Inmates to share cells to cut costs, Dominion-Post, 9 June 2009:
Moves to combat increasing prison populations by making inmates share cells will cause overcrowding and will result in assaults, suicides, rapes and escapes spiralling, critics warn.
[...]
However, double-bunking would mean overcrowding, he said. "You're talking about a cell the size of a toilet that a person has to stay in up to 14 hours a day. Now there will be two people staying in there. I just hope they get on."
Mr Hanlon said overcrowding in prisons overseas had always shown a dramatic increase in assaults, suicides, rapes and escapes, and increased psychopathic behaviour among inmates. "What worries me is there's nothing to address the health and safety of prison officers."
Christchurch earthquake: Beneficiary enraged by looter, New Zealand Herald, 26 February 2011:
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."
Double-bunking under review after cell rapes, RNZ, 8 September 2017:
The Corrections Department is reviewing its criteria for double-bunking in cells after a repeat sex offender was found guilty of raping three of his cellmates.
William Katipa was yesterday found guilty of 14 charges, including sexual violation and threatening to kill, following a jury trial in the High Court in Auckland. The case comes just four months after repeat sex offender Stephen Mark Gotty was sentenced to preventive detention for sexually abusing his young cellmate.
Judith Collins introduced this policy. She was warned what it would lead to. She didn't care (worse, from her Herald comments, she welcomed it). This displays a depraved indifference to the outcomes. Her policy made these crimes possible, and she should have been in the dock alongside Katipa and Gotty as an accessory.
