More than any other instance of crime and punishment during the past fifty years, the sentencing of the mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik in Norway last week reveals just how wide is the chasm between Western Europe and the United States when it comes to criminal justice.
Never mind that it’s the harshest sentence the Norwegian criminal justice system can mete out, nor that Breivik, who despite being deemed sane by the courts has not displayed an ounce of remorse for his crimes, and will almost surely spend more than 21 years—and perhaps the rest of his life—behind bars.
The point is that while American criminal law remains stuck in medieval times, and our philosophy of punishment mired in a rationale that never made any sense, Norway recognizes that we don’t need to lock people up forever and throw away the key in order to express our abhorrence at what they have done. More important, it’s not the best way to keep society safe.
As a death-penalty lawyer, I have had clients executed just for being present at the murder scene, even if they themselves killed no one. Breivik, on the other hand, may not even die in prison; when he becomes eligible for parole in 2033, he will be only 53.
While my clients await their fate, they sit locked in tiny cells 23 hours a day. They have neither computers nor TV. Breivik will have access to exercise equipment and be able to watch television. He will be able to work on a laptop (without Internet access).
Mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, arrives at the courtroom in Oslo Friday Aug. 24, 2012 . Breivik was convicted Friday of terrorism and premeditated murder for bomb and gun attacks that killed 77 people and sentenced to a special prison term that would allow authorities to keep him locked up for as long as he is considered dangerous. (Frank Augstein / AP Photo)
So what? you might say. This just reveals the soft heads that define the European stance on crime. But which continent is drowning in a sea of gun violence and weekly bloody massacres?
Norway isn’t the outlier here. The sentence Breivik received may make jaws drop here in Texas, but it reflects an approach to punishment common across all of Western Europe.
Theoretically, of course, the U.S. and Europe punish people for the same two reasons: to keep society safe, and to inflict pain on people who have hurt others. But while Western Europe has kept sight of both objectives, America has become consumed with the latter.
In Germany, prison sentences are a third as long as they are in America for equivalent crimes, yet the rate of recidivism is twenty-five percent lower.
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