developed country that still executes people. 1% of American citizens have been through the criminal justice system, more than any other developed country. The American justice system is nothing to compare everyone else to.

Re:Huh

[c]

The lives of the other prisoners and the guards do need to be protected.

You're assuming they're doing this to protect other people from him. It's not uncommon to isolate "big name" criminals to protect them from other inmates. I wouldn't be at all surprised if, given the number of victims, there's someone in that same prison who lost a friend or relative in his rampage.

Re:Huh

[Reaper9889]

Obviously, in the USA (and most other countries), they would treat this man far worse. Most places he would have been executed.

According to Wikipedia, there are 36 countries where execution are used in practice, another 51 there execution is not used in practice, but still on the books, 7 where it is only used for war crimes (or similar) and 103 where it is not used. Even if we assume that it would have been called a war crime and that he would be executed if there was a law allowing for such (even if it was never used in practice), then Breivik would still not have been executed in half the countries of the world. On the other hand, over half the worlds population lives in one of the countries were execution is used in practice.

With that said, while I'm not in favor of harsh punitive treatment in prisons IF it doesn't help prevent crime, nothing in the article sounds unreasonable. He is a dangerous killer - he killed 77 people. It's not unreasonable for his jailers to try to prevent it from becoming 78. He's so dangerous that making him wear cuffs when moving him between cells and preventing him from coming into proximity with other prisoners seem like reasonable precautions.

As others have noted, the crime this is meant to prevent is his murder. His crime was committed with weapons. I have not heard anything about him being especially dangerous without such.

Re:Huh

[cdrudge]

The US is the only high income/developed country that still executes people.

Japan, Singapore and Taiwan all have capital punishment and all would have issue being excluded from being considered a high income/developed country.

Re:Huh

[DerekLyons]

It's not unreasonable for his jailers to try to prevent it from becoming 78. He's so dangerous that making him wear cuffs when moving him between cells and preventing him from coming into proximity with other prisoners seem like reasonable precautions.

He's a rather ordinary human being, not Lex Luthor or Hannibal Lecter.

Re:Huh

[ShooterNeo]

Yes, but not every person is so freely willing to kill. It's one thing to not assume superhuman powers, it's another thing to say, put him on gardening detail and give him some tools. Most murderers only killed one person and it was the result of a big argument or a long series of slights and betrayals. They aren't going to just attack and kill random prisoners or guards because they think they are subhuman.

Re:Huh

[Theaetetus]

With that said, while I'm not in favor of harsh punitive treatment in prisons IF it doesn't help prevent crime, nothing in the article sounds unreasonable.

According to the court opinion, he was woken up every half hour for the first year of his confinement and forced to acknowledge the guard. He was also subjected to strip searches and "anal inspections" every time he was moved, including from one cell to another, to the prison yard and back, etc. The court acknowledged that those can be reasonable for safety concerns in some situations, but considering that he was shackled when being moved, on camera, and watched by three officers, doing a cavity search before leaving one cell and after entering the next starts sounding more like punitive treatment rather than safety.

Re:Huh

[ShooterNeo]

Fair enough. That does sound like actual abuse. I read the article but not the direct court opinion.

Yes, in that light, the court decision seems far more reasonable. He might be a mass murderer - I can't even imagine how much of a tragedy killing that many people is - but that still is abusive treatment.

In the USA, of course, the courts would have never reached this ruling - even if the person suing were innocent.

Thus proving his point

[Hentes]

This just proves Breivik's point that Norway is too left-wing. I'd love to live in a utopian society where we can be just nice to everybody, where everybody's needs are covered and punishment is unnecessary. But in the real world, there will always be nihilists like this guy who ruin it for the rest.

Re:Thus proving his point

[KozmoStevnNaut]

No, it proves that Norway is correct.

By treating him the same as any other prisoner, his intended end result of his actions is nullified. He will not have changed society, he will not have made any kind of political impact, he will be worthless (in his own eyes), the same as everyone else.

It's the ultimate punishment for a narcissist like him.

Re:Thus proving his point

[guises]

Breivik never said that. He hates Muslims, that was the beginning and end to the motivation behind his killing spree. He has since identified himself as a fascist, so... Wait. Maybe I should be responding to the second part of your claim - how on earth does this prove anything about Norway being too left-wing? The fact that they have managed to stick to principles of humane treatment even when it comes to their most hated criminal is, if anything, witness to their strength.

Re:Thus proving his point

[KozmoStevnNaut]

He won't, because he will never be released.

And even if he did, he would be dead within a day. Which is part of the reason why he will never be released.

Re:Thus proving his point

[quantaman]

This just proves Breivik's point that Norway is too left-wing. I'd love to live in a utopian society where we can be just nice to everybody, where everybody's needs are covered and punishment is unnecessary. But in the real world, there will always be nihilists like this guy who ruin it for the rest.

So other than Breivik not being punished as harshly as you want what's the downside of this decision?

As for the upside I'm now very confident that prisoners in Norway are treated humanely.

Re:Thus proving his point

[Hentes]

Breivik never said that. He hates Muslims, that was the beginning and end to the motivation behind his killing spree.

His killing of socialists, you mean?

Re:Thus proving his point

[Hentes]

Even if he won't be released (that's not a certainty yet), he is getting out of solitary, so he will have his chance of causing trouble.

Re:Thus proving his point

[Kjella]

This just proves Breivik's point that Norway is too left-wing. I'd love to live in a utopian society where we can be just nice to everybody, where everybody's needs are covered and punishment is unnecessary. But in the real world, there will always be nihilists like this guy who ruin it for the rest.

In an average year, Norway (population ~5 million) has an average of about ~30 murders, mostly knife stabbing and mostly acquaintances, (ex-)partners or family and an average of about ~1.1 victim/incident. Even though a few murders happen with guns, mass murders are pretty much non-existent. He single-handedly tripled the murder rate in Norway that year from 35 other victims to 112 total.

