In Norway, if you kill 77 people, the maximum sentence is 21 years in prison. You can be locked up longer than that if you are deemed to still pose a danger to society. What do you think about the massive differential between Norwegian and American justice?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Since you can get a longer sentence here for a less serious, non-violent crime (unless, of course, it is performed by or on behalf of a corporation), it is no wonder we have the highest incarceration rate in the world.
The quick answer is that our justice system is based on punishment and revenge as opposed to rehabilitation and public safety. Oh, and now that our prison system is increasingly privatized, we now have the added motivation of profit, which soon enough will eclipse punishment and revenge in assessing guilt and sentencing, if it hasn’t already.
I agree with most of this but I think I can live with mass murderers having to spend most of their natural life in prison. I don’t know that society needs people like that.
That’s what I mean by “public safety.” Also, note in Booman’s post that Brevik may serve a longer sentence if deemed to still present a public threat when the end of his sentence arrives.
Public safety would be best served if he were executed quickly and cheaply.
The Weimar Republic used a small, easily transported guillotine.
I assume that is not possible, but still.
Dead men never do it again.
Others might.
Given, however, that capital punishment is not possible, transportation for life to some place from which he cannot reasonably be expected to return, or anyway cannot return on pain of death, might work out well enough.
Who doubts Norway has wilderness amounting to a frozen hell where a fellow like this might actually survive for a time, but well away from the public to which he would be a menace, up close, with an axe and a dog-sled?
But if his countrymen feel for whatever reason compelled to spend lots of money on the fellow’s upkeep while protecting themselves (and us?) from him then by all means let them lock him up someplace forever.
Can you seriously imagine a hearing board deciding to let this guy out 21 years from now?
They would put the fools who let out Jack Abbott on Mailer’s say-so quite in the pale.
On the other hand, even in the present case and at least in principle, there is always the bare – even if extremely bare – possibility the system has convicted the wrong guy.
When that happens the public safety is actually harmed in two ways, at least.
First, the real bad guy is still out there posing whatever danger he poses.
And second, when the criminal justice system swallows an innocent man that is a harm to the public of which he is a part.
(The real bad guy being in contrast, of course, a public enemy.)
This risk accompanies any system at all of trying to find and deal with the guilty to protect the innocent, no matter how the guilty are dealt with.
It is not unique to the death penalty.
It might even be smaller, in death penalty cases, given the time and trouble and expense US states must go to before a convicted person can be executed.
Anyway, all of us pretty much assume we are better off if there is a criminal justice system to find and deal with the dangerous, and deal with them effectively and at reasonable cost, than if there is not, even in the face of what we must hope is a moderately low rate of mistaken conviction.
A rate we must wish to see lowered, certainly, if that does not unreasonably increase costs or the net danger to the public.
That much for the public safety angle.
I don’t for a moment suggest there are no other considerations to attend to, of different kinds.
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Because America is better…
More freedom, but more responsibility…access to guns…misuse, and you get lethal injection…
Norway…less freedom, less responsibility…you Progs should love that!
After all, wasn’t the killer a victim of his childhood? He’s not really to blame, is he?
Just like any American collecting a check from the Government is truly a victim of evil American Capitalism?
Right? Come on, Progs, aren’t we all victims, including this murderer in Norway?
I thought this was parody for a minute and then I realized you are serious.
You would stop using “you progs” in a derogatory manner.
Now to answer your question I think the Norwegian mass murderer should be in prison for the rest of his life. I think it is wrong that he isn’t. That said that doesn’t make our system any better.
For example you posted “misuse and you get the lethal injection” where it should be “misuse, don’t have the means to pay for a good defense, and you get the lethal injection” or “sometimes get railroaded even if you are innocent because you don’t have the means to have a good attorney and you get the lethal injection.”
Since there is no way to devise a death penalty system that can be guaranteed to never put any innocent person to death then I believe it is wrong for us to have that as an option.
