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Sure, but even if he's kept away from society for life (which is far from guaranteed), he still gets to enjoy a decent standard of living. http://content.time.

Sure, but even if he's kept away from society for life (which is far from guaranteed), he still gets to enjoy a decent standard of living. http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1989083,00.html http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1989083,00...

logn 12y ago
I think that giving an evil person a decent standard of living is worth it so that all the other people who eventually enter society again are properly rehabilitated. Also, like the article pointed out, I'm not sure many people really appreciate how harsh prison is. Even with cable TV and AC, it's still prison.
tormeh 12y ago
And so what? The prison sentence is not punishment for him - it's protection for the rest of us. Punishment has no other function than being petty revenge. I guess you could make an economic case for simpler lodgings, but the prison wasn't made for him - It would probably cost more to alter his cell for the worse than just keep it standard.
- argumentum 12y ago
  Call me old fashioned if you will, but I support the idea of just punishment as a deterrent in violent crimes such as murder. I wouldn't call it revenge, rather justice: the idea that you are held to account for the harm you cause others.
  - thirsteh 12y ago
    It's understandable, but also a large reason why the U.S. prison system doesn't work well. People naturally want people to pay for their crimes, but what society actually needs is for those criminals to be rehabilitated. A very large number of the people incarcerated in the U.S. are repeat offenders, hinting that merely locking somebody in a cage and depriving them of their rights for a long time does little good after the prison term ends. There are some cases where it's simply impossible to say with some measure of certainty that somebody is rehabilitated, but even the most lenient countries (Norway and the rest of Scandinavia) have measures to protect the rest of the population in those cases. Repeatedly determining that Anders Behring Breivik continues to be a threat to society is Norway's form of capital punishment.
    - argumentum 12y ago
      Well, I'm of the belief that certain crimes are beyond rehabilitation. No matter how "rehabilitated" Anders Breivik is, he still deserves to be locked up. He should never again interact with the society he so evidently despises.
      - thirsteh 12y ago
        First, he probably will be locked up forever, unless someone declares him sane (which, in my opinion, will never happen.) Second, I would agree if you said "certain criminals are beyond rehabilitation." There are people who have incurable mental problems, but they make up a very small minority of the people incarcerated in the United States.
        argumentum 12y ago
        I'll stick with "crimes" .. people should be rewarded or punished for what they do not for who they are (or what some doctors claim they are).
        thirsteh 12y ago
        I didn't say put people with mental problems in prison. Here's a thought experiment: Would you treat a man who took revenge on his wife's murderer by killing them the same as the murderer, a psychopath who decided to kill the wife because they were bored? Obviously, neither One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or American Psycho is desirable, but if you ask me to choose, you can guess which one I'd pick. (Btw. even if you disagree, the U.S. has a tremendous amount of hate-crime legislation, which does punish people for what's on their mind.)
        argumentum 12y ago
        I totally agree motive should be a factor in sentencing, not sure where you read otherwise ..
      - 12y ago
  - angersock 12y ago
    The only "just" way of going about it is summary execution at the earliest opportunity, right? Anything else is basically just society taking revenge. As for deterrence, I'm not sure that you want to build a system on that as we have; people ought to follow the law and not murder because it is the right thing to do, not because they're afraid not to. If you have a system motivated by fear, it means that any external fear (psychological defect, job-related, desperation-related, or just plain being too drunk to remember that injuring others carries a stiff penalty) has the opportunity to override your system. Murder isn't right, but we should be trying to figure out why it occurred and how to prevent it in the future and rehabilitate the person (or dispose of them forthright)--torture and punishment doesn't benefit anyone.
    - argumentum 12y ago
      > As for deterrence, I'm not sure that you want to build a system on that as we have; people ought to follow the law and not murder because it is the right thing to do, not because they're afraid not to. The problem is there are certain individuals constitutionally incapable of doing "the right thing". They have no respect for the lives of others, and can only be deterred by fear of punishment. We call them psychopaths.
      - thirsteh 12y ago
        The problem with psychopaths is that they don't fear anything, although they may rationalize (in their mind) that some consequence will prevent them from doing X, Y, Z thing they want to do, and thus avoid it. Anyway, violent psychopaths belong in mental institutions (for life, if it is determined that they remain a threat to society.) I don't think many people disagree with that. This has almost nothing to do with, for example, sentencing on crack being tougher than on cocaine, and rape being worse than murder. Also, most people convicted of crimes aren't psychopaths, although they often have (fixable) mental problems.
  - sobkas 12y ago
    Is there a justice in government torturing people because You think they might not be punished enough? Then what You would do to innocent people that ended in prison, untorture them? Your justice is that kind of justice the Kolyma was know for.
  - tormeh 12y ago
    But it's not a deterrent. It should be, but humans are not rational actors and it turns out that punishment doesn't work as a deterrent.
    - nl 12y ago
      It is in some cases. In some cases the fear of being caught and punished is sufficient to stop some crimes.
marvin 12y ago
This is completely incorrect. Breivik has been kept in solitary confinement since he was convicted, which is close to two years at this point. They purpose-built a separate isolation facility within the prison to house him. It's quite firmly established at this point that solitary confinement is torture, but apparently the Norwegian prison system has the discretion of deciding to do this without any input from the judicial system. In my opinion, this is a horrible blemish on an otherwise good Norwegian legal syste, but it's understandably a sore subject. There has been very little debate around this point. Hard to bring this up when most of the kids he murdered were the acquaintances or children of the biggest political party at the time.

