The Moose: With views like that, he must be insane.

With views like that, he must be insane.

Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik is insane and should not be punished, an official report has recommended.
The 243-page psychiatric report says the 32-year-old was mentally ill and therefore not responsible for his actions when he killed a total of 77 people.
It says he has developed paranoid schizophrenia and should be detained indefinitely at a psychiatric hospital.
Public prosecutor Svein Holden told a packed press conference that experts had "described a person who lives in his own delusional universe".

Interesting. He will never see freedom again, but could they really have put a person with his views on trial as sane. Could they admit that anyone but a total loon would think the way he did? Was his insanity verdict and eventual committal a foregone conclusion?

Just a thought.

9 Comments:

JuliaM said...

Angry Exile said...

Bucko said...

Angry Exile said...

Bucko said...

Angry Exile said...

We'll have to agree to disagree, Bucko, though perhaps there are a few who think that way. But I'm confident they'll be massively out-foamed by those who want to demonise and vilify, and keeping these things crimes will be their preference as it always has been. Historically authoritarian states have always preferred to criminalise unwanted behaviour and western society, certainly the UK, has so far followed this pattern. It generally works too, at least in the short term.

I don't think the comparison with speeding holds up well. Speeding is ignored because it happens billions of times a day with absolutely no negative consequences, and we're all subconsciously aware of it. Saying that people speed because they're mentally ill will have no effect at all, and I'm pretty sure it has been tried. Treating it as an even more serious crime will - and I speak from the experience of having moved to somewhere where speeding is treated as a more serious crime than in the UK, the result of which is less speeding here. I'd say more bad driving and a worse accident rate, but hey, the object of the exercise is the speeding. ;-)

As I said earlier, don't read too much into RTW being held for psychiatric reports. Shoplifters, drug users, wife beaters and people who get a bit fighty on a night out have all been held for psychiatric reports. For any kind of sex crime it's almost a certainty that the brain drainers will be wheeled out. Doesn't mean any of the offences are going to be treated as illnesses. From the p.o.v. of the lawyers I imagine it can be as much about ruling out the possibility of dealing with someone who's a mentalist early rather than have it bugger up your criminal prosecution later on. For me the real significance of RTW being held in custody for psychiatric reports is that her voiced opinions have been treated as being as just as criminal as shoplifting, drug taking, wife beating, getting fighty when pissed and raping people.

I might end up having to eat my words by I'll stick my neck out and make a prediction here. I'll bet that the psych stuff is just to rule that out as a defence and she'll end up being charged with a vanilla criminal offence, most probably something public order but under the 2006 Racial and Religious Hatred Act if they think they can make it stick. I'd also bet, though we'll never know now, that if it hadn't been filmed and gone viral then she'd probably have just got a police caution or maybe been bound over.

Michael Fowke said...

Bucko said...

Norwegian Wood said...

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