Interdisciplinary Review of General, Forensic, Prison and Military Psychiatry and Psychology and the related subjects of Behavior and Law with the occasional notes and comments by Michael Novakhov, M.D. (Mike Nova).
On entry to prison, almost one-fifth of prison entrants were referred to the prison mental health services for observation and further assessment. Young people in juvenile detention facilities also have high rates of mental illness ...
A Decent Solution to Chronic Criminality: How to Alter Kids' Course Patch.com Many teen offenders then move into adult prisons and come out with a “Ph.D. in criminology” and no help re-entering society in a healthy manner. So says San Diego photojournalist and urban anthropologist Susan Madden Lankford, author of a trilogy of ...
A Spate of Teenage Suicides Alarms Russians New York Times Experts blame alcoholism, family dysfunction and other kinds of fallout from the Soviet Union's collapse, as well as the absence of a mental health structure and social support networks to help troubled young people. They also agree with Mr. Medvedev ...
Long Island doctor accused of raping patient 7Online.com by FRANK ELTMAN SANDS PONT -- A psychiatrist who had his medical license suspended, then revoked, more than a decade ago because of misconduct allegations is accused of raping a woman he was treating for depression inside his Long Island office, ...
NY police arrest psychiatrist on charges he raped a female patient | The Republic The Republic FRANK ELTMAN AP MINEOLA, NY — A psychiatrist who had his medical license suspended, then revoked, more than a decade ago because of misconduct allegations is accused of raping a woman he was treating for depression inside his Long Island office, ...
What 'insanity' means for Norwegian gunman Mother Nature Network Loughner is undergoing psychiatric treatment in the US Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Missouri. [Extremism in Prison (Infographic)] People declared not guilty by reason of insanity don't walk free — like Loughner, they're committed.
More psychiatry is likely to be practiced in public mental health settings in California, enhancing the need for better preparation in management and leadership.Abstract Teaser
Mentally ill offenders are subject to poor medical practices due to lower in-prison standards of mental health care. Ill inmates are managed by staff members who are insufficiently trained in treating mental illnesses, and they ...
Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway in July 2011, wishes to be sentenced as sane, but the court may not give him that option.
By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScienceWed, Apr 18 2012 at 4:13 PM EST
STANDING TRIAL: Right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik has his handcuffs removed in the central court in Oslo, April 19, at the start of the fourth day of his trial (Photo: Daniel Sannum Lauten/AFP)
Norwegian gunman Anders Behring Breivik, who has admitted killing 77 people in bomb and gun attacks last July, has told judges his actions were political and he was acting in self-defense against a "multiculturalist" conspiracy. His extremist motivations, however, are less likely to determine his fate than whether the court finds him sane or insane.
In Norway, defendants qualify for an insanity defenseonly if they can prove they were in a state of psychosis and not in control of their own actions during the crime. One court-ordered psychiatric examination found Breivik insane, with psychiatrists writing that he was driven by delusions and paranoid schizophrenia. However, a second evaluation held he is sane, according to news reports.
Some U.S. states have a test for legal insanity that's similar to the one used in Norway, said Landy Sparr, the director of the forensic psychiatry training program at Oregon Health & Science University.
"You could have psychiatrists agree on the diagnosis but disagree on whether or not the defendant could control his actions at the time of the crime," Sparr told LiveScience.
Insanity in context
The insanity defense has a long history: Even in ancient Rome, "lunatics" were not held accountable by the legal code, and English common law dating back to the 1200s allowed "madness" as a criminal defense. An early landmark case occurred in 1843, when a gunman named Daniel M'Naghten attempted to kill British Prime Minister Robert Peel in the belief Peel was trying to kill him. M'Naghten accidentally killed Peel's secretary instead; he was declared insane, prompting outrage among British politicians and the public. The case led to the establishment of "the M'Naghten rule," which held that defendant could be considered legally insaneif they did not understand the act they committed or that the act was wrong.
