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This column describes restorative justice and how it can be used to dismantle rape culture.

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Daly (2000) states RJ is a blanket term that describes a range of practices focused on repairing the harm resulting from crime by involving the main parties to the dispute, most notably, by giving the victim and offender key roles in the process and the outcome. It is based on a philosophy that offending needs an appropriate response that doesn't have to require conventional legal methods, procedures, or outcomes. In this process, justice should be flexible enough to respond to the particular demands, personal needs, and potential for individualized action in each case.

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This column discusses abolition and community  accountability.

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According to Critical Resistance “an abolitionist vision means that we must build models today that can represent how we want to live in the future. It means developing practical strategies for taking small steps that move us toward making our dreams real and that lead us all to believe that things really could be different. It means living this vision in our daily lives. Abolition is both a practical organizing tool and a long-term goal.”

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This column contains events and recordings on abolition and community building.

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This column consists of a variety of resources from organizations to books and commentary to podcasts.

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This workshop is Tuesday, May 11, @ 4PM PST/6PM EST

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restorative justice x social justice education w/ little justice leaders

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restorative justice x social justice education w/ little justice leaders tickets

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Restorative Justice x Social Justice Education w/ Little Justice Leaders

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Eventbrite - Amplify RJ - Restorative Justice presents Restorative Justice x Social Justice Education w/ Little Justice Leaders - Tuesday, May 11, 2021 - Find event and ticket information.

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This column discusses healing and justice from sexual harm and violence.

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As Ruth Wilson Gilmore describes, "...Abolition is building the future from the present, in all of the ways we can." It can encompass a number of themes: police violence, mass incarceration, immigration justice, etc. This document contains material and resources for those interested in abolition and learning more. By no way is it an exhaustive list rather it is a cumulation of absolition resources found and share. In other words, similar to solidarity and abolition, it is the result of group effort and a labor of love. It has been separated into types of format.

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Create a new spreadsheet and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Sheets to edit Excel files. Free from Google.

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Common Justice develops and advances solutions to violence that transform the lives of those harmed and foster racial equity without relying on incarceration.

Locally, they operate the first alternative-to-incarceration and victim-service program in the United States that focuses on violent felonies in the adult courts. Nationally, they leverage the lessons from our direct service to transform the justice system through partnerships, advocacy, and elevating the experience and power of those most impacted.

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Amplify RJ (Restorative Justice) exists to teach people Restorative Justice philosophy, practices, and values by sharing fundamental knowledge across digital platforms, providing interactive learning experiences, and sharing stories of people that are doing the work in various contexts around the world.

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JUST PRACTICE is a training series for activists, movement builders, community members, and non-profit workers who want to deepen their harm reduction skills and transformative justice practices.

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Spring Up cultivates a culture of consent and liberty for all through storytelling, transformative justice and popular education.

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The Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective

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The Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective

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The Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective (BATJC) is a community group based out of Oakland, CA working to build and support transformative justice responses to child sexual abuse. We envision a world where everyday people can intervene in incidences of child sexual abuse in ways that not only meet immediate needs but also prevent future violence and harm.

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Survivors want safety & support:

A study of survivors and service providers found that: (1) survivors were looking for options other than punishment for the abuser, options that were not necessarily focused on separation from the abuser; (2) survivors feared that once they were involved in the criminal justice system, they would lose control of the process; and (3) survivors were reluctant to engage the system because they believed that it was complicated, lengthy, and would cause them to suffer more trauma.

A majority of survivors describe housing, health care, income and immigration status as things that would enable them to prevent, avoid, escape and mitigate violence

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"Abolition requires that we change one thing, which is everything. Abolition is not absence, it is presence. What the world will become already exists in fragments and pieces, experiments and possibilities. So those who feel in their gut deep anxiety that abolition means knock it all down, scorch the earth and start something new, let that go. Abolition is building the future from the present, in all of the ways we can." - Ruth Wilson Gilmore

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"The work of transformative justice can happen in a variety of ways. Some groups support survivors by helping them to identify their needs and boundaries, while simultaneously ensuring their attackers agree to these boundaries and atone for the harm they caused. Other groups create safe spaces and sanctuaries to support people who are escaping from violence. There are also community campaigns designed to educate community members on the specific dynamics of violence, how to prevent it, and what community-based programs are available." - Ejeris Dixon

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Ashley Southall of The New York Times leads a discussion about the powerful programs and techniques that activists and organizations in New York and other cities have employed to foster safety in their communities -- without police involvement. From practicing "violence interruption" to advocating for policies that directly address contributors to gun violence, the panel features pathbreaking experts who have worked on the front lines and behind the scenes to reimagine safety for all.

