Doing Hard Time In Greenland Isn't Really That Hard

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ^ | Tuesday, January 13, 2004 | GAUTAM NAIK

[presidio9]

NUUK, Greenland -- In the midst of a howling Arctic storm last month, Merak Jakob Lindenhann lumbered into a store and bought a DVD called "Go Home" by the band U2. Then the 51-year-old Inuit walked back to his home -- the local prison.

[SouthernFreebird]

In 1974, while drunk, he raped a 7-year-old girl and was sentenced to six years

WTF...? six years! and his cell stays open? what morons thought giving him a place to crash at night and 3 squares a day was punishment...

[P8riot]

Kinda reminds me of the story of an Airman Basic cleaning a latrine at Thule Airbase in Greenland. One day the Colonel walks in and the the Airman is kicked back taking a smoke. The Colonel tells the Airman he's gonna put im on report. The Airman replies,

"I'm an E-1 cleaning latrines at Thule. What are you gonna do to me?"

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Man---with prisons like this, what's the incentive to obey the laws?

[A. Patriot]

"I'm an E-1 cleaning latrines at Thule. What are you gonna do to me?"

I heard the same story from a friend of mine who was actually stationed at Thule back in the 1980's. His version of the story went: "pumping sh** out of airplanes in 40 degrees below zero weather in the dark"

[Eala]

One study published last year in the International Journal of Circumpolar Health shows that nearly half of all Greenlanders have experienced personal violence and one-third of women between the age of 18 and 24 are victims of sexual abuse.

Pretty vague terms. What kid has not "experienced personal violence"?