As far as Norway is concerned, Breivik was a black swan event, in a place absolutely nobody saw as a target. That someone was going for maximum body count instead of some form of extortion and negotiation came as surprising as the crashing planes on 9/11. He's so far off the charts left or right makes no difference, the US had the Unabomber - is the US socialist? They're in that 0,000001% that are just homicidal and wacko.

As for this case, we're not putting him in isolation because we're trying to punish him extra. We don't really know what do with him because we know there are many inmates that'd like to kill him. And he's so "above and beyond" anyone else we got in our prisons - even convicted murderers in general aren't likely to reoffend for the reasons outlined above, while Breivik still hopes to lead some kind of revolution. He's unique and not in a good way.

Re:Thus proving his point

[KozmoStevnNaut]

He's a whiny cowardly manbaby who wouldn't last a minute against an opponent of his own size.

Re:Thus proving his point

[guises]

He attacked a group affiliated with the Labour Party, who he blamed for letting Muslims into the country. What's your point?

Re:Thus proving his point

[KozmoStevnNaut]

The "law" of Jante has been severely misused over the years, especially by people who think it's about envy or keeping others down.

It describes the behavior of small semi-insular societies, where everyone was expected to pitch in and work for the good of the community. If you took off on flights of unproductive fancy in such a community, you would be shunned and shamed for not contributing to the common good.

But we've moved beyond that. No one is really keeping anyone down anymore, talents are praised and encouraged. But we do have a severe dislike of ostentatious displays of material wealth for the empty and pointless self-promotion that it is. So actual talent = awesome, but meaningless displays of money = idiotic. Pretty sensible attitude, I'd say.

Re:Thus proving his point

[plague911]

Your whole whine about omg omg then he would have won. Is complete nonsense that screaming idiots use over and over again. They constantly scream you cant to X because the terrorists would have won. This is immediately followed by another idiot screaming you can't do !x because the terrorists would have won. You do what is right and that it. There are plenty of valid reasons to be against the death penalty your copout about "then the terrorists would have won" is just shit that those would no real arguments use. Think Bush post 9/11. That is you..

Re:Thus proving his point

[KozmoStevnNaut]

So, who gets to decide who lives and who dies?

Even though he took 77 innocent lives, that does not in any way justify the taking of even a single additional human life.

And no, my argument is not "then the terrorists win", it's "then violence and hatred wins". We must not give in to bloodlust and hatred.

Re:Thus proving his point

[plague911]

1)Society does.2) Yes it does 3) Those arguments are the same which was my whole point Mr.W 4) Sure we can,

Re:Thus proving his point

[KozmoStevnNaut]

And by "society" you mean who? The judges and juries who have made countless mistakes already and condemned innocent people to death?

Re:Thus proving his point

[plague911]

Yes.

Re:Thus proving his point

[KozmoStevnNaut]

So you're perfectly OK with thousands and thousands of innocent men and women being murdered, just so you can fulfill your revenge fantasies?

Re:Thus proving his point

[plague911]

Thousands is useless childlike hyperbole. Ten's. Yes.

My more ideal situation would be to split criminal trials into three categories "with reasonable doubt" "without reasonable doubt" and "no doubt"

"with reasonable doubt" you go free"

"without reasonable doubt" traditional punishments

"no doubt" for murder and rape you get executed with a week or two at most.

This guy clearly falls into the latter

Re:Thus proving his point

[KozmoStevnNaut]

But where do you draw the lines? Who gets to determine on which side of the line a particular case falls? You've just introduced sentencing without a proper trial.

And are you really ready to accept the murder of innocent people, just because you want to make absolutely sure that no criminal goes unpunished?

I take the opposite view. I would rather let 10 guilty people go free than have even 1 innocent person punished for a crime they did not commit.

There is no way to put this gently, so I'll just say it straight. Your views sicken me to my very core.

Re:Thus proving his point

[plague911]

Did you even bother to read the post you are responding to? Because it really appears like you didn't. That specific post was more or less a brief proposal specifically outlining a way to ensure that no innocents were executed. You seem to be posting the same canned questions Over and over again with no thought or analysis.

You've asked. The "who question above. It was answered directly. You asked again without any response to the idea.

You asked about the innocent above. It was answered directly. You asked again without any response to the idea.

and no worries I don't mind that my opinions bother you. I view your opinions as if they belong to someone with a "failure to thrive" an organism which has so little self preservation instinct that it will likely be removed from the gene pool within a generation or two at most.

Re:Thus proving his point

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Haha, you're kinda cute. "Failure to thrive", that's rich. I'm thriving like a motherfucker and set for life (and for future generations of my family), despite not sharing your views. But fair play to you for not knowing this, since we don't actually know each other.

You very specifically did not answer how you would even begin to split trials into three arbitrary categories, or who would set these categories. What you're proposing is a "guilty no matter what" judgement for some crimes, which is a complete mockery of justice. Not even "guilty until proven innocent", you're literally proposing "guilty no matter what".

Capital punishment is a barbaric practice not fit for any modern society. Nothing justifies murder, not even murder.

Re:Go ahead and commit suicide Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, go ahead and commit suicide Europe.

Why do you think such compassionate treatment is harming Europe? Norway has only 1/10th as many people locked up, per capita, as the US. Norway has one of the lowest recivisim rates once people leave prison as well. Crime rates are lower, including the murder rate and other violent crimes.

It's almost as if a default policy of treating prisoners like human beings leads to lower crime rates and less money lost on crime and punishment.

Re:Go ahead and commit suicide Europe

[TsuruchiBrian]

If you are so confident that "Europe" is so wrong, then why is it necessary to misrepresent the truth? The issue is about solitary confinement. Yes this guy is a piece of shit. He is still a human being, and I applaud Norway for having the humanity and integrity to treat even it's worst people as human beings. It's easy to protect the rights of likeable people.