In the United States, 27 states still hold to this standard, Sparr said. Twenty-two others have added a second standard for qualifying for insanity, called the "volitional prong." If a defendant understands right from wrong but was still driven to commit a crime by an "irresistible impulse," he or she also could qualify for legal insanity, Sparr said. Norway uses a modification of this standard, asking whether a defendant was in control of his actions during the crime.[10 Controversial Psychiatric Disorders]
Legal insanity is not the same thing as a medical diagnosis of mental illness, Sparr added. Psychologists and psychiatrists can testify to a defendant's sanity or lack thereof, but it is up to juries to determine whether the defendant's mental state excuses him of liability for his crime.
"When a psychiatrist evaluates somebody, they don't write up an evaluation and then make a comment or statement about whether this person knows the difference between right and wrong," Sparr said. Such a statement would make no difference in treating a psychiatric condition, he said. But in the court of law, it can be the key to a case.
Controversy and insanity
The insanity defense can be especially controversial in a high-profile case such as Breivik's. But in the U.S., that defensive strategy is actually quite rare: Only about 1 percent of criminal defendants use it, and juries reject about four of every five insanity pleas, according to West's Encyclopedia of American Law.
In many cases of severe insanity, the defendant is declared not competent to stand trial and is committed to a psychiatric facility. This was the case with Jared Loughner, accused of killing six people and wounding Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a shooting spree in Tucson, Ariz., in 2011. Loughner is undergoing psychiatric treatment in the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Missouri. [Extremism in Prison (Infographic)]
People declared not guilty by reason of insanity don't walk free — like Loughner, they're committed. In many cases, an insanity defense can end with the defendant locked up for longer than he would have been under another defense.
"Especially for medium-level crimesand low-level crimes, you definitely are in the mental hospital longer" than you would spend in prison, Sparr said.
In a case of multiple murders, as Breivik is charged with committing, neither prison nor a psychiatric hospital is likely to lead to a quick release, Sparr said.
If found sane, Breivik would face a maximum 21-year prison sentence, with options to extend his incarceration if he is still considered a danger to society. If declared insane, the confessed killer would be involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility for as long as he is considered ill.
Breivik himself wants to be sentenced as sane and has called the possibility of being found insane "the ultimate humiliation."
The number of incarcerated mentally ill men and women is a growing trend in the United States. Today, the percentage of prisoners with mental disease outweighs the percentage of the general population that struggles with similar maladies. Reasons for this trend include gradual deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill and inadequate community mental health services. Moreover, a social mindset that declares that mentally unstable people should be behind bars has also contributed to making overcrowded U.S. prisons the primary place of mental treatment—at a significant cost taxpayers.
...they encounter abusive conditions and limited treatment.
This development has led to numerous challenges for mentally ill people in the criminal justice system. Insufficient mental health screening and lack of collaboration between the public and prison health systems exacerbate mentally ill prisoners’ conditions by inhibiting treatment. Mentally ill offenders are subject to poor medical practices due to lower in-prison standards of mental health care. Ill inmates are managed by staff members who are insufficiently trained in treating mental illnesses, and they suffer abuse from fellow inmates when mixed with the general prison population. Upon release, reentry planning often excludes access to medical insurance and fails to connect inmates with community treatment facilities, further threatening offenders’ chances of avoiding re-arrest.
Justice Fellowship calls for compassionate, competent care.
Justice Fellowship believes that successful treatment of mentally ill offenders entails quality medical attention; trained prison staff; universal, performance-based prison health care standards that mirror those outside prisons; separate facilities to protect the mentally ill from abuse; and using community or family-based rehabilitation programs in lieu of correctional institutions when possible. To this end, Justice Fellowship endorsed the passage of the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act in 2004, which authorized $50 million for grants to states and localities to set up mental health courts and treatment programs for offenders. Justice Fellowship also advocated for the Second Chance Act of 2007, which authorizes additional grants for mental treatment programs. Pursuing these objectives gives mentally ill offenders the respect they are due and increases the chances for complete and effective restoration.
The number of incarcerated mentally ill men and women is a growing trend in the United States. Today, the percentage of prisoners with mental disease outweighs the percentage of the general population that struggles with similar maladies. Reasons for this trend include gradual deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill and inadequate community mental health services. Moreover, a social mindset that declares that mentally unstable people should be behind bars has also contributed to making overcrowded U.S. prisons the primary place of mental treatment—at a significant cost taxpayers.
