Norway

[Prpl_Mage]

True, We do not have the same view on justice as you do. Our prisons are about rehabilitation instead of punishment, punishment only breeds harsher crimes. If someone is so mentally sick that he decides to shoot children it is our duty to fix what's so madly broken in that person. Hiding him away till he dies and avoiding doing anything about it won't solve any problem.
And his punishment is life, but 21 years is the longest they've had a criminal, 21 years usually changes a person. The guy is 32 now and would be 53 if he gets out in 21, something tells me that he won't decide to go on another killing spree.

And beside, if they find him mental, he'll get a nice white padded room.

[Cerebus]

Lucas, you will probably dislike me if I tell you that in his case, I'd opt for Capital Punishment.
I don't think someone who goes on a mass murder should be given a second chance.

They should take the worst criminal, put them in a giant blender and feed other prisoners with them.

[Razor]

To be fair though, Amy Winehouse was a terrible singer. And not a great looker.

Feels bad about the kids though. Children are the least deserving of death. Teenagers, though...

[zuhane]

It's a complicated argument. No amount of punishment will bring those lives back, but a certain dose of
lesson needs to be given to prevent them from ever doing it again. I think education about the value of human
life could prove much more useful than punishment in some ways. Then again, this is from an outsider perspective.
If I was a parent watching, I'd probably be distraught and want to see him publicly executed.

[Valiere]

I'm liberal in almost every respect, except criminal justice. When I look at someone like Breivik, or someone like Ted Bundy, suddenly my sympathy well runs very dry indeed.

Some people cannot be rehabilitated. The second time Ted Bundy escaped, he had murdered roughly 30 young women, spent several years in prison, and faced his victims' families and even one of his almost-victims in trial. He had plenty of time to think about the atrocious acts he committed. The moment he escaped, he high-tailed it to Florida and tore through a sorority, bludgeoning women to death as they slept, and then kidnapped, raped, and murdered a child and threw her body in a pig pen. He had been murdering women every year of his adult life and would continue to do so, if he weren't captured and imprisoned (and, ultimately, executed).

I'm willing to mentally cope with this guy getting life in prison, but the idea of him being released -- especially in 21 years -- sickens me. Don't give me any glib, "We can't stoop to his level"; it would be impossible to stoop to his level even if you put a bullet through his head, because he killed 85 children.

Even on death row in America, prisoners get a far better end than any of their victims got. They die quickly, surrounded by their families, having said goodbye to the ones they love and mentally prepared for death. Their victims die all alone, terrified and in pain. Every machination in the justice system is designed to favor the accused. What voice do the dead victims get, besides providing pictures of their corpses to the state?

I disagree that not attempting to rehabilitate and release prisoners solves nothing. Of course it solves something. They're gone.

/end rant

[drenrin2120]

I think its easy to look at heinous crimes and immediately start thinking about revenge. I think its important to ask yourself why this person deserves the punishment you wish to deliver: is it justice or vengeance?

[A Forgotten Legend]

Well Val, but he was in an America prision, full of hate around him! He'd never get better.

This isn't completely--well it is mostly, but not always-- true.  According to a 2003 study done by the Department of Justice on release rates in 1994, "67.5% of the prisoners were rearrested for a new offense (almost exclusively a felony or a serious misdemeanor)" So, not all people some out bad.  But when they do, they tend to get more violent. =/  I coulda swore I had read an article or heard something on a news cast where most of the US prisoners are one time offenders for very dumb crimes (which are called crimes by some of our most awkward laws-- and they also have some of the longest sentences.)  There are some cases where someone who was caught doing an illegal drug could get more time than someone selling it.

Anyway, you can look at the study's results here: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/rpr94.pdf (For you non-english speakers, Recidivism is the relapse of a criminal behavior.)

[Cerebus]

I think its easy to look at heinous crimes and immediately start thinking about revenge. I think its important to ask yourself why this person deserves the punishment you wish to deliver: is it justice or vengeance?

Both, and getting rid of undesirable fellows.
If someone goes on a mass murder, I do think the victims should be avenged, justice should be done and an undesirable human being should disappear.
Of course, if some guy steal a bicycle, sells drug or something like that, I do think they are the type who should be rehabilitated and not sent in a prison where he would only come as the next one who would need to disappear.

[Prpl_Mage]

I am just going to say that we think like we are raised. We don't live in a society where punishment apparently fix every problem and death penalty is a merciful death. We believe that crime should be avoided in the future. You go down once - you life isn't over. You can get out and start over, you haven't spent a couple of years in a desolate and horrible place where apparently everyone gets assraped.