Wait, wait

[Opportunist]

"Breivik is detained in a three-cell complex where he can play video games, watch TV and exercise"

Unless that exercise is mandatory... remind me please, what service do I have to do to the Norwegian state again to get free board and lodge with TV and video games?

Re:Wait, wait

[Striek]

First, you need to give up your freedom. Be denied all contact with all other humans, and be cut off from the world. You'd need to accept spending the rest of your natural life like that. Never again see a sunrise, or a rolling ocean. Never again join a motorcycle club. Never again say "Gee, it's nice out, I think I'll go for a walk!" Never again become excited with the arrival of spring. Never again feel the wind in your hair or the sun on your face. And accept that there is no hope, none, not ever, that that will ever change.

If you're willing to give up all that in exchange for a few video games, a treadmill, and three square a day, well sir, kudos to you. I wouldn't.

Re:Wait, wait

[irrational_design]

So, in other words the ideal living situation for the stereotypical techie! To be honest that almost does sound like the ideal living situation to me. I'd gladly give up ever seeing the outdoors again or ever communicating with another human again if I had unlimited access to any media I want and meals are provided for me.

Re:Wait, wait

[i_ate_god]

best comment in this discussion so far.

Re:Wait, wait

[Ghostworks]

In Texas we would hit him with a brick and throw the body in a ditch.

But yeah, playing X-Box alone also sounds pretty bad.

Re:Wait, wait

[110010001000]

Hmmm. Depends. How much would that cost me a month to get all that?

Re:Wait, wait

[Theaetetus]

So, in other words the ideal living situation for the stereotypical techie! To be honest that almost does sound like the ideal living situation to me. I'd gladly give up ever seeing the outdoors again or ever communicating with another human again if I had unlimited access to any media I want and meals are provided for me.

He also was woken up every half hour for the first year of his imprisonment, during which "he had to give a sign of life," and was subjected to constant strip searches and "anal inspections" any time he left his cell (e.g. to go to a different cell, to meet with his lawyer, to go to the prison yard, to come back from the prison yard, etc., etc.), according to the opinion. The court acknowledged that reasonable safety requirements allow for some searches and surprise inspections, but these were done in the interest of torture, not safety.

Re:Where would the "dismay" come from?

[Opportunist]

Where do you draw that line? Offing 4 people is no biggie but that fifth costs you your head?

Re:Go ahead and commit suicide Europe

[SumDog]

Why do you hate him? It's pretty obvious from that quote that his brain is in a very different place. He doesn't see the world the way that socially adjusted people do. He did something horrible, and probably doesn't even begin to comprehend it in any meaningful way.

He has to be kept away from society, but that doesn't mean he has to be tortured. Europe is right here. Solitary confinement is a human rights violation. It needs to be abolished in the US.

Whatever he did, no one, NO ONE, deserves to be deprived of all interactions indefinitely from other human beings. You can give them an xbox or whatever, but it doesn't make up for person to person contact.

The net result of our social democrat society.

[MindPrison]

This is where we went all wrong.

I'm norwegian myself - but the guy killed over 70+ people. This is the net result of our touchy-feely idiotic social democrat society where even the mass murderers have social rights. THE GUY KILLED OVER 70 PEOPLE - HIS RIGHTS WENT FLYING AWAY WITH THAT.

Re:The net result of our social democrat society.

[KozmoStevnNaut]

No. By doing that, you're just playing into his hand, he would have achieved part of what he set out to do, namely changing the Norwegian society.

By treating him the same as any other prisoner, you completely nullify his goals, the ultimate punishment for a narcissist like him.

Re:The net result of our social democrat society.

[drinkypoo]

THE GUY KILLED OVER 70 PEOPLE - HIS RIGHTS WENT FLYING AWAY WITH THAT.

Well, no. Either they're rights, or they aren't. Make up your mind.

Re:The net result of our social democrat society.

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Look at the recidivism rate in Norway compared to the rate in the US or even France. Much, much lower.

Please show me where capital punishment has ever deterred another would-be criminal. If that was the case, you would have barely any crime at all in the US, right?

Re:The net result of our social democrat society.

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Apparently a lot of slashdotters, to my sad realization.

slashdot is biased against murder

[Anonymous Coward]

Please try to be impartial.

Epic Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Breivik is master troll, now using soft Euro pseudo-morality against itself.

Re:Go ahead and commit suicide Europe

[KozmoStevnNaut]

The headline is highly misleading, he only won part of the case.

He won on the argument that article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights was broken, the part about inhumane treatment, referring to repeatedly invasive searches and complete isolation.

He didn't win the rest of the case, the part about the food and other general conditions, the whiny crybaby part.

This isn't a victory for Behring-Breivik.

[CleverNickName]

Someone once pointed out that hoping a rapist gets raped in prison isn't a victory for his victim(s), because it somehow gives him what he had coming to him, but it's actually a victory for rape and violence. I wish I could remember who said that, because they are right. The score doesn't go Rapist: 1 World: 1. It goes Rape: 2.

What this man did is unspeakable, and he absolutely deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison. If he needs to be kept away from other prisoners as a safety issue, there are ways to do that without keeping him in solitary confinement, which has been shown conclusively to be profoundly cruel and harmful.

Putting him in solitary confinement, as a punitive measure, is not a victory for the good people in the world. It's a victory for inhumane treatment of human beings. This ruling is, in my opinion, very good and very strong for human rights, *precisely* because it was brought by such a despicable and horrible person. It affirms that all of us have basic human rights, even the absolute worst of us on this planet.

Re:This isn't a victory for Behring-Breivik.

[haruchai]

"Putting him in solitary confinement, as a punitive measure, is not a victory for the good people in the world"
Won't be long before *imprisonment" is seen as cruel & unusual, the barbarous punishment of a bygone age and sentences will be served at home.

