Originally Posted by helene

Well, loss of freedom can be a pretty big thing, even if you're comfortable. But even in Scandinavia, prisons aren't that luxurious, though it's probably pretty nice compared to living on the street or in a crack house.

I don't mind criminals being punished, particularly for sex crimes (which'll typically get you just a few months (if that) up to a couple of years in Norway), but the satisfaction of exacted vengeance shouldn't come at the expense of the next victim's suffering.

Severe punishment as a deterrent is highly overrated; most people are incredibly poor at judging risks and won't consider the possibility of going to prison. And even if a sex offender should stop for a moment while in the process of satisfying his uncontrollable urges and consider the risk of being punished, he'll likely conclude that the chance of getting caught is low, and the chance of actually getting convicted for something that's so difficult to prove is even lower.

Now, I'm not saying we should pamper sex offenders and other criminals as a principle, I'm just saying that if pampering them reduces the likelihood of recurrence, then it's probably worthwhile, even though it's not particularly satisfying.

We've had a drastic decrease in repeat criminal offences in Norway since we moved to a "soft on inmates" policy, with education, better food (poor quality food can cause violent behaviour), more open/low security solutions. This isn't a solution for everyone; there are certainly some sick fucks that need to be locked away for good (and I have no idea what they're doing with sex offenders and what the results are), but on average, it seems to be well worth the investment