by Catherine Delahunty
This morning the Attorney General announced there will be no compensation for 8 women who were part of an inquiry into police rape cases. The women also said there was no apology. Instead they were part of a confidential forum where “telling their story” was facilitated and compensation was recommended. The Crown however says no to these women.
Without knowing the details of the cases, the Green Party is alarmed by the Attorney General’s statement that compensating these women would open the floodgates. I think he is saying that there are several hundred women who have experienced violent, possibly sexual, assault by the police, but we cannot afford to compensate all of them. So, some law enforcers attacking hundreds of women doesn’t merit compensation. What am I missing here?
Surely the culture of violence towards women has been addressed in the police force? Surely there will be no more attacks needing compensation? Surely the state is very sorry that women should be subjected to this violence? In essence the Crown is acknowledging that, even without a conviction against some policemen, abuse has occurred. If they broke a leg at a rugby game ACC might step in. However, rape by the police requires no compensation?
Published in Health & Wellbeing | Justice & Democracy by Catherine Delahunty on Wed, August 11th, 2010
Tags: police, rape, women's affairs
More posts by Catherine Delahunty | more about Catherine Delahunty
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Surely people who commit offences should be the ones paying compensation.
Why is it their employers fault?
If rape is committed by someone who works in a fish and chip shop, should we get the shop owner to pay compensation and absolve the criminal from paying financial compensation?
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Good on you Cath – your first sentence says it all
Froggie, forgive all the typo’s but can you call a page
‘Only in New Zealand’,
once in a while
I’ll contribute
I have the subject in hand (for how long is debatable)
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Hold on, I am sure if a beneficiary was getting fined without a criminal conviction the Green Party would be getting hysterical. If the matters went to trial, and they were found not guilty then there is no evidence a rape occured. While I have sympathy for their plights, I personally dont think any money shoudl be paid without guilty verdicts. Without evidence the rapes occured (and a criminal conviction as the matter has gone before a jury is the best way of showing that) then I think an appropriate decision has been made.
Unless you are suggesting that the jury in those trials are bigoted, women haters. If you are upset then condemn the juries, or are you saying that you sat through all the evidence in the trials so believe the juries were wrong (and i didnt sit through the trial so i am cant comment on the verdicts but abide by their decisions)
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- knew about offending
- didn’t stop it
- covered it up
- shifted offenders to other locations and let them carry on offending
Quite a different situation. Effectively they aided and abetted the crime.
So the question remains unanswered –
If rape is committed by someone who works in a fish and chip shop, should we get the shop owner to pay compensation and absolve the criminal from paying financial compensation?
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Here’s Idiot/Savant’s analysis at No Right Turn, which I agree with completely:
In at least some cases, this behaviour was officially sanctioned and covered up by the Police – former senior Police officer John Dewar has recently been paroled from his prison sentence for doing just that.
This was (and, sadly, maybe still is) a systemic issue, not just the individual actions of a few rogue Police officers.
The other interesting point is that Chris Finlayson said:
But Rachael Brown, who led the inquiry and recommended the Government pay compensation, is a lawyer. She would have made her recommendations on sound legal principles.
Presumably, Finlayson trawled the Crown Law Office for “some oik” (as David Garrett put it) who would provide a differing opinion, on the “floodgates” principle, perhaps.
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In this instance, if there was any crime, the crime was facilitated by the power and resources held by the individuals as a result of being members of the police force. The police force may be seen to hold some blame in this matter as the procedures in place to prevent such abuse of power and resources were obviously insufficient to prevent the occurrence of the alleged crimes. While the case is not directly comparable to the church, this is only so because the church knew of, and actively aided, the offending.
I am not really familiar with the cases, but many of the individuals implicated in the cases, of those we know of these eight, were acquitted. Having been acquitted, the accused offense is considered to of not have been an offense, even if inappropriate given the role of the individual. Not being an offense, there is no reason for compensation. However, where the accused offense was considered to have happened and to have happened as a result of the power and resources held by virtue of belonging to the organization that is the police, as is the case with Shipton, there is rather definitive grounds for compensation from that organization.
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There is a difference between a criminal standard of proof (ie beyond reasonable doubt) and a civil standard of proof (ie on the balance of probabilities).
