And you thought Nordic jail sentences are short...

Most European countries, particularly the Nordic ones, become sometimes famous and infamous for their often surprisingly short jail sentences for very serious crimes. Being extremely rich and peaceful free democratic societies, they believe more in the principles of reformative rather than punitive justice.

Thus, you constantly hear of stories of, for example, a rapist-murderer getting some ridiculously short jail sentence, like 2 or 3 years. Not 20 or 30, but literally 2 or 3. And often only half of that is actually spent in jail.

In contrast, the United States is not known for this kind of thing, but pretty much the opposite. Where the death penalty is not legal, life sentences are common. And "life sentences" are literal, not metaphorical. (Yes, indeed, in the Nordic countries a so-called "life sentence" means something like 20 years in prison. That's it. It's a "life sentence" in name only.)

Yet, the US justice system is so completely asinine that sometimes it surprises you in the exact opposite direction, where sentences are inexplicably a thousand times more lenient than those that are typical in a Nordic country.

For example, in 2021 a gun store owner in South Carolina named Jon Whitley played a "prank" on an employee by taking a BB gun and shooting him in the face with it. That in itself is extremely reckless because BB gun or not, those projectiles can still do quite a lot of damage, especially if they hit an eye or happen to enter an open mouth.

However, turned out that (at least according to his own words) what he thought was a BB gun was actually a loaded Glock, a real gun. In other words, he killed the employee by shooting him in the face with a real gun.

What kind of sentence did he get for this? Life in prison? 20 years? Maybe 10 years?

Nope. He was sentenced to 25 days in prison. And not even to be served consecutively: He was sentenced to serve 5 days per year for 5 years. In other words, once a year he goes to prison for 5 days. And then some community service.

And that's it. That was his entire sentence in the United States for killing another person.

And then you thought the Nordic justice system is lenient...