There is speculation that it may be Taliban related. That said, I think it's homebrewed far right. I guess the shooter was identified as being blond so that sounds local. ohh.. as many as 25 young people killed at the youth retreat.
Awful...seems like a far right fundamentalist Christian with a vendetta against the ruling Labour party. Def shades of Oklahoma City. Went after the youth wIng of the Labour party that had gathered on the island for an event. Shocking
Horrible. Such a tragedy. I live in Gothenburg, just a few hours from Oslo. The Norwegian news channels are now being broadcasted here in Sweden as well. Have you heard the latest news that there might have been two people behind the attack on the island? The Norwegian police now suspect that there may have been a second offender on the island Utøya. According to eyewitnesses, it may have been two perpetrators who carried out the terrorist attack on Utøya. - I am quite sure that it was shot in various locations on the island at the same time, says Marius Helander cairn to Verdens Gang's online edition. The Norwegian police would not rule out the suspicion that there may have been two perpetrators. - We are working flat out to get clear about the situation, but according to witness descriptions, it can therefore move on to two people behind the attack.
This is some sick shit. Dumd fuck(s) taking innocent lives. My Condolences to all related to this terrible tragidy.
I think the worst part of this is that the maximum sentence is apparently only 21 years, so this guy is what 32? He'll be out of jail before he dies and can go back to his hateful activities...unless someone gives him some other kind of justice while in jail.
So for you. prison is about punishment, not rehabilitation? Obviously Norway, a country with the lowest homicide rates in the world*, has a different sense of justice as well. *an average of 37 per year from 02-08. Or 0.6/100k v 5/100k in the US, so about 10 times less. I do wonder how that will have to be adjusted in light of these events... though they should be exempt from any actual crime ratings.
Here's what seems to be a genuine first hand witness account of the shooting at Utøya: http://gunkies.org/blog/?p=91 The description "bodies.. under.. deflated bouncy castle" was the one for me.. fucking onions.
I don't have all the studies and figures to show how effective or ineffective prison might be as it pertains to recidivism, but some people are just dangerous to society and their acts so disgusting that I do not believe they deserve to live in a free society with all the other decent people. This guy, in my opinion, is one such example.
I don't know how anyone would view prison as rehabilitation anymore. That view just doesn't seem grounded in reality. But maybe prison in Norway is different than here in the good old USA. Maybe Norwegian prisons don't provide their inmates with TV, art supplies, exercise equipment, etc, etc, etc. And maybe their prisons are not full of gangs that require most inmates to grow even more violent and numb in order to survive.... But I agree with Katie. Why should this guy go free after 21 years? After he took all these innocent peoples lives and destroyed families.
I thought it was pretty telling, when in an interview yesterday, one of the Norwegian Lawyers the Beeb was speaking to and replied to basically the above query with "21 years is a long time, he will be a different person in 21 years." Plus they have system that leaves open the option for a 5 year extension to the sentence. And that is indefinite, so he could be there for life. Regarding the US prison system, and for most of the world 's prison systems, they are not there to help or reform the inmates, they are mainly there to remove that person from society, with little or no interest in reintegrating that person back in. To strike off all criminals as deviant is unfair. With this case in particular, I'm not saying, or thinking for a moment, that he's likely to change his views, and the point I was trying to make by referencing the homicide rates was that there's obviously a huge difference in the way these two societies react and deal with crime, which filters down to the actual crime rates and perhaps the knee jerk reaction of "Hang the bastard" isn't always the right one to take. Hat's off to Norway for, dare I say, their mature way of dealing with something that would enrage most other countries to their core.
It's also not as if, after 21 years, he'll just be able to slip back into Norwegian society unnoticed. I imagine he'd be kept inside for his own protection rather than society's.
Don't forget about the profits to be made by the prison industrial complex! But yes, prison generally reinforces criminal behavior and results in convicts becoming institutionalized. Convicts are set-up to fail once they get out of the system...which generally leads them right back to prison.
