How will this affect the norwegian society in the long run? What is the right thing to do now? I guess the answers to these questions depends on who you are and what you mean. My personal opinion is that we have to do a lot to try and prevent this tragedy from ever happening again.
- Give the police more resources - the people, tools, and money they need to do a proper job. This means more sivil surveillance, better computer systems, more helicopters, armed officers at all times, more police in the streets, and so on.
- Norway should have a prison sentence type which lasts a lifetime, that is a sentence which the prisoner will be in jail until he/she dies.
- The judicial system should be changed, so that if one has killed many people, one should get sentence time added for each and every killing, not just one of them.
- The judicial system is too much geared towards rehabilitation and a humanized prison time. The problem with this, in combination with short sentence times, rebate on multiple crimes, liberal leave practises, and the lack of a revenge element in norwegian law, to name just a few, is that people in general lose respect for the judicial system and also criminals. It's a joke and everybody laughs - the criminals laugh of joy and other people laugh of despair and disbeleif.
- Somehow we must be able to spot young people going off track, and try to correct them before they go amok against the society. Do we have the means and methods to do that today? I doubt it. We can do better. My personal opinion is that upbringing is a key element. It's important that everybody is taking part in a child's upbringing. The school must work with the parents, the sports club must work with the parents and the school, and so on.
- Yes, we must also strengthen the democracy. Include people more in processes, be more open and available, and enlighten people better on democratic processes, to name a few. I hope the Prime Minister's talk about a better democacy and a more open society isn't just words.