Re:This isn't a victory for Behring-Breivik.

[PraiseBob]

I'll grant that solitary confinement is cruel to most people. But there are plenty of people like myself, who would actually choose to be hermits and isolate ourselves from all other people if only our standard of living could be maintained.

The description of his living conditions is what I consider a great way to occasionally spend hard earned vacation time- avoiding people, playing video games, eating, sleeping. & shuffling between a few rooms. I wouldn't necessarily want to spend my entire life doing that, but I actually do spend months working at a job, to maintain this state of living for short bursts of time. To many people, his living conditions would be considered a reward rather than a punishment.

As an alternate approach, I remember a psychology study done many years ago on soap operas, and the people who watched them. It found that people considered the soap opera characters their friends, forming emotional bonds to them as they would with real people, because they saw the same characters on such a regular basis. Of course it is a one-way interaction, but maybe such a system could be a middle ground that mitigates some of the psychological damage that might result from isolation. Call it a modern-day oubliette, where no living person has to be exposed to his toxic mind, just to spare him any psychological discomfort. After all, when you stare into the abyss, it stares back at you.

Could it be also considered inhumane to force other prisoners to interact with an arguably evil man?

Re:This isn't a victory for Behring-Breivik.

[thinkwaitfast]

deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison

He was sentenced to 21 years. Do you believe rehabilitation is impossible or do you want revenge?

Re:This isn't a victory for Behring-Breivik.

[CleverNickName]

>Do you believe rehabilitation is impossible or do you want revenge?

I don't believe that someone who commits mass murder can be rehabilitated, no. It isn't about revenge; it's about public safety.

Re:This isn't a victory for Behring-Breivik.

[thinkwaitfast]

At what number does rehabilitation become impossible?

Re:This isn't a victory for Behring-Breivik.

[Locke2005]

In this case neither rehabilitation nor revenge is the objective. The objective is to simply keep this batshit insane sociopath from harming anyone else. Put him in the general population with lots of other murderers, and look the other way. You want to bitch about being in solitary? Fine, we'll give everyone access to you!

Re:This isn't a victory for Behring-Breivik.

[djinn6]

Rehabilitation is possible actually. For someone who committed the crime in one single incident, the possibility of rehabilitation is very high, because they were influenced by extremist ideology that, given time, can be corrected with reeducation.

But that doesn't mean he should be allowed to leave. Let's say the chance of recidivism is 20% (I'm taking the optimistic rate for Norway). That means there's a 20% chance of him going off to kill another 70 people. Is that acceptable? Is the value he can bring 80% of the time by being a productive member of society great enough to offset the next 70 people he would kill 20% of the time (14 people on average)?

Let's say the answer is no. Then consider why he should be kept alive at all. What value does he have by being alive and imprisoned? Is it just so others can feel good about the government having done the "right thing"? Is that worth however much it costs to imprison him for life?

If it were a country like India, the several million dollars spent jailing this one man could provide food and shelter to hundreds of others. They'd execute him without a second thought. But Norway doesn't have a need for that kind of money. So the ideal situation then, from a humanist perspective, is having Norway execute him, then give $5 million to India. Do this every time someone commits mass murder. Then maybe when India is as rich as Norway, they can stop executing people too.

It's a win-win for everybody.

Re:This isn't a victory for Behring-Breivik.

[djinn6]

Rehabilitation is possible. For someone who committed the crime in one single incident, the possibility of rehabilitation is actually very high, because they may have been influenced by extremist ideology that can be corrected with reeducation.

But that doesn't mean he should be allowed to leave. Let's say the chance of recidivism is 20% (I'm taking the optimistic rate for Norway). That means there's a 20% chance of him going off to kill another 70 people. Is that acceptable? Is the value he can bring 80% of the time by being a productive member of society great enough to offset the next 70 people he would kill 20% of the time (14 people on average)?

Let's say the answer is no. Then consider why he should be kept alive at all. What value does he have by being alive and imprisoned? Is it just so others can feel good about the government having done the "right thing"? Is that worth however much it costs to imprison him for life?

If it were a country like India, the several million dollars spent jailing this one man could provide food and shelter to hundreds of others. They'd execute him without a second thought. But Norway doesn't have a need for that kind of money. So the ideal situation then, from a humanist perspective, is having Norway execute him, then give $5 million to India. Do this every time someone commits mass murder. Then maybe when India is as rich as Norway, they would stop executing people too.

It's a win-win for everybody.

Re:This isn't a victory for Behring-Breivik.

[RespekMyAthorati]

At what number does rehabilitation become impossible?

1, if the victim is a stranger and the perp did it for fun.
Sadistic psychopaths cannot be rehabilitated, but they sure can trick others into believing they are.

Re:This isn't a victory for Behring-Breivik.

[jdavidb]

Wil, I love that whenever I look you up out of the blue you are saying cool stuff that makes me think.

Re:This isn't a victory for Behring-Breivik.

[jdavidb]

Is there any chance you'd consider gracing us with your presence at Soylent News? SN recaptures a lot of the magic of classic Slashdot, in my opinion. It started when a lot of people were over the top mad about Slashdot was being handled. I'm hoping that things are better here under new ownership, but I'm also hoping SN continues to flourish - it's been a great discussion site.

How enlightened

[GeekWithAKnife]

In principle it's great that the judge has upheld the rights of even the lowest scum in society.

On this matter I disagree with the judge. If you can play video games, watch TV and exercise you're doing far better than many people on this planet.

Perhaps Mr. Breivik should endeavour to thank all the people around him for treating him to some degree as a human. Be grateful and thank his lucky stars that he has landed in a prison system that is far too good for him. Wonder how is it possible that a parent of a murdered child has not yet manage to find a way to choke the life out of him only to stop before his demise only to repeat the process several minutes later.