All that is needed for a successful claim in tort is the civil standard of proof. So even if it is not proven beyond reasonable doubt that particular Police officers are rapists, a compensation claim can be successful if, on the balance of probabilities, they are.
BTW, please don’t talk about the Police “Force”. That has ugly connotations, especially in the context of this thread. “Police service” or just “Police” would be better.
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Well Toad…I’ve been thinking – me old man said that all provincial towns had a pervasive identical attitude; and I like hearing experts talk.
It’s a bit silly for any kiwi to play ‘us and them’ really.
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I’m with Toad: the word “force” was removed in 1958. It has no place in modern terminology.
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‘Police force’ is entirely accurate and appropriate, regardless of if it is the official designation or not. The entire purpose of the institution revolves around coercing people to follow certain codes of conduct condoned by society at threat of confiscation of property or freedom. It is force in the most true sense of the word; if this was not the case this entire thread would not exist as the force wielded over the complainants would have been absent.
As to the cases, I have said that I am unfamiliar with them; I know not if it was gang-rape or a case of post-coital regret. As to the difference between civil and criminal burdens, this is correct for the most part; there are notable exceptions, especially in relation to rape accusations, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to go in to them.
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Toad, the last paragraph of Ms. Delahunty’s post referred to the police force, so I believe there is some justification to referring to the police as the police force.
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sapient – you say NZ Police hold some of the blame to these rapes.
What percentage of the blame for the rapes would you transfer from the actual rapists to the NZ Police?
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toad – you make an extreme accusation that the NZ Police sanctioned the rapes.
Do you have even the slightest piece of evidence that the NZ Police authorised these rapes?
It all seems a desperate attempt to take the blame for rapes away from the rapists and blame the NZ Police as a whole.
Why blame people personally for anything they do if you can score political points by transfering the blame to the govt or their departments?
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I think Catherine got the semantics wrong there (unless her reference was intended to be satirical, in which case she got it right).
@photonz1 8:57 PM
That is a really stupid question. “Percentages” are not an issue. The issue is whether the Police culture condones and covers up rape by Police officers, or whether it lines Police rapist up for a conviction and sentence similar to what any other rapist would get.
From what I have seen over recent (and past) years, I still think the Police culture is “all for one, and one for all” and that culture dissuades Police from calling out the bad apples in their ranks – even if they have committed crimes as abhorrent as rape.
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No, but in numerous instances they have been shown to have turned a blind eye to them or, as in the case of John Dewar which I linked to above, actively conspired to cover them up.
And is there really any moral difference between “authorising” rape and covering it up when you know it has occurred?
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taod – “And is there really any moral difference between “authorising” rape and covering it up when you know it has occurred?”
I would think it’s morally far worse to actually authorise something to happen before it does, and a cover up which comes afterwards and may be due to loyalty – not because it was considered ok.
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Why Photo – you are a lost secret closet fascist without a party then:
This is bad, but this is worse – Right where pol potty, hitler, Uncle Jo
(hi jh!) et al, stepped in.
I found it better (eventually) to go with the Right Thing – and that’s enough burden for Everyman. (ref:kevvy)
[frog: I know this is a subject that will rightly excite passionate expression, Mark, but the thread would be better without the Godwinning references imo].
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And that loyalty is what is shit about the whole Police culture.
Their culture is like that of Australian rugby league teams. I’m a great League supporter – I love the game.
Just as I am a supporter of the Police to carry out their role of protecting people and property. But when they protect their own, knowing full well they have committed serious crimes, my respect for them is very seriously diminished.
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Mark – bit of an own goal when you have to invoke the use of Hitler.
Toad – that’s where you and I differ. You lose respect for the police when there’s been a coverup. I try to lose respect only for those who have covered up.
And I’d never make blatantly false and extremist statements like the police officially authorised the rapes (specially when you admit you don’t have the slightest piece of evidence to back this claim up).
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This is corruption at it’s worse and should not be tolerated!!!
No woman would accuse a cop for rape for nothing especially a ‘gang’ type of rape.
These women need to be compensated even if it comes from the cops own pocket!!
If not then it is a most perverse travesty of justice!!
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piccy; can you not see the undercover rape of NZ women as Hitleresque; – I didn’t have to reach far or try that hard – fascism is a kiss away in nz.
