Reading the judgement the key points are on pages 116 onwards and the extradition is denied under section 91(3) of the EA 2003 which reads:
> The condition is that the physical or mental condition of the person is such that it would be unjust or oppressive to extradite him.
The judge states:
> it is my judgment that there is a real risk that he will be kept in the near isolated conditions imposed by the harshest SAMs (special administrative measures) regime, both pre-trial and post-trial
And goes on to contrast with the conditions at HMP Belmarsh:
> many of the protective factors currently in place at HMP Belmarsh would be removed by these conditions. Mr. Assange’s health improved on being removed from relative isolation in healthcare. He has been able to access the support of family and friends. He has had access to a Samaritans phone line. He has benefited from a trusting relationship with the prison In-Reach psychologist. By contrast, a SAMs regime would severely restrict his contact with all other human beings, including other prisoners, staff and his family. In detention subject to SAMs, he would have absolutely no communication with other prisoners, even through the walls of his cell, and time out of his cell would be spent alone.
Frankly I don't understand why the UK continues to maintain an extradition treaty with a country which clearly has a poor record on human rights and fails to maintain a justice system that meets the UN's Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
She concludes:
> I am satisfied that, in these harsh conditions, Mr. Assange’s mental health would deteriorate causing him to commit suicide with the “single minded determination” of his autism spectrum disorder.
> I order the discharge of Julian Paul Assange, pursuant to section 91(3) of the EA 2003
Whilst a victory nonetheless for Assange, it is unfortunate that the entire judgement seems to come down to this point alone. Let's hope it is not overturned.
Relatedly, Canada has struck down America's status as a safe third country for refugees as "U.S. immigration detention violates their human rights." [1]
"Nedira Jemal Mustefa, among the refugees turned back and on whose behalf a challenge was launched, described her time in solitary confinement in the United States as 'a terrifying, isolating and psychologically traumatic experience,' according to the court ruling."
If you take an absolutist, principled or binary view, then most imprisonment is a torture of some sort. It causes severe psychological distress. That's what a prison is. The differences are in the nuance, and you might call those subjective.
This was an extradition hearing, not a trial. This seems to have given the judge room to justify a nuanced conclusion that doesn't extend far past this case. IDK if there's much precedent. If there is, it relates to espionage-adjacent cases. That kind of makes sense. Espionage is different to other crimes. The imprisonment is different, and so is the standard for justice. Closed trials & such. This was also true of these extradition hearings.
I have to wonder though, did all the other stuff relating to this saga affect her decision. The odd charges in Sweden. The party-politic aspects to the US' pursuit of him. Also the "time served" aspect. If he's found guilty, the sentence is unlikely to be longer than the 8 years he has spent imprisoned already.
> If you take an absolutist, principled or binary view, then most imprisonment is a torture of some sort. It causes severe psychological distress. That's what a prison is. The differences are in the nuance, and you might call those subjective.
That's what prison in America is, but that's not what prison either has to be, or is everywhere else in the world.
If your goal is to torture people, America's system is very effective. If your goal is to rehabilitate people and make sure they don't go on to commit more crimes, America's system is an abject failure.
Recidivism in the US is 55% after 5 years, as compared to Norway's 20%. Apparently not treating people inhumanely is a great way of getting them not to commit more crimes. [1] Who would have thought?
Because who the people are, who administer the prison system, and who are the objects of the prison system's rehabilitation program, matters. Humanity isn't a mass of identical copies. Certain traits, that might be highly conducive to effective rehabilitation, concentrate in certain regions of the world.
A smaller polity also tends to mean a much more accountable government which might be expected to be much more effective at implementing any policy.
>>Their GDP per capita is almost identical to the US.
Nominal per capita GDP is $5,000 higher.
The country also has a population that is 80X smaller. Smaller population size tends mean much smaller regional variations in socioeconomic conditions and fewer regions with the extreme conditions associated with high crime rates and pervasive criminal sub-cultures.
Don't we think the way we handle prisons greatly affects the culture around them?
> Smaller population size tends mean much smaller regional variations in socioeconomic conditions and fewer regions with the extreme conditions associated with high crime rates and pervasive criminal sub-cultures.
Do US regional prisons in non-hotspot areas do much better?
How many criminal sub-cultures extend past a single city?
