Introduction

This long-form response grew out of a conversation I had on X about criminal justice reform. After someone objected to my claims, I felt it necessary to clarify and expand on my position in full. For context, I shared a video highlighting a clear moral failure by the government, specifically in response to someone complaining about the prison system. In turn, the person objected—arguing that recidivism rates are low in certain countries. Here’s the original video above.

First, we acknowledge that recidivism rates in countries like Norway appear low. But the cause is not simply generous welfare or economic investment. Crime is cultural, not merely economic. Communities with strong moral frameworks, social cohesion, and clearly defined norms against violence fare better regardless of income. The 2008 housing crash produced widespread poverty without triggering a crime wave. Why? Because poverty doesn’t cause violent crime—cultural permissiveness and moral decay do.

Second, even if Norway’s model were genuinely effective at minimizing risk, you still wouldn’t implement it. Why? Because Norway is more conservative than you are. In Norway, inmates are required to work to receive benefits. Authorities evaluate past behavior as a predictor of future risk. The system uses preventive detention (forvaring) to indefinitely confine violent offenders deemed too dangerous to release. In other words, even Norway exercises principled restraint. But progressive reformers in the U.S. push for maximum leniency: minimizing prison time, relaxing parole standards, and removing judicial discretion. You want fewer conditions, less judgment, and more releases. Norway, for all its flaws, still believes in accountability.

Proponents of lenient sentencing often invoke Norway as a model of humane rehabilitation. But its success is not simply due to “investing in people.” It is due to being highly selective about who is released. For serial offenders, sexual predators, and murderers, Norway requires rigorous psychological evaluation, and still reserves the right to hold people indefinitely.

Third, and most fundamentally: even if Norway’s system worked flawlessly, it would still fall short of true justice. Because justice is not defined by efficiency, low reoffense rates, or reintegration statistics. It is defined by moral reckoning and proportional consequence. A society that releases a murderer after a few years in comfort—even if he never kills again—has already failed morally. Why? Because justice is not about minimizing risk. It is about upholding the dignity of the victim and holding evil accountable.

Real justice is not risk management. It does not calculate acceptable failure rates. It does not play statistical roulette with innocent lives. Each act of murder or sexual assault committed by a released offender is not a “rare outlier”—it is an indictment of a system that knowingly unleashed danger. When that happens, the system is not just broken. It is complicit.

What makes the American system worse is not just leniency, but institutional indifference. In many states, judges are barred from considering criminal history, parole boards are pressured to meet release quotas, and prosecutors are stripped of sentencing tools like enhancements or consecutive terms. This isn’t mercy—it’s negligence. And it isn’t justice—it’s ideological gambling with the lives of innocent people.

So yes, you can celebrate your “success stories” if you must. But don’t scold the rest of us for pointing out the victims. Don’t shame people for caring more about protecting the innocent than about rehabilitating the guilty. The rare ones who reoffend aren’t the exceptions—they’re the only ones we know about.

Underreporting and the Recidivism Illusion

TThe reality is that recidivism statistics are often misleading. In the U.S., data shows that about 1 in 4 sex offenders reoffend sexually within 15 years—and that rate nearly doubles for those who already have a prior offense. These are only the known cases.

But the more disturbing truth lies in what doesn’t appear in the statistics. According to RAINN:

• 63% of sexual assaults in the U.S. are never reported
• Only 13% of reported assaults lead to a conviction
• Just 3–5% result in incarceration

That means for every one convicted sex offender who reoffends and is caught, multiple others may reoffend without ever facing justice. Yet activists continue to cite recidivism numbers as if they tell the full story—when in fact, they only capture a fraction of the reality.

And this isn’t just a U.S. problem.

Even in Norway—widely held up as a model for rehabilitation—we find reason for skepticism. Yes, Norway reports a 6-year sexual recidivism rate of just 3.4% among convicted offenders, and a general 5-year reconviction rate of about 25% across all crimes. But these are still official convictions, not comprehensive accounts of criminal behavior.

According to Amnesty International and other reports:

• 84% of rape cases in Norway never make it to trial
• Of those that do, only about one-third result in convictions

And Norway lacks comprehensive victimization surveys like the U.S. has, so we don’t know the true scope of underreporting. If most rapes go unreported and most reported cases don’t lead to convictions, then even Norway’s low recidivism numbers are only showing the tip of the iceberg.

So when someone says, “Not all reoffend,” the real question is: How many do—but never get caught? How many victims suffer in silence while the system pats itself on the back for its supposed success?

