Anders Behring Breivik's prison conditions 'inhumane'

[Norseman]

So basically Anders Behring Breivik claims his prison conditions are 'inhumane'. I can confirm this is real, there was a huge article in VG (one of Norways big tabloids) about it today.

The Norwegian convicted of the massacre of 77 people last year has said he is being held in "inhumane" conditions.

Anders Behring Breivik complained in a letter to the prison service that his coffee is served cold, he does not have enough butter for his bread, and he is not allowed moisturiser.

Breivik is serving a minimum 21-year sentence for the bombings and shootings in Oslo and Utoeya island last July.

The Norwegian authorities have not commented on the letter.

However his lawyer has confirmed that the details of the 27-page document leaked to Norway's VG newspaper are authentic.

Breivik is being held in almost complete isolation - 23 hours a day, he says - at Ila prison outside Oslo.

His cell includes three sections, one to sleep, one for study and a third for exercise - each measuring 8 sq m (86 sq ft).

In the letter, he complains that the cell is poorly decorated and has no view.

"I highly doubt that there are worse detention facilities in Norway," he writes.

'Too cold'

Among his other complaints are:

* the handcuffs he wears when being moved around the prison "are too sharp and "cut in his wrist"
* the cell is too cold, forcing him to wear three layers of clothes
* he has to rush his morning shave and brushing of teeth
* light and television switches are outside the cell, so he has to ask for help to change channel or sleep.

Ila is an all-male institution which "houses some of the country's most dangerous men", its website says.

However it differs markedly from other maximum security jails in western Europe. The staff is a half-and-half mix of men and women and none are armed.

Breivik massacred 77 people, most of them teenagers at a youth camp run by Norway's governing Labour Party.

His 21-year sentence can be indefinitely extended for as long as he is considered a danger to society.

I seriously don't know what to say about this. I mean I realise that just because he's a convicted felon he has rights, and some of his complaints are valid. On the other hand, a lot of what he complains about is just completely ridiculous.

[frigidmagi]

He's better off than he would be in a American, British or French prison. Hell! He's still got a better lifestyle than a good number of free Europeans! Shit, I lived in smaller apartments than his cell. Oh Noes my coffee is cold... Fuck off.

Look if his actual human rights are being violated, like the guards are beating or torturing him or he's being forced to sleep in shit or something... Then we can talk. Otherwise...

Him experiencing mild discomfort on a daily level results in me have exactly zero fucks to give. He's in jail! He doesn't have a right to coffee, or butter. He has a right to food, healthy food prepared at a level fit for human consumption. Not really nice food prepared perfectly to his taste. I still say he's lucky that it was Norwegian justice that decided his fate, he would not have been so comfortable even on the European continent and what we or the Japanese would have done to him? Aie!

Fuck, the Canadians would have roughed him up possibly and they're the nicest people on my continent.

And I'm sticking to free democratic nations here.

[Josh]

Sorry, being a mass murderer means losing some of your comfy outside privileges.

That this is even newsworthy is ridiculous. The closest thing to a valid complaint is the temperature, but the rest is just farcial.

[Academia Nut]

Fuck, the Canadians would have roughed him up possibly and they're the nicest people on my continent.

I can pretty much confirm that he would have undoubtedly suffered "an unfortunate accident in transit" while off camera somewhere. Hell, the cops are in deep shit because they were being brutal sadistic fucks to an 18 year old girl. Bastard should count himself lucky that he lives in the nicest country on the planet, except that is his problem in the first place.

[rhoenix]

So... he shoots many children, believing that they are beyond redemption for their evil socialist ways and have to be killed.

He gets caught, revealed to be not insane, just a zealot.

And now his handcuffs are slightly too sharp, his coffee isn't at just the right temperature, he has a "poor view" of the outside while in his cell, his cell is too cold for his tastes, and he has to suffer the indignity of asking a guard to change his TV channel or turn his lights off.

I'm sorry, was he under the impression that he gets to retire to a cushy resort for his actions? That he gets to have massages, choice cuts of beef, and a choir to sing him to sleep each night for what he did?

I'd say let the guards unbend enough to give him one extra privilege beyond what he has now - Vagasil, since his pussy's obviously inflamed and hurting. Beyond that, he has no room to bitch. None.

[Stofsk]

What a baby.

[Norseman]

Apparently his coffee isn't actually *cold* it's just not hot, only warm. But since he doesn't get a thermos bottle it tends to go cold after a while. Also the bad pen he has a special prison issue pen designed to be stab-resistant, e.g. to be impossible to use as a weapon.