By the way weren’t you chiding “us progs” in another thread for being black and white in our thinking. Seems to me that what you just posted is very black and white. Either we are Norway who gives a mass murdered 21 years or we are the USA where the state occasionally puts an innocent person to death. Seems to me there is a lot of area in between those two extremes for a more just system. If your thinking wasn’t so black and white on this issue you would probably see that as well.
Well…You’ve got two good points…
I’m actually opposed to the death penalty, primarily due to the fact that human beings are indeed fallible…I used hyperbole in an attempt to illustrate a point…
And I should probably not use all-inclusive terms like “you Progs”…sorry.
must be a sock puppet, had a different name yesterday.
Hey is this our new troll with a different name? sock puppet??
I just came back from five weeks in Sweden where I met a lot of visiting Norwegians as well – in fact, I shared a house with several of them. If you think Norwegians have less freedom than Americans, then you are in need of a major reality check.
Put simply: our society is barbaric. No one even asks why people should go to prison in the first place, they just want to lock people away in cages; other people, mind you. Should we be concerned with the well-being of our citizens, our society, and the public safety? Or just retribution and revenge? I sign on to to the former.
I think we only need to look at prison statistics and the percent of the population in poverty to know which country/society knows what the hell they’re doing with respect to public policy.
Half of the prison population should probably be immediately let out of jail. Another 25% should be somewhere else getting help. And perhaps 25% actually belong there…maybe.
And let’s not even get started on the conditions of our prisons, which would never meet the humanitarian standards of a Norwegian prison. Rape culture is universal, as the patriarchy dominates, but our culture celebrates violence to go along with it. And thus, we have a culture of prison rape that not only isn’t addressed, people fucking joke about it on a regular basis. Prison rape is not something that’s widespread, and it doesn’t occur just because people are in prison. It’s our own sick culture.
Hear, hear, seabe.
Future Americans will look back on our current prison system with utter shame. Like our treatment of Native Americans, slavery, child labor, and Jim Crow. Yes, many of those who are in prison deserve to be there (and of course many do not), but innocent or guilty, no human being deserves to be condemned to our horrifying state-sanctioned gulags. It is an utter waste of our national resources, human and capital, and it corrupts our national soul.
Truly shameful.
In many ways it’s why I can’t get worked up over Guantanamo, to be honest with you. Of course I oppose both, but we have tons of Guantanamos, all over the country. “They had a trial!” Yeah, ok…just the same show trials with people who can’t afford lawyers. Not much different. Justice system’s always been a sham…otherwise, as George says:
Had we listened to Carlin in 2001, there would have been fewer banksters around to perpetrate their first 21st century grand theft and financial meltdown.
That’s the point I was trying to make. Our justice system is founded on punishment and revenge, to the exclusion of prevention and rehabilitation. The closest thing we get to crime prevention is the discredited notion of deterrence.
We don’t even care when we accidentally incarcerate or execute innocents, because someone has to pay when a crime is committed. It’s with the utmost reluctance that our system allows a wrongly convicted inmate to go free, and with little or no compensation for having had his (usually his) life all but taken away.
It’s the stuff of books. There’s no quick and easy description of the failures of our justice system, but the foundation is flawed, and that turns the entire structure into a dangerous nightmare.
Once again, Seabe, we are in complete agreement!
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In the U.S. you have elections for the office of sheriff, prosecutor and judge. In the European countries these persons are professional and appointed from within the judicial system. In Norway you have lay magistrates, as we have seen on the bench in the court where Breivik was sentenced. As expected, Breivik will remain the rest of his life in jail. The victims of the shooting who survived and family of those killed, all accepted the verdict and sentencing. Only concern for Breivik was the verdict “sane” otherwise his manifesto would not get an audience. In the court system of Norway, sanity prevailed.
Thanks for looking that up, Oui. I was lazy and trying to enjoy the sun this morning. Rain expected, with heavy rains tomorrow morning.
Where is ask? I hope my comment is a concise picture of the Norwegian court. Recently I was trying to figure out the Swedish justice system and how their prosecution decided on the EAW for Assange.
Look in the cafe the last few days.
And I saw that diary/comments.