Norwegian gunman says pain of losing touch with his family is like grief of victims’ families
Stian Lysberg Solum, POOL/Associated Press - Defendant Anders Behring Breivik waits in court at the start of the 5th day of his mass killing trial in Oslo, Norway on Friday. Confessed mass murderer Breivik testified Thursday in a chilling account of his preparations for the massacre of 77 people.
By Associated Press, Published: April 22 | Updated: Monday, April 23, 7:07 AMAP
OSLO, Norway — The right-wing extremist who confessed to a massacre of 77 people in Norway compared on Monday the pain he caused the families of his victims to his own situation, saying he lost contact with his friends and family after the July 22 attacks.
Anders Behring Breivik, 33, showed no remorse as he continued his shocking testimony about his shooting spree at the annual summer youth camp of the governing Labor Party.
Calling the rampage “necessary,” Breivik compared being shunned by those close to him to the grief of the bereaved.
“The only difference was that for my part it was a choice,” he said.
Breivik has confessed to the bombing and shooting rampage but rejects criminal guilt, saying the victims had betrayed their country by embracing immigration. Even the defense admits there is virtually no chance of an acquittal, so the key issue to be determined in the trial is whether Breivik is criminally insane.
Two pscychiatric examinations reached opposite conclusions on that point. Breivik himself insists he is sane, and accuses the prosecutors of trying to make him look irrational.
“I know I’m at risk of ending up at an insane asylum, and I’m going to do what I can to avoid that,” he told the court.
Breivik became defensive as prosecutors quizzed him about sections of the 1,500-page manifesto he posted online before the attacks. It describes uniforms, medals, greetings and codes of conduct for the “Knights Templar” militant group that he claims to belong to. Prosecutors don’t believe it exists.
In one section, read by prosecutor Svein Holden, Breivik speculated that in his future society, the loyalty of potential knights might be tested by asking them to undergo surgical amputation and castration. Breivik chastised the prosecutor for what he called “low blows” and said the segment was taken out of context.
The self-styled crusader apologized to the family of a pub owner who was among the eight people killed in the blast outside the government offices in Oslo, saying it was not his intention to kill “civilians.”
Holden asked him if he wanted to express a similar apology to the families of the other victims, including the 69 killed on the youth camp on Utoya island.
“No I don’t,” Breivik said. “Utoya is a political indoctrination camp.”
“I see all multicultural political activists as monsters, as evil monsters who wish to eradicate our people, our ethnic group, our culture and our country,” he said.
Jon Hestnes, who heads a support group for victim’s families and survivors, told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that Breivik’s apology was “pathetic.”
Speaking calmly, Breivik said he used a handgun to kill victims if the distance was less than 10 meters. Otherwise he used his rifle.
Asked why he spared one man who survived the shooting spree, Breivik said he thought it was because the man’s appearance made him look “right wing-oriented.”
“When I looked at him I saw myself,” Breivik said. “I think that was the reason that I didn’t fire shots at him.”
If found sane Breivik would face 21 years in prison though he can be held longer if deemed a danger to society. If sentenced to psychiatric care, in theory he would be released once he’s no longer deemed psychotic and dangerous.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
You have no doubt heard of journal "rankings." A journal's rank conveys information about the impact and quality of a journal. This can be useful information for both authors and consumers. An author might want to consider a journal's prestige, and the difficulty getting published in it. For consumers -- including expert witnesses who might be relying on a particular article in court -- ranking can serve as a proxy for the accuracy and reliability of a journal's content. How much should the trier of fact trust the information in this journal?
But there are lots of methods for ranking journals -- the Impact Factor, the Eigenfactor, the h-index, just to name a few. And with the proliferation of journals in forensic psychology, it gets hard to keep track. Which journals have the best reputations? Which are the most cited? Which provide the broadest coverage of forensic psychology topics?
One popular way to rank-order journals is based on reference counts. How many times a journal is cited is an indicator of its reputation. In forensic psychology, according to an unpublished study by S. Black, the top-referenced journals are (in rank order):
Law and Human Behavior
Behavioral Sciences and the Law
British Journal of Psychiatry
Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology
American Journal of Psychiatry
Criminal Justice and Behavior
Now, a researcher with training in both psychology and library science has taken a somewhat different approach, devising a clever content-analysis procedure to rank-order journals in our field.
