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Comments
20-odd years is the maximum sentence for killing a shitload of people?
What the fuck?
^ Norwegian justice system is not your American justice system
and his defense attorney looks so sad...
The Norwegian prison system tries to focus on rehabilitation. Decades of imprisonment don't really help that.
Rehab is well and good for stuff like drugs, minor violent crimes, and even some of the major ones, but unrepentantly slaughtering dozens of people seems like the kind of thing you shouldn't bother.
It's a matter of principles. You at least have to try.
So he could end up spending the rest of his life in prison
I'm generally fine with that, as long as they're going to keep on extending. I kind of pity though that he won't end up in a single cell with Vikernes.
Hmmm... This gets me thinking. You know, given how I've been building up a reputation of an abrasive right-wing loonie, at least for some time. Now I feel like here I should have said something... more hawkish.
I disagree, I can hardly imagine a criminal that is still dangerous after sixty years in jail.
I can. Sixty years in jail means that one is acclimatised only to life in jail, so the outside world is suddenly even more alienating and hostile. Some people fall right back into their old patterns, since they don't know any other way to exist on the outside. Rehabilitation aims to ready prisoners for functional life on the outside, although it's not helped by how difficult it is to get a secure job as a former prisoner.
If someone's been to jail, it really hampers their capacity to reintegrate on a lot of levels. There's the jobs missed out on, the relationships that are no longer there or hanging by a thread, time spent doing nothing, and the time spent rotting intellectually (and perhaps physically). Getting out from a sentence of years is on one hand a happy moment, but often becomes frightening very quickly. Then there's the culture within jails and prisons, which is hypermasculine to an excessive degree.
Getting let out of a jail that doesn't focus on rehabilitation is like cold turkey in reverse -- you're immediately reintroduced to your old world, but with more limitations. So many people seek comfort in their old patterns, and consequently end up in jail again after a while.
^ Psst, the joke is that one is too old (or dead) after sixty years in jail to be a dangerous criminal.
If you are still able to grab a gun and fire it, you are still a dangerous criminal.
^^ I know, but the point is that trying to win psychologically with a long sentence is just asking for a backfire.
^ And there's that.
^^ Point.
I think this helps give a better idea of Norway's approach to prisons in case anyone is interested.
^ That seems completely reasonable
The thing about somebody still being dangerous after sixty years in an American prison (or a prison in another country with a justice system similar to the one in the U.S.) is that, let's be honest here, rehabilitation often isn't a high priority in prisons like that.
I believe that people can change. They won't always, but there's a chance that they can change if you try to get them to change.
The American prison system isn't conducive to somebody changing for the better. For starters, a lot of the prison staff WANT the inmates to suffer while they're in there, and while I don't question the need for a deterrant I do strongly question how good of an idea it is to take an unstable individual who's committed assault or murder and--instead of trying to make that individual more mentally stable--subject him or her to the kinds of conditions that are likely to make them even crazier.
(The notorious Sheriff of Arizona's Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio, is on the record as saying that he intentionally tries to make people's stay at his jail as miserable as he possibly can. I'm sure he isn't a unique case.)
Solitary confinement, for example, is known to fuck people up mentally and emotionally. Obviously getting raped or beaten up inside a prison is going to fuck you up mentally and emotionally. The racial divides inside of American prisons--where it's developed so that there's gang warfare between white, black, Hispanic, etc. and a new inmate who is black, for example, is expected to side with other black inmates in disputes if he knows what's good for him--probably do turn people into bigots, because if you become conditioned to see people of a certain race as your friends and people of a certain other race as not to be trusted, then that's gonna cause problems for you if you ever get out.
Those factors and others--like the reluctance of business owners to hire ex-cons, as mentioned above--contribute to the recidivism rate.
TL;DR: if the prisons are hellholes, then obviously you can't expect people to go in and come out changed for the better.
The solution, IMHO, is to make sure that prisons aren't hellholes. Or at least not a hellhole on the level of a San Quentin or Corcoran. And if that's what Norway does, then there's a chance that it can rehabilitate people.
And if it does rehabilitate somebody and they stop being dangerous, then should that person be kept under lock and key for the rest of their life?
Varg Vikernes is already out on parole, the fucker.
But, really, I don't think having the two of them anywhere near each other is a good idea.
Also this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison–industrial_complex
I wonder if he'll be sent to one of those prisons that look like vacation resorts.
Probably, it's Norway. Their prison system seems to be more about protecting people outside of prison than punishing those who are inside. It's better that way.
(Wasn't saying that's a bad thing.)
Sorry to necro the topic, but I feel this is worth it.