Sentencing in Europe

[Imran Siddiqui]

Dude, Pekka, Finland is ****ed up.

[Pekka]

Absolutely! We the people are against this.. but nothing changes.. ministers of justice, they all say we must punish harder (meaning judges should use more the upper scale of the sentences, NOT more years to the scale!), but nothing happens. I'm not kidding when I say rapists, stabbers, drunk drivers who have accidentally killed people etc walk FREE. I'm not kidding when I say life is 12 years. I'm not kidding when I say you get half off of sentences. And that you get vacations etc etc.
It's a joke and everyone knows it. Unfortunately criminals knows this also.

It's like this. People think it's all good, and that we don't have crime. But they don't consider beatings etc crimes. If 5 men attacks 1 man and beats the living crap out of him for no reason, it's not a crime. It's a fight. Things like this.. Not to mention, almost the only way you do get punished is when you defend yourself... that's when you cross the line. It is frequent, that when someone attacks someone, the one who was attacked gets bigger punishment, just because he used bigger force aka was able to beat the attacked NO KIDDING!

For example there was this man who owned a gas station, and few guys broke in at night and started looting the place. The owner had a gun and shouted 'get out or I'll shoot!' .. not 'to the ground now, I'll arrest you' but 'go away!'. But Noooo the guy had to be macho about it and walk towards the owner. Pretty scary situation don't you think for the owner? Well, the owner warned the guy about million times, and then he shot the attacker IN his own gas station at night to the LEG.
Pretty good aim at the dark, and in scary situation. I would have put it in the chest personally.

Anyway, the guys who robbed the place and attacked the owner, didn't go to jail. They did get sentenced for robbing the place, but the owner got sentenced for taking it too far of defending himself, and got bigger punishment.

The point is, you can't defend yourself. Because, you don't know if the other person would have really done that, what he was threatning about and waving the gun at your face. You couldn't KNOW! You can always talk! You can alwyas RUN. ALWAYS! No matter what the situation is.

I'm sick of it, it makes my physically sick. Nothing happens, nothing changes. Crimes do get more hard though, but nothing changes as for better justice system.

And these are individual cases, but these are those everyday cases. It is more rare, that sentence is different from these, and that's what is scary.

[Mr. Harley]

Pekka, thanks for a different slant on at least some European criminal justice systems.

What I am interested in, if any of you out there in Europe will help (besides Pekka, he already answered for issues in Finland ) what is the situation with rapists and child molestors? The reason I ask is those are two groups of criminals who go out to re-committ the crime very often (recidivsim). Do you get press coverage of these monsters who get a short sentence and reoffend, or do the new EU privacy laws protect them? Better yet, do any of you have any hard figures on the reoffend rates after they get out?

By the way, I'm not slamming Europe. You don't have the problems we have with our prosecutorial system putting innocent people on death row, and then trying to block any chance of disproving it. One prosecutor in Texas, the second worst place for the death penalty after the PRC, wanted to destroy the rape kits (with DNA samples) of old convictions because he didn't want the cases revisited. Our problems are in the opposite direction.

[Pekka]

Want to hear something funny? We had this minister of justice.. he also spoke about toughening up the sentences (meaning using more the up of scale, not more years possible to sentences).. What happened?

His true nature came out few years later when he wasn't minister anymore. He beat up his gf, according to papers for a LONG time in summer cabin. Like half an hour or something. He used something to hit the woman too. The woman was in panic and called a friend. Friend couldn't even recognize the woman at first, because she was so beat up. talking about SERIOUS violence, not just some slapping and hitting, but total dominating and sick things.

So.. what he got? Few thousand euro fine... and that was because his income was so good, with my income the same fine woudl be most likely like 500 euros.
CAaaaan you diiiiig ittttt!!1111111

[Pekka]

shawnmmcc, well no matter what I think of our system, most people agree with me (finns) that the justice system is jsut horrible. It's not corrupted, but it's horrible.

Another example since you brought out child molestors. We just release our most famous child molestor, after serving that famous life setnence. He actually served it fully. But then again, he did kidnap two young children, put them into small dungeon he built, raped them multiple times and held them prisoners, strangled and killed them, burned their bodies and was caught in his car with the bones in his trunk. Life sentence = FINALLY! Oh wait.. what was that in our standards???

The mother of these children made an outcry, that don't let this man out, because of what he did, and that he don't deserve to get free this soon. Well he did his maximum time. Too bad.

And I'm not just bringing up the worst cases I've heard of. ****, I bet I can find some cases from todays papers, and many more that aren't written about if I go through the effort. It's not like saying 'Bush almost choked on a pretzel - He has EATING DISORDERS!'. This is monday-sunday everyday normal stuff.

