People Against Prisons Aotearoa

4 posts tagged rape

Why New Zealand prisons are in crisis and what you can do about it

New Zealand’s prisons are in crisis. Plain and simple. There have never been more people in prison at any point and it is only expected to get worse. Late last year, for the first time, the prison population hit a whopping 10,000 and is expected to remain above 10,000 for the foreseeable future.

This means that the government is planning to spend billions of dollars on imprisoning thousands more people than it did even four years ago. It is planning a $1 billion spending spree to pay for a new prison at Waikeria and massive expansions elsewhere. Meanwhile, it is housing more prisoners in double-bunked cells, where there are two or more people in a cell overnight. Data released to No Pride in Prisons shows that a quarter of all cells are now double-bunked. Many of those cells were never built for two people and the prisons cannot cope with the huge increase in prisoner numbers.

This overcrowding crisis has had a very serious impact on people in prison. Internationally, double-bunking has been consistently shown to increase rates of misconduct, self-harm, suicide, and violence, including sexual violence. Prisoners who have contacted No Pride in Prisons confirm this. They have told us how in double-bunked cells all of your privacy disappears. You often have to eat, sleep, and defecate in the same room as another person and you are rarely, if ever, allowed moments just to yourself.

To make matters even worse, two prisoners have contacted No Pride in Prisons saying that their cell-mates raped them. Double-bunked cells put people at incredible risk of intimidation, exploitation, and violence at the hands of their cellmates. Instead of making plans to reduce and eventually end the practice of double-bunking, the Department of Corrections every couple of months increases the number of double-bunked cells in response to the booming prison population.

The overcrowding crisis is one of the core drivers of worsening conditions in New Zealand prisons. Prisoners have reported that levels of violence are increasing. In a recent survey, 46% of prisoners at Manawatu Prison told the Ombudsmen they had been assaulted while in prison. Prisoners have also reported extremely poor healthcare. Across the board, prisoners have said that they experience long waiting times to see doctors and dentists, and that the care they receive is often poor. One prisoner told No Pride in Prisons that she has waited months in pain to see a doctor. She asked to see a doctor in August 2016 and as of February 2017, she has still not seen one!

Because of the overcrowding crisis, prisoners are spending more and more time in their cells. Many prisoners are kept in their cells for upwards of 20 hours per day, and a large number spend 22-23 hours per day in their cells. Many prisoners do not get access to fresh air every day. Corrections justifies this mistreatment, in part, by saying that the extremely high prison population makes it practically impossible for all prisoners to get a decent amount of time out of their cells and time in the fresh air.

These problems did not come out of nowhere. In September 2013, the Bail Amendment Act came into effect. The Act made it much harder for many people to get bail. As a result, the remand prison population, or that part of the prison population which has either not been convicted or sentenced for any crime, has skyrocketed. Prisoners on remand made up approximately 72% of the total increase in the prison population since the Act came into effect, and the remand population alone has risen by more than 1200 people.

Given its current trajectory, we can expect that this problem is only going to get worse. If something doesn’t change now, there will be thousands more people in prison. There will be thousands more people who will have to go through the violence and mistreatment that the overcrowding crisis has produced. Urgent action is needed undo the worst of this crisis. This is a crisis caused by government policy – by the Bail Amendment Act. With enough public pressure, policy can be changed.

We must do everything in our power to get the Bail Amendment Act repealed. We need to make our voices as loud as possible. We need a huge mass of people to show that we won’t stand for the government’s policy of mass incarceration anymore. Tough on crime means tough on people and this government has locked away more people than ever before. If you believe that we need to end the overcrowding crisis as soon as possible, then join the movement calling for the end of the Bail Amendment Act. Turn up at noon on February 11 for the 10,000 Too Many hīkoi from Auckland’s Aotea Square to Mt Eden Prison. We need to urgently send the message that enough is enough and it is time to stop this injustice. 

By Ti Lamusse

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Check out this Waatea 5th Estate panel that NPIP member Sophie was on

Which side are you on?

The queer community in Aotearoa is at a turning point. It is fundamentally divided. Some of us are happy with the status quo and some of us demand more. On the one side, there are those who are complacent with the astounding rates of incarceration of Māori, with the violence of police officers and with the rape of incarcerated trans women. On the other side, there are those who stand in solidarity with all the queer and trans people who have been left behind by a community more concerned with rainbow-coloured flags at Pride parades than the suffering of their people.

Pride started with a moment of rupture, where our predecessors stepped out of the shadows and rioted against police brutality. At its emergence, Pride was nothing if not political. Those proud rioters demanded an end to violently policed norms of gender and sexuality. They fought in the street against anyone who thought they had the right to tell them not to.

Shamefully, Pride has become something else. It has become a corporatised pinkwashed event where institutions like the police and corrections, which do untold violence to the most vulnerable members of the queer community, can show themselves off as so-called beacons of gay rights. Organisations like ANZ and the University of Auckland, both of which impose unfair pay and conditions on their workers, appropriate pride in a lolly scramble for pink dollars. Theirs is a hollow beacon of progress built from the co-option of our struggle.

There are some comfortable queers who say “things have really changed” and that police and prisons are better now, that the police is not the same institution that used to round up suspected homosexuals in nightclubs and throw them in jail. Unfortunately, the police and prisons are still racist, homophobic, transphobic and misogynistic institutions. According to their own 2015 report, which is likely to under-report rates of violence, New Zealand Police used force against Māori at a rate nearly eight times that of Pākehā. The New Zealand Police also used tasers against Māori and Pasifika at a rate higher than it used tasers against Pākehā.

