I do not think 8 years is even close to being reasonable for premeditated murder.

>> premeditated murder

If it isn't premeditated, it isn't murder. Perhaps the more accurate term is "premeditated killing" in which the outcome is premeditated. But in murder only the act must be premeditated, not the consequence. Punching someone and thereby causing their death is murder, you don't need to be trying to kill someone in order to murder them, but it isn't a premeditated killing.

At least in the UK, "murder" requires a proven intention to kill. Your example of a punch killing a person would fall under "manslaughter by unlawful and dangerous act" but not murder.

I disagree. Imho all you need is the intention to do harm.

Not just any harm will do - it has to be GBH[1] and it has to be a "virtually certain" result of the action.[2]

IMHO your example of a punch would not pass this test.

[1] http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/h_to_k/homicide_murder_and_mansl...

[2] http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199798/ldjudgmt/j...

I just looked it up. In Czechia the sentence for murder (killing with intent) is 10 to 18 years; or 15 to lifetime in special cases.

I don't think 8 years for murder is reasonable. Within a lifespan of 80 years, someone could kill about 10 people. That doesn't seem reasonable to me.

The ultimate goal of prison is to reintegrate people in the society. It fails at the moment miserably also because people consider the prison as a way to prevent people to come back to the society.

Your comment and the one to whom you respond show these two points of view. It is interesting that at the moment in the US you have more a "keep the criminals away from the society" point of view and in Europe "try to reintegrate them".

> The ultimate goal of prison is to reintegrate people in the society.

I don't understand that. If we're worried about criminals' integration with society then we shouldn't put them in prison. Prisons exist to separate people from society.

In America this is true. Prisons exist to punish criminals and to protect society from them. In more civilised countries, this is not the case. Prisons' ultimate goal is to rehabilitate the prisoners to the point where they can be reintegrated into society. Instead of focusing on making life unpleasant and treating people like animals, they have more of a focus on educating them and treating them so that they do not commit crimes again.

No, the ultimate goal of prison is to prevent crime.

Both by deterring would-be criminals, and by keeping future lawbreakers behind bars where they can't do harm.

the point is that the "european" view is that you prevent crime by trying to help people who committed a crime rather than by punishing them.

Too harsh a punishment often only succeeds in putting someone in a position where they are even more likely to break the law.

E.g. you catch someone for smoking pot, and they get civil service and have to visit social support/psychologist/whatever. This might not do any good but it might do some.

If you send them to jail for 5 years, they it's basically guaranteed that they will get out being in a much worse position than they were before, and more likely do commit crimes.

You left out perhaps the most important part: "...in the most cost-effective way possible," where cost includes repeat offenses, taxpayer money, the opportunity cost of lost productivity, destroyed families (multi-generational effects), etc.

I think this is an important point. These costs are amongst the many things a judge should (does?) weigh up in sentencing. If she gets it wrong a sentence may be reviewed (made more harsh or lenient as appropriate) on appeal. However when sentencing is politicised, such as with mandatory sentences the judge's "judgement" is taken out of the equation. It may be appropriate to give a guy life for stealing batteries when a bigger picture is taken into account but that should be for the professionals (i.e the judiciary) to decide rather than politicians looking to buzz frightened people into voting for them.

This can't be the correct way of thinking of the prison system. A person should not be sent to prison for the sole purpose of suffering for the crime which they committed. There is a reason people call a prison a correctional facility. The point is to correct the problems in their character that caused them to commit such a crime. If you isolate them from the world it's no wonder they would eventually commit a crime again. Because they have no idea how to fit into society. And then we just have another person to take care of while they don't do anything to contribute to society.

This is where I find the Norwegian prison system interesting. It seems their prisons are just pretty remote "villages" more like monasteries where the prisoners work together. ASFAIK they are much more successful in rehabilitating people back into society than countries with more traditional prisons.

Exactly, the tv show Oz by Tom Fontana covers the subject entirely. When Tim McManus tries to build a micro-society to prepare convicted fellows to live in a real society, it shows how it's very hard and that many disciplines such as psychology, sociology, philosophy... are very much needed.

By this logic, I can just murder anyone I like, and then demonstrate that I won't do it again.

After that, no reason to keep me in prison any more right? It's not like the dead person or their family count for anything - it's all about me and the government's budget. Yeah?

Serious question: what the fuck is wrong with you? This Puritan "let's murder and torture people for their sins" approach is not working. Criminals are humans.

Yes, it's not about the dead person. They're dead.

It's also not about the family of the dead person. They've already been harmed.

It's not about you, it's about preventing future crimes. If you've been turned into a productive member of society, great -- everyone's off better now. If you haven't, the system has failed society (not just you).

Heck, there's a good chance prison isn't even the best solution for you personally. Most likely you need actual counselling or you're facing social problems. Containment is the last resort.

You don't fix bugs by hiding them -- you fix them by figuring out why they happened in the first place and determining how to decrease the likelihood of them happening again.

