Are the Danes too good to their criminals?

After a period of silence in which I’ve been extremely busy and not inspired at all, I’m back – at least for today.

A couple of days ago, I came across an article that left me absolutely shocked. I read the Danish version, but a short version in English can be found here:

http://cphpost.dk/news/former-mps-daughter-attacked-by-two-girls.10339.html

Of course, there is no one single story, and the police have also shared their version (Khader says the police didn’t show up, the police chief says they did, Khader says it’s a lie… blah blah blah), BUT there are at least two very clear facts that did happen:

1. A 14-year-old girl was assaulted, kicked, punched and dragged around from her hair (some say also threatened with a knife).

2. The identity of the assailants is known and they came from this facility called MultifunC, which as the Copenhagen post describes is “an institution for troubled and criminal 14 to 18-year-olds”.

Now, if I understood it correctly – and please someone correct me if I’m wrong – the police couldn’t do anything because the criminals are under 15 years old. So what, they are old enough to beat the crap out of this girl (forgive my French), but they’re too young to be properly punished?

Turns out that the inhabitants of this MultifunC facilty are allowed to come and go as they please. Again, criminals on the loose. And the professionals working there are not allowed to stop the teenagers from leaving the premises. They can say “no, wait! don’t go!” but they can’t physically stop them. The only thing they can do is inform the police that the kids are gone, and then the police will start to search for them 24 hours later. How much damage can these people cause in 24h? Well, quite a lot, by the looks of it.

In connection with this issue, here’s another article from the CPH post:

http://cphpost.dk/news/foreign-prisoners-have-it-too-easy-in-danish-prisons-says-venstre.10356.html

And again this is a sensitive and delicate topic and everyone is entitled to their opinion, so I’m going to share mine.

I do think Denmark (and Scandinavia in general) is ridiculously soft in their sentences. The title of the article “Foreigns have it too easy…” is a really bad choice, but I see where it’s coming from. Let me elaborate before you ask for my head:

Everyone has it too easy in Danish prisons, considering it’s criminals we are talking about. It’s great that there’s this will and goal for rehabilitating such criminals so that they can live in society again, but lets not forget that they also need to be punished. Hello? We are talking rapists, stabbers, maybe even murderers! And you give them a paid job? Put them to work (hard!) and feed them 3 times a day, but don’t give them a cent. Specially a cent of my money.

So okay, they are locked up. They have a bed, showers, a yard, exercise room, even TV. And 3 meals a day. AND A JOB. That’s more than a lot of foreigners have back at their home countries. So at some point, maybe it pays off to get locked up, if you are going to be sending money home to your family.

Let me tell you, I saw a documentary in Spain (I’m sorry I can’t provide the source, mainly cause I can’t remember it, you’ll have to take my word for it) of people of several nationalities explaining that they lived much better inside the Spanish prisons that outside on the streets, and not to talk about their countries of origin! People who admitted to have purposely committed crimes so they would be locked up (and fed and so on). Now, that is really sad. And Spanish prisons must be hell compared to Danish prisons (even though some of them still have more facilities and computers than most high-schools).

And let me be completely clear, I do not think foreigners should get a tougher time in jail than locals. I think everyone should get a tough time. It’s prison. They are criminals. Of course, there’s always the occasional Jean Valjean that shouldn’t be there, but I choose to trust the justice system and believe that if you are in jail, it’s because you sort of deserve it. After all, we are not in one of those countries that will throw you in jail for stealing a piece of bread.

In my humble opinion it is not normal that some people inside prisons are living better than some other people outside. It just doesn’t make sense. And don’t get me started on the Bastoy prison island in Norway (http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-prison-inmates-treated-like-people).

And that said, let me apologize about the very aggressive tone of this post – I do get very frustrated when I see things like this. I can’t stop thinking of that poor 14 year old that could have been my little sister – or in a very distant future, my own daughter.