The Death Penalty

[Psy-Fi]

he died in 2008

wow his stuff is aging well

The good stuff is always timeless.

[Toy Revolver]

he died in 2008

wow his stuff is aging well

The good stuff is always timeless.

with stand up i'm not sure i agree

[Trollheart]

Tore, I don't know how true to life it is, but I watched one of those Scandi-dramas (can't remember which one) and the guy was in prison in Norway. It looked, to be honest, like a small, poorly-furnished apartment he was in. No bars, no guards, just like maybe a cheap holiday villa, and he commented on the lack of, for want of another word, brutality in the Norwegian system. Surely we're not to assume that ABB is held under these conditions? And even if that's not the case, does this bear any resemblance to the Norwegian penal system? Cos if it does it seems not only lenient but positively accommodating.

[Jwb]

I would be fine with the state killing those people if they did what they are accused of.  But you never know,  maybe they're innocent!

Well some of them are innocent.

The Birmingham Six would all be dead if we had the death penalty.

Yeah well my comment might have sounded satcastic but i agree.  That's my role point.  I'm theoretically fine with certain people being executed i just don't trust them to only execute the right people.

Death penalty, to me, is a very difficult moral dilemma. I generally don't think the state should kill, but I can see various arguments both for and against.

I think we have a good example of when death penalty could have had the most desirable consequences here in Norway when Anders Behring Breivik exploded a bomb in Oslo in 2012 and then proceeded to attack the Worker's Youth Leage summer camp. He killed 69 people in total, 33 of them under the age of 18. It was heinous and has tragically touched the lives of many people. There's no doubt about who did it. Keeping him facilitated and the constant work for the courts with their lawyers etc. is costly. Needless to say, the Norwegian law, penal and court systems had never seen anything like this before and were not prepared beforehand on how to deal with it. It is based on rehabilitation and is relatively lenient on punishment, but the idea of ABB ever being back on the streets makes the mind reel. If someone's killed 70 people and blew things up, I'd say it's extremely unlikely they could ever rehabilitate and they should not suddenly be back walking the streets one day. You could argue that if the Norwegian state had just executed ABB, it would've been cheaper and less work and perhaps would've brought a sense of justice and closure to many people. It might have been preferable even to ABB - who knows? He was on a suicide mission and prepared to "die by cop".

But put into system, you of course run the risk of executing innocent people and it can be used as an extreme tool of oppression. We might all feel a little safer if we agree it's a power the state should not have over its citizens, inside the penal system or elsewhere. I also think death penalty, even when applied in a way that may be considered "right", may be or should be less about the criminals and more about us and the values that we want to uphold and the consequences that derive from that. I think abolishing violence and valuing human lives is very valuable to society and important steps towards creating a society where a death penalty is not needed because people, despite having the opportunity to do so, do not opt for violence and murder. This is the sort of society I'd like to be a part of - a society where people are not criminal - not because they're scared or forced away from it, but because there's no need to and it just doesn't figure to them. They don't choose criminality and they believe that violence and murder is wrong. In order to get there, I do believe the state should strive to present as somewhat of a paragon in terms of these values.

Cases like ABB will come and test the system. Keeping them alive is part of the cost of upholding the aforementioned values. I generally think it's worth it, but I can imagine far more violent societies (perhaps in our distant past) where a system incorporating death penalty would probably have the best consequences.

and from what i hear, prisons in norway are better than a lot of mid-tier hotels in the US. That fuckin nazi is living the life.

But yeah,  instinctively i feel like people like that should be killed.  But if I'm being perfectly honest,  that's not based on rehabilitation to me.  Like the part of me who thinks he should be killed would still want him dead even if he reformed.  Too little too late.

[Toy Revolver]

i'm not for rehabilitation or punishment

if i'm not wearing my anarchist hat i just want people removed in the interest of public safety

it's crazy in america a twenty year old serves 15 years - so he's cut loose at 35 - what's he going to do?

[Jwb]

To me that sounds like you are in fact primarily concerned with rehabilitation. Aka the likelihood of recitivism is what you are most concerned with.

[Toy Revolver]

To me that sounds like you are in fact primarily concerned with rehabilitation. Aka the likelihood of recitivism is what you are most concerned with.

i dislike rehabilitation because it feels like creepy state sponsored brainwashing


permanently incarcerated and dead people have 0% recidivism

also isnt it kind of weird for you to tell me what i'm concerned with

there's no easy answer but like i said norway has the right idea - i don't care if a mass murderer enjoys some comfort

i'm not interested in punitive measures

just don't release him

[Guybrush]

@Trollheart yep, a Norwegian prison might look like an apartment complex. You're supposed to take courses, perhaps see health professionals, etc.

The penal system should reduce crime, so if you have prisons that teach people how to be more criminal than they were, that could of course increase crime. The only way to avoid that in that case would be holding people for much longer. Prisons may become Hogwarts of crime and the penal system an endless spiral that traps you.