[frigidmagi]

Well he sure as hell doesn't rate a pen that could be used as a weapon! You know Norse, despite our economic difficulties, the US might be able to be talked into taking this man off your hands. You know, in the name of the alliance between Norway and the US. As a favor. It would be a burden to us, but I'm sure there's a open cell in the supermax next to the Unabomber. Ted by the way, from what I understand, doesn't get coffee.

[Norseman]

BTW they have in fact replaced his pen with an electrical typewriter. It is apparently bolted to the table.

[General Havoc]

Will someone please shank this disgusting pile of refuse and spare us all from spending another milisecond thinking about him?

[Norseman]

I have finally gotten my hand on the Norwegian newspaper who published the list of his complaints. I started translating from the paper version, but then I found an online version still only in Norwegian. Since machine translations suck I'll just write a quick translation.

Material in double quotes is directly quoting Breivik, material without double quotes is from the tabloid itself. The style of language Breivik uses is very "official-documentesque," not legalese, but a somewhat stilted and cumbersome style that seems to infect most Norwegian institutions. I've tried to make a reasonable faithful translation here, in some cases I've been flat out forced to simplify his often cumbersome writing.

The Prison
"Looking at the internal environment I seriously doubt there's a worse penal facility in Norway, than the Basement of Ila prison, and I view being there as an additional punishment."

The Cell
"The solitary cell that I am in is, as I said, stripped for furniture and has white walls that I'm not allowed to decorate. This worn cell from the 60s/70s is in the infamous cellblock that's nicknamed 'The Basement', where the only view you have is a prison wall that, with its nine meter height, blocks out everything except for the tops of a few trees."

Correspondence
In his letter of complaint Breivik claims that only letters from "new-testament Christians and other people who don't like me" has gotten through censorship since the 8th of August. A short time before the central administration of the Correctional Services issued a memorandum to ensure that Breivik would not be able to control a criminal network from his cell.

Lack of daylight
"As you know the windows have a dark foil applied to them, which reduses the available sunlight with around 60 percent. As a result of this I'm forced to take vitamin supplements to prevent Vitamin D deficiencies among other things."

Being unable to control the lighting
"That the light- and TV- switch is outside the cell means that I have to call the prison officers through the intercom system for this (...) On several occasions when I was going to bed I've been forced to wait for up to 40 minutes before they've come to hand over my toothbrush and turn off the light.

The pen is bad
Breivik claims that the rubber pen he was issued doesn't work for him. Using this pen he can only write around 10-15 words a minute. IT is also not very ergonomic, and according to the mass murderer it makes his hand hurt after using it for only a short while. "If it'd been theoretically possible to develop rheumatism, then I'm sure this rubber pen would have done the job."

Lack of common courtesy among the prisoners
Breivik has four times complained that another prisoner in the solitary block at Ila has provoked him by increasing the volume of his stereo system. Breivik also complains about being scolded by the prison officers, as well as screaming from fellow prisoners. "I want peace and quiet. I want to be left alone."

No thermos-bottle for his coffee
The terrorist is not allowed a thermo-bottle in his cell, according to the letter this means that he's forced to drink cold coffee 80 percent of the time.

Collection of cardboard plates and plastic utensils
He describes the way the prison officers collect his cardboard plates and plastic utensils is a form of "low-intensity psychological terror", because he feels it requires him to hurry to finish eating and drinking.

Moisturizer problem
He reacts to not being allowed to have a container of moisturizer in his room, but instead he's issued a plastic cup filled with cream. This means that much of the cream will be ruined during the day.

Gets too little butter
The terrorist complains that at times he only gets enough butter for 2-3 of the 4 slices of bread he eats. "This creates unnecessary irritation because you ... either have to eat dry slices of bread or be made to have a bad conscience about asking for more."

Bad TV
The mass murderer is upset that the TV has a very poor image and an echo to the sound, because it's locked up in a security closet made from steel and Plexiglas. Furthermore he's upset that his radio will only get channel P1 and channel P3.

Clothing
"Since it is often quite cool in my living cell I usually wear a thick jacket / sweater at any given time (...) There are regularly problems when I ask for one of these garments. For some reason they often bring me a Lacoste sweater of the sort I use for special occasions. Despite the fact that I've pointed out several times that I don't want one of those, since they are quite valuable and should be spared a high degree of wear (...) I have therefore on several occasions wound up spending 1-2 days freezing until I manage to 'nag' my way into getting a prison officer to go into the storage area and fetch one of the correct jacket-sweaters."

Handcuffs
"To be handcuffed is offensive and creates a mental strain. National guidelines for SHS requires me to be handcuffed before I'm moved to other rooms / the exercise area and/or before the prison officers open the cell door. During the last 14 months I've been subjected to handcuffing on average of five times a day – a total of more than 2000 occasions." The murderer who killed 77 and maimed many other for life says that he has six times has suffered "friction cuts where the steel edge on the inside of the handcuffs has ripped the skin on my wrists in a very painful way." This has led him to develop a fear of handcuffs.

