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Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

In Germany, most murder has 15y tops - everything above (Sicherungsverwahrung) is reserved only for really hardened and/or psychologically "mad/dangerous" criminals.

Locking someone up for 30 years is more or less equivalent to a death sentence - society will have progressed so much during this timeframe that the convict will never be any productive part of society again. At that timeframe, seriously, it's more humane to give the convict a gun with a single bullet than lock him up for 30 or more years - and many people are locked up for longer for non-violent crimes.

Then again, the US is barbarian enough to lock up juveniles for life, so people saying "30y is not enough" doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

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No, murder has a mandatory life sentence. Sicherungsverwahrung is totally distinct from that, as is the declaration of „special gravity of guilt“ that the court can impose.

Everything less than life is capped at 15 years (manslaughter etc.)

Life sentences mean exactly that: until death. But for constitutional reasons every convict must have hope that he can be released early. That‘s what those regular reviews (after 15 years or more) are for.

Many convicts get released early, because they sat in prison for a long time and pose no threat anymore. Others are released for medical/humanitarian reasons.

But this opinion that murderers always get free after 15 or 17 years is pervasive and utterly wrong. And it leads to people demanding excessive punishments, because they feel they must demand much more to have evil people do time.

Furthermore, if you get released you have to serve a probation period of 5 years.[0]

0: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__57a.html (In German)

The difference is that European prison is typically more corrective than penitentiary, whereas US is more penitentiary than corrective (to the degree where US prison is effectively crime college). Edit: so, the differences that you pointed out are a consequence of the differing prison systems goals.

Someone with a 30 year sentence could be out on parole in 10 years. Being sentenced to 30 years doesn't actually mean you will do 30 years.

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