Help Me With Dutch Law

[_Martyr_]

Is a persons life worth only 6 1/3 years?

I wouldnt say that is the question at hand. More like, what is acheived by locking someone away for much more than 20 years?

If you still want to draw some correlation between existent dutch law and nonexistent american law thats fine, but I dont remember this topic being about the US.

Forget Law for a minute, im talking about what is practiced here. If there were no retarded and/or minor people being executed in the US, then I would not mention it. However, the fact remains that these executions STILL take place EVEN, after the federal government ruled it against the 8th amendment to execute the mentally retarded (and the execution of minors is still perfectly legal in 19 states..)!! That is a massive failure of the judicial/legal system, and seems to me pretty (to borrow your phrase) "screwed up"! The Legal system itself breaking the laws...

[PanzerJaeger]

Sidenote: 1 year for molesting a child at 3 years or below, 3 years for forging currency.

1 freaking year! Why does Miky Jackson live in the US?

I wouldnt say that is the question at hand. More like, what is acheived by locking someone away for much more than 20 years?

Justice for starters. What is achieved by letting a murderer back out into society?

Forget Law for a minute, im talking about what is practiced here. If there were no retarded and/or minor people being executed in the US, then I would not mention it. However, the fact remains that these executions STILL take place EVEN, after the federal government ruled it against the 8th amendment to execute the mentally retarded (and the execution of minors is still perfectly legal in 19 states..)!! That is a massive failure of the judicial/legal system, and seems to me pretty (to borrow your phrase) "screwed up"! The Legal system itself breaking the laws...

America is broken up into different states that are somewhat independent of eachother, but all are supposed to follow national law. Executing retarded people is not practiced in my state and is against federal law, so your attempt at relativity ("You cant criticise them because you execute retards!!") doesnt hold water. If i lived in a state where it was legal i would vote against it. On the other hand these lenient murder sentences are dutch national law.

Executing minors is a whole different story. A 17 year old shouldnt get off after killing a few people just because he is legally a minor. I think you will find that very few if any young children who could not think on their own have been executed. Remember its up to a jury or judge, so just because there isnt a specific law banning minor executions doesnt mean that every child that kills someone is executed. Im happy with the law as it is in that case because of the example i cited above. There are many 16/17 year olds who act just as adults and deserve to be treated that way.

[_Martyr_]

Justice for starters. What is achieved by letting a murderer back out into society?

Rehabilitaion is the aim of punishment over this side of the pond. What greater achievement is there than taking a brutal murdering man, and after years of incarceration, including extensive psychological treatment and a host of other methods, producing a remorseful yet newly upstanding, profoundly changed individual, who regrets what they have done to the core. That seems like justice to me and far more productive than simply throwing away the key. An eye for an eye if you will, the killer removes an upstanding citizen from society, so society removes a murderer, and produces an upstanding citizen... the scales of justice are balanced.

Now dont get me started, I am the first to point out naked idealism, and there is no doubt that some people will are not reachable. But the fact remains that nothing at all is achieved by life term incarceration as a sole method of punishment. It clearly doesnt work as a deterant, or the murder rates in the US would be amounst the lowest in the world, not on the upper end of the scale.

As a matter of interest, what would you sentence this man to if it were up to you?

[_Martyr_]

America is broken up into different states that are somewhat independent of eachother, but all are supposed to follow national law. Executing retarded people is not practiced in my state and is against federal law, so your attempt at relativity ("You cant criticise them because you execute retards!!") doesnt hold water. If i lived in a state where it was legal i would vote against it. On the other hand these lenient murder sentences are dutch national law.

For a start, thanks for explaining Federal Government to us all, I honestly had NO idea what it was!


Im not attempting relativity of any sorts. What I am doing is getting you to examine and acknowlegde the massive failings of your own country's legal system (that retarded individuals, who are not wealthy enough to afford a top shot lawyer are still executed, by the State, even after it has been made illegal by the Federal Government) while you point out what seems to me to be a relatively minor flaw,(and even that is very subjective - I would call it a disagreement in applied severity of sentence) in the Netherlands. And then proceed to call that country screwed up on that grounds??

[_Martyr_]

I think we already had one or two cases here, where murderers flew from mental homes, because they can go to the dentist or out for a walk with guards, and killed more people.

Then surely the answer is to increase security at mental institutions? Not throwing all cases in prison, even if they are mentally ill?

