![\"\"](\"https:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/ila1.png\" "\\"ila\\"")
<\/a>\nAfter the second world war, the law was changed for the\u00a0legal purges in Norway<\/a>, so as\u00a0to execute Quislings, the Nazi\u00a0sympathisers. Technically, Norway had the death penalty for high treason until 1979, but the last execution was in 1948.<\/p>\n
Obviously, there will be no death penalty for Behring Breivik, and because of a police computer-system cock-up, he cannot be sentenced to 31 years, the upcoming limit for “acts of terrorism”. So the maximum ordinary sentence he can\u00a0receive\u00a0is 21 years, a “life” sentence. Norway do not do that weird thing of multiple life sentences. But he can be sentenced to a complicated melange based on his mental health\/capacity, that might keep him locked up for as long as he lives. They then have to prove he is just the right amount of bonkers.<\/p>\n
Today, as I write this, he is present at the first public hearing in court, and he introduced himself as a knight and a\u00a0military\u00a0commander of the Norwegian resistance. He sees himself as a freedom fighter that had to do terrible things for the common good. So in his mind, he is related to those who was interned at Grini during the war. He fights for freedom against Goliath-odds.<\/p>\n
He questioned the judges ability to give him a fair trial, as they are “representatives of multiculturalism”.\u00a0The guy is obviously deluded, but he is not mad. We should not give him the benefit of the mad lable.<\/p>\n
Norway’s\u00a0justice system, unlike some other countries, are based on the premise that people can change, they can learn, they can repay. Repent and be free. Statistically, this works, as the percentage of re-convictions are low compared to other European countries. So this case is a large problem for the justice system, and for the prevailing sense of justice.\u00a0Fact is, there are few people in this country that would not like to see him boil and burn.<\/p>\n
A friend set up this scenario; if you are out driving, and\u00a0accidentally\u00a0hit someone with your car, and then discovered it was Behring Breivik, would your reaction pattern be different? I would say yes. I would think a lot of people would, if not directly celebrate, then at least take their time in calling an ambulance; a sense of guilt greatly diminished. Some people would get back in the car and back up over him again.<\/p>\n
We are uncomfortable with these feelings. Other people do terrible things too, and victims of other crimes may suffer just as much, but the sheer scale of this guys actions makes it a very public problem. He has committed atrocities, we want him to suffer. That is the point of prison, that is the point of punishment. We have the justice system so that the punishments do not get out of\u00a0proportions. We want criminals to see what we see, and we want them to suffer in new-found understanding, then we want them to become clear-eyed, honest, upstanding pillars of society.<\/p>\n
But deep down, I do not think we want this for Behring Breivik. Norway will uphold the justice system. And we will all quietly hate it for this one man.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
EDIT.<\/p>\n
As His Loopyness is unfolding – should I say unravelling – it becomes more clear he has a severe mental illness. Paranoid\u00a0schizophrenic, they say. Quite possibly. But here is the curious thing: people seem to be outraged by that. Why? They want him punished. They want him in prison, even though a mental hospital would take away more of his freedoms and rights, would control and monitor him closer, would even possibly medicate and cure him, would keep him locked up for longer. Then maybe he will see what we see. If so, who could live with that? How could prison be more punishment?<\/p>\n
We have all seen a gorgeous film, A Beautiful Mind. This is the Terrible Mind.<\/p>\n
If he is sick, he can be medicated, he can be cured, more or less. That would probably be the greatest punishment of all.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My next-door neighbour is the guy responsible for the bomb in Oslo and the massacre at Ut\u00f8ya. It is a prison. But there is an ironic twist, that he is incarcerated at Ila Landsfengsel. During the occupation of the second world war it was only known as Grini, the first concentration camp in Norway. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,16,17,20],"tags":[357,355,292,356,353,351,354,352],"class_list":["post-4594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-news","category-norway","category-politics","tag-2ww","tag-behring-breivik","tag-crime","tag-grini","tag-justice","tag-oslo-bomb","tag-punishment","tag-utoya"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/ila1.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pCPJv-1c6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4594"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6029,"href":"https:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4594\/revisions\/6029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barebente.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}