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Episode 94: How to Abolish Prison Like a Feminist (1 of 2)

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Episode 94: How to Abolish Prison Like a Feminist (1 of 2)

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Recent calls to defund police and abolish prisons have raised the question: But what about rapists? In part one of two episodes exploring that question, prison abolitionist Maya Schenwar presents the case for looking outside the criminal justice system for safety and connects the dots between abolition and feminism.

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Episode 95: How to Do #MeToo Without Prisons (2 of 2)

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Episode 95: How to Do #MeToo Without Prisons (2 of 2)

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Is it possible to combat sexual violence and support survivors without  sending perpetrators to prison? Dr. Alissa Ackerman, a sex crimes policy expert and rape survivor, thinks so. In part two of two episodes reconsidering mainstream feminism's reliance on the criminal justice system, Dr. Ackerman outlines a powerful alternative to prison punishment called restorative justice and why she's living proof that it works.

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The storyteller describes activating community networks to build her safety and agency when her police officer partner acts violently.

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This column includes information on strategies and resources to build community and mutual aid.

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Fred Hampton on the importance of revolutionary education

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This column provides information on sexual harm and violence, rape culture, and the narratives of who receives justice.

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Dean Spade and Ciro Carillo: Mutual Aid Strategies

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Dean Spade and Ciro Carillo: Mutual Aid Strategies

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People are so frustrated and scared right now, and struggling to figure out what to do. Here’s a new video about how mutual aid projects can help us mobilize and survive the nightmarish conditions we are facing.

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According to Big Door Brigade,
mutual aid projects are a form of political participation in which  people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing  political conditions, not just through symbolic acts or putting pressure  on their representatives in government, but by actually building new  social relations that are more survivable.  Most mutual aid projects are  volunteer-based, with people jumping in to participate because they  want to change what is going on right now, not wait to convince  corporations or politicians to do the right thing.

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THE SENTENCING OF LARRY NASSAR WAS NOT ‘TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE.’ HERE’S WHY.

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THE SENTENCING OF LARRY NASSAR WAS NOT ‘TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE.’ HERE’S WHY.

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"...in a truly transformative model of justice, we would not allow those harms to be shielded by powerful people or institutions. We would insist on focusing not just on individuals but also the institutions and structures that perpetuate, foster, and maintain interpersonal violence. In Nassar’s case, this would include the administrators at Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics who ignored initial disclosures of sexual assault and took no actions to stop his violent behavior. Judge Aquilina’s ruling accomplished none of these aims." - Kelly Hayes, Mariame Kaba

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Efforts like the Hollow Water First Nations Community Holistic Healing Circle, a community justice initiative geared toward reconciliation, illustrate that reclamation is possible. By establishing a healing justice practice grounded in Anishnabe teachings, the Hollow Water community has developed a means to interrupt cycles of intra-community abuse and incarceration.

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To begin, it is important to understand that rape culture, which normalizes and justifies various forms of sexual harm and violence, is situated in a culture of violence, which continues to be perpetuated and protected at deep costs.

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You Can’t End Violence With More Violence: Shifting From Incarceration to Accountability

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You Can’t End Violence With More Violence: Shifting From Incarceration to Accountability

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Below is an excerpt from a conversation with Mariame Kaba, Shira Hassan, and Sarah Jaffe.
"We have to complicate this conversation around sexual violence and see all the different ways that it is used as a form of social control across the board, with many different people from all different genders and all different races and all different social locations. If we understand the problem in that way, we have a better shot at actually uprooting all of the conditions that lead to this and all of the ways in which sexual violence reinforces other forms of violence. Our work over a couple of decades now has been devoted to complicating these narratives that are too easy, these really simple narratives around a perfect victim who is assaulted by an evil monster and that is the end of the story … [it] doesn’t take into consideration the spectrum of sexual violence, therefore minimizing certain people’s experiences and making others more valid." - Mariame Kaba

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According to INCITE, community accountability can be about directly addressing violence as well creating on-going practices within our relationships and broader networks that are opposed to oppression and violence. Networks of people can develop a community accountability politic by engaging in anti-violence/anti-oppression education, building relationships based on values of safety, respect, and self-determination, and nurturing a culture of collective responsibility, connection, and liberation. Community accountability is not just a reaction — something that we do when someone behaves violently — it is also proactive — something that is ongoing and negotiated among everyone in the community. This better prepares us to address violence if and when it happens.

