I am a Norwegian and this is to me a completely sensible decision. I agree with the intent of the law and don't think there should be exceptions for extreme cases.
The other replies have outlined the fact that Breivik won't get out of prison unless he happens to not present a danger to society. Punishment has three purposes: Punishing the criminal to deter repeat offenses, having a preventive effect on other criminals and protecting society. All of these reasons are sufficiently represented after Breivik's trial.
Increasing the term to life with no parole wouldn't have any effect except increase the stakes for someone who happened to be wrongfully convicted. 20 years in prison is in effect a life sentence in the sense that the life of the criminal would never be the same afterwards. And as others have said, our justice system is focused on rehabilitation, not "getting back at" the criminals. People who do these kinds of violent crimes don't care if the sentence is 20 or 100 years.
I have to say that as someone from the UK I've been really impressed with the level headed approach taken by Norway to this case.
As any court lawyer will tell you "Hard cases make bad law" - what we suffer from in the UK is a very reactive approach to law making where individual exceptional cases often drive the creation of laws through a media driven frenzy to have the government be seen to "do something". More often or not, as Norway has demonstrated, the right thing to do is to simply apply the laws that already stand.
I am impressed myself. Actually I find it really surprising that there haven't been more angry voices shouting for blood and that reason has won out. I have never seen a high-profile case play out in this way before, and I am really happy that the Norwegian people is largely standing by its principles.
Well said. The distinction Americans (myself as one of them) seem to have lost is the one between "rehabilitation" and "revenge."
We call prisons "correctional facilities" because at one point in time their purpose was to correct the behavior of offenders so that they could be reintegrated into society. Today they would be better termed "revenge facilities", because 1) nobody who enters a run-of-the mill American prison for any appreciable length of time is going to leave a productive member of society, and 2) as the Swartz case aptly demonstrates, there's no longer a sense of just and fair punishment, only maximum, nuclear, life-crushing revenge. (30+ years for downloading academic documents, millions of dollars for sharing a handful of songs on Kazaa--and that's just the HN-flavor "crimes".)
I really applaud the Norwegians for staying true to their principles in the face of a monstrous tragedy.
The other replies have outlined the fact that Breivik won't get out of prison unless he happens to not present a danger to society. Punishment has three purposes: Punishing the criminal to deter repeat offenses, having a preventive effect on other criminals and protecting society. All of these reasons are sufficiently represented after Breivik's trial.
Increasing the term to life with no parole wouldn't have any effect except increase the stakes for someone who happened to be wrongfully convicted. 20 years in prison is in effect a life sentence in the sense that the life of the criminal would never be the same afterwards. And as others have said, our justice system is focused on rehabilitation, not "getting back at" the criminals. People who do these kinds of violent crimes don't care if the sentence is 20 or 100 years.