Because it is currently fashionable in the US to esteem, exalt, or even hallow many things Scandavian. If you live in the US, you’ve no doubt seen this.
To many in the US, the Scandavians have just nailed it everything social-economic. Personally, I wish we’d take more influence from their diet (fish! fish! more fish!)
> Personally, I wish we’d take more influence from their diet (fish! fish! more fish!)
I mean, the furthest you can get from fresh fish in Norway is pretty different to what is seen in most the US. I'm not sure that Fish is the answer there
Are you really suggesting that a country full of white people is a priori superior to a diverse country? Do you realise how insanely racist that is? Can you back up your assertion that Norway's good record on recidivism is because of all the whites?
Hold up. That's a bit of a strawman argument. He didn't say "country full of white people", he specifically mentioned socioeconomic status. Socioeconomic status generally correlates negatively with criminality. There's nothing inherently racist about that statement, it's just stating that:
- desperate people will do desperate things to survive
- oppressed people are bound to lash out
- the poor are powerless against authority
- people in poorer neighbourhoods are prone to overpolicing
- destitute people are more likely to succumb to substance abuse
If he said recidivism or crime rates were higher because the population was black/hispanic/etc, that would obviously be racist.
But when it comes to US vs. Norway, surely what matters is their status in their home country. Why is the status of the descendants of the ones that move to the US important, if you're not trying to say it's something innate about them?
I don't want to assume such a motivation for bringing it up, which is why in my own comment I just asked why it was relevant in a completely neutral way. But that got me no response.
I didn't read too much into his use of "descendants", trying to be charitable in my interpretation. But having read his response to you I'm starting to have second thoughts...
Well as Devil’s advocate, look at how people in Japan reacted after Fukushima. The world was awed by how awesome their “community spirit” was - nobody denied they exhibited far more social cohesion, sacrifice and civic responsibility than would ever be on display in the US.
That’s a cultural difference on display. Culture is not determined by race, so let’s not conflate the two. Culture is something you are immersed in and it does influence behavior.
There are also massive downsides to extreme cultural cohesion, looking at it another way.
But let’s not deny that social culture has a bearing on individual and group behavior. It has a massive impact. Conflating that observation with race or _racism_ seems a particularly unhelpful neuroticism of the US.
I agree with most of what you say. It's just that culture in the US isn't nearly as homogeneous as culture in Japan, and I have my doubts now as to whether the poster in question was talking about US as a whole or the culture (read race) of a specific demographic. Also, your examples here entirely sidestep the subject, which is crime and recidivism, things that are also found in Japan, probably lower than in the US but probably still higher than in Norway.
Even if those are the correct numbers to compare (which the other reply to you is questioning), the US number is 45% higher than Norway's which is still quite significant. Using the 36% rate from the other reply to you, the US rate is instead 80% higher than Norway's.
What I find striking are the reported recidivism rates of Sweden and Norway: 43% vs. 20% after 2 years. Sure, Norway is richer and socially/ethnically more homogeneous, but can this be the whole explanation for this extreme difference, considering the two countries are otherwise very similar?
Well Norway is a fraction the size of the US in population.
I would imagine that wealth, cultural homogeneity, and a very small population accounts for at least 80% of the explanation. So not the “whole” explanation, but the critical mass of why it works, sure.
It’s questionable to assume that Norway’s system could scale up by a factor of even 3x, let alone something sixty times the size. I’d be interested if it could produce results in a country like Spain or France with 50m people before calling on the US to simply do what Norway does but with 350m people.
Sure, but my question is about the difference between Norway and Sweden. Sweden has (merely) twice the population size of Norway, is culturally similar, highly developed, has a similar political system etc, but still seems to fair far worse.
Worth noting that rates don't necessarily tell the whole story. In some countries you will avoid prison entirely for a whole range of offences including even some "heavy" things. It's not impossible that in countries like Norway or Denmark, people who are in prison are already statistically part of the people less likely to be rehabilitated.
On the other hand, prisons entirely create problems they're supposedly there to solve. Just ask people who've gone through juvenile detention if it's not a breeding ground to make some contacts and learn the ropes..
You'd almost need a compound unit like (reconviction rate at x years) * (prison population/total population) in order to figure out what is going on, with the idea that you'd want both reconvictions and proportion of population in prison to be low numbers.
For reference, the US has 655 prisoners per 100k, Norway has 60 per 100k.
