Anders Behring Breivik: Mad or Bad?

The trial of Anders Behring Breivik in Oslo is the topic of much controversy in the news at the moment.  The trial doesn't necessarily concern whether or not he committed the acts of 22 July 2011 - he openly admits that he did kill 77 victims people and injury over 150 more in Oslo and Utoya and even said he would do it again - the key question for the trial to answer is about his mental state at the time of the attacks.  Was he mad, or just plain bad?

Breivik claims he committed the killings last year as a preemptive attack to halt the spread of Islam across "his" Norway and the rest of Europe.  He has ties with the far-right English Defence League (who, for the record, I won't give much air time to on this page), and, during his hour-long hate speech on the second day of his trial, described Norway as a "multiculturalist hell".

Anyway, to the point in hand - is he criminally culpable for his actions?

The first psychiatric evaluation (conducted in late 2011) suggested not.  According the the first report, Breivik acted compulsively, with little affect and a severe lack of empathy.  In addition, his worldview was based around grandiose and bizarre thoughts, bordering on the delusional.

Somehow, the outcome of this first report was a diagnosis of "paranoid schizophrenia".  To me, this seems a little contradictory.  The description above eludes to a man who is, if anything, a narcissistic psychopath.

Now, at this point, I don't want to get too political, but it could be suggested that many members of our political system are narcissistic psychopaths, and indeed some people do make that claim (see Sam Vaknin's YouTube page, for further details).  However, if somebody like Nick Clegg or David Cameron committed a murder, I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't be arguing that they shouldn't be held responsible for their actions.

So what's different about Breivik?

Well, he has commented several times about how he is fighting in a "low intensity civil war" against Islam and multiculturalism in Europe.  The same could be said about the exploits of our friends in the EDL, the British National Party and, to a certain extent, UKIP, who are rather surprisingly gaining political popularity here in Britain.  Granted, his thoughts are expressed in such a way that seem to indicate that he is insane and delusional, but this is often a tactic employed by extremists in order to recruit followers.  The more extreme the language, the more interesting it sounds to potentially vulnerable people, resulting in more 'followers' for the original extremist.

Again, though, this doesn't make him mad.  If anything, it makes him incredibly intelligent.  He spent years planning his attacks, compiled a 3-volume 1500 word long manifesto, and created a whole propaganda campaign to get his message out to the world.  And now he has the whole world watching his trial.

He will inspire far-right sympathisers, and this type of thinking is something that we will need to address in the coming years.

For me, Breivik certainly has a warped view of the world.  He is a narcissist and a psychopath, but he is not insane.

What do you think?  Debate this hotly contested topic using the usual methods - comments below will be much appreciated, but you can also subscribe to this blog on the right-hand side of the page, or follow me on Twitter for more updates.

I hope this has given some food for thought.

All the best,

Craig

Does the prison population truly reflect crime rates?

Hello,

I recently found some government statistics that state that the total number of recorded crimes in the UK has fallen from just under 5.6million in 1992 to 4.1million in 2011.  That means that, within 20 years, official crime rates have fallen by around 27%.  During the same period, the prison population has risen from around 46,000 to just under 86,000 - an increase of 87%.

Naturally, this leads to the conclusion that more people are being sent to prison - but why?

Just under 50% of all sentenced prisoners are currently serving determinate (i.e. fixed tariff) sentences of less than 4 years.  Once you take into account that most sentenced prisoners are released on licence half way through their tariff, this, in actual fact, means that most of these prisoners will actually be released back into the community after less than 2 years.  Now, you already know what I think to these short-term sentences (see "Tougher community sentences: Will they work?"), but this post is about why more people are going to prison in the first place.

Violent and sexual offenders account for 42% of the prison population, with acquisitive offenders (those convicted of robbery, burglary and theft) making up 29%.  15% of prisoners are convicted of drug-related offences, whilst motoring and fraud offenders representing 1% and 2% of the total prison population, respectively.  The remaining prison population is made up of offenders convicted for what the Ministry of Justice classify as "Other offences".  This group is likely made up predominantly of those with public order related convictions.  This final 11% of the prison population represents approximately 9,500 prisoners.  According to recent BBC reports, the cost of keeping someone in prison is £47,000 p.a., meaning that it costs the taxpayer around  £446.5million to keep those on short-sentences in prison.

So why are we sending these individuals to prison?

There seems to be a public demand for incarcerating individuals in order to "send a message" to others who may be tempted to commit offences.  This demand is currently being pandered to by the Tory-led government, who pride themselves for being tough on crime and public disorder.

However, we know that trying to discourage others by making examples of known offenders does not cut crime.  Take the example of the death penalty in the USA.  In 2010, the murder rate per 100,000 people in State with the death penalty was 4.6, whilst in States without the death penalty the rate was just 2.9.

Statistics such as these should be relayed back to the public in order to relieve the pressure on judges and the government to sentence offenders to imprisonment.  The National Probation Service spent £802million on supervising 121,691 community orders in 2006-2007, with an average cost of £6,632.  If the 9,500 "other offences"-sentenced prisoners were subject to community orders as opposed to prison sentences, this could in theory save the public over £380million per year.  Whilst, naturally, not all of these prisoners will be able to avoid prison sentences due to the severity of their crimes, there are substantial benefits to be had (both financially, and in terms of reduced reoffending rates) by switching sentences for lower-level crimes from prison- to community-based.  The financial savings made could then be ploughed back into the justice system to train more probation workers and improve rehabilitation programmes for the prisoners who need them most.

So what do you think?  Join in the debate by commenting on the post below, or indeed by following me on Twitter.

All the best,

Craig