And for Ted Bundy. I'm surprised he even got prison, he should've been put into mental care from the start.

Anyway, for planned murders or genocide - I'd like to see that person disappear. True. But don't think that being stuck in one place for at least 21 years means he's getting easy off.

[Archem]

There are multiple levels of punishment in the US. I've gotta tell you, there's a pretty big difference between a minimum-security prison and a supermax. The varying degrees of incarcerations aren't the only thing going on here, either. Violent criminals tend to go to jail, usually for a time that's proportionate to the degree of their crimes. Non-violent criminals end up in prisons with other non-violent criminals for reasonable periods of time. There are also first-time offenders who will receive reduced sentences for minor crimes, community service sentences, and fines.

It's not as simple as steal a bike, go to Super Jail (love that show, by the way). Really, punishment by degrees is the best way to go. Serial murderers likely are beyond help, and are unlikely to be rehabilitated. I believe that their punishments should be either life -- or death. Robbing a convenience store should also come with a strict punishment, but an attempt to rehabilitate the individual still seems worth the effort. Get in a fight? Punk in drublic? How about a week or two in prison, followed by mandatory anger management/Alcoholics Anonymous courses? This is how the justice system in the US works, and it seems pretty fair to me.

[fruckert]

He got 12 years for stealing a drum?

...the ****?

[Dragonium]

Get in a fight? Punk in drublic? How about a week or two in prison, followed by mandatory anger management/Alcoholics Anonymous courses?

I agree, but the problem is that the smaller crimes like that can only be accurately judged on a case-by-case basis. Jumping a guy because of his race or religion is a totally different matter to getting into a fight over a girl in a bar. The difficulty is that looking long and hard at petty crime eats up resources - it takes a long time to determine who started the fight or whether the drunken man's conduct was dangerous - and that's a lot of time spent in the wrong places when there's more serious crimes requiring attention. The ideal system is the least efficient one, sadly.

Regarding Breivik, the rehabilitation issue is a tricky one because the guy isn't exactly "insane" - he's irrational and acted on his beliefs in totally the wrong way, that's true - but he's clearly lucid and capable of intelligent thought. He saw a problem, made an incredibly detailed long-term plan of action (take a look at his manifesto, he's been working up to this for years), and acted. His actions were horrific and evil, but calculated, so it begs the question of whether the guy can be rehabilitated. It'd take more than just giving him some medication and having him talk to a psychiatrist, it'd mean getting him to change his entire political ideology.

No mistake, what he did was evil. I myself am pretty opposed to the Islamification of Europe (no racist bro), but I don't condone murder, and anyone who thinks this guy is some kind of hero is a Big Jerk™.

[Valiere]

And for Ted Bundy. I'm surprised he even got prison, he should've been put into mental care from the start.

Psychiatrists initially said there was nothing wrong with him before ultimately settling on Antisocial Personality Disorder (ie. a sociopath). In the US justice system, personality disorders are not considered enough for an insanity plea. In any case, the general consensus is that sociopaths are impossible to rehabilitate.

Given Bundy's penchant for escaping (He did so twice) and given that -- once free -- he would keep on killing, executing him was the safest course of action.

[Archem]

*googles "pandeiro"*

So he stole a tambourine? What a fruit. I'd give him a twelve-year sentence based solely on principle.

[Grandy]

Robbing a convenience store should also come with a strict punishment, but an attempt to rehabilitate the individual still seems worth the effort. Get in a fight? Punk in drublic? How about a week or two in prison, followed by mandatory anger management/Alcoholics Anonymous courses? This is how the justice system in the US works, and it seems pretty fair to me.

This wouldn't work for every country. Brasil's prisons, even without every drunk put in there, are overcrowded, like, 30 people for a 3-men cell. If we try to arrest all the drunks as well, the jails will simply explode because the walls can't countain so many bodies. (Of course the solution is to build more prisons to regulate the number of individuals per cell but meh, effort.)

Also, mandatory Alcoholics Anonymous seems to be defeating the purpose of AA, which is: They are anonymous, so if you send someone there, they'll be Alcoholics We Know Because We Send Them In. Also, AFAIK the AA is for people who themselves wish to change, you can't force one (well you can, but I doubt it'll do any good once you get them inside and they are like "nuh-huh I don't have a drinking problem" even though they do.)

EDIT: Also this ***hole right here.