It's generally higher than that depending on the data you use too. Most statistics you see are based on 1-2 year recidivism rates, so if they end up in prison at a later date then that's not included. For example, the UK keeps data of up to 9 years. It increases from 46% to 78% during that time period, so really almost 4 in 5 people return to crime.
Another thing to note is some base it on reconviction, instead of reimprosonment, which obfuscate the data again.
As someone who grew up around serious criminals, this number is far lower than what you’d see in North America and shows that Norway at least makes some progress.
X/5 convicts return to crime because it is all they know and their peer group, family, and professional network are all infected by crime and their childhoods were marked by abuse, neglect, drugs, stress, anxiety, and isolation from healthy and stable human relationships. Good, well to do people like to pretend they are better than the lower classes but seriously undervalue their own good luck.
You can give an exconvict a bath, haircut, and paper degree all you want but at the end of the day the average citizen will still see them as scum and irreversibly damaged. Good luck finding a good job as a minority or (to a lesser degree) otherwise with any kind of record. The truth is that the punishment for a crime doesn’t end with one’s first stint in prison but continues for life.
Criminals are made far more often than they are born and the system is too quick to affirm the idea that they are little better than animals. No surprise to me that many return to crime.
As we know, correlation doesn’t mean causation. Recidivism may have nothing to do with prison conditions for all we know. The link you provided even says that numerous other factors have more of an impact on recidivism.
> Recidivism in the US is 55% after 5 years, as compared to Norway's 20%. Apparently not treating people inhumanely is a great way of getting them not to commit more crimes. [1] Who would have thought?
Your mistake is in not realizing that this is considered a feature, not a bug. The US incarceration system is very much designed so that "certain people" stay in prison for the majority of cradle to grave. It is not in the interest of this design that recidivism be reduced.
>Recidivism in the US is 55% after 5 years, as compared to Norway's 20%. Apparently not treating people inhumanely is a great way of getting them not to commit more crimes. [1] Who would have thought?
There's a thousand other ways America is different from Norway. The quote statistic -> unwarranted conclusion -> logic dunk! shitposting ruins websites.
> it causes severe psychological distress. That's what prison is.
Depends. Some penal systems are there for "retribution" or punishment, and those match your definition. Other concepts available are rehabilitation and simply separating proven dangerous elements from society at large. Apart from the loss of freedom of movement (which I would not describe as "severe psychological distress"), there is no hard requirement for a prison system to be even unpleasant.
Why? Would you really say that restricting freedoms generally causes severe psychological distress? What about militaries around the world, that either through volunteer or conscription, severely restrict a soldier’s freedom and requires compulsory training and work? It seems that we are stretching “severe psychological distress” to the point of meaninglessness if simply having your movement restricted and being required to follow some sort of rules and regime based system causes it. There is a difference between stress and “severe psychological distress”.
The philosophy of imprisonment is fairly vast, I believe.
But hard/philosophical requirements notwithstanding, prisons tend to be what they are. The famous moral philosopher Jeremy Bentham designed some a "modern" prison system with some of these goals in mind, especially reform. The result was quite horrific.
Note that the exaggerated theoretical horrors of Bentham's panopticon are the mundane reality of modern non-prison life under camera and cell phone surveillance.
Being watched by guards isn't one of the top 10 worst aspects of living in prison.
I can't agree. I doubt many people on HN are "absolutist" a lot of us do realize that the US prison system is horrible if you're not in a white collar minimal security prison (and he would not be, he is headed for a federal prison with probably 23.5 hours solitary confinement a day in a room and 30 minutes of exercise) and probably some time with his lawyers. I can't say I wouldn't side with the English judge in this case, he's just calling it like he sees it.
what's extra horrible is solitary is used for 'protection' and mental health. e.g. if you report fear for your life (common in US prisons if you don't want to play the gang game) they throw you into the SHU. It's barbaric as punishment, disgusting for supposed health reasons
I have been fascinated with the effects of solitary confinement on mental health. Why the Covid pandemic has added horrors is because large parts of human populations are under virtual imprisonment, not being able to visit and touch friends and family, and not being able to travel. Anecdotal evidence strongly indicates that this had vastly detrimental effect on mental health.
(Understanding this may be also crucial for the proper design of long-duration space travel.)
