Karen Franklin on Breivik's Insanity

Breivik has been determined to be a paranoid schizophrenic.

The psychiatrists spent 36 hours interviewing Breivik on 13 separate occasions before finding him insane at the time of the crimes. Breivik was psychotic and inhabited a ''delusional universe,'' they wrote in their 243-page report.

I think Norway's system is pretty spot on. I'm horrified by Breivik's crime, but if the guy was actually crazy, then his sentence should reflect that. Norwegian legal experts seem a whole lot more level-headed than ours.

Although many have expressed surprise, there's not the kind of political grandstanding one might expect with such a politically charged case in the United States or some other Western countries. Even prosecutors are not voicing any objection to the insanity finding.

Their system is geared not towards punishment but towards rehabilitation, something we used to care about. Now it's simply all about making people pay for their crimes.

Statistics indicate this policy works: Reconviction rates in Norway are about 20 percent, far lower than in other European countries or the United States.