Best is to kill a child(but sometimes works with adults, too), because then you will be declared retarded in about 90% of all cases, you will be put into a mental home and can then flee when you´re out on a walk with an unarmed guard.

I dont know, but I would have to see some statistics before I believed that 90% of childkillers in Germany are declared insane? Or is this rhetorical?

You can´t think that every murderer will be a good member of society after some crazy psychologists pumped him full of drugs for some years or after he was in prison for five years.

Surely it would be the Psychiatrists would be the ones doing all this drug pumping? And no, thats exactly what Im saying, locking someone up is not the way to achieve anything. Bring in the Psychologists, and maybe something can be done...

About the story you heard on the radio... well it seems odd to me, rather strange. But surely the woman (the mother) has incriminated herself again, with threatening to murder her daughter, which can be then dealt another term for that crime?

[_Martyr_]

I see nothing productive about that.

Ok... well fortunately that doesnt mean its wrong!

Justice is achieved. A life is taken by one person who then must pay for such a mortal crime with his own life - whether that be wasting away in prison or death.

Well, there is the irreconcilable, fundamental disagreement we have on this issue. This is the predominant view in the States, but it is generally viewed by most other western nations that this approach achieves absolutely nothing other than brutal revenge, note, not Justice. Call me a pansy wearing liberal pinko if you will, but I like to think that society has come along just a little since the middle ages when these customs, acts and laws were universal.

As a side note, I like the turkish prison system, or what its made out to be in the movies.

yeah... Im sure you do.

Western prisons are way too easy going. They should suffer every day, all day for what they did. Exercise rooms, cable, good food, and comfortable beds just dont cut it as punishment or rehabilitation.

Yeah... a real walk in the park!

[Proletariat]

Well, there is the irreconcilable, fundamental disagreement we have on this issue. This is the predominant view in the States, but it is generally viewed by most other western nations that this approach achieves absolutely nothing other than brutal revenge, note, not Justice. Call me a pansy wearing liberal pinko if you will, but I like to think that society has come along just a little since the middle ages when these customs, acts and laws were universal.

Then I'm a liberal pinko too, because this was put brilliantly.

[JAG]

Rehabilitaion is the aim of punishment over this side of the pond. What greater achievement is there than taking a brutal murdering man, and after years of incarceration, including extensive psychological treatment and a host of other methods, producing a remorseful yet newly upstanding, profoundly changed individual, who regrets what they have done to the core. That seems like justice to me and far more productive than simply throwing away the key. An eye for an eye if you will, the killer removes an upstanding citizen from society, so society removes a murderer, and produces an upstanding citizen... the scales of justice are balanced.

Now dont get me started, I am the first to point out naked idealism, and there is no doubt that some people will are not reachable. But the fact remains that nothing at all is achieved by life term incarceration as a sole method of punishment. It clearly doesnt work as a deterant, or the murder rates in the US would be amounst the lowest in the world, not on the upper end of the scale.

Now that is not only one hell of a good post - - but something I can totally agree with.

[Fragony]

Ow let me tell you about dutch law, he will probably have to write 'it is not nice to rape and kill' a hundred times, then he will get a course on social behaviour and a ticket to sixflags to channel all that negative energy. Then he will be put at kindergarten to see if he has learned anything, and if he has he can form a commision to avoid such behaviour in the future.

on a more serious note, forget sixflags.

[doc_bean]

I don't agree with the current Euro justice system. Not because I want vengeance, I don't believe in vengeance. But because it makes a serious crime (like murder) a serious option.

You spent five or six years in jail and you got rid of someone who got in your way. Sometimes this could be considered a good deal.

Don't get me started on rape and child abuse laws, they're ridiculous. People who are obviously sick get released after 5 years and start all over again. Murderers might not kill again often, but pedophiles will abuse again most of the time, yet we let those people near our children again...

And jail is like Disneyland here, criminals go swimming, go on bike rides, they don't have to work, they get to play videogames all day long...

I'm very much pro rehabilitation, but I think jail should still be a place where you don't want to go. And i think that with certain types of criminals, we should be very careful when considering releasing them on the streets again, ever.

[Fragony]

He likes it.



a lot.

Another murderous psycho with TBS (which means you are beaucoup dangerous) that was 'on leave' or 'even helemaaaaaal weg', and to our utter amazement he has killed again yesterday! Ohnoes teh shock! All the experts said he was highly dangerous but that didn't impress the justice department at all, all homocidal serial rapists have rights here after all, right on a normal life. So it doesn't matter that you rape and kill, we all go crazy from time to time don't we?