Perhaps the judge has a point though, maybe he needs to be treated more fairly and equally. I say put him into general prison population...

Re:How enlightened

[Striek]

Perhaps the judge has a point though, maybe he needs to be treated more fairly and equally. I say put him into general prison population...

And then do nothing?

I seem to remember a quote about idle hands, or all that is required for evil to triumph, or one of those...

Re:How enlightened

[GeekWithAKnife]

If only the intricacies of subjective "good" and so called "evil" in our lives could be explained in a sentence how binary life could be.

Legal rights theory and practice should not always be the same. This person has murdered many others, targeting the young and vulnerable. This is vastly different than say a jealous husband plotting to murder his wife's lover.

Society has a prison system not to make inmates lives wonderful but in order to exact punishment. The death penalty is something I oppose because the debt to society would not be paid in many cases by a quit execution, painful or not.

More than that, in this case the debt cannot be repaid practically or theoretically. No amount of prison time will suffice. There simply sint a punishment we can inflict upon this person to mirror a fraction of the pain he has inflicted.
As we are semi-evolved beings in this day and age we offer the comfort of a cell. In this case with facilities to play games, exercise and even watch TV. Far too good of a cell many would agree.

So let the fucker rot, slowly, in the darkest corner of the smallest cell and until his last day. I'd pay good money for that.

Re:How enlightened

[GeekWithAKnife]

I am not sure I made any mistakes to be fair. Seems you are making the mistake of assuming my nationality.

You keep your mass murderer prisoners with TV, games and exercise options. That's fine by me.

You may agree though that it certainly is not much of a deterrent.

I assure you Breivik had a rather cool head when he did what he did. Cooler heads do not always possess an innate advantage ethically.

I would certainly not like to see him lynched. that would be too fast, too easy. Of course if the judge wishes for his treatment to be fairer I'm all for it :-)

Re:It's called *PUNISHMENT* for a reason

[KozmoStevnNaut]

He's in complete isolation. There is no worse punishment for a narcissist like him.

What has become of us?

[Okian Warrior]

And for comparison, here's what the US did to [then] Bradley Manning.

She was required to remain visible at all times, including at night, which entailed no access to sheets, no pillow except one built into her mattress, and a blanket designed not to be shredded.

Her cell was 6 × 12 ft (1.8 x 3.6 m) with no window, containing a bed, toilet and sink. The jail had 30 cells built in a U shape, and although detainees could talk to one another, they were unable to see each other. Her lawyer said the guards behaved professionally, and had not tried to harass or embarrass Manning. She was allowed to walk for up to one hour a day, meals were taken in the cell, and she was shackled during visits. There was access to television when it was placed in the corridor, and she was allowed to keep one magazine and one book.

On January 18, 2011, after Manning had an altercation with the guards, the commander of Quantico classified her as a suicide risk. Manning said the guards had begun issuing conflicting commands, such as "turn left, don't turn left," and upbraiding her for responding to commands with "yes" instead of "aye." Shortly afterwards, she was placed on suicide watch, had her clothing and eyeglasses removed, and was required to remain in her cell 24 hours a day. The suicide watch was lifted on January 21 after a complaint from her lawyer, and the brig commander who ordered it was replaced. On March 2 she was told that her request for removal of POI status—which entailed among other things sleeping wearing only boxer shorts—had been denied. Her lawyer said Manning joked to the guards that, if she wanted to harm herself, she could do so with her underwear or her flip-flops. The comment resulted in Manning being ordered to strip naked in her cell that night and sleep without clothing. On the following morning only, Manning stood naked for inspection.

Until I read the OP article, I had always considered the US to be a fairly civilized place. Reading about the Norwegian jail and how they generally treat their prisoners, I got the distinct feeling that we, the US, are looking up from the bottom of the curve at the civilized people of the world.

I remember a photo of Richard Reid being transported to Guantanamo, who was naked and strapped immobile to a gurney, and toted around in complete view of the public while being transported (hence the photo, which I couldn't find in a quick search).

Reid was SO DANGEROUS that he couldn't be allowed clothing, shackles weren't sufficient, and had to be sent to an offshore prison.

What has become of our great nation?

Sadistic abuse. Torture. Indefinite detention, long after it has lost relevance. Giving drugs to prisoners against their will.

We force feed them to prevent them gaining release by starving to death, just to continue the abuse.

I don't expect this level of retribution from GOD, let alone fellow citizens.

I just got a rude awakening and realized: we're the bad guys.

What has become of us?

Re:What has become of us?

[JustNiz]

Difference is, when this was happening, Bradley Manning had been arrested by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division, was still in the Army, and was being temporarily held in the Marine Corps base in Qunatico with POI status (Prevention of Injury), after being placed on suicide watch from his own actions while being detained in Kuwait earlier.

Re:What has become of us?

[thegarbz]

Difference is

The difference is the USA likes to justify away it's actions.

Re:What has become of us?

[Tom]

What has become of our great nation?

Maybe it never was so great, just now with more international information available it becomes more obvious?

Re:What has become of us?

[wvmarle]

The difference is that the US is keen on taking revenge, and the whole legal/prison system is designed around that.

Norway is about punishment instead, without allowing personal grudges to get in the way.

Re:What has become of us?

[JustNiz]

Nice vague arm-wavy random insult response to the actual facts there moron.

Re:Where would the "dismay" come from?

[KozmoStevnNaut]

If society chooses to jail people insted then you are limited by various human rights laws.

And rightly so. As monstrous as his actions were, he is still a human.

If Norway were to enact special Breivik laws, he would have achieved part of his goals of changing society with his actions. By treating him with the same basic respect as any other human being, he will have achieved exactly nothing, the ultimate punishment for a narcissist like him.

Re:Go ahead and commit suicide Europe

[Wootery]

NO ONE, deserves to be deprived of all interactions indefinitely from other human beings. You can give them an xbox or whatever, but it doesn't make up for person to person contact.

