Well, I’d have a fast forward button the guy could push so he wouldn’t have to suffer so much if he chose. But I’m known for my compassion, so there’s that. 
The way I understand it, the possibility for extension has to be included in the original sentence, and it’s a court that makes the decision after a request from a public prosecutor.
So it might be fair to think of it as a life sentence where parole is automatically granted after a certain amount of time if no other action is taken.
It’s only the compassionate thing to do, right?
How is it “good” that a mass-murderer gets to spend 21 years in the lap of luxury? Maybe I should go to Norway, murder a bunch of people, and get to spend 21 years in a hotel room rent-free.
True, although that at least provoked some argument here.
Breivik is a loser with access to weapons. Manson controlled people’s actions and turned them into devoted murderers. They’re both equally dangerous and neither will get out of prison - calling Manson a choirboy is ludicrous.
When have you ever spent one night in a 9-foot-by-9-foot hotel room? (Nevermind that it’ll be a life sentence.) The “fitness center” appears to be a cell with a treadmill and an upper body exercise machine, and the third “study” cell has a desk and a computer with no internet access.
Prison should mostly be for keeping them away from society, and also for deterrence, so that a potential criminal will be deterred by the thought of being locked up.
What prison should not be for is retribution. Retribution makes no sense in a rational world; it just serves to satisfy the lust for vengeance that’s a product of our irrational sides.
What’s stopping you?
Norway’s system of justice seems to work. They have lower crime rates and people who have been imprisoned are less likely to recommit. We could continue to look at this one case on an emotional level and ask WTF is wrong with Norway or maybe we could take a step back and look at ourselves, we pay more for a broken system that yields worse results.
As reprehensible as he is, someone who manipulates other adults into killing nine people is not in the same area code as a man who personally murders 77 people, including children. If Manson gets out he’s not exactly likely to create a new cult of drug-hazed murderers. If Breivik got out he’d take the first opportunity to kill people in scores.
What you’re describing is a lack of opportunity, a lack of desire. Manson wanted to kill way more than 9 people. Way more than 77, for that matter. And it is not that hard to get the impression that people would kill for him today. There are still drugs and violent, weak-minded suckers out there.
How many of Victor Charlie’s sentences in this thread are going to end in a question mark? Some of them? Most of them? All of them?
What’s the point of torturing Breveik? Is it going to make him see the error of his ways–“Oh, now I am feeling pain, just like that I inflicted on my victims, I see now that I was wrong to kill them all”? Is it to deter future mass murderers? To restore some sort of cosmic karma meter? To make the rest of us feel good?
This guy killed a lot of people. No matter what we do to him, we can’t match what he did because he can only be killed once.
If Breveik is a psychopath and has to be killed to protect the rest of us, then only sensible way to do it would be to euthanize him like a rabid dog. We don’t feed rabid dogs into woodchippers while chanting “USA! USA! USA!”, even if the rabid dog got into a daycare center and ate a bunch of toddlers.
He’s not dangerous to anyone anymore because he’s currently locked up in a Norwegian prison. He’s a psychopath so he can’t be taught that shooting people is wrong. There aren’t any people out there who might shoot up a school if they thought they would get 21 years in prison, but would be detered if they thought they’d get 50 years.
So what’s the point? How are we the people helped if his prison is hellish instead of comfortable? How are we helped if his execution is painful and prolonged instead of quick and businesslike? Not that he’s going to be executed.
Sentences for criminal acts should be based on what’s best for us. The effect on the convicted criminal is secondary. Even if we try to rehabilitate the offender, we aren’t rehabilitating him for his own good, we’re doing it for us, so we don’t have to suffer from his anti-social behavior in the future.
People here keep trying to suggest a cause-and-effect correlation between long-term sentencing of murderers and overall crime rate. There’s no correlation here unless you’re suggesting that the longer they keep murderers in prison the higher the crime rate will go. That is, of course, absurd. Rehabilitation only counts for those getting out of prison. Unless you’re suggesting Breivik be rehabilitated so he can get out of prison, this argument is a loser.
Recidivism rates in the U.S. are not caused by keeping criminals in prison for life. They’re caused by, among other things, turning minor offenders into hardcore criminals before letting them out, which is a completely separate issue.
It’s also caused by cultural and socioeconomic conditions that are so unlike Norway any comparison between the two makes no sense at all.
So, for those who keep suggesting their crime rate is low because murderers serve shorter prison sentences I’d love to see some kind of cite. That’s a specific request because we’re dealing with a specific situation. This isn’t about the general approach to how prisoners are treated before release. If murderers are kept forever in prison as, in most cases, they should be, it would have no ill effect on crime rates. If anything it would guarantee that those not actually rehabilitated would never kill again.
Who’s talking about torture? Life without a laptop computer or private exercise space is torture?
Says who? Why can’t there be an aspect of punishment as well?
Breivik was sentenced to forvaring, which is legally different from imprisonment although it starts out the same. “Custody” would be a better translation. Basically, it works like this: He is sent to prison. At some point, no sooner than the day he has served ten years of his sentence, and no later than the day he has served twenty-one years, he must be re-examined to determine if he is still a danger to society. If so, he can be sentenced again, typically to five more years of forvaring. At the end of that period, he is re-examined again, and can be sentenced again. This process can in theory repeat until the prisoner dies. Think of it not as a 21-year sentence but as a life sentence with mandatory parole hearings.
As for the “luxurious”, “hotel-like” prison… Breivik is being held at Ila Prison here in Bærum (yep, a few kilometers from my house). He will remain there for the forseeable future. A typical cell there is eight square meters, about the size of a small bedroom. The police have issued a photo of a typical cell at Ila. (This is NOT Breivik’s cell, although for security and privacy reasons they’re not saying how his cell differs from normal. I’m betting there aren’t as many loose items, for one thing.) They also issued photos of his “exercise cell” and his “work cell”. That laptop, by the way, has no Internet access. He has the use of three cells only because he cannot at this time have access to the common areas shared by other inmates. Oh, and one hour a day, he gets to go outside in a fully enclosed courtyard, which has a special barbed-wire “ceiling”. If those were the conditions at a hotel where I was staying, I’d definitely complain to management.
Giving prisoners a hope of release before they die is not just about rehabilitation or forgiveness. It’s a control mechanism to help moderate the behavior and mentality of prisoners while they are still imprisoned. It offers a possible reward for good behavior, so the prisons with lifers don’t become survivalist jungles.
I assume he has to have a private space for his own protection.
But yes, stuffing him in an empty cell with nothing to do for 21 years would be torture.
The more obvious argument is that countries that don’t treat their citizens like animals tend to have less violent crime.
But it’s NOT a separate issue.
I beg to differ. There are four primary theories of punishment:
[ol]
[li]Desert. As in, you did something bad, you deserve to be punished.[/li][li]Protection of society. You are a danger to the public, so you should be locked up to prevent people from getting hurt.[/li][li]Rehabilitation. You’re a bad person, we’ll try to turn you into a good person.[/li][li]Deterrence. We will punish you so that everyone can see what happens to people who break the rules.[/li][/ol]
A sentence this short, in my opinion, fails at all four. It’s less than he deserves, society will not be protected as long as it should, he’s incapable of meaningful rehabilitation, and light sentences do not deter crime.