Chris Piotrowski started by screening several texts in the field and choosing terms that are popular both in research and practice. The 16 terms were: eyewitness testimony, competency to stand trial, alcoholic blackouts, infanticide, sentencing, forensic evaluations, polygraph, malingering, jury selection, homicide, diminished capacity, insanity defense, child abuse, Daubert standard, child custody and expert witness.
Next he used PsycNET, "the recognized major bibliographic resource in the social and behavioral sciences that indexes scholarly and professional journals," to run keyword searches on his 16 terms. For each search term, he rank-ordered journals based on the frequency of hits; a journal's total ranking was obtained by summing across all 16 terms.
The winners were (in rank order):
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law
PsycCRITIQUES (formerly, Contemporary Psychology)
Law and Human Behavior
Behavioral Sciences and the Law
American Journal of Forensic Psychology
Journal of Psychiatry and Law
Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law
Mental & Physical Disability Law Reporter
American Journal of Psychiatry
American Psychologist
Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice
International Journal of Psychiatry and Law
Journal of Criminal Justice
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice
Journal of Applied Psychology
Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology
Psychological Reports
British Journal of Psychology
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law
I would be a little cautious about relying on this method, because the choice of keywords -- which is open to manipulation -- might influence the rankings. But as you can see, there is overlap between this method and the more traditional citation-count method used by Black. For instance, Law and Human Behavior and Behavioral Sciences and the Law made it into the top four, no matter which method was used. There are some noticeable differences as well, with several journals that were highly cited in Black's study not ranking high using this content analysis method.
For more information on the method and the exact scores for each journal, feel free to contact Dr. Piotrowski (HERE); I'm sure he will be happy to share a copy of the article, which is published in the current issue of the American Journal of Forensic Psychology.
Oh, in case you were wondering, that journal is number five on his list.
The article is: Top cited journals in forensic psychology: An analysis of the psychological literature (2012), American Journal of Forensic Psychology 30 (2), 29-38.
Law and Human Behavior; Behavioral Sciences and the Law; British Journal of Psychiatry; Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology; American Journal of Psychiatry; Criminal Justice and Behavior. Now, a researcher ...
When he walks in to court flashing a right-wing salute. When he testifies effortlessly about killing their children, brothers and sisters as if they were flies.
State prison healthcare still needs independent oversight, report says Los Angeles Times The report also raised concerns about high spending on inmate health, citing a 2010 national survey showing California spent $16000 per inmate for medical, mental and dental care -- at least three times the national average. Spending on medical care ...
Although the U.S. abolished debtors' prisons in the 1830s, more than a third of U.S. states allow the police to haul people in who don't pay all manner of debts, from bills for health care services to credit card and auto loans.
The Prison Rape Elimination Act (which is already inadequate, but at least it's a step) does not apply to ICE detention centers, which means that there is almost no meaningful steps taken to end the sexual abuse of prisoners.
You have no doubt heard of journal "rankings." A journal's rank conveys information about the impact and quality of a journal. This can be useful information for both authors and consumers. An author might want to consider a journal's prestige, and the difficulty getting published in it. For consumers -- including expert witnesses who might be relying on a particular article in court -- ranking can serve as a proxy for the accuracy and reliability of a journal's content. How much should the trier of fact trust the information in this journal?
But there are lots of methods for ranking journals -- the Impact Factor, the Eigenfactor, the h-index, just to name a few. And with the proliferation of journals in forensic psychology, it gets hard to keep track. Which journals have the best reputations? Which are the most cited? Which provide the broadest coverage of forensic psychology topics?
One popular way to rank-order journals is based on reference counts. How many times a journal is cited is an indicator of its reputation. In forensic psychology, according to an unpublished study by S. Black, the top-referenced journals are (in rank order):
Law and Human Behavior
Behavioral Sciences and the Law
British Journal of Psychiatry
Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology
American Journal of Psychiatry
Criminal Justice and Behavior
Now, a researcher with training in both psychology and library science has taken a somewhat different approach, devising a clever content-analysis procedure to rank-order journals in our field.
