How Heavy is Heavy Handed?

I was under the impression that Norway has the option to delay Breivik's release pretty much indefinitely if he is still considered to be a danger to society after 21 years. Given the complete lack of remorse he has shown up to this point, I'd be extremely surprised if they ever consider him anything but a danger.

He'll be in prison for the rest of his life, I imagine. Handing down a 21 year term is probably just a formality in this type of case.

I've never liked the idea of the death penalty since I feel like it's state-approved murder (tinfoil hat moment: I'm wary of giving powers to the state that subsequent governments could choose to use against citizens) but I can understand why people feel differently about it, particularly when the matter is closer to home.

I believe in rehabilitation but I also believe that there must be very good checks and balances where a decision to release vs not release is being made about somebody convicted of violent or sexual offences. Clearly where there is any significant doubt whatsoever (I feel repeated violent/sexual offences over a significant period of time are probably enough to cast doubt for life) they should always tend towards not releasing. However, a screeching mob of tabloid-reading kneejerkers is not a good enough reason to prevent someone's release in cases where everything else points to their release being suitable. Not that anybody here was suggesting that at all, but I've seen enough of it elsewhere (e.g. on Facebook) to suggest that some people really think it ought to be.

 

Assertions of overpopulation are simply untenable. They're loaded with with unstated and unsupported assumptions and to put actual numbers on it relies on math that can be safely labeled 'dubious'. Even if I ignored those problems, overpopulation is a particularly bad argument for eugenic cleansing, even of our worst criminals. It's also very easy to be cavalier with the lives of total strangers. Somehow, I doubt you would be so flippant in regards to rehabilitating these 'wackos' if they were your own parents or children and could be made well.

As for your last question, I'm not sure I quite understand it. It seems somewhat malformed to me, but I'll do my best to answer it anyway. No, I wouldn't let my son go camping with Mr. Sandusky. For starters, I don't know him and I'm not in the habit of letting my children go off into the woods with strangers. Nor, for that matter, do I have any faith in the ability of current medicine to rectify his problem. If it could, there likely wouldn't have been a problem to begin with. However, if we're going to play the hypothetical situation game: Yes, if a person I knew were sick in this way, was close enough to me that I would otherwise let him go and modern medicine had an understanding as comprehensive and a treatment as efficacious as that for scurvy, then I would let him go.

 

You see, Hektore, Anders Behring Breivik has effectively overpopulated the earth by a factor of one-too many wackos.

We also trusted lots of our kids with Jerry Sundasky. So much that we let him molest them without consequence for a very long time. You tell me if Jerry was your uncle or father or kid you'd ewant him out in the wild with the rest of the population.

 

I have no idea what you're getting at with your first paragraph, but if it's that population reduction would somehow alleviate society of its mentally ill constituents, I don't really have anything to say except that you're flat out wrong.

As for the second, I believe I already provided the circumstances in which I would find it acceptable to release either of the gentlemen in question.

 

That wasn't the position we had. You jumped into this conclusion. We can rehabilitate bank robbers and larcenous dipshits. We can't however, rehabilitate Breivik.

Oh yes, stay calm. I'm calm. I'M FUCKING CALM!

I was also being facetious with that comment about wackos in my earlier post.

 

I would hope they are not, but I'm not really sure what else the point could be, unless it was just some sort vacuous rhetorical flourish. But that wouldn't be a very nice thing to say, let alone the sort of thing I would expect someone would cop to.

Edit: Ah I see that was the point, but meant in irony. Satire if you will. So, a substantive rhetorical flourish of a sort.