Yanks? invade us? please?

[Husar]

Dutch law sounds similar to german law.
Life long(those 20 or so years) is only applied if you kill several people in a very brutal way. If it was not that bad, when you killed only several people, but in a nice way, you can get out earlier if you behave in prison.
Best is to kill a child(but sometimes works with adults, too), because then you will be declared retarded in about 90% of all cases, you will be put into a mental home and can then flee when you´re out on a walk with an unarmed guard.[Please notice the irony ]
I think we already had one or two cases here, where murderers flew from mental homes, because they can go to the dentist or out for a walk with guards, and killed more people.
I´m not saying you should kill them, that´s another topic, but I think putting murderers in mental homes or in prison for a few years is by far not enough.
You can´t think that every murderer will be a good member of society after some crazy psychologists pumped him full of drugs for some years or after he was in prison for five years.

Not long ago I heard a story of a girl(she told it on the radio) whose mum shot her dad when she was nine years old. Her mum got imprisoned for 10 years and the girl got put into a children´s home for three years until she lived with her uncle. Now she is nineteen and her mum is about to be released, she doesn´t like her mum because of what she did and never visited her(I think that´s understandable, she loved her dad) and now her mum sent her a letter that she was going to do the same to her daughter, what she did to her husband. Ten years after she killed her husband, she wants to kill her daughter!
I don´t know how it went on, they wanted to inform the police, but I think the woman will maybe get a few more years or so and that´s it.
If I would see such a letter and had to decide, I´d give that woman 20 more years, including hard work!

That´s just my two cents.

[PanzerJaeger]

Rehabilitaion is the aim of punishment over this side of the pond. What greater achievement is there than taking a brutal murdering man, and after years of incarceration, including extensive psychological treatment and a host of other methods, producing a remorseful yet newly upstanding, profoundly changed individual, who regrets what they have done to the core. That seems like justice to me and far more productive than simply throwing away the key. An eye for an eye if you will, the killer removes an upstanding citizen from society, so society removes a murderer, and produces an upstanding citizen... the scales of justice are balanced.

I see nothing productive about that. Also the logic is flawwed. There is no set treatment to change a murderer into a normal person.

Now dont get me started, I am the first to point out naked idealism, and there is no doubt that some people will are not reachable. But the fact remains that nothing at all is achieved by life term incarceration as a sole method of punishment. It clearly doesnt work as a deterant, or the murder rates in the US would be amounst the lowest in the world, not on the upper end of the scale.

Justice is achieved. A life is taken by one person who then must pay for such a mortal crime with his own life - whether that be wasting away in prison or death.

As a side note, I like the turkish prison system, or what its made out to be in the movies.

Western prisons are way too easy going. They should suffer every day, all day for what they did. Exercise rooms, cable, good food, and comfortable beds just dont cut it as punishment or rehabilitation.

As a matter of interest, what would you sentence this man to if it were up to you?

If he is found guilty of willfully chosing to kill this girl than I would have him executed. He sold away his humanity and is nothing more than refuse that society must deal with.

[JimBob]

I see nothing productive about that.

Nothing productive? Instead of taking two people out of the population, you take one, and replace one useless being with a human who is willing to work and sees their errors. Is that not a greater justice? If you died would you rather have your death destroy another, or have that person reenter society and do good?

Executing minors is a whole different story. A 17 year old shouldnt get off after killing a few people just because he is legally a minor. I think you will find that very few if any young children who could not think on their own have been executed. Remember its up to a jury or judge, so just because there isnt a specific law banning minor executions doesnt mean that every child that kills someone is executed. Im happy with the law as it is in that case because of the example i cited above. There are many 16/17 year olds who act just as adults and deserve to be treated that way.

I can point you to a number of studies that will tell you that during teenage years the brain is undergoing a growth spurt on the level that a three year old goes through. During this time teenagers don't have alot of self control, infact a pre-pubescant probably is able to act more rationaly than a 15-16-17 year old.

[Husar]

@Martyr: Of course I can´t prove any 90% or other things, I just guessed there, that more or less represents what the news make you think.
Concerning psychiatrists and psychologists, I still have my problems with these terms in English(just don´t remember them always), just insert what you think fits best.