Chris Piotrowski started by screening several texts in the field and choosing terms that are popular both in research and practice. The 16 terms were: eyewitness testimony, competency to stand trial, alcoholic blackouts, infanticide, sentencing, forensic evaluations, polygraph, malingering, jury selection, homicide, diminished capacity, insanity defense, child abuse, Daubert standard, child custody and expert witness.
Next he used PsycNET, "the recognized major bibliographic resource in the social and behavioral sciences that indexes scholarly and professional journals," to run keyword searches on his 16 terms. For each search term, he rank-ordered journals based on the frequency of hits; a journal's total ranking was obtained by summing across all 16 terms.
The winners were (in rank order):
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law
PsycCRITIQUES (formerly, Contemporary Psychology)
Law and Human Behavior
Behavioral Sciences and the Law
American Journal of Forensic Psychology
Journal of Psychiatry and Law
Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law
Mental & Physical Disability Law Reporter
American Journal of Psychiatry
American Psychologist
Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice
International Journal of Psychiatry and Law
Journal of Criminal Justice
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice
Journal of Applied Psychology
Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology
Psychological Reports
British Journal of Psychology
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law
I would be a little cautious about relying on this method, because the choice of keywords -- which is open to manipulation -- might influence the rankings. But as you can see, there is overlap between this method and the more traditional citation-count method used by Black. For instance, Law and Human Behavior and Behavioral Sciences and the Law made it into the top four, no matter which method was used. There are some noticeable differences as well, with several journals that were highly cited in Black's study not ranking high using this content analysis method.
For more information on the method and the exact scores for each journal, feel free to contact Dr. Piotrowski (HERE); I'm sure he will be happy to share a copy of the article, which is published in the current issue of the American Journal of Forensic Psychology.
Oh, in case you were wondering, that journal is number five on his list.
The article is: Top cited journals in forensic psychology: An analysis of the psychological literature (2012), American Journal of Forensic Psychology 30 (2), 29-38.
The trial of the right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik has been a field day in the international media, with Breivik's ice-cold bearing and callous statements playing to the headlines. For many of the journalists inside the courtroom, however, the first couple of days in Oslo were disappointing in terms of actual information.
The accused appeared to have no reason to worry about a gruelling cross examination. Often, the prosecution's questions resembled those that would be asked by psychologists, inquiring after his mental state. Although Breivik is one of the worst terrorists in Europe since the Second World War, perhaps the need to understand his actions has been greater than the urge to hold him accountable.
But as the trial resumed on Friday, news broke that the Bosnian investigative weekly Sloboda Bosna had named Breivik's mystery Serbian contact as Milorad Pelemis, a war criminal who participated in the Srebrenica massacre in 1995. Should this connection turn out to be true, it would be a vital piece of the puzzle of Breivik's international connections and the ideological underpinnings of the murders of 77 people in Oslo and Utoya in July.
In court, Breivik had explained that the Nato bombing of Serbia in 1999 was "the straw that broke the camel's back" when it came to his radicalisation. Srebrenica is often overlooked when discussing sources of inspiration for the anti-Muslim extreme right in Europe.
But some groups regard the Serbs as heroes for retaliating against the "Islamisation" of the Balkans; they're role models in the fight against a looming "Eurabia" (the conspiracy theory that Europe is being "colonised" by Muslims as part of a secret deal between the EU and the Arab world).
In his manifesto, Breivik calls war criminal Radovan Karadzic an "honourable crusader". He also denies the true nature of the Yugoslavia horrors. This is as common in the so-called "counter jihad" movement as Holocaust denials are in neo-Nazi circles. The author Robert Spencer, of the Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) organisation, is one of the more influential polemicists spreading the claim that what happened in Srebrenica, and the massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims, is a myth.
The prosecution - and the first, heavily criticised psychiatric evaluation - tried to make Breivik's claims of an international network seem ludicrous, the daydreams of a megalomaniac.
Yet it has only been a couple of months since Germans were shocked by the unearthing of a neo-Nazi terror cell, Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund, which had worked undisturbed for a decade. The prosecution has settled on the explanation that Breivik is a psychopath, going against many other psychiatric experts, and thereby ignores the far-right ideology from which he drew inspiration.
