Here is man who killed 77 people in cold-blood, wounded another 242 people, and has caused incalculable pain and suffering for the victims of the families leaving emotional wounds that will maybe never heal. Surely, this is a man, if ever there was one, who deserves to be put to death for his crimes?

Deserves? Probably or indeed most definitely: I think anyone responsible for such crimes, for even taking a single human life or causing so much pain and misery, probably deserves death, just as their victims deserved life, but that doesn’t mean we have any right to deal out such a punishment.

He may deserve death, he may deserve physical pain and suffering commensurable with his crimes but what right do we have, in the name of justice, to take that life, just as the criminal took life. In the name of feelings of hate and revenge it is more than understandable that we should wish death upon him, but such feelings, such extreme emotions should not inform
justice systems, as whilst they are obviously understandable as responsive emotions towards his crimes, especially from those most directly affected, if we were to let them inform our actions in the name of justice, we would only undermine what sets us apart from people just like Breivik, from people like who him who were fuelled with hate and extreme animosity towards others, for whatever reason. A journalist at the guardian exemplifies my point well “Personally I would have no objection to Breivik being put to death in a public square for the atrocity of his crimes. But on the day of this verdict, I am also proud to live in a country where my want for revenge does not define the judicial system.”

That’s what sets us apart, that’s why the death penalty is inexcusable, because not only does it resort to methods (that is, taking someone’s life) that the criminal used (assuming they did commit a murder of course) it only inherently engenders more hatred, more animosity of one form or another, as all vindictive or resentful killing does, and that’s the key. Justifying capital punishment punitively, for reasons of its perceived societal benefits misses its inherent ideological problems as can trying to denounce it for similar circumstantial reasons alone no matter how significant, i.e. taxpayer costs or the possibility of innocent people being executed. Its inherent problems actually get at the core of what makes humans, in a more general sense, morally, ethically and spiritually imperfect beings and that is the constant internal conflict between our inherent duality of negative (hatred, anger, greed etc) with the positive (compassion, love, humility etc) and the balancing act we perform to keep everything on a even keel.

People like Breivik have always existed and will always exist, but killing them is not the answer. At the moment, imprisoning them for life and ‘banning’ them from society whilst leaving reformation a possibility, no matter how slim, seems to be our best answer so far, but truthfully I don’t know if it the best answer to dealing with criminals of any kind. I too question the effectiveness of incarceration in reforming criminals but it is a difficult problem to solve, or at least, to make less of a problem, as balancing the punitive needs with reformative
intentions isn’t easy.

One small consolation in all this is the knowledge that Breivik himself was disappointed with the verdict of his trial – “There are only two just and fair outcomes of this trial – acquittal or capital
punishment. I consider 21 years of prison as a pathetic punishment.” Asked if he wanted the court to give him the death penalty, he replied: “No, but I would have respected it. I would not recognise 21 years of prison, it’s ridiculous.” – BBC News.

Don’t misinterpret this quote as being from someone who believes they deserve death out of a sense of guilty conscious; as detailed earlier, Breivik was and still is unrepentant for his crimes, this quote only reveals further his own extremist views and twisted sense of justice, and seeing
capital punishment as just is I believe such a distortion. The fact he respects such methods of punishment (even though he doesn’t believe he should be punished) only really confirms what I’ve been saying. That’s not to say its Breiviks respect of capital punishment which means we should by necessity condemn it, far from it, that would only be validating Breivik himself. Rather
I’m saying that his respect for it only reinforces the point I was making about its inherent problems in engendering hate and animosity across the board. Breivik is obviously an extreme case and I’m not equating those who justify capital punishment and yet are morally upright people to Breivik at all, I’m just saying that the feelings of extreme hatred and animosity Breivik possessed and that fuelled his atrocities are the same ones that capital punishment, by its very
nature, can and most often does engender in others, and that its only natural that Breivik would respect something as patently unjust as capital punishment, not because of how unjust it is (he wouldn’t believe it was) but because of what it represents ideologically speaking, and that is something filled with hate, something all of us could do without.

Sources:

http://world.time.com/2012/08/27/why-norway-is-satisfied-with-breiviks-sentence/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/24/anders-breivik-verdict-norway

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17752189

http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/europe/mass-killer-breivik-calls-for-the-death-penalty-or-freedom

For one, the 99% conviction statistic only sounds bad until you actually take a look at the way a trial gets processed. Take murder, for instance. We arrested 19,000 people for 26,000 murders the past year, prosecuted 75%, and convicted 12,000 people. In Japan, 1,800 people were arrested for 1,300 murders, with a 43% rate of prosecution, and thus conviction.

When you round out the number of people in the US brought to trial for murder, you have a 63% rate of conviction compared to the Japanese’s 43%: and if you paid further attention to the numbers, you’ll notice that the Japanese arrest more people for murder than there are number of murders. Thus, murders in the US have a 46% chance of being solved, while murders in Japan have a 60% chance of being solved.

More importantly, Japanese prisons have a reputation for being rough, but not anarchistic. Unlike US or Russian prisons, levels of rape and murder are low, and breakouts, drugs, and weapons are non-existent. The percentage of the population prison is also incredibly low, and the highest focus is placed on rehabilitation. Unless you receive the rarely used death sentence or life without parole, the maximum you can go without applying for parole is 10 years for even the worst criminals, and parole is given often.

I’d go as far as to say Japan has the best criminal justice system in the world today, and anyone who contests that remark probably thinks Mumia Abu-Jamal was an orphanage builder before cops busted into his house and sentenced him to crucifixion for the murder of Satan.

Besides, unlike those crime dramas that love to play around with the idea of innocent men being executed and super clever criminals who lead the cops by the nose, real world criminals are rarely intelligent enough to do such a thing. The very fact that they committed a crime shows a distinct lack of mental capability on their part.

No, most of the problem is in the court room. While the US has a much better court system than many countries, it’s still filled with outdated practices, redundancies, and a lack of objectivity. The last one is probably the biggest reason for poor sentencing outcomes. People are terrible at judging character.

And no, I don’t think I’ll ever agree with you. I’d be the executioner myself if no one else was willing. This candy coated view of the world has caused all sorts of problems. There are consequences for actions and people need to know them and respect them. If the death penalty is abolished, then they better make the prisons one step above hell to compensate. Negatively interfering in another person’s life should be punished appropriately.

So yeah, keep your tongue-in-cheek response to yourself. Disagreement is one thing, but sarcastically replying like that is no way to enter a debate. It makes you look petty and it annoys me.