I would say that a lot of people know about their guilt, but they just give in to their "needs"(having sex with children), so they have to be punished, even if that just means locking them away for many years(20 should be the least, not the most). And I seriously doubt that much of this can be "healed", I agrre for rehabilitation on small thieves or so, but if you go as far as to kill several children, knowing you´re wrong and then don´t dare to look into the mother´s eyes, because you know about your guilt, then you´re so mentally sick it´s almost hopeless to help you. In the case I´m thinking about(was in the news here lately), the guy even talked to other people in prison, claiming he killed more than the children he was supposed to have killed. He just said something like: "Well, there I got weak again."
Although I could get into a rage about such things, I´d still not kill them, but rather let them hack stones for the rest of their life(or do something productive, like coal mining).
Of course there may be really mentally ill people, but it appears they call almost every childkiller mentally ill here, which I seriously doubt.

[KukriKhan]

Hmmm...

Kidnapping, murder, paedophilia, capital punishment, mentally disabled people, minors, national lockup/rehabilitation schemes....

Yup, I'm in the Org Tavern.

You don't have to keep it light, but keep it right, gentlemen. Forum rules, and all. Thank you. Please carry on.

[Husar]

I can point you to a number of studies that will tell you that during teenage years the brain is undergoing a growth spurt on the level that a three year old goes through. During this time teenagers don't have alot of self control, infact a pre-pubescant probably is able to act more rationaly than a 15-16-17 year old.

Erm, well, I wouldn´t even believe those studies, but maybe that is due to the (christian) way my parents brought me up and that our family is intact and doesn´t belong to the 52% divorce rate we have here. How can children grow up in a normal way if their moms or dads change every few years?
But I won´t go any deeper into that.#
Maybe there is some brain development, but that doesn´t excuse murder in any way, hope we agree on that.

[bmolsson]

In Indonesia you get death for murder. Had a serial killer last year that got that. Yesterday a Pakistani citizen got death penalty for drug trafficking and I believe that next month we will see 2 out of 5 bombers of the Australian embassy get that too. What I can't understand is that Americans keeps on critizing Indonesia for being to rough, isn't it death penalty you guy's want it to be ??

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

1 freaking year! Why does Miky Jackson live in the US?

Maybe because he can get out with nothing in the US ?

Louis,

[kiwitt]

1 freaking year! Why does Miky Jackson live in the US?

I think he could be considering leaving according to Jermaine Jackson. see NZ Herald

[Kanamori]

"Why not?"

Because then the punishment is neither fair, nor just. If the pattern for sentencing varies for the same type of offence, the system is doomed to inconsistency.

[JimBob]

Yet, I take it that in your opinion if the persons retarted or a minor it's alright, like they didn't even kill anyone?

It' s not alright it is wrong. But you do not destroy one person for destroying another, that is eye for an eye in the Hamburain sense. If someone destroys someone then that person who was previously a drain on society should replace the person who was destroyed, and become a productive member of soceity, eye for an eye in the Jewish sense.

Cite them please. I was 15, 16 and even 17 and I had the basic self control it takes not to kill another human being, as did all my friends. No, im sorry, hormonal changes excuse a lot of things, but not murder.

We're not talking about hormonal changes, we are talking about the part of the brain that controls self control among other things not being developed.
http://www.mohonasen.org/03parents/H.../teenbrain.htm
http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/03/08/24.php
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer
http://www.selu.edu/Academics/Facult...n_article.html
The brain’s frontal lobes (the areas that aid self-control, judgment, emotional maturity, organizing and planning) begin to grow again, starting at about age 10 for girls and age 12 for boys.
They found that adolescents undergo dramatic changes in the frontal lobe, or prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain critical to judgment, reason, self-control and planning.
You never commited murder because you never had reason, but if the idea gets into one's head, it is far more likely to take off, and far harder to stop.

So by keeping Rapists, pedophiles, ?druggies?, etc alive you are risking the lives of innocent people.

OH GOD DRUGGIES! Their nefarious laughter at shiny objects, thier dazed look, their munchies could be the end of America as we know it, and those Neo-marxist Trotskist pinko commmies could invade. All because of...Reefer *end 50's informational video voice. Dude you do know that reefer madness was a joke?

[bmolsson]

Is it wrong to kill ?? If you have a valid reason ??

[PanzerJaeger]

You never commited murder because you never had reason, but if the idea gets into one's head, it is far more likely to take off, and far harder to stop.

What teenager has a reason to commit murder? And what reasons justify it?

Are you suggesting that, had I felt the desire to murder someone, my brain didnt have the capacity to stop me from committing the act. Thats just ridiculous. Plenty of teens who are abused at school feel like killing other people - very few do.