I'm not sure I agree that no-one deserves this.

A known jihadist radicaliser, for instance. There's a real risk to society for every minute of human interaction they're given.

Why is that worse?

[SuperKendall]

Obviously, in the USA (and most other countries), they would treat this man far worse. Most places he would have been executed.

He'd be better off because he would not be isolated.

The rest of us would be better off because we'd not be paying to keep him in inhumane conditions, and he would cause no further trouble for anyone.

I find it curious that you consider it "better" he essentially be tortured his whole life with solitary confinement and isolation to ponder his crimes rather than simply dispatched with and suffer no more. You are one sick bastard.

Re:Where would the "dismay" come from?

[Wootery]

Imho Normal societies should execute criminals like this by drawing up some boundary between 1 and 77 murders and saying "over x murders we just killem".

Why? What advantage do you think this will provide?

Re:Go ahead and commit suicide Europe

[smooth wombat]

but that doesn't mean he has to be tortured

What torture? What he is experiencing doesn't even register on the scale of torture.

Solitary confinement is a human rights violation.

No, it's not. It serves two purposes. 1) to prevent people like him from harming others as they have already done and 2) prevent others from harming him because of what they have done.

Of course had the police shot him this would have saved the taxpayers the money they are pouring down the black hole to keep him around. He is without a doubt guilty. There is no reason to keep him around since he will never be a productive member of society.

But as always, it's easy to be generous with other people's money.

By all means

[phorm]

PLEASE put him in with the general population...

Re:Go ahead and commit suicide Europe

[haruchai]

WTF?? He thinks microwaved meals to be worse than waterboarding?
Okay, replace his breakfast with a 5 min waterboarding session. That'll start his day off right.

" To everyone's dismay,"

[rickb928]

the summary purports to speak for everyone.

I am not dismayed that the court decided this in favor of the prisoner, and the summary editor does not speak for me.

AND NEXT.....

[dasgoober]

.... the comfy pillows!!!!!

Farmers and herders

[Okian Warrior]

People in general are horrible evil animals.

False. The Breviks of this world are an exception to the rule. Humans evolved to cooperate. Those who didn't pull their weight were generally less fruitful in the reproductive stakes and those anti-social traits remain rare.

Actually, that's not *entirely* true either.

Humans evolved into two categories, roughly "farmers" and "herders".

Farmers don't have to worry about someone stealing the fruits of their labor. No one's going to steal their crops unless they take the time and effort to harvest them, so the farmer doesn't have to worry too much about other people.

So farmers tend to be more easy-going, more forgiving, more intelligent (geometry, long-term planning, surveying), and more cooperative. It doesn't hurt you if your neighbour succeeds, so it's OK to help out when he needs it.

Herders worry about their flock being stolen. Anyone can steal their life's work overnight, or kill them and take the herd in an afternoon. They're always on the lookout for the other herder who wants to get a leg up by easy means. Your neighbour competes with you for grazing space, so helping him diminishes your chances.

So herders tend to be confrontational, quick to anger, and violent. They present a "don't mess with me" attitude to show the other herders that they can't be taken advantage of. They have have a highly evolved sense of honour, ritualized revenge, blood feuds, and massacre entire families.

(Studies on Americans show that the "quick to anger" trait can be predicted by ancestor type, and remains even 300 years after your ancestors came to America.)

And so we have interesting situations like the blue hills of Tennessee which were settled mostly by herders. Rocky, grassy area good for herds but not especially good for farming.

...and blood feuds (think Hatfields and McCoys) resulting in thousands of deaths over the course of a couple of decades.

You can paint certain people as "monsters", but it's not quite as cut-and-dried as that.

Some people evolved to be confrontational - that's all.

Re:Farmers and herders

[Okian Warrior]

At first I thought this was a clever Islamophobe troll, given the general quality of the comments lately, that was going to conclude by claiming that Christians and Jews are the farmers and Muslims are the herders. [...] Then I looked up and saw your nick, so I kept reading.

I cannot for the life of me find the book that presents this theory. It might have been this one. I think this might link to the original paper somewhere.

The study had students fill out a form and then walk down a long corridor to submit the form to the researcher. Along the way they had to slide past another student moving a locker.

After sliding past, the student moving the locker mumbled "asshole" under their breath. When the student got to the end to deliver the form, their stress hormones were measured.

(The student moving the locker was in on the research, and the student delivering the paper wasn't aware of any of this.)

The study found that people whose ancestors were farmers tended to let the insult go, while people whose ancestors were herders were more apt to take offence.

The book was quite engaging, especially the sections about the hill people of Tennessee. We only hear about the Hatfields and McCoys, but there was apparently a *lot* of killing going on in those small communities. Something like 14% of *everyone* died by violence in that small area during that time.

[Will's Mom:] “Die like a man, like your brother did!” She belonged to a world so well acquainted with fatal gunshots that she had certain expectations about how they ought to be endured. Will shut his mouth, and he died.”

It puts an interesting perspective on human behaviour.

Re:Farmers and herders

[reboot246]

You left out miners. Miners (and metal workers) have been around nearly as long as herders and farmers. Those three occupations are the three basic natural occupations.

Have you ever wondered why "Smith" is a very common name?

Re:Go ahead and commit suicide Europe

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I wonder if he has 1080p or is stuck with a European human rights-violating 720p.

Probably the Opposite of that

[DarthVain]

I think it is very likely given the gravity of his crimes, and the notorious nature that they are more worried about another inmate killing him, not the other way around. There would be a variety of reasons for an inmate to do it, but regardless the state has to make a reasonable effort to safeguard their wards, and if another inmate were to kill him that would probably be very much in question.