Own Goal; – the term suggests chivalry; I ask you; go talk to the legless, the families of death and suicide from eraq and ifghanistan – see if you can’t see the bold reflection of fascism in their faces; – you ain’t been in my shoes, haven’t see what I’ve seen, can’t sing th
Blues – righteous dog!
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ps; where I live by the Taniwha – dog is a term of acceptance
don’t go downtown on it
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pps: No gods here frog; just a simple country boy tryin to make way for a small fish in a small pond; things can look bigger in print neh?
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Marks – We had Saddam gasing Kurds, Taliban treating women worse than dogs, yet….wait for it….it’s New Zealand where “fascism is a kiss away”
Such a comment suggests you haven’t been out and seen the big wide world.
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all too well fortunately – have you one photo – or many?
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The moral systems of some are stringent while the moral systems of others are flexible or absent.
Jobs such as those here inevitably attract two kinds of people; those whom genuinely want to help people and those whom seek the power. Some may start as one but become the other.
Knowing that the job attracts such individuals it falls on the institution to attempt to minimise any harm which may result from their imbuing their officers with power. Personality testing and interviews are the first line of defense but these are far from perfect. The second line is monitoring of their actual performance in the job, it is here that the first point comes into play; if those responsible for such monitoring choose to ignore or condone inappropriate behaviour instead of reporting it, as they ought, then such behaviour is allowed to flourish. In a system where this happens we see peoples morals be corrupted as they are brought into the in-group, the culture, that prevents them from ‘narking’.
Because of the culture often associated with many such institutions, and some of the largest companies as well, these things are not only passively allowed to happen but, perhaps, actively facilitated. It is up to the institution to control such culture and it is the failure of the institution that has resulted in those with questionable morals obtaining the power which they have used to abuse, potentially, these women. Because of this failure the institution shares blame.
I do not know how proliferate such culture is in our police force but I do know that it has certainly been suggested in these instances and has certainly been documented throughly in these antipodes.
In a similar manner, society may be seen to hold some degree of blame for many of those whom end up in our prison system.
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Unfortunately.
In that regard at least, local duties are shared well and we have a community culture thing going.
As opposed to all the cultural identity confusion/crises on the white faces on Lampton Quay – gee; even the maadi’s there are white.
I could be Andy Haden’s replacement
A Good Old Boy.
Y’know…what happens on the job, stays there and the locker room advice…they will be boys and the heart wants what it wants, and how did they get to a place like that.
Granted we hired them, but they might have their own agenda in enlisting for power. It’s a primal driver.
Corruption so common we don’t call it that.
It’s all just tcb
You know the Sydney Robbery/Homicide squad conducted most of that city’s Bank Heists by the 1990′s?
They rightly figured that they wouldn’t be there
To catch themselves – Professional Gentlemen Coppers,
Same in the Big Easy, N’Awlins
But Kiwi’s have a pretty high standard for physical rigor
of the moving kind – we endure winters and loathe cold – yet it doesn’t even snow here!
But yes the local coppers will throw you in the winter river, to wash the blood off and wake you up. Laugh as you bleed and freeze all night in the cellar.On my block we’ve all suffered from the Law or the local Health Care.
Stacked a bale of thumbs down for Outing them this week.
…anyway – you all asleep and I’ve got letters to write…
Black Uniforms, rubber gloves, no numbers, no phone call.
Not even a Doctor worth the name – and they travel in Packs like the Brown-Shirts.
I didn’t mean fascist as an insult – merely comparable – they are the only Gang allowed to advertise here.
You can’t have Police abetting Rape and call it a Democracy
If I were to interview some of those women.
I don’t reckon they’d call it Freedom.
They are someone else’s loved ones.
They don’t seem to think it fair and I agree with them
The Crime in my neighborhood is, imo, mostly poverty driven.
I was going to have a couple of thieves on, but when I saw how poor they were, well it almost seemed like they needed to steal.
If our youth are to be an asset. They should be cared for in their most vulnerable years.
That would make everyone’s job easier.
We create the people who rape and murder from amongst us. They do not come from the moon
photo: Hint: That Coin Has Two Sides; it is darn near pointless to discuss one side.
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Frog; Googled Godwinning as it’s not a term I’ve run across.
A most interesting diversion which I will study further, thank you.
