Friday 3 July 2009

The State's Tolerance of Rape

An Open Letter to Ministers of the Crown

This post is addressed as an open letter to the following Ministers of the Crown: the Honourable Judith Collins, Minister of Police; the Honourable Simon Power, Minister of Justice; and the Honourable John Key, Prime Minister.

Dear Honourable Sirs and Madam

We are told by the Ministry of Justice that in 2006 there were 1638 convictions for violent sexual offences in New Zealand. To our knowledge, however, not one of these convictions was for prison rape. Yet it is common knowledge that rapes in prison occur daily.

Now, it is possible that the existence of prison rape is an urban legend. It is possible, though highly improbable, that the New Zealand prison system is unlike other the prison systems of other nations. For example, the US Bureau of Justice reports that over 60,000 prisoners are subject to sexual abuse in prisons
in that country every year. In that country also, the Federal Prison Rape Elimination Commission has just released a report calling for zero tolerance of the crime.

We are aware of prosecutions in New Zealand for prison assaults and prison murders. But none for prison rape.

In view of there being no known arrests or prosecutions for prison rape in New Zealand within living memory, what are we to conclude:

1. That the Ministers of Police, Justice, and Corrections consider that prison rape is not a crime?

2. That the Government believes that there is no evidence of prison rape and that it does not occur in New Zealand?

3. That it is the view of the Government that prisoners deserve all they get; that victims of prison rape should accept that being raped is part of the penalty of being imprisoned?

4. That the Government has other priorities and is willing, therefore, to turn a permissive "blind eye" to prison rape?

5. That prison rape is being efficiently prosecuted and perpetrators convicted, but in secret courts?

We look forward to your response with great interest.

Yours,

John Tertullian and the Contra Celsum team.



1 comment:

ZenTiger said...

Great post, needed to be said.

This issue has greater importance now with the Chief Justice's recent comments that the prisons are too full and prisoners need to be given full pardons and let out. The old reason "whatever we are doing isn't working, so lets try something different"

This is actually more of the same, philosophically speaking. The State has no compassion, the State can not forgive criminals in any meaningful way. They must be shown how to seek redemption themselves, irrespective of the penance they are required to do. You can only forgive, if repentence is genuine.

I would suggest if we wish to see things improve we must enforce the rule of law, if the law is just. The fact that rapists go unpunished in prison is just another facet of understanding why prison is failing.

I will hopefully do a post on this over the weekend and link back to here to make this very point.

Keep 'em coming. People are reading, even if not commenting.