Strip searches
"The number of daily strip searches was reduced from January on, but even today it sometimes happens that I'm subjected to this twice a day. A strip search involves me being made to take off all my clothes, after which each garment is carefully examined." He describes in detail how such searches are conducted. "This is something I dread every day."

Feeling watched
"The two cameras and the peephole in the door leads to a constant feeling of tension and of being watched (...) On occasion I am subjected to one of the daily 30-40 door hatch checks at the precise moment that I'm using the toilet, something which leads to a particularly great psychological strain. At times this can be experienced as a mental shock, especially if the hatch is slammed a the same time."

Controls
"There is a hatch check every 30-60 minutes – 24 hours a day. AT night I occasionally wake up from having a flashlight shone into my face. It has also happened that they have woken me up if I've been sleeping without moving. It is known that they are not doing this for sadistic reasons, but to make sure that the prisoner hasn't committed suicide."

Cell searches
Require him to rearrange his documents as they are occasionally brought into disarray. Breivik is also upset that he has to make his bed again after these searches.

Being moved
In the letter Breivik expresses great frustration that he is apparently made to wait overlong to be moved to his training-cell, the study cell, or the outdoors area. He says that since 15 October he has stopped using the study cell. "The reason is that I feel the price I have to pay to use this offer is too high, as a daily struggle has to be fought to gain access to the cell for a full workday."

Denied art and a view
"The solitary cell in which I live is, as I said, stripped of furniture and with white walls that may not be decorated. One is therefore denied the inspiration and mental energy that art and a view can give you."

Disturbed by prison wide messages
Breivik asks to be exempt from receiving prison wide messages on the intercom, as "this is viewed as very irritating and at times an interruption."

Money
"The requirement for my daily 'work money' allowance being raised from $7.2 / £4.5 a day to $10.25 / £6.5 a day from 1 October onwards was that in addition to studying, I would also wash the three cells that I use. In Skien prison I was given a mop with handle. In Ila on the other hand the only thing I'm given is the mop itself, despite for my verbal complaints about this. I am in other words forced to scrub all three cells on my knees, something I view as degrading.

I should add that they have given him an electrical typewriter for his work room. Presumably its bolted to the ground.

[Josh]

Paying attention to this shit just gives him a dignity he doesn't deserve. No offense to y'all, Norseman, and I understand that the uniqueness of his crime gives him a celebrity that basically ensures he'll have a high level of visibility for his maunderings. But this is stuff that people should just blow off as the whining of a sick murderer.

[SirNitram]

I actually enjoy these. They are the bitter tears of an evil man, his pains and psychological stress a tiny but constant recompense for his crimes. I enjoy hearing of his 'suffering'. And I can't wait until oblivion claims his worthless soul.

[Josh]

I actually enjoy these. They are the bitter tears of an evil man, his pains and psychological stress a tiny but constant recompense for his crimes. I enjoy hearing of his 'suffering'. And I can't wait until oblivion claims his worthless soul.

It'd be great except that no small part of this undoubtedly is to get attention. Folks like him do the sort of shit they do to be in the news, and here he is in the news again. So he's won a little victory here.

It'd be much better to hear about it years after he's dead, that he was miserable and alone and forgotten.

[General Havoc]

Is there a problem with inmate murder in Norway?

If not, can there be one?

[Norseman]

Is there a problem with inmate murder in Norway?

No.

If not, can there be one?

There's a reason he's in isolation; several fairly dangerous gangs have said they'd kill him if they get a chance. That is quite unusual in Norway. This guy managed to get the Banditos and Hells Angels motorcycle gangs to do a joint ride. Even the two big immigrant gangs (big with Thais and Vietnamese) have threatened to kill him. There's even a rumour that there's a prize on his head.

[rhoenix]

There's a reason he's in isolation; several fairly dangerous gangs have said they'd kill him if they get a chance. That is quite unusual in Norway. This guy managed to get the Banditos and Hells Angels motorcycle gangs to do a joint ride. Even the two big immigrant gangs (big with Thais and Vietnamese) have threatened to kill him. There's even a rumour that there's a prize on his head.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, I'm sure. There's really only so many ways you can attempt to justify killing children, and all of them fall flat once the subject gets back around to the point of "children were killed in cold blood."

[Stofsk]

Is there a problem with inmate murder in Norway?

If not, can there be one?

This is the second time you've made what I'm assuming to be a facetious remark calling for this guy to get shanked. I know that this guy is a reprehensible human being, and I know that some might feel his punishment is somewhat less than they think he deserves. But calling for him to be murdered, even in jest, is in very poor taste. Inmate murder is still murder, and it is not just.