More Evidence of Prison Corruption

Judicial Hypocrisy

New South Wales has just completed what is claimed to be the most comprehensive survey in history of prisoners within that state's prison system.

It reports: "One in six inmates was aware of a sexual assault in jail in the past year, one in three had used drugs on the inside and half of inmates considered it 'easy' to get them."

If we were to ask how many prosecutions have taken place for sexual assaults or drug use in prisons, we would doubtless find the number to be cuddling zero. Once again this highlights the bankruptcy of the prison institution and of the state in its approach to it. (We believe that it is safe to assume that prison life in NSW is roughly equal to reality in New Zealand.)

So, in this most vicious and degrading manifestation of modern slavery, which is the prison system, we are apparently justified in concluding:

1. That sexual assault and prison rape is OK. It's a crime outside, but inside it's tolerable and tolerated.

2. That drug use in prison is OK. It's a criminal activity outside, but inside, it's OK.

If we are not entitled to draw these conclusions, then why aren't the police and corrections staff investigating and prosecuting crime within the prison system? Clearly they are not, or they must be the most inept and ineffectual policing ministries imaginable. Here is a captive population; accessible at all times to police detectives and investigators; susceptible to infiltration by undercover officers--the list goes on. Surely it's not that hard.

So, since the police are clearly neither inept nor ineffectual in their professional duties, the only other possible alternative is that the government is willing to tolerate crime in prison.

We call for a zero tolerance policy toward all crime committed within prisons. If society and the government and the electorate is going to continue with the modern prison system, it has to front up and do it properly, justly, ethically, and fairly. Winking the eye at prison crime is none of these. It remains an enduring shame and blight upon the community. The government is being derelict in one of its fundamental and most basic duties.