Re:Go ahead and commit suicide Europe

[Stephan Schulz]

but that doesn't mean he has to be tortured What torture? What he is experiencing doesn't even register on the scale of torture. Solitary confinement is a human rights violation. No, it's not. It serves two purposes. 1) to prevent people like him from harming others as they have already done and 2) prevent others from harming him because of what they have done.

Experts disagree. Solitary confinement isn't punishment. It's torture [...] The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has specifically condemned Woodfox’s treatment as torture and called on the United States to eliminate the use of prolonged isolation. As discussed, solitary confinement inflicts psychological injury on inmates subjected to it for more than a brief period of time.156 Though such suffering may be mental rather than physical, the punishment is still likely to be found "severe" under international laws prohibiting torture. [...] Solitary confinement use in the United States contravenes international law because it fulfills all four elements of torture.

But as always, it's easy to be generous with other people's money.

The Norwegian tax payers overall seem to be very happy with the system. Maybe because it works. Or maybe because they are understand international human rights standards.

Just kill him.

[argStyopa]

He killed 77 people, 69 on the island.
Mostly CHILDREN.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
Look through their pictures. 77 lives full of potential cut short.
77 families emotionally wrecked because of him.

I genuinely don't understand how his life is somehow sacrosanct?

If you genuinely believe that the taking of human life is somehow magically immoral, then I can credit you your convictions, and let Mr Breivik live out the rest of his life in misery in a steel 55gal drum. I'd be ok with that as a compromise.

But why is he entitled to "human rights" and "dignity" that he cheerfully tore away from so many? He is just another animal, one that is demonstrably dangerous and harmful.

He made the choice that he was no longer a member of society by committing his heinous acts. Society is under no obligation to re-admit him.

Re:Just kill him.

[MightyMartian]

Because there is no capital punishment in Norway. To execute him would either make that an extrajudicial killing (bad) or retroactively changing laws to allow him to be executed (also bad).

He lost the right to be treated as a human,

[melted]

He lost the right to be treated as a human the moment he killed the first kid on that island. Lock him up and throw away the key for all I care. I could understand the protest if the veracity of his guilty verdict was in any doubt whatsoever, but it's not. He did it. He's even fucking proud of it. He does not deserve to live, let alone receive humane treatment.

Re:Go ahead and commit suicide Europe

[religionofpeas]

At least he doesn't have NTSC, so he's spared from the worst.

Re:Go ahead and commit suicide Europe

[rastos1]

He is still a human being

Only based on DNA tests. There is nothing human about what he did on Utoya island.

odd–even rule

[epine]

The fact that he is still walking around healthy, warm, and well-fed is certainly cruel and inhuman treatment for the victims families.

Try speaking for yourself sometime. This is the same fucking smug, self-satisfied meme as "there are no atheists in a foxhole".

The marvellous but little known Christopher Hitchens deathbed conversion

Let me assure you, if the worst happened to one of my family members (choose me God—if you exist—rather than any of my family members if this is somehow necessary to maintain your "God moves in mysterious ways" shtick), I won't wake the next morning as a revenge fascist.

It's not that I lack the little clump of neurons (which evolved over the last six million years) that's directly connected to the dopamine kicker when the filth of the world get their just desserts.

No, the problem is that I have this other organ known as the cerebral cortex (if you have one) which understands that what comes around goes around, and that society needs to model restrained behaviour so as not to complete the feedback loop and actually cause a deeper regression into the methods and mores of the Spanish Inquisition.

As good as it might feel to take harsh / harsher / harshest revenge (is there any acceptable stopping point once you board this train?) it doesn't actually bring your dead family member back to life again.

Huh. Does not compute. Life is fragile. There is no undo key. Not even if you mash it with 10 million volts. To be an adult in this world, we must ultimately accept loss (no matter whether it arrives all bundled up in a conveniently filthy bag of skin).

There's this weird thing where so many Christians think that the odd testaments are the good testaments (this runs parallel to Beethoven's symphonies, and opposite to the Star Trek movie franchise).

In the third testament, the good Jesus returns to earth:

Jesus: I'm here to save souls and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of bubblegum. Commence operation "river of blood". Nobody in Texas ever had much time for the free-love, hippie testament. The third act can't come a moment too soon.

When I finally write What Jesus Got Right, there aren't going to be any appearances of either the first or the third testament. Then I'll go on book tour in the deepest, darkest heartland of Texas, and thousands of milquetoast admirers will flock to my book readings, who will privately confess "we just all feel shouted down by the shit kickers chewing grass stems".

I certainly won't the hell go on book tour in Norway. "What's your point, anyway? We already know this."

Re:odd–even rule

[epine]

Crap. Insert paragraph break before "Nobody".

Re:Go ahead and commit suicide Europe

[tnk1]

As a victim of both waterboarding and microwaved meals, I'm with him. Unless I can get the good Stouffer's stuff, you might as well tie me back on to the board and stick the cellophane over my head and get to work. At least the gagging and fear allows me to forget those horrible Swedish Meatballs I had to experience that one time. *shiver*

Re:Go ahead and commit suicide Europe

[TsuruchiBrian]

You don't think human beings are capable of murder? History is littered with the bodies of murder victims. For sure this guy is not a good example of our best qualities, but in the grand scheme of things, he's not such an outlier to no longer consider him human. His actions, while not typical are well within the range of observed human behaviors.

There are lots of bad people out there, and he's one of them.

Re:Go ahead and commit suicide Europe

[LynnwoodRooster]

Wait, are you saying the UN person in charge of defining what actions would be considered torture (and thereby increase their ability to foster regulations relating to their area of expertise) believes that wearing handcuffs when moving from cell to cell is torture? That only having human interaction with your lawyers, loved ones who come to visit (if any) and the general guard staff is torture? Shocking, I say!

Sad

[Locke2005]

The human rights violation was that they kept him isolated and alone... which is probably why he's still alive. Logical reaction is to put him out in the general population and look the other way. I'm sure there are plenty of good Norwegians that would just love the opportunity to take him out.

