Free will/evil/punishment

[abaris]

If treatment or rehabilitation is available or possible, that is always the better option.  If it is not, then humane prisons are the current existing alternative. The death penalty and other punishments are a remnant of our barbaric past, and should be relegated to that past.

I'm with you on that. The punishment being a mirror of the crime is how medieval societies handled matters. Unsurprisingly, since these were religious societies to the core, it was very similar to Sharia law, complete with cutting off offending limbs and stuff.

That said, there are mental issues that cannot be cured. Pedophilia, as most experts agree, being one of them. Serial killers won't stop until they're either caught or be dead. That's another point where experts are mostly in agreement. That's also why European legislation has the concept of preventive custody (not sure if that's the correct english term). Life sentences are usually a stretch between 20 and 25 years and the courts can't dish out a longer term on a whim. So perps who are expected to reoffend get "ensuing preventive custody". That's unlimited, pretty much like life without parole, with the exemption of them being reevaluated every five years or so.

So all the outrage about Brejvik only getting 21 years for killing 87 people, I believe, wasn't based on the facts. Brejvik will never walk the streets again, since there's no commission in the whole wide world willing to risk releasing that kind of person.