Swedish justice

Last week I was in Lund again doing the Cultural Understanding course with a chatty group at Sony Ericsson. One of the models I use in the course to represent the difficulty of changing deeply held cultural beliefs is a drawing of a buoy. The buoy floating on top of the water that you can see represents behaviors -- they're observable and can change pretty easily. Below the water, hidden from view, is the buoy's tether -- this represents the norms we live by and the values we hold, which are more difficult for us to change. And where the tether is anchored to the ground at the bottom of the ocean, that's where our core assumptions about life are. These are nearly impossible to change and make us very uncomfortable when they are challenged.

I bring up this model because I was surprised by my angry reaction to a piece in the paper today about the murder of a teenage girl a few months ago here in Sweden. The 15-year-old girl was strangled to death in a forest by 2 other teenagers (a girl and a boy), both 16 and mentally fit i.e. they weren't psychotic or on drugs when this happened. Yesterday they were sentenced to a mere 20 months in a youth facility ("undomsvård" -- have no idea if this is prison type situation or a tennis camp in Solna. Please tell me it's not cozy or I might be ill).

In the paper an expert says that 20 months is a reasonable sentence because children are very sensitive and if they served a long sentence the perpetrators might never recover and "have a future." It's best for society, she argues, that they received a short sentence. Now, if you ever wanted an explicit example of the fact that Sweden prioritizes the needs of society over the needs of the individual, here it is. As an American I wonder where on earth is the justice for the victim and her family? How are they supposed to cope with the fact that these murderers are going to be out running the streets in their tight pants and died blond hair in 20 months? In Sweden are they really expected to accept this verdict for the greater good of society? Personally, I think this is way too much to expect of these parents, Swedish or otherwise, and in my rock at the bottom of the tether, justice has not been served.