Worst day in Norway since WW2

[WhiningKhan]

Surely one can be batshit crazy and still able to make plans and follow them through.

Depends on how you define 'crazy'. AFAIK, psycopathic violent behaviour is not officially considered a mental illness. If you voluntarily plan and conduct atrocities, you are not crazy; you are responsible of your deeds. But if you do such things because you are afraid that demons inside your head will otherwise eat your soul, that's a 'get out of jail free'-card.

 

[Alexko]

Depends on how you define 'crazy'. AFAIK, psycopathic violent behaviour is not officially considered a mental illness. If you voluntarily plan and conduct atrocities, you are not crazy; you are responsible of your deeds. But if you do such things because you are afraid that demons inside your head will otherwise eat your soul, that's a 'get out of jail free'-card.

What if you plan and conduct atrocities because you're afraid that demons inside your head will otherwise eat your soul?

I admit I've always been confused by this issue.

 

[Arwin]

Isn't this particular brand called sociopath?

EDIT: no, this WHO definition is what I was after (from wiki):

WHO

The World Health Organization's ICD-10 defines a conceptually similar disorder to antisocial personality disorder called (F60.2) Dissocial personality disorder.[5]

It is characterized by at least 3 of the following:

Callous unconcern for the feelings of others and lack of the capacity for empathy.
Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules, and obligations.
Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships.
Very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence.
Incapacity to experience guilt and to profit from experience, particularly punishment.
Markedly prone to blame others or to offer plausible rationalizations for the behavior bringing the subject into conflict.
Persistent irritability.

The criteria specifically rule out conduct disorders.[6] Dissocial personality disorder criteria differ from those for antisocial and sociopathic personality disorders.[7]

Horrible stuff anyhow. I go to Oslo regularly for work (will be going there again soon) and have a branch of relatives living an hour above Oslo.

 

[I.S.T.]

Depends on how you define 'crazy'. AFAIK, psycopathic violent behaviour is not officially considered a mental illness. If you voluntarily plan and conduct atrocities, you are not crazy; you are responsible of your deeds. But if you do such things because you are afraid that demons inside your head will otherwise eat your soul, that's a 'get out of jail free'-card.

Get out of jail free cards because of mental illness do not exist. You get sent to a mental hospital for the criminally insane, and often stay there for the rest of your life if your crime was violent.

 

[Grall]

In the US, perhaps. Not neccessarily in Scandinavia...

While Norway may be different/better, there's been a number of high-profile murders and whatnot here where the perpetrator was declared mentally insane during the event, only to more or less dodge punishment at the time of trial because his condition had normalized in the meantime...

 

[I.S.T.]

In the US, perhaps. Not neccessarily in Scandinavia...

While Norway may be different/better, there's been a number of high-profile murders and whatnot here where the perpetrator was declared mentally insane during the event, only to more or less dodge punishment at the time of trial because his condition had normalized in the meantime...

Wow. Y'all need to fix that.

The only reason people get let out of mental hospital prison(Which is basically what it is. They keep these people on super lock down) in the US is basically if their term expires if they were not violent in their crimes, or if they're deemed no longer a danger due to their condition being under total control or close enough(I.E. they may have like mood swings or whatever, but they ain't gonna kill people because voices are telling them that they are demons).

 

[Grall]

Wow. Y'all need to fix that.

Well, perhaps not.

You see, the reasoning behind this is because courts are supposed to be about justice and not retribution. If you're crazy and can't be held responsible because you're not acting rationally - hearing voices or whatnot - then you could be committing acts that you would not have done in a normal state.

So the court needs to take that into consideration. If you're then punished, then you're not getting punished for the act itself but rather for having had the misfortune to become mentally ill.

...Or that's my layman's interpretation anyway. I could be missing some subtleties here of course.

 

[Arwin]

or if they're deemed no longer a danger due to their condition being under total control or close enough(I.E. they may have like mood swings or whatever, but they ain't gonna kill people because voices are telling them that they are demons).

So not that different then.

 

[Sonic]

Well, perhaps not.

You see, the reasoning behind this is because courts are supposed to be about justice and not retribution. If you're crazy and can't be held responsible because you're not acting rationally - hearing voices or whatnot - then you could be committing acts that you would not have done in a normal state.

So the court needs to take that into consideration. If you're then punished, then you're not getting punished for the act itself but rather for having had the misfortune to become mentally ill.

...Or that's my layman's interpretation anyway. I could be missing some subtleties here of course.

That's not justice. While it may be unfortunate that some persons are crazy and end up killing people they are still the ones who did it and need to pay for their violent crimes against others. And fuck that, if someone kills 90+ people crazy or not they should be held responsible. If this man somehow gets a lesser sentence or walks free for claiming mental incompetency/crazy then the Nordic system of justice has failed. At minimum put this guy behind bars for life, if there's no death penalty in Norway, time to make an exception.

 

[Grall]

Sonic, what you want is revenge, not justice. Our Nordic system of justice is far more effective than the death penalty-riddled system in the US. How many million people are you holding behind bars now...?