But I don’t put much stock in names – they mean little – I cast them about sure enough – but without malice.
That ultra Right wing John Howard had some attitudes that were authentically Stalinesque…
A name is an effort to pigeon-hole people
It’s never the whole story and people resent it.
Contrary to Photo’s statement, I have travelled reasonably widely
and I’m disappointed to get back to NZ after 20 years and find there’s several kinds of us and them, splitting our unity up.
Reminds me of the Kliban cartoon where there are two blokes all alone in the wide desert and, yes, they are arguing with one another.
A very ANZAC oddity – a failure to cohere.
A lesson learnt in Australia was that the worker in the city and the farmer on the land had much more in common that anyone had guessed.
I see nz as a land of tremendous opportunity – lateral investment, clean air and water.
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I think he is saying that there are several hundred women who have experienced violent, possibly sexual, assault by the police, but we cannot afford to compensate all of them.
Wait on a minute folks. I just read this and it is enough to make me weep where you all have taken a supposition. A speculation… and you have turned hundreds of accusers relating to “police misconduct” into rape victims in the process.
Do you REALLY believe that this is the case? I can’t go there without some evidence of some sort that it is. I don’t see that in the OP. Nor have I seen anything to cause me to believe it about the police. Excessive force being used and excused (against both genders)… I can imagine that, but this notion that mixes rape with that lesser charge (and it IS a lesser charge), is unsupported.
…and given that our Parliament is attached to making laws that defer to the judgment of the police rather than actually stating what is and isn’t illegal as is their job, there are further implications if this supposition proved true.
BJ
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BJ, this is more than just speculation based on accusation. There is evidence. The Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct identified 141 instances of sexual assault by Police where it considered there was sufficient evidence to lay criminal charges or commence disciplinary action against the officers concerned.
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Better. Why it was not provided in Catherine’s original post?
That works out to roughly 5+ events per year and assuming even half were sustained, an unacceptable result for the police of this nation. There is probably more information to be mined from that report (is it better or worse now than it was in 1979? for instance but that is beyond my available time).
In this case an error on our part, of documentation rather than response, but we HAVE to show people where our facts come from as part of our presentations.
respectfully
BJ
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Photon, Yeah you’re right. F’n'C shop is much more apt.
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I agree with you that, ideally, the perpetrator should pay. But it’s not as simple as that. One problem is that the ACC Act precludes people from suing for general damages in respect of personal injury (which includes mental injury caused by sexual assault).
Under the original ACC scheme there was compensation for “pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life”, and the victims would have almost certainly have received compensation under that category.
However, that provision was abolished in the 1990s, so now the victims cannot sue the perpetrator for compensatory damages. They may still be able to sue for exemplary (ie punitive) damages, but the threshold is high, and it is a lotttery as to whether they get any money anyway – I suspect the likes of Shipton will have all their assets hiddden away in trusts as protection against that.
In any case, the Commission of Inquiry found that this was not just the actions of a few rougue officers, but a systemic cultural issue within the Police (for which I suggest the Crown, rather than the individual officers, has responsibility):
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I agree where rape is proved and if it is a result of police culture then there should be compensation. L Nicholas and the others should have a case against the police department if they fostered that culture.
Having had some experience of the police culture and the legal gravy train supporting a teenager in court recently I think it leaves a lot to be desired. The culture fostered by the hierarchy is very much them against us. Us being the people who pay them. Nothing against the many cops who do a good job though.
I am a bit dubious about payouts though for claimed past sexual crimes, unless they are proven, because of an experience when I was younger.
Many years ago a drunken teenage girl staggered into my cabin at 0300 and threw up all over me and the cabin. I cleaned her up and sent her home in a taxi.
You can imagine how I talked to the occupant of the next door cabin the next day. We had a culture where you looked after female guests so I gave him a real bollocking. I was pretty disgusted with someone who had to get a woman drunk to sleep with him also.
However she later tried to name me as a possible father because she was too drunk to remember anyone else.
If she had later decided she was raped, which she may well have been, I would have been in real trouble as I was the only person she remembered from that night.
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Have you read the policy, jh?
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Surely we are all supposed to be equal in the eyes of the law & therefore treated equally.. sounds like a page out of “Animal farm”.. “..some are more equal than others !!”
