When I first read of the story of the Norwegian tragedy, I think the most important thing for me in the whole article I read was the minor detail that if convicted, the gunman would face a maximum sentence of 21 years.
Let's step back a moment. If the same incident occurred in the US., with a single gunman bombing an executive government building, and murdering 100 children, an American Jury would be likely to vote to unanimously execute the individual. In fact, you can get a 20-year sentence merely for possessing enough marijuanna or other scheduled substance.
I was thinking this about a week ago, and about the implications of the approach of these two countries, and their mindsets; then today, I found this wonderful story. This story pleased me very much, in that classic "shock the bourgeoisie" line of humor that challenges middle-class value systems.:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/07/25/the_super_lux_super_max?page=0,0The intent of the article is pretty clear- it seems targeted to generate a sense of "moral outrage" at the ammenities which are provided to the prisoners- jogging track in a park setting, pesonl trainers, flat-screen televisions in cell, encouragement to pursue creative activities and music, a recording studio for musicians, a rock-climbing wall, private bathrooms, etc.
I think what this article hammers home though, is the fact that the Norwegian legal system has lost faith in the idea of "justice".
In the US., it is believed that in order to provide a sense of "just fairness", it is necessary to visit the wrongdoings and sufferings criminals cause back onto themselves; people who cause harm should be harmed. Let's look at some of the realities, however. People who commit violent crimes, in nearly every case, fit into three categories: those who are mentally ill, those who were themselves victims of terrible acts in their childhood, and those called by poverty or socially traumatic environments into a mindset that one must steal or fight in order to make it in their situation.
The first set is curious in a way, since our legal system is lenient on the mentally ill, understanding that if a person is not in full control of their faculties, they cannot be counted on to act in a way that makes sense from our view of reality; oddly enough, however, I think our system tends to ignore this mitigating circumstance in violent crimes, and punishes people for merely being mentally ill. Likewise, I think our system tends to ignore the violent past many of these people have, that helps to shape them into becoming the person who commited the crime. And finally, not only does our mindset not make allowance for the fact that some feel forced into the lifestyle by circumstances they can't control, it is actually considered an aggravating factor to commit an act in a gang setting, when the reality is that gang members view their peers as their final social support group.
Going further, let's see what the fruits of this system of punishments is: rather than being counseled and treated for mental conditions, and helped to address their problems and deal with them internally, our system in the US. produces people who have been forced to live in a dangerous and hostile environment for decades, suffering rape and being forced to participate in racial-violence, and learning that the only way for them to be safe on a day-to-day basis is to show violent aggression to any who would challenge them. We take traumatized criminals who have committed violent acts in society, and we place them in a hyper-traumatic, hyper-violent environment for countless years, and then marvel that they come out even more violent and desperate.
And the premise that all of this is built on is the idea that people are responsible for their actions- we feel it is just to punish someone for doing ill if they had the ability to make another choice, and still chose to do wrong. But then, are we entirely sure people are even making choices, and are capable of more than one action in any situation? The prevailing scientific paradigm is materialism, and materialism overwhelmingly implies philosophical determinism. If determinism is true, then no one is truly "responsible" for anything they ever do, good or bad. They did not make the choice to act in the way they did- the universe and the conditions and physical laws governing them produced the outcome, not any illusion of choice a person made. So there is clearly a cognitive dissonance in what we believe about the universe (scientific materialism, which implies determinism), and what we think about people and their actions (that people are responsible for what they do and think, even though determinism would forbid this).
So if all of this is true so far, we have a legal system which visits vengence upon criminals, and for actions they may not even be technically responsible for according to our science, and which produces individuals who are rendered even more dangerous to society by their sufferings. Rather than allow them to explore their mental issues, and to work through their problems and become stable individuals who are far less likely to commit desperate acts of harm against others, we allow quasi-religious fallacies about "justice" to prevent us from doing what is best for the criminals and the society they must later interact with.
So oddly enough, rather than being morally outraged about the treatment the Norwegian gunman may receive, I would go so far as to say it is the laudable example of a superior society of people who have had the mental discipline to see through ideas like social vengence, and the foolishness of the idea of punishment, and to take the course of action which rather than vicitimize criminals themselves, is able to see them as victims of their own past and situation, and to help they become greater than they were.
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