Prisons and death row has become its own industry over there hasn't it?

 

[rpg.314]

If this man somehow gets a lesser sentence or walks free for claiming mental incompetency/crazy then the Nordic system of justice has failed. At minimum put this guy behind bars for life, if there's no death penalty in Norway, time to make an exception.

No society lets criminally insane walk free.

 

[Zaphod]

That's not justice. While it may be unfortunate that some persons are crazy and end up killing people they are still the ones who did it and need to pay for their violent crimes against others.

To what end? It won't serve as a deterrent, nor will it protect society. Norwegian law speaks to having "a lack of consciousness" during the act or having a "permanently limited cognitive ability". If you lash out and kill someone during a psychotic break, "punishment" will serve society no more than punishing someone who accidentally drives into a crowd during an undiagnosed epilepsy attack.

In the first instance, they'd be sentenced to a high security mental institution until such time when they're not a danger to themselves or other, in the latter they'd probably never drive again. To some, that might not be as cathartic as vengeance, but it is justice.

And fuck that, if someone kills 90+ people crazy or not they should be held responsible. If this man somehow gets a lesser sentence or walks free for claiming mental incompetency/crazy

He won't. While he might be "crazy" in the sense that there's some severe personality disorder, there's no indication of psychosis or limited cognitive ability. And even if there was, given that he apparently had meticulously planned this for a decade of feigned "normalcy", I struggle to see how any psychiatrist could trust him to the point of declaring him "cured". Even after years and years of apparent recovery and reform.

At minimum put this guy behind bars for life

He risks up to a 30 year determinate sentence or a sentence of "preventive detention". The latter can be renewed in five year intervals for an indeterminate amount of time (after the initial period of up to 21 years) if the detainee is he is still considered a danger to society.

The biggest problem with locking him up post sentencing will probably be where to put him. Norway have exactly one enhanced security wing in a prison where there's the long term facilities to completely isolate a prisoner from all other inmates. And they might not be able to put him there if it interferes with the operation of the unit with regards to its normal use. I suspect there for many years will be a high risk of him being killed if other other prisoners are allowed near him.

if there's no death penalty in Norway, time to make an exception.

No. Changing one of the pillars of a justice system (which in most ways works remarkably well) in such a way in response to the acts of one evil man would only let him win.

 

[homerdog]

The biggest problem with locking him up post sentencing will probably be where to put him. Norway have exactly one enhanced security wing in a prison where there's the long term facilities to completely isolate a prisoner from all other inmates. And they might not be able to put him there if it interferes with the operation of the unit with regards to its normal use. I suspect there for many years will be a high risk of him being killed if other other prisoners are allowed near him.

They should let him be around other prisoners. And they should not allow him to tie his soap to a rope.

No. Changing one of the pillars of a justice system (which in most ways works remarkably well) in such a way in response to the acts of one evil man would only let him win.

He gets executed -> winning?

I think in his mind he "won" when he murdered 76 people. That's gotta be way better than he'd expected. And on top of that he gets to spend the rest of his life in a Norwegian prison.

 

[Zaphod]

He gets executed -> winning?

In his mind, yes. Reenacting the death penalty or enacting other draconian measures would be a "bonus", a step in the "right" direction.

I don't want that in our society. We don't need it. Let him rot.

 

[homerdog]

Yeah let him rot in a secluded private island community.

I'm not saying they just draw and quarter him in public. Just a shot in the arm. I guess we're off to RPSC with this.

 

[I.S.T.]

Well, perhaps not.

You see, the reasoning behind this is because courts are supposed to be about justice and not retribution. If you're crazy and can't be held responsible because you're not acting rationally - hearing voices or whatnot - then you could be committing acts that you would not have done in a normal state.

So the court needs to take that into consideration. If you're then punished, then you're not getting punished for the act itself but rather for having had the misfortune to become mentally ill.

...Or that's my layman's interpretation anyway. I could be missing some subtleties here of course.

This is less about retribution and more about preventing someone who cannot control their own mind from hurting others.

 

[Sonic]

I'm not trying to turn this into an argument of which legal system is better. Trust me, I find ours incredibly broken and profit driven.

Our perspectives on justice are different. Executing him is not really meant as a deterrent but more as getting rid of a waste of human flesh that killed so many in cold blood.

Zaphod, thank you for taking the time to educate me in the sentencing of this type of crime in Norway.

 

[Sonic]

Ok, I created a thread in RPSC forum for this very discussion so this thread is no longer derailed. Any responses and replies regarding the last few posts should head to the RPSC thread.

 

[hoho]

One sad thing about it is that it gives one more thing to throw at people when governments want to get closer to police state. It already happened here in Estonia. Just a couple of days after the incident officials proposed allowing the police to identify people's IP addresses without having to have a (probable) cause to "speed things up and avoid events like in Norway". Well, it wouldn't have helped there as the guy was already in police watchlist for months and that was of no use.

 

[fellix]

The place where Breivik will most likely spend his sentence:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/07/25/the_super_lux_super_max