Kia-ora Koutou
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“Nga
PirihimanaPoakanui o Aotearoa”The cops need to treat this issue very seriously. If they don’t, public confidence in the rule of law will be undermined.
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toad says “If they don’t, public confidence in the rule of law will be undermined.”
You falsly claimed the Police actually authorised the rapes, so isn’t that what you want – an undermining of the Police?
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I want to encourage the Police to get their shit together so they are not undermined by public opinion. I don’t want to see them undermined, because, the NZ Police are still one of the best Police services in the world.
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Kia-ora Koutou Katoa
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The police are being undermined by their own hierarchy including the one who said that, unlike the general public “police can use any means at hand to defend themselves”. The rest of us are only allowed to use “reasonable force”. Not to mention the police union boss who reckons we should get over being squeamish about people being shot.
Police are being armed without the public discussion we should be having.
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Ever since the Rickards investigation, Court Case & subsequent acquittal, this has been a live issue, and a time-bomb waiting to go off for the NZ Police.
Many who were involved in supporting Louis Nicholas know that she was but one of many who haven’t yet tried to get service from the Justice system, and that the potential for many more cases against police officers, serving or otherwise, for past rapes committed under their authority as police officers, was a real concern.
The fact of John Dewar’s conviction and imprisonment on the charge of perjury and perverting the course of justice (with regard to the progression of the case against Rickards, Shipton and Schollum) is enough to show that systemic abuse of the investigations process occurred in the Bay of Plenty/Waikato areas for some considerable period of time.
At least one former victim of Shipton, Schollum & Rickards has committed suicide since the trial against Rickards began.
With just those facts in train, the evidence of the Commission of Inquiry, to which many former victims submitted, is damning.
Findlayson’s comment is an own-goal of the highest degree, and that he felt it was an ok thing to say suggests that at the top level, the National Government really doesn’t consider that women being raped or otherwise sexually abused by serving police officers is the kind of issue that warrants discussion, investigation, or heaven forbid, compensation.
Once more, we see that the concerns of the ‘old boys club’ are paramount compared to the goal of a decent, humane society for all citizens, male or female, priviledged or not.
Of course, having this splashed all over the papers is another blow to the self-esteem of those women who have, despite all previous encounters with public officials, gone once more into the lions den and given their testimony, in the faint hope that they will be supported, validated, and eventually compensated, never mind that any of their attackers would be brought to some understanding of the law of consequences for their behaviour.
Arohatinonui, e wahine maa, kia kaha.
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toad – can you not read your own messages. You said the rapes were sanctioned meaning authorised, by police.
In fact you went further than that and said rapes were “officially” sanctioned.
This is clearly utter nonsense aimed at undermining the police
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Seriously, what the frack are you smoking?
Really, JH? Really?
Victimisation is the party’s main horse. They whip it so much that the horse is covered in welts. The vast majority of releases and posts are about victims in one sense or the other. This party thrives on seeing victims everywhere and trying to help them! Its like they have been taken over by the neo-feminist anti-sex-industry lobby so much that it is the only way they can get their rocks off.
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@Sapient 2:59 AM
Sapient, that’s nonsense. (At risk of starting a threadjack – please don’t) the Greens were at the forefront of the reforms to legitimise the sex industry in 2003. The Greens want the sex industry to be safe and healthy for its workers and clients – not to drive it underground.
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Toad, Toad Toad!!
That is not what Sapient is saying!
.
Sapient, that my friend, is one of the most effective (and efficient) summations of a certain type of left wing activism I have ever heard!!
You Sir are brilliant!!
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‘This post is one of those rare occasions where the Greens sympathize with the victims of crime.”
…….
It isn’t about policy it is about noise. You don’t find these sort of posts on Frogblog (this was from 3 days ago).
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2010/08/a_rare_murder_charge.html
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Buzz says”As they were agents of the crown the crown is responsible for paying compensation”
Ah – so employers are responsible for compensation instead of the person who commits a rape.
Have that as a policy and you’ll corner the market in votes from violent criminals.
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toad – so what about the employers of the other rapists in these cases?
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The issue of Compensation seems a bit precious to me.
At an educated guess each of these women would need $10-$15k worth of Psychiatry to address the sense of betrayal alone.