But Breivik is clever and well-spoken, the son of a diplomat from a stable country, and had no criminal record - he would have been an ideal terrorist agent, at least on paper. During his extensive period of preparation, he was never caught or even monitored by the police.
There are missing pieces to this puzzle and, naturally, Breivik's testimony is suspect. But this is what is known: Breivik was in Liberia in the spring of 2002 and flew to the UK from there. He claims to have met his Serbian contact in Monrovia (Milorad Pelemis was a mercenary there, according to Sloboda Bosna) and to have represented the contact at the founding meeting of an "international Christian military order" in London. Norwegian police have not found any evidence that the meeting took place or that the organisation existed. It has been verified that Breivik paid two brief visits to the Baltics in 2004, where he claimed to have received military training.
Page 2 of 2It would be no mystery if Breivik had sought contacts outside Norway. The Norwegian extreme-right scene is tiny and under constant surveillance. "If you wish to make things more complicated for the intelligence services, you have to cross national borders," Breivik told the court. His other statements in the past week, about years spent training with video games and his claims about "de-emotionalising" possibly indicate some sort of psychotic break, but Norwegian police have been remarkably uninterested in his international connections. It's certainly more convenient to dismiss him as a lone madman than to dig around Liberia and the Balkans.
Breivik claims to have met his contacts online. How real those contacts were, much less if they solidified into actual collaboration in the attacks, needs further investigation. But the far-right ideological influences that he cited are undeniable and should be a wake-up call for intelligence agencies that monitor militant Islamist forums and ignore their right-wing counterparts.
Throughout the trial, Breivik has said he was inspired by Al Qaeda - but has not named a specific inspiration for the July 22 attacks. The Srebrenica massacre, which took place over almost two weeks, ended on about July 22, 1995. Was Breivik's massacre of "Muslim-loving" youths an homage to that atrocity?
It remains to be seen whether he had practical support from other militant nationalists. But we already know that his ideology has adherents in the highest political assemblies. From the ex-Nazi Sweden Democrats in the north to Italy's Northern League separatists, and charismatic populists such as Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders, similar ideas are growing in strength. It's not unlikely that more than one Anders Behring Breivik will cross the line from militant rhetoric to violence.
Lisa Bjurwald, based in Stockholm, is a freelance writer specialising in Europe's right-wing populist parties. Maik Baumgärtner is a Berlin-based freelance journalist and author specialising in right-wing extremism
One-page articleThe trial of the right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik has been a field day in the international media, with Breivik's ice-cold bearing and callous statements playing to the headlines. For many of the journalists inside the courtroom, however, the first couple of days in Oslo were disappointing in terms of actual information.
The accused appeared to have no reason to worry about a gruelling cross examination. Often, the prosecution's questions resembled those that would be asked by psychologists, inquiring after his mental state. Although Breivik is one of the worst terrorists in Europe since the Second World War, perhaps the need to understand his actions has been greater than the urge to hold him accountable.
But as the trial resumed on Friday, news broke that the Bosnian investigative weekly Sloboda Bosna had named Breivik's mystery Serbian contact as Milorad Pelemis, a war criminal who participated in the Srebrenica massacre in 1995. Should this connection turn out to be true, it would be a vital piece of the puzzle of Breivik's international connections and the ideological underpinnings of the murders of 77 people in Oslo and Utoya in July.
In court, Breivik had explained that the Nato bombing of Serbia in 1999 was "the straw that broke the camel's back" when it came to his radicalisation. Srebrenica is often overlooked when discussing sources of inspiration for the anti-Muslim extreme right in Europe.
But some groups regard the Serbs as heroes for retaliating against the "Islamisation" of the Balkans; they're role models in the fight against a looming "Eurabia" (the conspiracy theory that Europe is being "colonised" by Muslims as part of a secret deal between the EU and the Arab world).
In his manifesto, Breivik calls war criminal Radovan Karadzic an "honourable crusader". He also denies the true nature of the Yugoslavia horrors. This is as common in the so-called "counter jihad" movement as Holocaust denials are in neo-Nazi circles. The author Robert Spencer, of the Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) organisation, is one of the more influential polemicists spreading the claim that what happened in Srebrenica, and the massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims, is a myth.