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These are some of the case studies the BATJC uses in our transformative justice (TJ) Study and TJ Labs. They are inspired by real-life situations in our intimate networks and communities that many of us have been asked to respond to. They are very useful small group activities to do with your pod, friends, roommates, family, neighbors, coworkers or other community members interested in TJ.

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Part One: Where Life is Precious, Life is Precious

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Part One: Where Life is Precious, Life is Precious

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Chenjerai Kumanyika, assistant professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University, hosts a special two part discussion. Kumanyika is co-host of the podcasts Uncivil and Scene on Radio. He is an organizer with 215 People's Alliance, and the Debt Collective. He is joined for this special episode of Intercepted by the iconic geographer and abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of "Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California." Gilmore is one of the world's preeminent scholars on prisons and the machinery of carceral punishment and policing. In this discussion, she offers a sweeping and detailed analysis of the relentless expansion and funding of police and prisons, and how locking people in cages has become central to the American project. Gilmore offers a comprehensive road map for understanding how we have arrived at the present political moment of brutality and rebellion, and she lays out the need for prison abolition and defunding police forces.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the Case for Abolition (Part 1) | Intercepted with Jeremy Scahill on Acast

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Chenjerai Kumanyika, assistant professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University, hosts a special two part discussion. Kumanyika is co-host of the podcasts Uncivil and Scene on Radio. He is an organizer with 215 People's Alliance, and the Debt Collective.

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Part Two: From Carceral Divestment to Community Reinvestment

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Part Two: From Carceral Divestment to Community Reinvestment

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Chenjerai Kumanyika, assistant professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University, hosts a special two part discussion. Kumanyika is co-host of the podcasts Uncivil and Scene on Radio. He is an organizer with 215 People's Alliance, and the Debt Collective. He is joined for this special episode of Intercepted by the iconic geographer and abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of "Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California." Gilmore is one of the world's preeminent scholars on prisons and the machinery of carceral punishment and policing. In this discussion, she offers a sweeping and detailed analysis of the relentless expansion and funding of police and prisons, and how locking people in cages has become central to the American project. Gilmore offers a comprehensive road map for understanding how we have arrived at the present political moment of brutality and rebellion, and she lays out the need for prison abolition and defunding police forces.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the Case for Abolition (Part 2) | Intercepted with Jeremy Scahill on Acast

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Chenjerai Kumanyika, assistant professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University, hosts a special two part discussion. Kumanyika is co-host of the podcasts Uncivil and Scene on Radio. He is an organizer with 215 People's Alliance, and the Debt Collective.

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Creative Interventions was founded to shift education and resources back to families and communities. Established in 2004, the project aimed to place knowledge and power among those most impacted by violence. Creative Interventions sought to make support and safety more accessible, stop violence at early stages of abuse, and create possibilities for once abusive individuals and communities to evolve towards healthy change and transformation.

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This website emerged when group of people based in and near Seattle, Washington who knew each other through organizing and activism on issues that include criminalization and imprisonment, anti-fascism, rural organizing, social services, anti-racism, queer and trans movement building, and more  began meeting in June 2016 to reflect on the political moment and share useful readings.

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The People’s Plaza occupation was started by community members in response to the national movement for Black lives, following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor that sparked protests nationwide.  They continue to put on rallies, events, and direct actions that call for justice and equity, specifically a recognition of and a response to anti-Black racism. Their original goals and demands were to 1) defund the police, 2) demilitarize the police, and 3) remove Confederate symbols across the state. While continuing to advocate for these goals, they have also expanded our mission to include community work such as civic engagement, a mutual aid network, and coalition building.

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PARC is a prison abolitionist group based on Oakland, California committed to exposing and challenging the institutionalized racism, sexism, ableism, heterosexism, and classism of the Prison Industrial Complex

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During the spring of 2014 the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective (BATJC) began using the term “pod” to refer to a specific type of relationship within transformative justice (TJ) work. We needed a term to describe the kind of relationship between people who would turn to each other for support around violent, harmful and abusive experiences, whether as survivors, bystanders or people who have harmed. These would be the people in our lives that we would call on to support us with things such as our immediate and on-going safety, accountability and transformation of behaviors, or individual and collective healing and resiliency. To learn more about pod mapping and map out your own pod, click here.