Tip of the iceberg healing.
One can no more undo Rape, than one can un-ring a bell.
If they are recognised as legitimate victims, any sort of Moral Compensation would be a high six-figure sum – at least.
The Costs of Beginning to Heal and starting a new life.
Imv we are long past a Royal Commission into a few areas of Beaurocratic Fact here in Godzone!
ps: what does RotFL mean?
I screw the new acronyms up – thought lol was ‘love of life’
Photo; – no other Rapist has the legal power to kidnap their victims…
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Toad,
Indeed, and I would consider that a good thing.
I was using a dual rhetorical device, not saying that it actually is the case. The source of amusement in the statement being that the thing being compared is not only a common story but not far separated from reality. The specific example being inspired by the debate presently happening on youtube between the feminists, desiring freedom to do what one desires with ones body, and the neo-feminists, desiring to eliminate the sex industry because they see its potential role in the objectification of the female as more important than liberty regarding ones body and behaviour.
~~~~~
Mark,
‘Rotfl’ means “Rolling On The Floor Laughing”. A common extension of which being ‘rotflmao’; “Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ar$e Off”. In both cases the ‘the’ and ‘t’ are often omited. The British equivalent of the former is ‘PMSL’ or “Pissing My Self Laughing”.
‘lol’ means ‘Laugh/ing Out Loud’, though I tend to use it as a form of punctuation intended to convey humourous, or light-hearted, intent. You are not alone in thinking it means something else, though you are doing better than my father did; at least your definition works. He thought it meant ‘Lots Of Love’.
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Sapient – A lot of people make the same mistake as your father, which can be a really big mistake when used wrongly – i.e. people have written
“Sorry your mother died. lol.”
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Hey Thanks, and your Dad’s thinking is preferable – my Yankee friends have taken to lolor – which is ‘laugh out loud on Roof’.
On the subject of Rape it has been said, that women are the main victims of War, which has left me plenty of room for consideration – without the mechanisms of recovery a country is poor indeed.
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…and I thought ‘rotfl’ was ‘right on the f’n line’
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Indeed, I remember my father asking me why I used it in a text and, upon explanation, him mentioning that he always ended his texts to my step-mother with it. lol.
The internet is filled with acronyms and funny little things which become memes, it is an interesting field of study. Unfortunately, I have never been able to bring myself to descend into 4chan; the home of all cyber-memes. Encyclopaedia dramatica, though, is always a laugh. As is Rule 34 (warning: do not search for Rule 34, encyclopaedia dramatica, or 4chan while at work).
~~~
Mark,
This is true. Everywhere that a powerful individual is able to wield force over a weaker individual, the will of the powerful individual becomes the way; war is but one example of where power differentials are maximised. Given that (with the possible exception of in the pacific) men tend to be far more endowed than women physically and tend to be the ones with the weapons; war is not a nice place for a civilian female.
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“– The Catholic Church -
- knew about offending
- didn’t stop it
- covered it up
- shifted offenders to other locations and let them carry on offending”
After reading the ‘attitudes’ section of the commission’s enquiry, there is certainly evidence of the first 3 of your points being the case with the Police too.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Police hater. I don’t even eat pork! And my kids go to a Catholic school
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Well fin; I have friends today (40 years on) still in therapy from the Violence our Catholic Schools practised on us.
But those are sensitive arty types – 99% of the human race lives with the variable nonsense of some kind of state sponsored violation I’m sure.
NZ has been in a paradoxical struggle between doing ‘what is right’ to doing ‘what is expedient’ long as I recall.
These days, it seems to be more about
‘How best to Divest myself of Responsibility?’ and we hold some up to be unutterable villains, and others up to mere apology (or not) for the same crime…don’t make any sense.
A good friend sits on the Board at a local Catholic college here – their conversations and biggest problems still stem from unacceptable violence – heaven forbid I should go Godwinnian on it.
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Yes Anna; I will no longer do Voluntary Social Work in NZ – long as the responsible Govt. Departments remain obstructive and destructive – it is like trying to empty the oceans with a tea-spoon.
I sincerely hope that whoever forms the next Government, they are willing to address the Criminal Behaviour of their own employees.
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Kia ora I would strongly recommend that people in doubt about the context of this blog read the book “Louise Nicholas – My Story”.
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