Norway's notorious mass
killer was sentenced in court today to the country's maximum penalty
for murder, 21 years, with subsequent «forvaring» (literally,
«custody»), a system not well known outside Norway, which entails
his continued imprisonment after 21 years under the same conditions, with the possibility of a prison sentence lasting until his
death. This, in other words, is not simply a 21-year sentence.
After the 21 years, the
killer will be evaluated by the court for a possible 5-year extension
of the punishment, and every 5 years thereafter the same evaluation
will be repeated, potentially for the rest of his life. The criteria
for release are the chances of recidivism and the danger to society
of his/her release. Both were determined by the court today to be
exceedingly high. These pronouncements will be the main criteria in
evaluating his degree of «progress» after each 5-year period. As
the Norwegian system is set up, these evaluations will begin already
after his 10th year in prison.
Although the Norwegian penal code has
not even considered the possibility of anyone committing crimes like
those at issue here, the custodial system (rarely used) recovers much of what the
normal system misses – provided the court takes a strict rather
than a lenient line in its follow-up decisions every 5 years.
In a country where the politically dominant center-left has previously tended to view criminals as victims of an
unjust and vindictive society, this is not a sure thing. Still, one
may hope the fact that the massacre was directed just at the Labour
Party's youth organization may turn people in that political segment
to a more realistic way of thinking, so that future generations of Norwegians can have a more balanced view of crime and punishment.
9 comments:
As someone who has mixed feelings about capital punishment (but nevertheless supports it in certain cases) I am puzzled on this one by the Norwegian conscience, if I can put it that way. In the second world war a determined and courageous Norwegian resistance fought Nazi occupation and carried out numerous acts of execution in the name of a greater good. Subsequently, the Norwegian conscience has transformed itself so as to view the state or the society itself as bearing ultimate responsibility for such heinous acts as this murderer committed; that is, "Somehow we have failed this man; it is our fault that he has turned out this way and not a matter of his personal responsibility, and therefore we (Norwegian society) does not have the right to take his life, no matter how evil the crime." I realize laws could not be changed to alter the judicial outcome in this case. But surely many in Norway must be asking now if such leniency can be justified in this unspeakable crime, and if Norway should not debate and review its position on capital punishment. To me, this situation exemplifies a kind of collective guilt that is tantamount to a suicide wish. Many will argue that capital punishment is not the central issue, because the existence of capital punishment would not have deterred the crime. Frankly, to me the issue is not about deterrence , but about a society, any society, being able to hold people accountable to standards of personal responsibility which uphold the interests of society itself and to have the collective courage to exact the ultimate personal penalty in crimes like this. Will be interested to hear your response.
Well, you need to take one thing into account here that maybe I did not spell out clearly enough: The view that criminals are products of the society around them has shaped much of Norwegian criminal legislation that existed BEFORE this killer entered the scene. Afterwards, the dominant consensus even on the left seems to be that our penal code is woefully inadequate and must be rewritten. My point in writing this particular comment was to explain to those who don't know the Norwegian system that with a judgement like this the convict is likely to stay behind bars for a real life sentence, not just 21 years - though "likely" does not mean "certain".
A commission of inquiry into how these horrible events could happen and how the response could be as inadequate as it was has just been delivered, and its conclusions are devastating both for the police and for the government, including the prime minister personally. I hope this will lead to a change of government this fall and a fresh effort to revise the penal code.
Thanks, I think you have answered my question which was, "does this terrible experience induce in Norway a soul-searching about the legitimacy of capital punishment?" And your answer is YES. I would add that since I wrote my previous email to you I've been struck by the comments (only a few, admittedly) of some of the parents/relatives of the deceased who seemed almost forgiving. This strikes me as bizarre. If my son/daughter had been killed, my minimum demand would be that the country reexamine its punishment statutes. And, frankly, as I'm sure you've guessed, my strong belief is that the system needs to be capable of executing people like Breivik in cases as unequivocally inhuman as this.
I think you're on to something with your remark about the relatives who seem to be on their way to forgiveness. This may be a variant of the Stockholm syndrome where the hostages started defending their malefactor. In Norway, those left behind after the tragedy, seeing no way the justice system can give them any sense of a just reaction, grasp at the Christian notion of forgiveness for the perpetrator, to give themselves some kind of peace, since there is none other to be had.
And it is indeed doubtful whether the country will rouse itself from the demonstrations of "roses and song", even "meeting hate with love", that they have resorted to on numerous occasions as a response to the mass killings, and instead revise the penal code so that it has some chance of giving such killers a reaction more proportionate to the crime - not necessarily the death penalty, although in this case it certainly would have been deserved: Not an inkling of a doubt about who committed the murders, not the least uncertainty about the intentionality, and a scale to the whole thing that made it truly worth the name "massacre".