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Project NIA is a grassroots organization that works to end the arrest, detention, and incarceration of children and young adults by promoting restorative and transformative justice practices. They believe they can transform harm into healing by building connections and opportunities in our communities. Through education, research, and advocacy, they create avenues to address harm productively, rather than relying on the police and criminal legal system.

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The Vast Majority of Perpetrators Will Not Go to Jail or Prison

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The Vast Majority of Perpetrators Will Not Go to Jail or Prison

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According to RAINN, for every 1,000 sexual assaults, only about 230 are reported to law enforcement. That means about 3 out of 4 go unreported. Of those, less than five result in incarceration. In other words, 75 percent of sexual assaults go unreported and 99 percent go unpunished.

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The Majority of Sexual Assaults Are Not Reported to the Police

Only 310 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults are reported to police. That means more than 2 out of 3 go unreported. ¹

Individuals of college-age²

Female Students: 20% report

Female Non-Students: 32% report

Members of the military: 43% of female victims and 10% of male victims reported.⁴

Reasons Victims Choose to Report-or Not

Of the sexual violence crimes reported to police from 2005-2010, the survivor reporting gave the following reasons for doing so: ⁵

28% to protect the household or victim from further crimes by the offender

25% to stop the incident or prevent recurrence or escalation

21% to improve police surveillance or they believed they had a duty to do so

17% to catch/punish/prevent offender from reoffending

6% gave a different answer, or declined to cite one reason

3% did so to get help or recover loss

Of the sexual violence crimes not reported to police from 2005-2010, the victim gave the following reasons for not reporting: ⁵

20% feared retaliation

13% believed the police would not do anything to help

13% believed it was a personal matter

8% reported to a different official

8% believed it was not important enough to report

7% did not want to get the perpetrator in trouble

2% believed the police could not do anything to help

30% gave another reason, or did not cite one reason

Read more statistics about perpetrators of sexual violence.
Understanding RAINN's statistics

Sexual violence is notoriously difficult to measure, and there is no single source of data that provides a complete picture of the crime. On RAINN's website, we have tried to select the most reliable source of statistics for each topic. The primary data source we use is the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which is an annual study conducted by the Justice Department. To conduct NCVS, researchers interview tens of thousands of Americans each year to learn about crimes that they've experienced. Based on those interviews, the study provides estimates of the total number of crimes, including those that were not reported to police. While NCVS has a number of limitations (most importantly, children under age 12 are not included), overall, it is the most reliable source of crime statistics in the U.S.

We have also relied on other Justice Department studies, as well as data from the Department of Health and Human Services and other government and academic sources. When assembling these statistics, we have generally retained the wording used by the authors. Statistics are presented for educational purposes only. Each statistic includes a footnote citation for the original source, where you can find information about the methodology and a definition of terms.

Learn more about RAINN's statistics.

Sources: ​

1. i. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey, 2015-2019 (2020).

ii. Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Incident-Based Reporting System, 2012-2016 (2017);

iii. Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Incident-Based Reporting System, 2012-2016 (2017);

iv. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Felony Defendants in Large Urban Counties, 2009 (2013).

(This statistic combines information from several federal government reports. Because it combines data from studies with different methodologies, it is an approximation, not a scientific estimate. Please see the original sources for more detailed information. These statistics are updated annually and as new information is published.)

2. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Rape and Sexual Victimization Among College-Aged Females, 1995-2013 (2014).

3. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Crimes Against the Elderly, 2003-2013 (2014).

4. Department of Defense, Fiscal Year 2014 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military (2015).

5. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Female Victims of Sexual Violence, 1994-2010 (2013).

6. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Felony Defendants in Large Urban Counties, 2009 (2013).

7. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2013 (2014).

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The majority of perpetrators of sexual assault will not go to prison.

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The series of sessions led by healing practitioners will focus on introducing tools and practices that can help you navigate crisis and trauma, as you begin to rebuild a sense of safety, joy, and overall healing. As survivors, we are resilient and brave and this 7-week virtual series is an opportunity for you to add to the skills and tools that you already have and use every day to navigate your triggers and trauma. Together, we will be learning how our stories can be a tool of empowerment, how we navigate shame and guilt, and how we move in our healing journey towards joy and pleasure.

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Our goal is to craft a guide that encourages flexible and regionalized development of HJPS’s with strong local leadership centering black and brown/ disabled and chronically ill/queer and trans voices. This is intended as an accessible and short guide for setting up and managing a practice space, and so much of the relevant philosophy, background, and examples are beyond the scope of this offering.