In the last four months alone, No Pride in Prisons has been in touch with two of our incarcerated trans sisters who have been raped in custody. Corrections hasn’t done a thing to end this sexual violence. It continues to place two people in a single cell overnight, putting those incarcerated people at extraordinary risk of sexual and other violence. In fact, it plans on exposing more prisoners to violence by expanding this practice of double-bunking. Why should we pretend that Corrections is anything but a racist and rape-facilitating arm of the state? We see through the pinkwashing, we acknowledge the suffering these institutions cause - do you?

Queers in Aotearoa have a legacy of insurgency. It is our responsibility to continue this struggle and perpetuate it - to destroy those things which are destroying the lives of the most marginalised members of our community. In Aotearoa, in 2016, the prison system is destructive. Police are destructive. We bear responsibilities, as those who carry on the work begun by those radical queers who came before us and who are with us still, not to be fooled. Violence wrapped in a rainbow flag is still violence. Racism covered in glitter is still racism.

Some say that Pride is just a celebration, that it’s supposed to celebrate how far ‘we’ have come. We ask, who is this ‘we’? When we celebrate, who are we leaving behind? When we invite these institutions to the party, we are siding with the forces who have wanted us in the closet, in a cell, or dead. How ever far we may have come, it has been in spite of police and prisons. These institutions always have been and always will be the enemies of queer liberation and universal liberation.

We look around and see soaring rates of homelessness and unemployment among young trans and queer people. We see daily acts of discrimination and violence against those who do not fit into a colonial gender model. We hear of rape and other violence done to incarcerated queer and non-queer people. This is not a time to celebrate. This is a time to demand action.

Our argument is simple: you can choose to side with corrections and the police or with the marginalised; with the oppressors or the oppressed; with the status quo or with change; with the institutions that hurt people or with the people they are hurting. The Auckland Pride Board has chosen its side, so what about you?


Written by T Lamusse, S Vella and E Rākete 

PRESS RELEASE: Pride Board’s Decision to Allow Police and Corrections in 2016 Pride Parade “Shameful”

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Queer and trans group No Pride in Prisons is condemning the Auckland Pride Board for choosing to allow Police and Corrections Officers to march in this year’s parade.

The Auckland Pride Board announced their decision yesterday, reasoning that the Department of Corrections will be taking steps over the coming year to improve its treatment of transgender prisoners.

No Pride in Prisons’ spokesperson, Sophie Morgan, says that this is not nearly enough. “To this date, the Department of Corrections has shown a blatant disregard for the treatment of all incarcerated people, especially queer and trans prisoners.”

“This year alone, No Pride in Prisons has heard from multiple transgender inmates who have been either raped or brutally attacked while in Corrections’ custody.”

The group points to an incident late last year where a trans woman was raped after being placed in a cell overnight with a man.

“Corrections has introduced policies such as double-bunking, where two or more inmates are housed overnight in a single cell. These policies have directly led to the rape of trans women and other prisoners,” says Morgan.

“Corrections has proven, time and time again, that it has no regard for the safety or bodily autonomy of inmates.”

No Pride in Prisons is concerned that the Pride Board may be getting ahead of itself in making this controversial decision.

“Corrections is being rewarded for making vague promises to improve the safety of trans prisoners. It is not enough to reward the Department for making promises it has yet to fulfil. Ultimately, the Department is unlikely to make good on these promises, as up until now it has denied that it has a problem.”

No Pride in Prisons says the problems with prisons and police go much deeper than the Pride Board is willing to address.

“The fact of the matter is that prisons and police are violent, racist institutions that have no place in any pride parade.”

No Pride in Prisons says that at every stage of the criminal justice system, Māori are discriminated against. Morgan says, “Police have recently admitted that they have an ‘unconscious bias’ against Māori.”

“Māori are more likely to be apprehended, charged, convicted and sentenced to incarceration than Pākeha. This is because Māori are targeted and discriminated against by police and the criminal justice system more generally.”

“In a report of its own making, New Zealand Police found that it uses force against Māori at 8 times the rate it does Pākehā. Māori make up 15% of the general population of Aotearoa, and roughly 50% of the prison population.”

“These are not unusual statistics. The prisons and police of a colonising government will always be used to repress the indigenous population. These institutions are designed for the social control of marginalised peoples.”

“The Auckland Pride Board may want to believe that there are no Māori queer people or that there are no queer or trans prisoners. That’s just not the case. As marginalised people, we have an obligation to stand with those who are being oppressed.”

“However, the Board and the Auckland queer community are actively choosing to side with institutions that have inflicted untold violence on Aotearoa’s most vulnerable populations.”

“The Auckland queer community should be ashamed that it is being represented by those who choose to stand with inherently violent institutions. It is shameful that the community is turning its back on the marginalised groups most targeted by police and the prison system.”

In 2015, No Pride in Prisons disrupted the parade in protest of police and corrections’ inclusion. This year, the group plans to hold a counter-rally at the same time as the parade.

“We are encouraging those in the queer community who are ashamed of what Pride has become to boycott the parade and stand in solidarity with Aotearoa’s most marginalised people.”

Link to the Facebook Event