The prosecution - and the first, heavily criticised psychiatric evaluation - tried to make Breivik's claims of an international network seem ludicrous, the daydreams of a megalomaniac.
Yet it has only been a couple of months since Germans were shocked by the unearthing of a neo-Nazi terror cell, Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund, which had worked undisturbed for a decade. The prosecution has settled on the explanation that Breivik is a psychopath, going against many other psychiatric experts, and thereby ignores the far-right ideology from which he drew inspiration.
But Breivik is clever and well-spoken, the son of a diplomat from a stable country, and had no criminal record - he would have been an ideal terrorist agent, at least on paper. During his extensive period of preparation, he was never caught or even monitored by the police.
There are missing pieces to this puzzle and, naturally, Breivik's testimony is suspect. But this is what is known: Breivik was in Liberia in the spring of 2002 and flew to the UK from there. He claims to have met his Serbian contact in Monrovia (Milorad Pelemis was a mercenary there, according to Sloboda Bosna) and to have represented the contact at the founding meeting of an "international Christian military order" in London. Norwegian police have not found any evidence that the meeting took place or that the organisation existed. It has been verified that Breivik paid two brief visits to the Baltics in 2004, where he claimed to have received military training. It would be no mystery if Breivik had sought contacts outside Norway. The Norwegian extreme-right scene is tiny and under constant surveillance. "If you wish to make things more complicated for the intelligence services, you have to cross national borders," Breivik told the court. His other statements in the past week, about years spent training with video games and his claims about "de-emotionalising" possibly indicate some sort of psychotic break, but Norwegian police have been remarkably uninterested in his international connections. It's certainly more convenient to dismiss him as a lone madman than to dig around Liberia and the Balkans.
Breivik claims to have met his contacts online. How real those contacts were, much less if they solidified into actual collaboration in the attacks, needs further investigation. But the far-right ideological influences that he cited are undeniable and should be a wake-up call for intelligence agencies that monitor militant Islamist forums and ignore their right-wing counterparts.
Throughout the trial, Breivik has said he was inspired by Al Qaeda - but has not named a specific inspiration for the July 22 attacks. The Srebrenica massacre, which took place over almost two weeks, ended on about July 22, 1995. Was Breivik's massacre of "Muslim-loving" youths an homage to that atrocity?
It remains to be seen whether he had practical support from other militant nationalists. But we already know that his ideology has adherents in the highest political assemblies. From the ex-Nazi Sweden Democrats in the north to Italy's Northern League separatists, and charismatic populists such as Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders, similar ideas are growing in strength. It's not unlikely that more than one Anders Behring Breivik will cross the line from militant rhetoric to violence.
Lisa Bjurwald, based in Stockholm, is a freelance writer specialising in Europe's right-wing populist parties. Maik Baumgärtner is a Berlin-based freelance journalist and author specialising in right-wing extremism
The USian Immigrations and Customs Enforcement service has recently revised the rules applying to immigrants detained and awaiting their deportation hearings. Most notably for me, they’ve strengthened the absolutely shit regulations regarding sexual abuse in detention.
The Prison Rape Elimination Act (which is already inadequate, but at least it’s a step) does not apply to ICE detention centers, which means that there is almost no meaningful steps taken to end the sexual abuse of prisoners. 180 sexual abuse complaints have been reported since 2007, a number that almost certainly undercounts the number of people abused, since many do not speak English and aren’t aware of their rights or are afraid to exercise them for fear of deportation.
The new ICE regulations are supposed to improve supervision of detainees and make it easier to report. Detainees who report sexual abuse will have their names disclosed on a strictly need-to-know basis; retaliation is forbidden; staff will be trained in sexual abuse prevention; all facilities will be required to have policies regarding sexual assault. However, they have several glaring flaws:
This distance, the turning away from society, has made him uncorrectable. The biblical account of Cain and Abel says: “So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, lift up, and if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.’ ” To turn away — which is not just not seeing but also not being seen — is dangerous: in that space, sin gathers. For Breivik, the victims were nobodies, with one exception: on Utoya one of the children turned around, looked straight at him, and said that he should not kill him — and Breivik did not kill him. The victim was no longer nobody but somebody.
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