Until underreporting is accounted for, recidivism numbers—no matter the country—cannot serve as a moral justification for leniency.

Psychopathy and the Myth of Rehabilitative Universality

Then there’s the psychological side of all this—something that often gets overlooked in debates about justice reform. The uncomfortable truth is that some violent offenders, particularly those with psychopathy, aren’t simply people who made a terrible mistake. They’re deeply manipulative, lack genuine remorse, and don’t respond to therapy like others might.

In fact, studies show that therapy can actually make them more dangerous. It teaches them the language of empathy without instilling the reality of it. They learn to fake sincerity, to say the right things, to mimic emotional health. They don’t improve—they just get better at deceiving others. Many begin adjusting their behavior to avoid detection, refining their tactics based on how others respond. That’s why we see recurring patterns like love-bombing and strategic charm—common tools used to disarm suspicion.

These aren’t people on a path to healing. They’re often pathological liars who know exactly what parole boards, therapists, and release panels want to hear. And yet time and again, the system rewards their performance—granting early release based on appearances rather than true transformation.

That’s not rehabilitation. It’s naïveté disguised as mercy.

Norway Isn’t the Model People Think It Is

It’s also worth interrogating the myth of Norway itself. While often praised as a model of humane incarceration, Norway’s success cannot be replicated by simply “spending more.” The U.S. spends about $12,000 less per person, yes, but the difference isn’t financial—it’s structural and philosophical.

According to OECD data, both Norway and the U.S. spend substantial amounts per capita on social services—but the U.S. does so through a combination of federal, state, and private programs, making total public social expenditure per person more comparable than headlines suggest. The true difference lies not in money, but in social cohesion. Norway has a unified culture, high trust, and low internal conflict. The U.S., by contrast, is large, diverse, polarized, and governed through a fragmented bureaucracy.

And to put it plainly: people don’t sexually assault children or murder others because they missed out on $12,000 in government benefits. That’s not how evil works. That’s not how criminality functions.

According to OECD and peer-reviewed data:

• OECD average government spending per capita (2023): ≈ $22,800 PPP
• Norway’s increase in spending (2019–2023): +$22,654 PPP
• Norwegian regional GDP per capita ranges from €29,000 to over €46,000, with Oslo reaching as high as €51,000.

These figures underscore that the U.S. doesn’t lag behind purely due to money. Rather, the American challenge is institutional fragmentation, cultural disunity, and the politicization of justice—not inadequate spending.

• Norway has a unitary justice system, not a fragmented federal-state-local bureaucracy
• Norway uses preventive detention to incarcerate high-risk individuals indefinitely
• Norway benefits from a small, culturally cohesive, and wealthy population, propped up by oil reserves and high social trust

Try that model in cities plagued by generational poverty, gang violence, and political dysfunction, and you won’t get peace—you’ll get chaos.

In fact, given the lack of transparency and inconsistent measurement standards across countries, we don’t even have a clear picture of what long-term recidivism rates actually are in Norway or other European nations. Add to that the rapid demographic shifts, including the influx of large Muslim populations with differing cultural norms regarding gender, violence, and law, and it’s fair to say Norway’s long-term success is anything but assured. The current data snapshot may not tell us what that system will look like in a generation.

Root Cause Thinking and Crime Trends

Some argue that American crime is driven by poverty—but history says otherwise. For instance, the 2008 housing crash created widespread financial suffering, yet crime did not spike. Why? Because poverty doesn’t drive crime.

Crime drives poverty. It destroys communities, makes neighborhoods unlivable, pushes out small businesses, and hollows out local economies. That’s why you can have poor but safe communities—and wealthy ones destroyed by violence.

Meanwhile, the real correlation emerges elsewhere: every time the U.S. leans heavily into “root cause” thinking and social justice reform, as in the 1970s and again in the late 2010s, the result is not utopia—but a surge in violent crime. These policies routinely empower offenders, undermine law enforcement, and treat deterrence as outdated.

• In the 1970s, “Great Society” programs focused on social interventions rather than deterrence—coinciding with a dramatic national spike in violent crime.
• In the 2010s and early 2020s, policing reforms, bail reform, and decarceration movements were followed by sharp increases in homicides and violent crimes across U.S. cities.
• A DOJ analysis found cities under federal consent decrees (imposed for police oversight) experienced up to a 61% rise in violent crime within two years.
• California’s Proposition 47, which downgraded many crimes, correlated with notable increases in retail theft and car break-ins.
• New York’s 2020 bail reform saw an estimated 4% of released individuals re-arrested for violent felonies, including offenses involving firearms.