[Pekka]

This is also one of the problems in violent crimes, vigilantism. People are not very fast to take justice in their own hands here, so don't get me wrong. But in the case of beatings, stabbings etc.. no good to go to police, it's not like the attacker gets anything. So what you do is hit back. You don't need to be in a gang to do it, ordinary guys do this all the time. One reason is because it is seen as the only way to set the record straight. Because no one gets anything for it. And you have to get back, don't you? You can't let it go. And it always gets out of the hand at some point people going back and forth.. it's when someone dies, that's when someone goes to jail for few years.

The reason I hate these young punks also. They KNOW no one can touch them in the justice system. Meaning they won't do time whatever they do. The piss off people, beat up people, so I hate them. And they are super arrogant about it too, like John Cena in WWE 'YOU CAN'T SEE ME!'. Imagine 10 fo those punks coming to your way and knowing they can do what ever the **** they want. That's when you need SUPERCITIZENS to kick their tiny little asses back to where it belongs, to hosptail and to mommas little sagging titties. It's time to draw the blood then, no need to hold back.

[Gangerolf]

Pekka, is the maximum sentence actually 12 years?
In Norway it's 21 years, but you're released after serving 2/3 of the sentence. So that makes it 14 years max. If you're a real sick ****er you can get up to 10 years of psychiatric confinement on top of that though.

[Pekka]

Gangerofl, NORWAY IS NAZI! Do you realize, we are talking about people! Not some animals! Coming to think of it, we shouldn't cage anything that lives! Free the forests! Let's drink more red wine, have orgy, make some dreadlocks to each other and never shower again!

Yes. Everything I said in my raging posts is true. They are passionate, but facts remain.

[Gangerolf]

I know, it's pretty extreme
But we make up for it with five-star prison cells

[Pekka]

Yes, but do they have cable tv? ****, even I don't have cable tv! But then again their are few prisons I believe that are made like 100 hundred years ago and are not very up to date. But in general comparing to other countries, our prisons are decent, not dungeon like caves.

And it's not that.. I think every case is individual case.. mercy is ok. But we need to have the tools to really lock someone up, if we so decide. Right now we don't have any of those tools. And yes, I do believe we need to protect prisoners rights too. They're people too.... give a chance to those who show that they are willing to really try and have potential.. but the ones that already chosen crimes as their ways of life, or are really sick ****s, I don't see many reasons why they should get sentences from 'FREE' to 'mild'.

[yaroslav]

In Spain there is no "for life without parole" sentence...

[BeBMan]

Re: Sentencing in Europe

Originally posted by DinoDoc

...[/q]Is life without parole completely unheard of in Europe? What exactly would a person have to do in order to be sentenced to 20 years?

The problem is that he accused of "being an accessory (...)" not for carrying out acts of murder himself.

You can go into jail for the whole life here for murder (without being a psycho, as Ecthy said), in fact just this week they sentenced two guys who murdered a child to life long prison.

BTW, today this Mzoudi guy came free

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/12/11/germany.mzoudi.reut/index.html

[Combat Ingrid]

Remove the knives from Finland and noone will get hurt anymore

In Sweden, the situation is similar to Finlands (besides the knife issue). You can kill people all day long and you will probably be released within ten years if you behave well

Also, in Sweden you cannot rape women that cannot defend themselves (if they are too drunk, stoned etc), only "abuse" them. Sexual abuse will give you maximum a couple of years in prison, probably something like six months, released after four

We have had several gang rapes (on young, drunk girls)recently, some of those rapists did not have to go to jail at all

[HershOstropoler]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Sentencing in Europe

Originally posted by DinoDoc
You're not really telling me anything. How is it a silly, utterly useless practice? I'm not interested in advocating for it. I'm only interested in trying to better understand your position on the matter.

Just at the practical level: What's the point of it? If you have working parole boards and parole standards, it's pointless. And it is silly as in effect, a judge or jury is supposed to decide a parole issue that is 20 or 30 or even 50 years down the road, and taking away any incentive from the convict to behave.

"I find this curious. Is there any reason why a person wouldn't be sentenced for each time the committed a crime?"

Each time, probably yes. But it was one act of being an accessory to what would likely have to be seen as one criminal act. On two separate acts of murder, he could get 2 times 15 years, and I think under german law he would have to serve both even if it is one trial, but I'm not fully sure on that last point.

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
what is the situation with rapists and child molestors? The reason I ask is those are two groups of criminals who go out to re-committ the crime very often (recidivsim). Do you get press coverage of these monsters who get a short sentence and reoffend, or do the new EU privacy laws protect them? Better yet, do any of you have any hard figures on the reoffend rates after they get out?

Privacy laws (and EU privacy law is just covering a part of that area, mostly data protection law) don't stop the press from covering the cases, just from identifying individuals, in most cases at least. As for criminal pedophiles, often a case for Psychiatry. More difficult with rapists, especially first time rapists. We had problems with early pardons/releases a few years ago, the standards have been tiightened since.

"Our problems are in the opposite direction."

Not really. A wrongful conviction does not only mean an innocent person in prison, it also means one criminal on the streets.