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Movement Building and Transnational Freedom Struggles

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Movement Building and Transnational Freedom Struggles

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The fourth webinar theme is Movement Building and Transnational Freedom Struggles and will be a conversation about how we can build a global movement for abolition, and the types of shared knowledge, strategies, and organizing an internationalist movement to abolish police and prisons will require. For more on Study and Struggle: https://www.studyandstruggle.com/

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Solidarity: Defending Activism Within and Beyond the University

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Solidarity: Defending Activism Within and Beyond the University

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In light of the unwarranted firing of Garrett Felber from the University of Mississippi despite his scholarship and contributions to dismantling the carceral state, a panel of activist academics discuss the implications of the situation and the relationship between the university and social movements.

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"The way forward through the raging pandemic and devastating economic crisis doesn’t lie in more surveillance, policing and punishment of marginalized communities – it lies in the demands to stop pouring money and resources into policing and start pouring resources into people and communities." - The Community Resource Hub COVID-19 Policing Project

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ovid-19's spread is neither colorblind nor colorless, sending Black, Latinx and Indigenous people to the hospital at a rate four times higher than white people. To make matters worse, the people of color and immigrant communities who already bear the brunt of the Covid-19 outbreak are also subject to the most punitive enforcement of emergency public health orders. The co-occurring pandemics of Covid-19 and state violence are deeply interconnected.

The Covid-19 Policing Project launched in May 2020 to monitor how cities, states, territories and tribal jurisdictions police the pandemic. As we watched cops drag a Black man off a bus in Philadelphia, put a Black man in a chokehold, and throw a Black mother to the ground in New York City in front of her toddler, all in the name of promoting health and safety, we asked ourselves: if this is the floor for treatment during unprecedented health, economic and state violence crises, then what is the ceiling?

Our findings six months later, summarized in the recently released report Unmasked: Impacts of Pandemic Policing, clearly show that arrests, racial disparities in enforcement, police violence and aggression did not pause because people are dying in record numbers. Instead criminalization continues to target the people who are susceptible to disproportionately dying from both the virus and under the hands and knees of police. Not only did the uneven enforcement of Covid-19 public health orders track predictable patterns of policing, it also strengthened and widened the webs of criminalization which ensnare marginalized communities.

The Covid-19 Policing Project reviewed public information about enforcement over the past six months and found that Black, Indigenous and people of color (Bipoc) were 2.5 times more likely to be policed and punished for violations of Covid-19 orders than white people. Black people specifically were 4.5 times more likely to be policed and punished for coronavirus orders than white people.

Black women - who disproportionately work as healthcare and essential service workers, and are quite literally saving our lives - experienced the highest rates of racial disparity in enforcement of public health orders. According to our statistical analysis, Black women were five times more likely than white women to be policed and punished for violations of Covid-19 orders. Black men were 3.7 times more likely than white men to be policed and punished for such violations.

In Hawaii, Micronesian communities experienced 26% of arrests for violations of stay-at-home orders, despite making up just 1% of the state's population. About 20% of people cited by Honolulu police for violation of public health orders probably had experienced homelessness, and of those, 60% were cited multiple times for violating stay-at-home orders. According to New York police department data, 81% of the 374 summons for social distancing violations between 16 March and 5 May were issued to Black and Latinx residents.

This kind of aggressive policing only exacerbates the effects of the pandemic. Fines ranging from $500 to $10,000 hit communities already reeling from record unemployment, a looming eviction crisis and soaring food bank use with yet another financial burden when many cannot afford basic necessities. Arrests place people in high-risk jail and prison environments, raising rates of Covid-19 transmission, infection and mortality among incarcerated populations. Many cops - who have some of the highest rates of infection - refuse to wear masks and violate social distancing rules to harass, ticket and take people into custody. Even a brief encounter with an officer or short detention in a police car can dramatically increase risk of infection, and that risk increases in a holding cell or jail where people are unable to maintain social distancing and have little or no access to soap, water and sanitizer.

Joe Biden has a choice: push our government to provide genuinely life-saving health and financial support to struggling people and communities - or pour more money into local police departments on top of the $750m already allocated in May by the Cares Act to enforce punitive emergency orders. State and local officials face the same choices.

In fact, as an adviser to the Biden coronavirus taskforce recently pointed out, health professionals have advanced a humane and simple solution to get the virus under control: pay everyone to stay home for four to six weeks.