EDIT: In response to the killed throwaway: if you kill someone "in the heat of the moment" and it's not self-defence or anything else we consider acceptable, of course there's still a problem in need of fixing: self control. If you kill a man because he sleeps with your wife, no matter how betrayed you might feel, it's still a problem with how you act on those feelings. But this is only visible if you stop thinking "what is an appropriate punishment" and start thinking "why did this happen" and "what could have prevented it".

If I could recommend an interesting film to watch, go see Michael Moore's Where to Invade Next. You don't have to watch the whole thing, but try to find the part where they talk about the Norwegian prison system. And then look for the part where a father who lost his son during a massacre of about 60 children explains his thoughts. It's absolutely heartbreaking to watch. He explains that he doesn't want the criminal to suffer and rot in prison. Instead, he want's the rehabilitation center to help the man so that he can ultimately become a benefit to society. I can't even begin to understand how difficult it would be to say that after such a loss, but I think he was correct in doing so.

My belief is that the society failed to correctly educate the man who eventually became a criminal. I don't think people are born with such desires.

Brevik attacked an event held by the youth movement of a far left political party in Norway so the father (who I assume is also far left) reacting/coping that way is unsurprising.

That's not something to lionize though. Pretty sad all around. There's no great wisdom there, just a leftist coping method employed by the father, similar to what a religious person would do.

The youth movement in question cannot really be considered far-left, except maybe by American standards. They're the youth wing of the establishment party in Norway, namely the Labour Party. We do have proper far-left parties, though.

Besides, I don't think you need to be particularly leftist or religious to cope this way. These ideas of forgiveness and rehabilitation permeate Norwegian (even Nordic) society, and are mostly secular these days. In fact, quite a few Norwegians will tell you that they consider harsh punishments «gamaltestamentleg», i.e. only fit for reactionaries who look to the Old Testament for prescriptions on how to handle things.

Good point, although I didn't mean to lionize the father.

I don't think it matters if the father was left, right or center. Whatever the basis, he made a decision that will ultimately benefit society (which is the main goal, right?). Whatever the political stance, we are a society. Meaning the basic idea, which is that everyone contributes so that the whole benefits, should be of utmost importance.

So jail them for life because -- you know -- they could maybe do something illegal?

What reasoning is this?

Why not have a only "for the rest of your life" punishments? You know, a thug being a thug, probably born like it. Won't ever change those people. Better lock them up, put them away. /s

Well, in most legal systems having a prior will very likely increase the sentence.

Juries have a rather minor role in criminal justice. Far less than 1% of crimes ever get to a jury. There are some US jurisdictions where the only cases that ever get to a jury are those with mandatory life and/or death punishments that preclude plea bargaining.

Even amongst those who want to go to trial on lesser charges regularly opt for a judge rather than jury.

To paraphrase Malcolm Gladwell: the only situation in which you're better off being tried by a jury is when you're actually guilty. If you're innocent, bad luck.

the jury/judge ruling does not match exactly the civil law/common law split.

I.e. france and italy both have a civil law system but some crimes (murder, for example) depend on a popular jury in addition to the judge.

In France, juries are involved only for cases defined as "Crimes" (the American equivalent would be felony, but it's much more restrictive), such as murder and rape, especially violent thefts and war crimes. And even in these cases, their role is much less important than in the US for two reasons :

* the 6 jurors (9 in appeal) decide the case alongside 3 professional judges whose influence is often decisive during the jury's deliberation (and in any case they always carry 3 votes)

* there's no need for an unanimous decision: 6 votes are necessary for any conviction (8 in appeal)

> Also in continental law sentences are shorter and more reasonable; 8 years for murder etc.

This may be the most European thing I've ever read.

Before laughing too much at the European idea of justice, think of the absurd sentencing that regularly happens in the US: A "60 Minutes" story some years ago reported that a California man was sentenced to life in prison for shoplifting two double-A batteries. Yes, life for a pack of AA batteries.

He was a twice convicted felon who had already served his time but got mandatory life for a third crime, even a misdemeanor like shoplifting, under California's three strikes law.

> Before laughing too much at the European idea of justice, think of the absurd sentencing that regularly happens in the US: A "60 Minutes" story some years ago reported that a California man was sentenced to life in prison for shoplifting two double-A batteries.

Note that this is not something that "regularly happens in the US", it seems to be an illustration of a failure mode of California's particular implementation of a "three strikes" law under Prop 184 of 1994, which was abnormally severe (not requiring the third felony strike to be "serious or violent", as most three-strikes laws in the US do) -- and it seems to be a seriously misremembered one, at that, since even when this version of three strikes existed in CA, it still required the third strike to be a felony.

Also, this rule was changed to align CA's three strikes implementation with the common rule requiring the third strike to be a "serious or violent" felony in by Prop 36 in 2012 (which also provided a process for after-the-fact sentence adjustment for those sentenced under the old version for a third strike that would not have been subject to the enhanced sentence under the reformed version of the three strikes.)