Estimado Olav,putting Breivik away for 21 year or more, must be a relief for every decent-minded person, although the verdict called him “sane”. A disappointing statement for you, I guess, going by what you wrote in your blog.
As far as I know, the Norwegian custodial sentence after the 21 years, which can be extended endlessly, does exist in Holland too. One calls it TBR (ter beschikking van de regering) or in English: “at the disposal of the government”, in case a person after his sentence remains a risk to society – mad or not. In most instances it will be reserved for people with dangerous tendencies, for which there seems no cure.
With you I hope there will be not be in future too much empathy with Breivik, who might very well consider himself a victim of an unjust and vindictive society. And hypocritical! “Around 50-60 percent of his manifesto was copied directly from other sources, including the writings and statements of leading figures in the political and media establishment”. I found an interesting article in a left-wing paper, which pictures him all but a lone, mad wolf.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/brei-a25.shtml
And allow me a sidestep: what about the leniency of the present-day western governments with the bankers, who landed the economy in the quagmire the West is in now, and who should make jail time – but who go unpunished, while the general public has been loaded with their criminally risky actions. Our justice system is certainly skewed in favour of the financial elite. There happens to be just one country that did the right thing, refusing to bail out the banks and investors, and put the misbehaviours in jail – Iceland! As long as the other nations refuse to follow that example, the political left is entitled to judge a big portion of criminals victim of a vindictive and unjust society.
Charles Rodijk
Friends,
It is really hard for me to understand how imprisonment for life (which most experts seem to believe will be the actual outcome fro Breivik) could be "lenient". Olav, if you do not think capital punishment is appropriate, what is there between this and prison for life? To me, capital punishment is out of the question (as it is to most people in Europe today, I dare saying, and certainly to most countries in the world). The reason is simple: To kill killers could not be the way to be moral in a civilized society.
Anyway, what I really wanted to comment was a more complicated issue. The court decided that Breivik is not mentally sick, and should therefore take responsibility for his terrible acts. I understand this as he has to be punished for the atrocities he has committed. He's not sick, but "disturbed" and being disturbed is not reason for being given psychiatric treatment rather than prison. Good and well.
But, according to Norwegian law, he will be "evaluated" after 21 years and than every five years (given that he is not released). Now, what does this mean? Does it mean that he could have become saner after 21 years? Why? Because of treatment (has anyone heard of people getting better in prison)? How could that be - the court said he wasn't sick? Is it not something a bit odd here, or is it just me not getting it? To me, it looks like the court (or maybe the society, in this case) would like to see him well enough to deserve prison, but at the same time hope that he will be "cured" (well, maybe not hope so, but still have to check every five years). Or should we interpret this as with time passing, Breivik might turn into a better person, and it might therefore be appropriate to eventually let him go? If so, did we not just say that he was punished for what he did, rather for not being sane? Is it not important to draw a clear juridical line between punishment and treatment, rather than to do “a little bit of both”?
I don’t really get it...
Björn H
Why should society bear the cost and risks of keeping a clearly convicted mass murderer locked up and alive for the rest of his miserable life and is this really what we mean by human treatment?
Federico el Sueco
Well, few I know would say that it is more human to kill someone, than to lock him up...
And I don't really want a society that decides on these issues based on what is cheapest. Of course, it is natural for those hit so hard by this terror attack to have feelings of revenge. Most likely, if he had killed my daughter, I would not be able to resist these feelings, and I would like him to be killed too. But, after all, we don't need a society if revenge is the only thing that matters here. We all know cultures where revenge is the rule, and most of them do not strike me as particularly civilized societies. We need society to handle these matters in principled rather than emotional ways.
Björn H
Suddenly I am swamped by responses, so I'll have to react to all under one hat here. Charles, that's a sensible comment from you; interesting to know that the Netherlands also has this "custodial" system, like Norway. And I cheer Iceland also!
Björn - the Norwegian verdict in this case as it stands is the harshest possible under Norwegian law, yet in my view it is lenient compared to a true unlimited life sentence, because of the periodic evaluations every 5 years of his status which every time (starting at 10 years!) could end in his release. You very rightly ask how this can be possible and what the meaning is. It is as unclear to me as it is to you. Evidently a philosophy of rehabilitation had the upper hand at the Ministry of Justice when this solution was proposed. A commentator in a newsblog suggested that he might tell them after 10 years that he has changed his mind about politics and now believes in democracy and abhors right-wing ideas. What then? Of course the court has to evaluate the danger of recidivism in any case and one would hope such a statement had no effect. But one never knows ...
Federico, I take it you would go for the death penalty. Actually, in an extreme case like this, I would too. The argument as I see it is not cost or relative humaneness, but the need to protect society from people like this - for certain! In other cases I would advocate the unlimited life sentence. Remember, we are talking about extreme cases like the one in Norway of 22/7-11. Another relevant example is the guy who raped and murdered two little girls aged 8 and 9 a few years ago and got the same sentence as Breivik.
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