And instead of leaving people to die in Covid-plagued prisons, jails and detention centers, officials could free them with support to return safely to families and communities.

The way forward through the raging pandemic and devastating economic crisis doesn't lie in more surveillance, policing and punishment of marginalized communities - it lies in the demands to stop pouring money and resources into policing and start pouring resources into people and communities.

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The data is in. People of color are punished more harshly for Covid violations in the US | Timothy Colman, Pascal Emmer, Andrea Ritchie and Tiffany Wang

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ovid-19's spread is neither colorblind nor colorless, sending Black, Latinx and Indigenous people to the hospital at a rate four times higher than white people. To make matters worse, the people of color and immigrant communities who already bear the brunt of the Covid-19 outbreak are also subject to the most punitive enforcement of emergency public health orders.

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The Path Forward: Pandemic Policing or Protection?

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The Path Forward: Pandemic Policing or Protection?

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Join members of the COVID19 Policing Project in conversation with Marc Lamont Hill on pandemic policing and new ways forward to safeguard the health and well-being of Black communities most devastated by coronavirus, policing, and economic crisis.

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Race, Class, and Policing: The Racial Economics of Mass Incarceration

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Race, Class, and Policing: The Racial Economics of Mass Incarceration

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Over the last few decades, the US state has thrown millions of people, disproportionately Black and Latino, behind bars in one of the greatest waves of mass incarceration in history.

Join this webinar led by Spectre’s Charles Post, Peter Ikeler, and Calvin John Smiley who will examine the role of systemic racism in the policing of US capitalism.

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Abolitionist Social Work: Possibilities, Paradox and Praxis

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Abolitionist Social Work: Possibilities, Paradox and Praxis

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As demands to defund the police often look to social work as an alternative, panelists Tanisha "Wakumi" Douglas, Mimi Kim, Kirk "Jae" James and Cameron Rasmussen discuss the cautions of and possibilities for abolitionist social work.

Watch the event here.

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Harm reduction is a critical movement tool used for generations to create change, build long-term relationships, and support healing while working to reduce harm in our community.

Shira Hassan, a long-time harm reduction and transformative justice practitioner, shares her own experiences with harm reduction as a young person in the sex trade to her recent adventures as an instructor of one of social work's most sought after courses (University of Chicago and University of Washington, Seattle).

This instructional and participatory session will provide an overview of harm reduction principles, values and practice - and how it intersects with transformative justice work within a social work context. There is no justice that leaves out people in the sex trade & street economy, drug users and street based young people.

Watch this event here.

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Social Work and Abolishing the Family Regulation System

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Social Work and Abolishing the Family Regulation System

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Social work, historically and today, has been deeply embedded in systems of carceral control. With social work's legacy of ties to policing and oppressive family regulation through the child welfare system, the social work community is actively imagining and working towards a social work rooted in abolition, turning to traditions of resistance that also characterize its history. This webinar is a third in a series on Abolitionist Social Work organized by the Network to Advance Abolitionist Social Work (NAAASW) in partnership with Haymarket Books, challenging carceral social work through the development and practice of an abolitionist social work.

Watch the event here.

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An innovative response to rape has emerged from interrupting the narratives of who is deserving of justice, sexual violence, and victims' needs is the use of restorative justice (RJ) processes.

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Each personal story of violence is unique but together they show a structural problem. Listening to survivor stories is a way to build solidarity and support. It also aids in combatting rape culture. Read survivor stories here.

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Rape culture is in the way we think, speak, and move that normalizes sexual entitlement and violence, while de-prioritizing consent. Rooted in patriarchy, power, and control, rape culture can look like street and workplace harassment, unwanted nonsexual touch, victim shaming and blaming, and more. Naming it is the first step to disrupting it.

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Examples of Rape Culture

Blaming the victim (“She asked for it!”)

Trivializing sexual assault (“Boys will be boys!”)

Sexually explicit jokes

Tolerance of sexual harassment

Inflating false rape report statistics

Publicly scrutinizing a victim’s dress, mental state, motives, and history

Gratuitous gendered violence in movies and television

Defining “manhood” as dominant and sexually aggressive

Defining “womanhood” as submissive and sexually passive

Pressure on men to “score”

Pressure on women to not appear “cold”

Assuming only promiscuous women get raped

Assuming that men don’t get raped or that only “weak” men get raped

Refusing to take rape accusations seriously

Teaching women to avoid getting raped instead of teaching men not to rape

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What is the "Rape Culture?"

