ACT Law and Order Spokes-man implicitly condones rape in prisons.

"The fact is if you don't want to be assaulted - or worse - by a cellmate, avoid prison by not committing a crime." David Garret- ACT Law and Order spokesman, quoted in NZ Herald.

These are the comments made by the NZ Police Minister, Judith Collins, in regards to those arrested for looting in the after-math of the Christchurch earthquake (via NZ Herald):

Police Minister Judith Collins said the actions of looters was akin to "people who rob the dead".

She expected to see the judiciary throw the book at looters.

"I hope they go to jail for a long time - with a cellmate."

This is another quote (from a friend of mine's Facebook account) which I think could be used as a quite clear and appropriate response:
"WTF, National... is this what you meant by getting tough on law and order? By encouraging rape culture, and increasing standards of justice whenever you think the pub...lic are distressed enough to accept it?"

Yeah and rightly so: what the fuck National?! To think that our society is currently mis-guided by such levels of hypocrisy is, to say the least, quite sickening. But then I'm not that shocked nor surprised. Most of our attitudes towards violence are socially conditioned: we just assume that violent behaviour somehow becomes non-violent, or 'justifiably' not as violent in certain situations. For example, rape in prisons, i.e. "don't drop the soap", "she was drunk and can't remember plus he's a good guy so he wouldn't have forced her if she wasn't asking for it, a police man breaking the arm of an arrested homeless man etc. It is the double standard, not the people, that are protected in political and social rhetoric towards sexual violence: of course the majority of men would not accept rape, but then if she's a slut, or he's effeminate, married, in a long-term relations or crammed into a privatised prison, well...

Rather than focus on how rape is a form of violence that is perpetuated by the social norms of society and therefore can be stopped by un-learning rape culture, the NZ Minister of Police would rather see that these norms remain in place to punish those who deserve it... So the horrible message remains in society: rape, is permissible, it just has to be in the right context and then we refuse to call it rape. It becomes a 'joke', a lie or an accepted part of the 'justice system'.

As a personal response to those who condemn theives and looters: if one is stealing from a large corporation then whatever! As if a business such as New World ever existed to oversee the equal distribution of essential resources to humanity. If I had the opportunity I would loot the fuck out of the super market I worked in. Most of these corporations are entirely capitalist in structure (meaning: nearly all the profits are driven into the hands of the owner, whilst the workers are kept on strict hours and minimum wage). I would think that the amount of money, time, labour and respect stolen by the managers and owners of big businesses would be vastly more devastating than a day's ransacking by a few profiteering individuals.