logn 12y ago

I think that giving an evil person a decent standard of living is worth it so that all the other people who eventually enter society again are properly rehabilitated. Also, like the article pointed out, I'm not sure many people really appreciate how harsh prison is. Even with cable TV and AC, it's still prison.

tormeh 12y ago

And so what? The prison sentence is not punishment for him - it's protection for the rest of us. Punishment has no other function than being petty revenge. I guess you could make an economic case for simpler lodgings, but the prison wasn't made for him - It would probably cost more to alter his cell for the worse than just keep it standard.

argumentum 12y ago
Call me old fashioned if you will, but I support the idea of just punishment as a deterrent in violent crimes such as murder. I wouldn't call it revenge, rather justice: the idea that you are held to account for the harm you cause others.
- thirsteh 12y ago
  It's understandable, but also a large reason why the U.S. prison system doesn't work well. People naturally want people to pay for their crimes, but what society actually needs is for those criminals to be rehabilitated. A very large number of the people incarcerated in the U.S. are repeat offenders, hinting that merely locking somebody in a cage and depriving them of their rights for a long time does little good after the prison term ends. There are some cases where it's simply impossible to say with some measure of certainty that somebody is rehabilitated, but even the most lenient countries (Norway and the rest of Scandinavia) have measures to protect the rest of the population in those cases. Repeatedly determining that Anders Behring Breivik continues to be a threat to society is Norway's form of capital punishment.
  - argumentum 12y ago
    Well, I'm of the belief that certain crimes are beyond rehabilitation. No matter how "rehabilitated" Anders Breivik is, he still deserves to be locked up. He should never again interact with the society he so evidently despises.
    - thirsteh 12y ago
      First, he probably will be locked up forever, unless someone declares him sane (which, in my opinion, will never happen.) Second, I would agree if you said "certain criminals are beyond rehabilitation." There are people who have incurable mental problems, but they make up a very small minority of the people incarcerated in the United States.
      - argumentum 12y ago
        I'll stick with "crimes" .. people should be rewarded or punished for what they do not for who they are (or what some doctors claim they are).
        thirsteh 12y ago
        I didn't say put people with mental problems in prison. Here's a thought experiment: Would you treat a man who took revenge on his wife's murderer by killing them the same as the murderer, a psychopath who decided to kill the wife because they were bored? Obviously, neither One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or American Psycho is desirable, but if you ask me to choose, you can guess which one I'd pick. (Btw. even if you disagree, the U.S. has a tremendous amount of hate-crime legislation, which does punish people for what's on their mind.)
        argumentum 12y ago
        I totally agree motive should be a factor in sentencing, not sure where you read otherwise ..
    - 12y ago
- angersock 12y ago
  The only "just" way of going about it is summary execution at the earliest opportunity, right? Anything else is basically just society taking revenge. As for deterrence, I'm not sure that you want to build a system on that as we have; people ought to follow the law and not murder because it is the right thing to do, not because they're afraid not to. If you have a system motivated by fear, it means that any external fear (psychological defect, job-related, desperation-related, or just plain being too drunk to remember that injuring others carries a stiff penalty) has the opportunity to override your system. Murder isn't right, but we should be trying to figure out why it occurred and how to prevent it in the future and rehabilitate the person (or dispose of them forthright)--torture and punishment doesn't benefit anyone.
  - argumentum 12y ago
    > As for deterrence, I'm not sure that you want to build a system on that as we have; people ought to follow the law and not murder because it is the right thing to do, not because they're afraid not to. The problem is there are certain individuals constitutionally incapable of doing "the right thing". They have no respect for the lives of others, and can only be deterred by fear of punishment. We call them psychopaths.
    - thirsteh 12y ago
      The problem with psychopaths is that they don't fear anything, although they may rationalize (in their mind) that some consequence will prevent them from doing X, Y, Z thing they want to do, and thus avoid it. Anyway, violent psychopaths belong in mental institutions (for life, if it is determined that they remain a threat to society.) I don't think many people disagree with that. This has almost nothing to do with, for example, sentencing on crack being tougher than on cocaine, and rape being worse than murder. Also, most people convicted of crimes aren't psychopaths, although they often have (fixable) mental problems.
- sobkas 12y ago
  Is there a justice in government torturing people because You think they might not be punished enough? Then what You would do to innocent people that ended in prison, untorture them? Your justice is that kind of justice the Kolyma was know for.
- tormeh 12y ago
  But it's not a deterrent. It should be, but humans are not rational actors and it turns out that punishment doesn't work as a deterrent.
  - nl 12y ago
    It is in some cases. In some cases the fear of being caught and punished is sufficient to stop some crimes.

marvin 12y ago

This is completely incorrect. Breivik has been kept in solitary confinement since he was convicted, which is close to two years at this point. They purpose-built a separate isolation facility within the prison to house him. It's quite firmly established at this point that solitary confinement is torture, but apparently the Norwegian prison system has the discretion of deciding to do this without any input from the judicial system. In my opinion, this is a horrible blemish on an otherwise good Norwegian legal syste, but it's understandably a sore subject. There has been very little debate around this point. Hard to bring this up when most of the kids he murdered were the acquaintances or children of the biggest political party at the time.