But are violent psychopaths really humans?

[dsmatthews9379]

Because the law only applies to humans and not to creatures that just look like humans but behave in a fundamentally different way to humans.

Re:Go ahead and commit suicide Europe

[Stephan Schulz]

Wait, are you saying [...]

No. What are you drinking?

Inhumane treatment, Norway style

[Applehu Akbar]

Peeling veneer in the sauna, questionable lutefisk in the smorgasbord. Mass killers just don't get the respect they once did in Scandinavian penal resorts.

Re:It's called *PUNISHMENT* for a reason

[plague911]

Maybe you are right. But we should sure try and think of something.

Re:Where would the "dismay" come from?

[plague911]

Cost & justice.

Re:Go ahead and commit suicide Europe

[Anonymuous Coward]

Yeah, go ahead and commit suicide Europe.

The funny thing is that you're repeating one of his slogans.

For those who ignore it, Breivik was not a mass killer for kicks, but a terrorist with well-defined beliefs about impending "suicide of Europe" through "cultural marxism", "political correctness" and "islamization". And in his eyes, his victims were not innocent children, but something like the next crop of brainwashed SJWs.

"Inhumane" treatment

[MichaelKaiserProScri]

Did anybody look up what his cell looks like? He's being held in a suite of 3 cells, each 8 square meters. That's 25' x 25' for my "non-metric" friends. He has exercise equipment, a bedroom, and a "study room" with a computer. He has a TV and can request books and videos to watch. He is in "solitary", but this does not mean he is deprived of human contact. It means he does not interact with other prisoners. He is, however, visited far more often than the average prisoner by prison staff and clergy. He is by no means alone, he has no more or less choice over whom he interacts with than the average prisoner, and it can be argued that he is safer and has nicer company from the prison staff and clergy than he would from fellow prisoners. His life is not and never will be in danger. This is highly generous for somebody who murdered 77 other human beings.

Why is this asshole still breathing?

[jcr]

It's absolutely insane that Norway hasn't put him down like a rabid dog.

-jcr

This is not about Breivik

[ta_gueule]

This is not about him, this is about us. I don't care what it does to him or what happens to him. The issue is what this does to us when we treat him in an inhumane fashion. We loose part of our humanity. Torture corrupts the mind of the perpetrator much more than the victim. That is why we don't do it.

Re:It's called *PUNISHMENT* for a reason

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Cut off from the rest of the prison population, only allowed extremely limited visits, no internet connection and so on.

OK, so it's not 100% complete isolation like in an American concrete torture box, but it's the highest degree of isolation possible in the Norwegian system.

Re:It's called *PUNISHMENT* for a reason

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Why? Do you get off on other people's suffering?

Re:Where would the "dismay" come from?

[Wootery]

It wouldn't be cheaper. Execution is far more expensive than long-term imprisonment, due to appeals courts.

If you doubt this, it's because you haven't done any reading on the realities of the capital punishment issue.

The 'justice' argument is somewhat more compelling, but I don't think it's enough. There's no deterrent effect for this kind of insane crime, so it doesn't really benefit society to execute the criminal. The only real upside is catharsis, but that comes at great financial cost, the risk of executing innocent people, and the subtler effect of normalising killing in society. (Some people also argue there's a slippery slope issue here, but I don't find that argument all that persuasive, at least not in civilized societies.)

Re:Rule of law and other things

[roninpunkboy]

"An eye for an eye, he deserved to be murdered 77 times"
Really ? as other people have already said that may work if it wasn't for miscarriages of justice, the tampering of evidence etc.
There are suggestions that he was not alone in this event, maybe that should be investigated properly before people get on their high horse and hand out judgement.

Re:Where would the "dismay" come from?

[plague911]

A) It is more expensive. Because the idiots get in the way. It should be cheaper. B) "so it doesn't really benefit society to execute the criminal" Killing these people is a moral good.

Re:It's called *PUNISHMENT* for a reason

[plague911]

I would enjoy this guy's punishment being more harsh. Revenge is a healthy part of the will to survive. Animals such as yourself who perhaps lack it are missing key parts of this survival instinct and much more prone to being removed from the gene pool. http://www.chicagotribune.com/... http://www.scientificamerican....

there are many more articles on the subject all indicating the same thing. Hurting those who hurt others is a basic instinct.

Re:It's called *PUNISHMENT* for a reason

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Revenge is a downward spiral. We should be better than that.

Re:It's called *PUNISHMENT* for a reason

[plague911]

Nope. It is one of the methods to keep populations in check and removing the advantage of individuals abusing each-other. Without revenge sociopaths take over and society breaks down completely. Good luck on being too weak to survive.

Re:It's called *PUNISHMENT* for a reason

[KozmoStevnNaut]

No, we have modern justice systems to handle the issues that revenge "solved" in the old days. Unrestrained revenge leads to vigilantism and chaos.

Would you rather we go back to tarring and feathering, and lynch mobs?

Re:It's called *PUNISHMENT* for a reason

[plague911]

Can't change animal biology over night. Or even within the time frame of modern civilization. Maybe a 1 million years we will have a society where revenge is not a necessary and productive social function. But that won't happen in either of our lifetimes. And yes unrestrained revenge leads to vigilantism and chaos.That is why we have a government to do it for us.

Re:Where would the "dismay" come from?

[Wootery]

It should be cheaper

Yeah... but it won't be, so...

Killing these people is a moral good.

Only if you view retribution as a moral good in itself. Seeing as it doesn't make the world a better place, I don't buy it.

Re:It's called *PUNISHMENT* for a reason

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Punishment for crimes is not revenge, I'm sorry you've misunderstood that. It's about keeping dangerous people away from the public, and hopefully rehabilitating them.

Luckily, we're a lot more enlightened than you seem to think.