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In my view, there is nothing more vicious and outrageous than the abuse, exploitation and harm of the most vulnerable members of our society, and I firmly believe that our nation's laws and resources need to reflect the seriousness of these terrible crimes.

How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!

If there is something occurring that is so bad that it could be considered a crime against humanity, it has to be transmitted with anguish, with pain, and create an impact in people - upset them, shake them up, wake them out of their everyday routine.

I shy away from showing cruelty on the page. A lot of the violence in my books actually happens off stage. The police come on to the scene after the event has occurred.

Television audiences are ruthless - look what happened to 'The Killing.'

I have to admit that when I watch a movie in which there is no moral context for the violence - I find that offensive. I think that's potentially damaging to society.

One thing, however, I know with certainty: violence, or the direct threat of violence, of the kind we have seen in the past few days, is totally unjustified as a response to any published word or image.

I know people watch our movies and they'll see a lot of images - they call it gross-out - that they don't like, and I understand that. It's an important movie and one that's extremely well done, but the amount of violent imagery was not for me.

In the harshest possible terms, I condemn political killings.

The photographs of Iraqi prisoners being subjected to degrading and humiliating treatment by their captors, and the reports of acts of sexual abuse, physical abuse, and other acts of maltreatment shock the conscience.