As someone from a neighboring country, I think that's a fantastic example of the justice system, justice at its very best. The murderer is absolutely the worst kind of criminal there is. He killed 77 people and he did so because of his Nazi ideology, to which he fully sticks a decade later. He got a fair trial. He got the conviction he deserved. In his desire to encourage violence and division, he failed completely and society did not for a moment fall to his level.
And he's not walking free. For some reason conservative US media loved the "he'll be out after 20 years" idea, which is, in plain terms, a lie. Norwegian law mandates a court hearing after 21 years of a sentence to decide whether the sentence has to be extended. There's no question that it will be and the killer in question will most likely die in prison or perhaps be released in the final days of his life. Having a mandatory additional hearing seems like a great safety feature built into the law.
Hotel-like facility? I haven't seen many hotels that lock you inside your room and don't allow a minute's unsupervised interaction with another person. We don't think it necessary to design prisons to be intentionally cruel to the inmates, we don't think torturing people accomplishes anything. The killer is provided with enough to meet basic human rights and that is overwhelmingly supported by public opinion. I've never been able to take anyone who says "Scandinavian prisons are like a vacation" seriously because nobody who claims that will admit to wanting to spend time in there.
Maybe. From what I understand, he's relatively happy about how it all turned out, and that makes me uneasy.
He can also fake repentance any time he feels like it, so I'm not sure why you are so convinced about the outcome of some future hearing 10 years from now.
Except that it does not work the way you imply. He wont get out merely for saying "I repent". What you are doing amount to a lie - using caricature and exaggeration of theoretical possibility.
Making rhetorical make points to make people outraged over shadows is harmful.
How do the courts differentiate between witnesses who are truthful vs those who are lying? How do parole boards evaluate whether someone repents?
In such extreme cases especially, it wouldn't be a judge making their mind up after a two-minute statement from a convict. The hearing will have prison personnel testifying about years of interaction with the person. There will be psychologists providing their perspective. There could be a repeated psychiatric evaluation.
Can that process be fooled? Certainly, as there exists no certain way to tell whether someone is being truthful. But successfully faking your way out of a continued sentence requires more than putting on a convincing act for a few hearings.
Nobody in the country thinks it's at all a possibility for the foreseeable future. He won't be released - the man is behind the deadliest peacetime crime in Norway. Even if he sincerely repents at some point, he'll have to spend many more years behind the bars with perfect behavior for a release to be considered.
If he repents the murders, if he renounces his ideology, and if he spends a couple decades as a repentful man would, he will, just maybe, get released when he's old, frail and not expected to live long.
Because it's a general rule for all of the criminals, not one especially for him.
Even Treebeard eventually let Saruman go, so we can't predict what may occur in the future.
However, in this case, since he likely sees himself as a "freedom fighter", he'll never try to admit wrongdoing to get out because that would ruin his image of himself.
And he's not walking free. For some reason conservative US media loved the "he'll be out after 20 years" idea, which is, in plain terms, a lie. Norwegian law mandates a court hearing after 21 years of a sentence to decide whether the sentence has to be extended. There's no question that it will be and the killer in question will most likely die in prison or perhaps be released in the final days of his life. Having a mandatory additional hearing seems like a great safety feature built into the law.
Hotel-like facility? I haven't seen many hotels that lock you inside your room and don't allow a minute's unsupervised interaction with another person. We don't think it necessary to design prisons to be intentionally cruel to the inmates, we don't think torturing people accomplishes anything. The killer is provided with enough to meet basic human rights and that is overwhelmingly supported by public opinion. I've never been able to take anyone who says "Scandinavian prisons are like a vacation" seriously because nobody who claims that will admit to wanting to spend time in there.