Just like ordeal by fire, and ordeal by boiling oil, I wish that solitary confinement be identified as cruel and unusual punishment, used sparingly and only with the highest levels of bureaucratic clearance. Probably only against the insanely violent, rather than the mildly inconvenient.
It's understood to be torture no? If you look in the CIA manual on torture, they found that mental torture or psychological torture worked better than physical torture. This would include deprivation and isolation.
Regarding your comment about how the entire ruling centers on this one point, would this mean all the US would have to do to get it overturned is pinky promise they won't throw Assange in solitary? What if they then put him in solitary anyway?
Nothing, but now you've potentially damaged diplomatic relations with an ally. Countries generally (!) try to keep their promises to each other, or they won't be considered reliable in the future. Just like individuals.
>> Frankly I don't understand why the UK continues to maintain an extradition treaty with a country which clearly has a poor record on human rights and fails to maintain a justice system that meets the UN's Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
It's because the US is a powerful ally and the UK does not want to displease them. The British call this their "special relation" to the Americans. I don't know what the Americans call it.
There was an amusing twist after this was published. The creators got in trouble with the Australian Government, who were concerned about their use of the Australian coat of arms: it might confuse viewers into thinking the video was an official government one.
That's my fault- I should have left that last sentence out. Reading it again it begs a reply like Sharlin's. I should have known better than to post it.
I have never come across the use of satisfied for "persuaded by argument or evidence" before. (yes, I had to look it up, not a native speaker)
Is this usage common or just some kind of legalese?
As in sentences like "I'm satisfied that you did your best" and "I'm satisfied that it contains no gluten". Do those not work in American or other international English?
According to google ngrams the frequency of 'satisfied that' is 0.00026% in British English and 0.00012% in American English. So only a factor of 2 difference. Interestingly the peak of American usage was in the 1860s (~0.001%), followed by a slow decline, but in Britain there was a small peak around 1920 (~0.00127%), then a higher peak in the 1940s (~0.002%), followed by a rapid decline to the present day.
But those sentences are also perfectly meaningful assuming the other sense of "satisfied", which may be what GP meant. Ie. "I am convinced that you did your best" and "I am convinced that it contains no gluten".
It's not that hard to draw it: 'I am satisfied that this man is the one who killed my dog'. Whether you are convinced that this is the man, or whether you are pleased that this particular man killed your dog are clearly different senses.
But would you not be pleased to be certain who killed your dog? It's not a 1:1 concept mapping, but the conceptual space is close enough that the semantic drift of "satisfied" is completely understandable.
Interestingly, the BBC asked the question: “is HMP Belmarsh the British Guantanamo Bay?” [0]
By the transitive properties of anglo-american fascist thought, does that make the US prison system better or worse than the US extrajudicial prison in Cuba??
Camp X-Ray is a criminal enterprise against humanity. There are no "better parts" of an extra-judicial detention and torture center. You must be one of those "new" Americans who grew up watching "interrogations" on cable tv shows. [I'm one of the "old" Americans who stopped watching TV as soon as torture was promoted on American airwaves.]
I dismissed the notion that 2 correctional facilities that nominally are subject to a legal regime are in the same set as Camp X-Ray.
Well, we Americans until 21st century were repeatedly told that our way of life was in fact “morally superior” to “torturing” USSR. I can dig up the imdb link for TV shows in 90s that used that very line in discussing the Soviets.
I’m not disagreeing about what was on television. However, you are saying that if someone disagrees with you that it is because of the tv they watched and your moral and legal opinion on the workings of detainment center are apparently proudly derived from tv shows, or at least that is the only thing you have provided in support of your position.
I’m really not sure why you linked to my profile. I can only assume you are attempting to imply that because my account is only a few months old, and your account is several years old, that that gives you some sort of credibility. So, to summarize, you have used old tv shows and an old account on social media as your bonafides in a discussion on the moral, ethical, and legal framework around Guantanamo Bay. Very compelling.
To spell it out: prior to 9/11, institutionalized use of torture was anathema to our national mores as reflected by American cultural products. Only ad-hoc extra legal violence (various police shows) was on the entertainment menu.
After 9/11, institutionalized use of torture was promoted as "necessary" and "acceptable" and cultural products were duly modifed to represent that radical shift in American ethos.
