I am sorry that you are in such a situation. I wish better for you.

There is a major difference however, you have at least the opportunity for a better life. (How real that opportunity is, is another matter and depends on a lot of factors).

A prisoner is at the mercy of the state without any option to change the circumstances.

I also highly doubt people would commit atrocities to end up in prison.

We do however have a strong welfare state in Norway that tries to remedy the worst issues with poverty for the individual, so that everyone have a certain minimum.

Edited 5 min later: If unneccesarilly cruel and harsh punishments worked, I guess USA wouldn’t have a lot of prisoners?

I agree, I don’t see that happening either. And if that is the case he will never leave the prison

I don’t think most people here understand the Norwegian prison system.

We try to rehabilitate people. Having freedoms taken away is the punishment. Not living conditions. We give people opportunities in prison. We give some of the worst people in prison leave (yes, to leave prison) for hours sometimes, if we belive they will behave. Even though we don’t trust them to integrate fulltime into society yet. We don’t have lifetime in prison, but we have a system for the very worst offenders in which we can imprison someone for an extended period if necessary. And extend it indefininetly, potentially for life, but they get a chance to convince judges to release them once in a while.

When it comes to the article one shared about PS2 / PS3 complaints, it doesn’t really matter. We are better than him, we give all people, yes even terrible ones, a decent life. Upgrading his console costs nothing compared to the actual cost of having him imprisoned. What does Norwegians gain by witholding something that inexpensive? If he has a worthy life in prison, that’s good. I gain nothing from his suffering. I do however get the satisfaction of knowning that we try not to inflict needless suffering on other humans.

We care about other humans. We imprison to rehabilitate and to protect society until they are rehabilitated. We don’t punish to get revenge. Everyone is supposed to get out at some point.

Recently Norway released someone wrongly convicted and jailed for 20+ years. Imagine if he also had to suffer a needlessly horrible sentencing for that time.

Knowing we don’t have death sentence and that our prisons give the prisoners a somewhat ok life, gives me comfort. That makes me feel that if I or someone I care deeply about was wrongly convicted I or them would not suffer needlessly.