Norway Prosecutors Ask for Psychiatric Care, Not Prison

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Saying “in our opinion, it is worse that a psychotic person is sentenced to preventative detention than a nonpsychotic person is sentenced to compulsory mental health care,” the prosecutors asked for psychiatric care rather than prison for confessed Norwegian killer Anders Breivik in closing statements today. Breivik has insisted he was and is sane and that he killed in self-defense to combat the “Islamic colonization” of Europe.

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Kermit Cole
Kermit Cole, MFT, founding editor of Mad in America, works in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a couples and family therapist. Inspired by Open Dialogue, he works as part of a team and consults with couples and families that have members identified as patients. His work in residential treatment — largely with severely traumatized and/or "psychotic" clients — led to an appreciation of the power and beauty of systemic philosophy and practice, as the alternative to the prevailing focus on individual pathology. A former film-maker, he has undergraduate and master's degrees in psychology from Harvard University, as well as an MFT degree from the Council for Relationships in Philadelphia. He is a doctoral candidate with the Taos Institute and the Free University of Brussels. You can reach him at [email protected].

4 COMMENTS

  1. Maybe Anders would have too much power in prison.

    Check out this woman’s fear of Islamic presence:
    http://youtu.be/bH6QO9MfaH4
    Melanie Phillips – Islam in Europe

    “Britain was the least Islamophobic of all the European nations that were studied and Britain, nevertheless, was the country where British Muslims HATED their host country THE MOST. And I don’t think that this is a coincidence, I think these two things are intimately connected, and I think the … what we’re looking at is an interface between the encroachment of militant Islamism in Britain with what I would consider should be called Britain’s cultural lobotomy”.

    OH!

    She says militant Islamism in Britain should be considered Britain’s CULTURAL LOBOTOMY.

    And Anders “insisted he was and is sane and that he killed in self-defense to combat the “Islamic colonization” of Europe.”

    LOL!!!

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  2. From the article: “In our opinion, it is worse that a psychotic person is sentenced to preventative detention than a nonpsychotic person is sentenced to compulsory mental health care,” Svein Holden, one of the prosecutors, told the court.

    Heh, I kind of laughed out when I read this comment earlier. The prosecutor is telling that statement as if a self-evident truth, meant to change the opinions of nay-sayers. What is a fate worse for a sane person than be chemically lobotomized with neuroleptics and kept in a hospital? I just read some article which said that many psychiatric survivors have told that they’d rather be in jail than medicated to oblivion.

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    • I quite agree. 5% chance of tardive dyskinesia for every year of treatment, 3% risk for tardive psychosis for each year, cognitive decline, diabetes, heart disease.
      Keep him drugged for 10 years, and he will really come out a “changed person”.
      Forced treatment is really much worse than prison, specially Norwegian luxury prisons with internet and TV in every room, free education and all expenses paid, even trips to the cinema.

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  3. My 2 cent opinion. The Law should look at the evidence of the criminal case, not the reason for the crime. People were killed by someone. Who did it? Why should the Law ask why were they murdered? Only if the court is in doubt who did the crime does the motivation for the crime factor.

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