Prison and Pain

This is not a picture from an Ikea catalog.  It is a picture of the newest prison in Norway, where Breivik might spend some time.  Time Magazine has dubbed this place the "World's Most Humane Prison." 

You might have heard about this, as it has been making the rounds lately, and often with much yelling and anger over the fact that a killer of children may have the opportunity to record a world class sounding hip-hop album (seriously) while law abiding citizens toils away free-styling on their laptop microphones.  I am not going to act like it doesn't get me riled up thinking about it as well.

But I will say that it has made me start wondering about the connection between pain and satisfaction.  Or maybe another way of saying it is: "Would the death of Christ have mattered as much if he died during a freak badminton accident in the Roman Empire's hottest new prison?" Our society runs on the belief that you do the crime, you do the time.  And many happily embrace the knowledge that in prison, scary things happen (warning: adult language and themes).  What is the threshold where our satisfaction meets the appropriate amount of pain (and did I word this last sentence oddly?)?