Breivik judged sane

[LegoAcupuncture]

And also gets 21 years Story on BBC

AIBU to think that 21 years is not nerly enough for the murder of 77 people, young people who did nothing wrong?

I hope it works out that he is never released.

But it seems an insult, somehow-21yrs for 77 lives.

It seems utterly bonkers but if that's their law

Seems a shame they couldn't try him sepreately for the two different batches so that he could then get 41 years.
And then maybe again for attempted murder

It's 21 years with a further detention order on that. He'll almost certainly spend the rest of his life in jail

Also Norway has a far superior reoffending rate to anything In the British isles so I'm happy to put my faith in them

What I don't quite understand is how he can be declared sane. What he did was so insane. I've been discussing it with dh. He says it's possible to be perfectly sane but evil. It's hard to get my head round it.

It's like a lot of psychiatrists say... are they bad or mad?

I think he is pure evil.

When it comes to his release date surely they will review whether he is still a danger to society?

Or is that too optimistic?

What I don't quite understand is how he can be declared sane. What he did was so insane. I've been discussing it with dh. He says it's possible to be perfectly sane but evil. It's hard to get my head round it.

If it was an English case the text is did they know what they were doing and did they appreciate the quality if their actions. Not familiar with the intricacy of Norwegian law but most insanity thresholds bare a resemblance to the English mcnaghton test

Yes you can be completely sane but just pure evil.

Just because you have mental health problems doesnt mean you are going to kill lots of people. Its not fair on those with mental health problems to be associated with him.

Liketochat: "What I don't quite understand is how he can be declared sane. What he did was so insane. I've been discussing it with dh. He says it's possible to be perfectly sane but evil."

Just coming back to what I said earlier, it's to do with how the courts define insanity. They decided he wasn't insane, in that he didn't have a temporary, psychotic episode that could be treated. Psychopathy isn't considered to be a mental illness - it's more like autism in that it's a permanent feature of your personality. Now most of us would regard a psychopath as insane because clearly something has gone wrong in the workings of their brain. But that doesn't seem to be the way the courts look at it.

That's my understanding, anyway, based on reading Simon Baron Cohen's book Zero Degrees of Empathy. I'm happy to be corrected if I've misunderstood.