Rehabilitation or Retribution, Our criminal justice system. Options

[MissHygienic]

Which one should we focus on more in our criminal justice system? Basically, which one would serve as a satisfactory/fitting punishment for prisoners?

[Reidar]

Norway's penal system, or lack thereof, is atrocious. Only recently, it wasn't even illegal for convicted perpetrators to dismiss attending their prison dates at all, and while that's been rectified, it hasn't actually been fully implemented yet. And there's one of the most prominent members of their Supreme Court, Tor Erling Staff, who, in the '80s, had "a murder case in Drammen where the Eidsivating court took into account when deciding on a sentence that the murderer was from another cultural tradition." Staff now wants at least a two-year sentence reduction on the basis that the murder committed was legitimized on the grounds of the killer defending his or her "honor". And there are plenty of gems like this:

Oslo’s police department is having a hard time coping with a rising crime rate. Only one in five reported cases is currently being resolved, police seem as frustrated as crime victims, and commentators worry that citizens are having to rely on private security firms to ensure their safety.

Repeated calls are made for more visible police patrols on the streets of Oslo, but resources don’t allow it at present.

The numbers, reported in newspaper Aftenposten, speak for themselves: No country has fewer police per capita than Norway, as many as 70 percent of so-called petty crimes are never followed up, and while the police force has increased 150 percent since 1960, the crime rate has increased 700 percent.

With so few crimes being investigated and solved, observers worry that Norwegians are losing confidence in whether the police will even come when called. Seven of 10 Norwegians have no faith that they’ll get any help if someone breaks into their home, notes Aftenposten.

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1661877.ece

In 2006, Norway had 86.3 crimes reported for every 1,000 people, according to Statistics Norway. The United States? 39.8 per 1,000.

It's a non sequitur to use Norway's rehabilitative philosophy as grounds for pointing out how such a system can work when the surrounding circumstances don't even equate to that being a factor in the quantitative statistics, especially after it's already been acknowledged that facets like homogeneity come into play. Consequently, it would also be a misnomer to cite their system as a cause for the homicidal rate at all. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Is it low because of their justice system, or is their justice system lenient because of the crime rate? You would have to specifically pinpoint a component that comprises the order of what afflicts what, and when that variable came into play. No, if you want a pertinent example, use the United States itself. In 2006, Vermont Judge Edward Cashman sentenced a man who sexually abused a six-year old girl over a four year period to 60 days in jail.

Rehabilitation was the original intent for the scum, but after harsh protesting, the sentence was upped to only three years.

Rehab methods should be used in conjunction with what would be a typical sentence, but when it's utilized as a method in lieu of proper punishment is where the line is drawn. Need I even bring up John Couey, who had a history of repeated sexual offenses on young girls before finally murdering Jessica Lunsford in 2005? So outrageous was the build-up to that that an entire law was formulated in response to the incident. Whenever I read about cases like that, every single cliché vigilante movie I've seen comes bubbling to my cognitive surface. "You're a loose cannon, Callahan! Don't go outside the system, Callahan! A regular time bomb, Callahan! Callahan!"

No wonder they make for such good protagonists.