Rape Culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture. Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of women's bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence, thereby creating a society that disregards women's rights and safety.

Rape Culture affects every woman. The rape of one woman is a degradation, terror, and limitation to all women. Most women and girls limit their behavior because of the existence of rape. Most women and girls live in fear of rape. Men, in general, do not. That's how rape functions as a powerful means by which the whole female population is held in a subordinate position to the whole male population, even though many men don't rape, and many women are never victims of rape. This cycle of fear is the legacy of Rape Culture.

Examples of Rape Culture

Blaming the victim ("She asked for it!")

Trivializing sexual assault ("Boys will be boys!")

Sexually explicit jokes

Tolerance of sexual harassment

Inflating false rape report statistics

Publicly scrutinizing a victim's dress, mental state, motives, and history

Gratuitous gendered violence in movies and television

Defining "manhood" as dominant and sexually aggressive

Defining "womanhood" as submissive and sexually passive

Pressure on men to "score"

Pressure on women to not appear "cold"

Assuming only promiscuous women get raped

Assuming that men don't get raped or that only "weak" men get raped

Refusing to take rape accusations seriously

Teaching women to avoid getting raped instead of teaching men not to rape

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Rape Culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture. Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of women's bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence, thereby creating a society that disregards women's rights and safety.

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Rape Culture Shapes Whether a Survivor is Believed

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Rape Culture Shapes Whether a Survivor is Believed

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According to U.S. Justice Department statistics, rape is the nation’s most underreported violent crime.  Survivors fear that juries will believe the perpetrators, not them, and if they pursue justice, they may suffer further physical, economic, or social harm.

Despite the important role that public pressure has played in the #MeToo era, scholars, broadly speaking, have not yet examined how the public understands rape and how it should be punished. However, new research from Susanne Schwarz and colleagues (2020) finds that rape culture bias is not only real, but it shapes how people determine what a believable rape case looks like, who is most likely a rape victim, and in which circumstances rape is less likely to take place.

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The women interviewed by Mendes et al. (2018) described being surprised by public responses to their tweet and support by strangers via direct messages, etc. were viewed as a form of solidarity and support. Hashtags like #BeenRapedNeverReported and #MeToo are making survivors feel heard and doing meaningful and worthwhile work in building networks of solidarity. This solidarity also often transforms into a feminist consciousness amongst hashtag participants, which allows them to understand sexual violence, particularly their own history of sexual violence, as a structural rather than personal problem.  Learn more about the promises and pitfalls of challenging rape culture through digital activism here.

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Historically, sexual violence has been treated as a recognizable event and the narratives we know to determine if a particular experience is sexual violence or not. We see these narratives take different shapes and forms in our everyday lives from those featured in media, clothing, prevention initiatives, etc. and sometimes, depending on how they were taught and what they include or exclude, these narratives can aid in causing more harm than good thus causing individuals to look for innovative ways can respond to sexual violence (Flynn, 2015).

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The powerful letter "Emily Doe" wrote to address Brock Turner went viral around the world. Here she reads the words herself.

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Chanel Miller reads her entire victim impact statement

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Every day we have the opportunity to examine our behaviours and beliefs for biases that permit rape culture to continue. From the attitudes we have about gender identities to the policies we support in our communities, we can all take action to stand against rape culture. Here are 16 ways you can do your part.

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This project comes in the form of a Padlet that explores the connections between restorative justice, abolition, and community building, emphasizing cases of sexual harm and violence. This platform was selected because it allows me to upload, organize, and share content in real-time to virtual bulletin boards in a way that a paper or PowerPoint presentation would not allow. The original sources are attached to each post. The Padlet includes books, virtual events, journal articles, videos, and resource guides that describe practical ways to use the concepts previously mentioned in repairing harm and conflict and building relationships and community. This curation aims to help viewers understand, as Marc Lamont Hill (2020) puts it, “where we are, how we got here, and how we can arrive at transformative solutions.” (p.7)

Learn more about this project and its aim in my prospectus.

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Perpetuation of Harm by Danielle Stoneberg

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Perpetuation of Harm by Danielle Stoneberg

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In this video I read my poem, ‘Perpetuation of Harm’. In the poem I discuss having a conversation with someone when he wanted to apologize for the harm he had perpetrated years earlier. As the poem depicts, accountability was never taken.