Policy Games and Definition Manipulation

The issue isn’t just about leniency—it’s about deception through redefinition. In New York, the state reclassified violent crimes like kidnapping and dismemberment of a corpse as non-violent to make the data look better and loosen parole eligibility. This allowed activists and ideologically driven policymakers to artificially lower recidivism numbers while increasing public risk.

Parole violations have become almost impossible to enforce, past behavior is no longer considered relevant, and efforts to eliminate lesser degrees of murder or sentencing enhancements have eroded the structure of accountability.

Activist-led reforms have introduced procedural chaos and eliminated key tools prosecutors use to keep dangerous offenders off the streets—all in service of a narrative, not public safety.

Justice Isn’t Therapy

Let’s also be honest about the moral dimension. Norway’s justice system isn’t just “successful”—it’s also morally bankrupt in many respects. It is built on state-enforced wealth redistribution, where the labor of law-abiding citizens funds what are essentially comfortable rehabilitation centers for murderers and rapists.

In some of Norway’s most praised prisons, violent criminals live in private cottages, play music, take college courses, and enjoy chef-prepared meals—while their victims are dead or permanently traumatized.

That isn’t justice. That’s a technocratic utopia for offenders, built on the fantasy that every soul is equally redeemable through comfort and conversation. The result is a system where the dignity of the victim is secondary to the emotional well-being of the predator.

The Situational Murderer Argument

Some argue that many killers are not serial murderers, but “situational” offenders—a husband who kills his wife in a moment of rage, for example. But that’s not a morally valid reason to release someone.

Justice isn’t just about assessing the risk of future harm. It’s about reckoning with the weight of what was done. You don’t get a pass just because you might never kill again.

Murder is not a glitch in your record. It is a final, irreversible choice that deserves a punishment proportional to the dignity of the life destroyed.

A Final Word: Anthropology and Accountability

At the heart of all this is a question of anthropology: what do you believe human beings are worth?

If you think justice is served when a killer attends therapy and reintegrates comfortably while his victim rots in the ground, you don’t believe in justice. You believe in a social experiment, not moral accountability.

Justice isn’t a spreadsheet of outcomes. It’s a moral judgment rooted in the belief that people are made in the image of God. That their lives mean more than recidivism stats. That their deaths require more than a reentry plan.

Mercy without justice is cruelty to the innocent. And justice without moral weight is nothing but bureaucratic sentimentality.

Let’s stop pretending it’s compassionate to release people we know are dangerous. Let’s stop pretending one more innocent death is worth the risk.

Because it isn’t.

Who Decides, and At What Cost?

This raises another crucial question: Who gets to decide who is “high-risk” or not? And why should we trust activist-led parole boards, political appointees, or ideologically driven panels to make that call—especially when their track record involves putting dangerous individuals back into neighborhoods with children, families, and vulnerable citizens?

Why should they unilaterally be granted the authority to place your life, or your child’s life, at risk to uphold their baseless ideologies about universal rehabilitation?

The answer is: they shouldn’t. A justice system accountable to the people must never treat public safety as a negotiable experiment. The risks are borne not by the parole boards, but by the innocent. And that’s unacceptable.

A Better System: Restitution and Ultimate Accountability

If the current system is broken—and it is—what should replace it? We propose a return to a biblical model of restitution and moral justice:

• For theft and lesser offenses: a restitution-based model that requires direct compensation to victims rather than enrichment of the prison-industrial complex.
• For violent crimes such as rape or murder: the death penalty, consistently and proportionally applied, with universal moral standards to guide sentencing.

This system would:

• Eliminate the high recidivism of violent criminals by permanently removing them from society
• Provide closure and justice to victims and their families
• Prevent the abuse of parole systems by manipulative offenders
• Be rooted in a Christian ethical framework, recognizing the gravity of sin and the dignity of human life

Juries could be composed of voluntary professionals trained in law, psychology, and criminology, rather than random citizens unprepared for the moral and technical weight of trial decisions.

Such a system would no longer treat justice as a rehabilitation experiment but as a moral obligation to protect the innocent and punish evil proportionately.

The recidivism rate in that system? Zero.

That’s better than mass incarceration, and far better than the fantasy of therapy cottages and second chances for the unrepentant.