American children who grew up post 9/11 are likely not even aware that as recently as 1992, use of torture was systemically held up as a sign of a repressive system. I merely bring up TV given that it is the main source of social conditioning for the masses. We could discuss academic and political content not on TV and see the same abrupt shift in our national value system.
(Lousy) conspiracy theory: the judge is on the US payroll to keep him in Britain. It’s cheaper and easier for the British to house and guard him than it is for the US to deal with him (and go through the spectacle of his ostensible execution). Better to jail him away in Britain while muttering something about humanitarianism.
What exactly is his fate if the appeals process which the US is planning fails to change anything? Does he live free in the UK or will he be prosecuted there for something else?
That's what expert witnesses reported, not some thought the judge just came up with. I recommend reading the actual ruling if you want to understand how the judge came to this conclusion.
I find this to be an odd statement as well (as someone who did not know Assange had autism until I read that sentence)
Although I think the ruling is reasonable if the justification is simply that US prisons are inhumane
Vaguely related: I heard about a thought experiment from Amanda Askell (in one of her podcast interviews), but it's kind of interesting: what would you give up in order to not go to jail for 5 years. What amount of money would you pay? Would you be willing to lose a finger instead?
This does not immediately imply that we should abolish jails, but at the very least we should consider just how serious the punishment is. (And then repeat the experiment for a federal prison Assange would be in)
It's not speculative, it's literally what he and his lawyers said. The judge was persuaded on the balance of probability (more likely than not) that it was true.
"It's not speculative, it's literally what he and his lawyers said. "
Then it's the most absolutely biased possible thing upon which to rule.
Assange's isolation was a) self imposed and b) considerably better than any 'prison' than he would face in Sweden, the UK or the USA. You don't get to 'not go to jail' because 'it will be depressing'.
One side puts forward an argument, and the other side puts forward their argument, and a judge decides which is true and then applies the law.
Here the judge decided that he was at risk of death if he went to a US prison, the US was unable to answer that point, and the judge then looks at law - ECHR article 2 - to decide whether to send him or not.
The judge seems pretty clear that Assange should be in jail. Just not in an inhumane US jail.
Your comment BTW is a great example of how toxic these convos can be. I loathe Assange and I don't care if he rots in prison. You've assumed that I think he should be walking free.
>You don't get to 'not go to jail' because 'it will be depressing'.
To add to DanBC, a country absolutely can decide not to extradite to another country they believe plans to imprison someone at well below what they consider to be the minimum standard for human rights, the same way many countries do not extradite to a country that tortures or has the death penalty. There is a difference between making the argument “I don’t want to go to jail because it is depressing” and “the country’s planned imprisonment would violate my basic human rights and is to such an inhumane level as it would likely cause severe physiological damage”.
> The condition is that the physical or mental condition of the person is such that it would be unjust or oppressive to extradite him.
The judge states:
> it is my judgment that there is a real risk that he will be kept in the near isolated conditions imposed by the harshest SAMs (special administrative measures) regime, both pre-trial and post-trial
And goes on to contrast with the conditions at HMP Belmarsh:
> many of the protective factors currently in place at HMP Belmarsh would be removed by these conditions. Mr. Assange’s health improved on being removed from relative isolation in healthcare. He has been able to access the support of family and friends. He has had access to a Samaritans phone line. He has benefited from a trusting relationship with the prison In-Reach psychologist. By contrast, a SAMs regime would severely restrict his contact with all other human beings, including other prisoners, staff and his family. In detention subject to SAMs, he would have absolutely no communication with other prisoners, even through the walls of his cell, and time out of his cell would be spent alone.
These conditions sound barbaric to me and I'd go as far to describe them as torture. Amnesty International do a better job of outlining the problems with this regime than I can: https://www.amnestyusa.org/reports/entombed-isolation-in-the...
Frankly I don't understand why the UK continues to maintain an extradition treaty with a country which clearly has a poor record on human rights and fails to maintain a justice system that meets the UN's Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
She concludes:
> I am satisfied that, in these harsh conditions, Mr. Assange’s mental health would deteriorate causing him to commit suicide with the “single minded determination” of his autism spectrum disorder.
> I order the discharge of Julian Paul Assange, pursuant to section 91(3) of the EA 2003
Whilst a victory nonetheless for Assange, it is unfortunate that the entire judgement seems to come down to this point alone. Let's hope it is not overturned.