Thank you for the insightful reply. However, I am not misremembering the story about the AA batteries. There was something in the original story about the third crime automatically getting elevated to a felony. So, yes, it needs to be a felony, but a minor third crime gets elevated to a felony.

I can't find the original 60 Minutes video, but here's a partial transcript of the episode (search for the word "batteries"):

https://listserv.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=JUSTWATCH-L;16e9e...

And a book that recounts the same incident. The author is a Senior Fellow in Criminal Justice at the University of Southern California, so I assume he knows what he's talking about and has checked the accuracy of the story.

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=8356210389&...

And someone's letter to the Governor of California with a list of three strike convictions, a number of which are not felonies:

http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-39951.h...

Actually, your transcript refers to a provision which elevates any theft (not any crime), with a prior theft, to a felony. This is a separate rule that predates and operates separately from the three-strikes law. (Though, obviously, before the reform to three strikes requiring the third felony to be violent or serious, had an interaction with it: but the conviction was, itself, a felony independently of the three-strikes law.)

I think you are right, it seems perfectly reasonnable to me (French) while the comments like "he could kill 10 people in his lifetime" seems ludicrous.

That's cultural differences for you !

Sure when a low-life kills your children with cold blood and get away with it for 8 years, I would like to see your reaction after murderer goes out of jail and smiles at you.

The purpose of the legal system is NOT to offer retribution to victims. Making the murderer suffer won't bring back your kids. It will accomplish exactly nothing, in fact.

Actually that absolutely is one of the stated purposed of state justice. This also has the benefit of preventing private vendettas, if the victims feel the criminal has been punished enough.

In Europe, that is not true. The stated purpose of the justice system is that of deterrence. Exerting justice for the reason of revenge is nothing more than catering to the lower instincts of people and that is very much at odds with a civilized society. If you really believe that people are locked up so that the victims feel better, you have watched too many bad American TV dramas.

Well, it is widely documented in introductory criminal law courses as a part of the three Rs (removal, retribution, retaliation) or in more accessible material such as

http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=156

Accomplish something? Oh yes it does! It served to attenuate the absolute day by day anguish of living with the fact that the murderer who blotted out the existence of the person you knew is set to enjoy a new life out of prison while their victim continues to rot. It also solves the potential for recidivism.

And 8 years is justified because of it? Why not 1 year? Or none?

It won't accomplish anything for the victims' relatives, that's true. But other people will feel safer knowing that at least some percentage of children murderers are locked out for good.

It's not about making the murderer suffer either, it's about preventing future crimes. When you have cancer, you don't kill cancer cells because you want them to suffer. You kill them to prevent them from killing you.

If harsher penalties were the solution to preventing serious crimes, you'd think the death penalty would have fixed that, right?

Turns out the only thing harsher penalties do (beyond a certain threshold) is make it more likely for crimes to escalate because there's no point restraining yourself (if it means leaving witnesses) if you're already going away for life / going to be murdered by the state anyway.

As a matter of fact, the best way to prevent crimes is actually preventing crimes. Figure out why people commit crimes, then try to fix that. E.g. if you stop treating addicts as criminals you can solve their underlying psychological/social problems and they don't end up robbing people to pay for drugs.

Problem is, there always will be murderers, abusers and thieves. Preventing crime is the right thing to do, but I don't think it is the answer for determining right degree of punishment if a crime is committed.

Okay, consider this: you're talking about punishment.

What, exactly, is the point of punishment?

Are you trying to prevent future crimes? Great, we're actually talking about crime prevention and severity of punishment is a red herring (because we actually need to consider punishment as merely one option among many).

Are you trying to satisfy victims? Okay, but now you're saying the punishment basically serves as a synthesised substitute for mob justice -- so why pretend there's anything humane about it at all?

Are you trying to deter other would-be criminals from doing the same? Great, we can actually measure the effectiveness of that empirically (spoiler: it's not great) and adjust punishments accordingly.

Or we can just build more prisons and put more people in jail (or murder them if we really don't like them) because that has worked out so well in the US.

That's not actually true. The three purposes are rehabilitation, punishment and deterrence. http://lawcomic.net/guide/?page_id=5

Show us the example where a person has killed multiple children and got an 8 year sentence.

Perhaps you should look at the US system where rich privileged kids can drive drunk, kill other passengers and avoid prison because of 'affluenza'.

The US prison system is corrupt, racist and run for the benefit of prison companies and if you don't realise that then perhaps you have been living under a rock.

That is not at all how it goed. If someone mills all your children they gets a much higher sentence. It all depends on what you killed or what you stole. (Stealing two AA batteries vs stealing 10 million dollars with years of planning) But you don't get 5 years or more in prison for driving under influence.

If 8 years changed nothing, 15 years likely won't change much. Then you can say "but we can put him for life !", so just kill him then, same result except he won't suffer. (also French)

The thing is, murders of kids by strangers are so extraordinarily rare and horrific that people talk about them for decades afterwards, but that makes them a bad precedent to build your ideas of justice around.

Kids are far more likely to be killed by their parents or step-parents.