According to the reports I’ve seen, the victims’ families — as well as the Norway people, at least in general — approve of the sentence. I’m not sure why it seems to be a hot topic of generally-outraged conversation in the US. That seems pretty arrogant.
It’s also worth noting that simply looking at the length of time isn’t useful.
Americans? Arrogant?!!!!!
Naaaaaaaaah, couldn’t be.
21 years?
that’s not even a year per victim.
hell, it’s not even a half a year per victim.
that’s fucked up
“In a country that boasted only 0.6 intentional homicides per 100,000 citizens in 2009 (compared to America’s 5 per 100,000), this is easily the most devastating killing it has faced since World War II.”
Why is it fucked up? How many years would make it not fucked up? If he’d gotten life without parole would there be more mass killers in Norway because they’d be thinking “21 years in the pen ain’t so bad, so why don’t I just get me some guns”? Especially since this guy will in reality almost certainly be in prison for the rest of his life?
I feel sure that neither most Norwegians nor the killer himself expect that Brevik will ever go free.
We have a criminal justice system guaranteed to continue and expand employment for police, lawyers, judges, and jailers. And to provide careers for military veterans who can’t adjust to any other type of life.
Sirhan Sirhan and Charles Manson have their sentences reviewed periodically, and so does the killer of John Lennon.
But Texas has an assembly-line execution machine and similar states execute the mentally ill, mentally retarded, and those who have been locked up since they were minors.
And Randall Terry who has conspired in murders of doctors walks free while Occupy activists who at worst are disobedient of police at demonstrations are framed as “terrorists”.
It is clear that the American law enforcement system is not about criminal justice but suppression of certain folks that meet the criteria of profiling. And that the pressure is on the police to arrest anyone who can be plausibly indicted and tried instead of finding who committed the crime.
And all you need to do is compare the US crime rate with the Norwegian crime rate to figure out which is more effective from the point of view of criminal justice.
It seems like a sentence that befits a civilized country. Rational, restrained, human. I’d compare it to American justice as requested, but there’s no such thing.
OK, dump on me. I think mass murderers should be executed.
Are you prepared to do the executing?
Sure. IF I’m sure. I’m not proud of it but I’ve killed. It’s not pleasant, but sometimes necessary. I have fewer qualms about killing an evil man than an innocent animal, but still, I was grilling steaks last week. Killing and butchering a cow is ugly work and not even needed for survival. Still, I’m content to pay someone else to do it instead of being a militant vegetarian. I’d prefer to pay a hangman too, but I would do the job myself if I had to. I’d even want to if I was emotionally attached to the victim.
I’m aware of the problems with the Death Penalty. I think many of the same problems occur with the Life sentence. It’s easier to push a borderline case to guilty with Life. Juries tend to think, “If he is innocent, he can always prove it later.” There has been much talk about the horrors of executing an innocent man, but little about the horrors of putting an innocent man in a cage for life. Not long ago, here in Chicago, a man was released from prison for a rape-murder. DNA proved that he wasn’t the rapist and the skin under the victim’s fingernails wasn’t his. He had been convicted because of a confession obtained by police torture. (Think of that when Republicans tell you that torture works.) He was sixteen when convicted as an adult and in his mid-40’s when released from prison. Think of the horror of THAT. That young man’s life was taken as surely as if he had been executed.
Assuming that the killer did not stay in jail for the rest of his life, I would find that sentence quite lenient, almost comically so. Maybe that makes me less civilized than others, but I don’t particularly care. In any event, I’m not sure that this case is the best to use as a comparison of justice systems – reasonable people could agree that an extremely lengthy sentence is warranted for mass murderers such as this guy, and that reform of the U.S. system is necessary.
I certainly agree with that. I just find the Norwegian system worthy of note in that the sentence, even in an extreme instance like this, isn’t automatically set to life, yet it still can be extended when called for, as it most certainly is here. It’s like an odd reversal of the US parole system.
Either way, I don’t see any reason why Brevik shouldn’t spend the rest of his days behind bars–nor do I see any likelihood that he’ll do otherwise.