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August 29, 2011
A surprising prison echo resulting from mass murder in Norway
Even after seven plus years of blogging about crime and punishment, I still find myself surprised and intrigued by unexpected consequences that can often flow from particular crimes or particular punishments. Today's example comes from this international story, which is headlined "Norway prison vacancies rise." The subheading to the piece is titled "Police are so busy concentrating on the Anders Behring Breivik terror case many criminals are escaping going to jail," and here is more:
Politicians usually complain Norwegian prisons are overcrowded, but there are currently plenty of bunks for potential prisoners since the 22 July massacre. Oslo District Court reports remand hearings are down 40 percent on the same period last year, admitting the Breivik case has affected numbers. Many cases are shelved temporarily.
“We now have 25 vacant cells out of 392, so we have the capacity to accommodate remand prisoners from police custody,” said prison director Stig Storvik to NRK.
Underlining Oslo Police are still capable of carrying out their tasks with help for their district colleagues, however, Deputy Police Chief Hans Halvorsen says people must understand their “challenging situation”, despite the drop and recent criticism of the force. “Of course this is a challenging situation for Oslo police. There is not much doubt about it. We use large resources. We have approximately 140 people just focusing on investigating the case alone” he said.
Meanwhile, NRK reports police may consider transferring indicted Anders Behring Breivik, to whom women around the world are sending fan mail, from his solitary confinement in Ila prison to special high-security prisons Skien or Ringerike.
Seems like it really should be petty criminals in Oslo, rather than "women around the world," sending Breivik fan mail.
August 29, 2011 at 09:29 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Feminists are hot for mass murderers who have killed kids mercilessly. These kids have done nothing wrong, except be members of a family. That love for the mass murderer is the other side of the coin of intense hatred of the patriarchal family.
Why is this mass murderer still alive? He confessed. He should have been executed long ago.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Aug 29, 2011 11:44:33 PM
It's so refreshing that the prison authorities would say something like "we have 25 open cells, so we have capacity to accept more prisoners." (Implying that if they were at the maximum safe design capacity for prisoners, they would not accept more.) Where I live, they always have capacity to accept more prisoners -- just double cell 'em, but mattresses on the floor, etc., etc. And then they justify any brutality in the prison because of a "dangerous environment" that they have created (and which is just as dangerous, or more so, for the prisoners as for the guards).
Posted by: Just visiting | Aug 30, 2011 4:30:15 PM
article: "Anders Behring Breivik, to whom women around the world are sending fan mail"
me: some people are just plain stupid and crazy.
But Supremacy, its pretty safe to say that the women sending the fan mail are not exactly feminists. Feminists have self-confidence and no woman will self confidence would send fan mail to that lunatic. Crazed neo-Nazi killers are not exactly progressive on women's issues instead preferring to see women barefoot and pregnant with future Aryan Warriors.
ginny :)
Posted by: virginia | Aug 31, 2011 11:21:28 AM