All that is much more costly to society, so the consequences of a more punishment minded system may be kinda stupid. I believe rehab is the way to go and think the science supports that (if you're after good consequences).

I do believe ABB spends his time more in something like a solitary cell, but he might f ex. have a tv and an Xbox for all I know.

[Psy-Fi]

he died in 2008

wow his stuff is aging well

The good stuff is always timeless.

with stand up i'm not sure i agree

Yeah, I guess it would depend on the subject matter in the routine. Some of it might be timeless but some of it is going to be dated for sure.

[Trollheart]

See that's the problem as I see it. Someone like ABB is never going to rehabilitate or change his ways: that kind of inbuilt, perhaps even hereditary hatred (I don't know the details of his family so I could be wrong, but where else do such ideas form? Maybe he got in with a right-wing crowd, who knows?) is so deep that he probably can't even see it's wrong. If he can't see that, he'll never change, and if he gets out he will do it again, or try to. It boils my blood to think of him essentially living in an apartment with mod cons after having perpetrated - surely - Norway's worst serial murder in history. Where is the justice in that? I also agree with jwb: to hell with rehabilitation in cases like his. Call it revenge, call it whatever you want, I think the guy should die for his actions. I wonder how many of the relatives of those he killed would be happy that he is where he is?

[Toy Revolver]

See that's the problem as I see it. Someone like ABB is never going to rehabilitate or change his ways: that kind of inbuilt, perhaps even hereditary hatred (I don't know the details of his family so I could be wrong, but where else do such ideas form? Maybe he got in with a right-wing crowd, who knows?) is so deep that he probably can't even see it's wrong. If he can't see that, he'll never change, and if he gets out he will do it again, or try to. It boils my blood to think of him essentially living in an apartment with mod cons after having perpetrated - surely - Norway's worst serial murder in history. Where is the justice in that? I also agree with jwb: to hell with rehabilitation in cases like his. Call it revenge, call it whatever you want, I think the guy should die for his actions. I wonder how many of the relatives of those he killed would be happy that he is where he is?

i don't think he'll ever be released

i wouldn't want to get so upset by a single case to advocate big change for one of the most humane systems in the world

norway isn't utopia but i don't think it's wrong to say compared to most of the world it's enviably safe and civilized

but releasing someone like this would definitely be unfair to the loved ones of those he killed and maimed

i have really weird contradictory feelings about it - part of me thinks, in America, just a widespread massive kill off of everyone with a history of violence - especially the police and military and the politicians who vote for their funding and every rapist and people who used violence to unfairly overpower others - that would do wonders for our gene pool and the quality of life would certainly rise

but then on the other hand i oppose the death penalty and any state run use of force at all

i just like really extreme solutions but then i respect the politics of a place like norway

i just see the positive in everything lol

it's my endless optimism i guess

[Nimbly9]

There's a high likelihood that in the future they're going to use some of that tech Elon Musk and Bill Gates are involved with to rewrite the brains of convicts as part of a rehabilitation process.  Is that better than the death penalty? Guess it depends on who you ask.

[Toy Revolver]

There's a high likelihood that in the future they're going to use some of that tech Elon Musk and Bill Gates are involved with to rewrite the brains of convicts as part of a rehabilitation process.  Is that better than the death penalty? Guess it depends on who you ask.

i agree this is possible and likely

this is why i oppose background checks and red flag laws as a gun control measure

this wild arrogance that the state has about being so flawless in determining right from wrong

with the arrests and terrorist charges brought against stop cop city protesters in atlanta

anything that undermines their authority is terrorism to them and in a lesser sense so is just voting

[Trollheart]

I'm mot saying ABB will be let out, but come on: it hardly looks like maximum security does it? He could escape. Yes it's only one case but as a sample I think it stands up. Also anyone convicted of school shootings, mass shootings, hate crimes involving murder, all that sort of thing should be treated, I think, more harshly. Everyone's so concerned about the rights of the perp that nobody's thinking of those he or she leaves to grieve for the rest of their lives. To a real extent, they also serve a life sentence.

[Toy Revolver]

i still think you're too caught up in this one example

i promise you, not just in america but all around the world the incarcerated are among the most uncared for abandoned people on earth

prisons are human suffering factories and in general but mostly i am speaking of america prisons prisoners are given no quarter physically or psychologically

the number of people suffering untold atrocities with no recourse throughout the world in prisons many for victimless or simple property crimes is a much greater cause of human suffering than mass shootings

there's no shame in treating people humanely

and no amount of suffering inflicted on the criminal can change the past

i actually know a pretty lot about american prisons and very little about what's happening in europe but i've read that french and english prisons are comparable

i'm not trying to strawman you - you haven't said that norway should adopt the american model but big picture i'd rather a few had it too easy than have hundreds of thousands living in hell