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Perpetuation of Harm by Danielle Stoneberg

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SEXUAL ASSAULT SURVIVORS WHO WANT RESTORATIVE JUSTICE HAVE LIMITED OPTIONS

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SEXUAL ASSAULT SURVIVORS WHO WANT RESTORATIVE JUSTICE HAVE LIMITED OPTIONS

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Alternative approaches to rehabilitation and healing still face resistance, even though the criminal legal system’s reliance on punishment has done little to move the needle on addressing sexual violence. Click here to continue reading.

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The film is based on a real meeting which took place between Ailbhe Griffith and the man who, nine years earlier, subjected her to a horrific sexual assault and left her seriously injured and fearing for her life.

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In a modest room in a Dublin suburb, two people prepare for a meeting that could have an enormous impact on their lives. For both of them, it is a complete step into the unknown.

The film is based on a real meeting which took place between Ailbhe Griffith and the man who, nine years earlier, subjected her to a horrific sexual assault and left her seriously injured and fearing for her life.

Griffith, in an extraordinary move, has chosen to play herself in this unique drama from one of Ireland's most provocative filmmakers, Alan Gilsenan.

What emerges is a truly unique and unorthodox cinematic experience as Ailbhe courageously seeks healing through a progressive form of justice, rapidly gaining momentum throughout the world.

★★★★★

★★★★

"A remarkable film about a remarkable woman"

★★★★

"One of the year's most powerful films"

Further information : Eclipse Pictures 00 353 1 634 0121 [email address - enable javascript to view]

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The Meeting - An Alan Gilsenan Film. In Irish Cinemas 28 September 2018

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In a modest room in a Dublin suburb, two people prepare for a meeting that could have an enormous impact on their lives. For both of them, it is a complete step into the unknown.

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Today’s podcast is with Ailbhe Griffith in Dublin, Ireland. Ailbhe was a victim of a violent sexual assault in 2005 in Dublin when she was 21 years old. RJI talks with Ailbhe about her choice to participate in a restorative justice meeting in 2014. Listen to the episode here.

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TransformHarm.org is a resource hub about ending violence. We are not an organization. This site offers an introduction to transformative justice. Created by Mariame Kaba and designed by Lu Design Studio, the site includes selected articles, audio-visual resources, curricula, and more.

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The Zehr Institute advocates for restorative justice as a social movement, and is also a convener of spaces where knowledge about restorative justice practices and programs can be shared among practitioners and learners, by facilitating conversations and cultivating connections through activities such as conferences, webinars and both in-person and online courses.

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RJI is now a “go-to” place where public officials, criminal justice organizations, businesses, governmental entities, universities, crime victims, and ex-offenders can learn about restorative justice and network globally. Restorative justice is a powerful vision for systemic justice reform that seeks to heal and restore victims of crime, as much as possible, and communities, while embracing offender accountability leading to changed lives.

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Beyond Reform: Abolishing Prisons | Maya Schenwar

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Beyond Reform: Abolishing Prisons | Maya Schenwar

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The United States has the highest imprisonment rate in the world. But is the problem simply that too many people are incarcerated--or is incarceration a problem, in and of itself? The US prison system, which is grounded in racism and economic injustice, is inherently destructive and must be abolished. Watch this TedX event here.

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In this news article, Marlee Liss sat face-to-face with her rapist to get the closure she says she needed to move past the assault. Marlee used restorative justice as an alternative to Canada's mainstream criminal justice system to focus on repair rather than punishment. Read more about her experience here.

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Celebrate the publication of We Do This 'Til We Free Us with a discussion about prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition, seeking justice beyond the criminal punishment system, and finding hope in collective struggle for abolition, featuring contributors and organizers from the book.

Watch the event here.

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Criminal Justice Reform Summit: Poverty and the Criminal Justice System

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Criminal Justice Reform Summit: Poverty and the Criminal Justice System

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From January 27–30, 2021, the American Friends Service Committee, WV Center on Budget and Policy, WV Council of Churches, and Appalachian Prison Book Project hosted the state-wide (virtual) summit on criminal justice reform in West Virginia!

Check out the agenda and session recordings here.

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#MeToo Doesn’t Always Have to Mean Prison

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#MeToo Doesn’t Always Have to Mean Prison

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#MeToo rightly emphasizes victims’ healing and accountability for the people who harmed them. All too often, the prosecutorial route achieves neither. Restorative justice may be a way to achieve both. Read more on the New York Times.