Against Punishment – Imagine and Rise Series (Part I)

Criminal, Restorative, and Transformative Justice

Informed by Project Nia and Interrupting Criminalization

Produced by the Neighborhood Anarchist Collective and Lane County Mutual Aid

Talking heads indicate that they are not experts and are also new to the material, that they are
unlearning and relearning as they go.

Talk about Mariame Kaba, Project Nia organizer, educator, and curator, who works on the prison
industrial complex, transformation justice, decriminalizing poverty, childhood, womanhood, lgbtqia
status, etc.

NAC and LCMA introduced as organizations that promote strategic direct action and education.

Mennonite church thanked for letting the organizers use their Zoom and helping the unhoused.

Shared agreements for breakout groups: participants should stay engaged, speak their truths, experience
discomfort, not attempt to fix themselves or each other in terms of emotional turmoil or tone policing,
take risks, expect and accept non-closure, listen for understanding (which is said to mean hearing
where you and others are and working to build solidarity)

Tip: avoid absolutist statements and thought patterns such as always/never, no one/everyone, etc.

tinyurl.com/yyobtolm given for self-care

Breakout groups are assigned, participants given a few minutes for group introductions.

Acknowledgement of ancestral lands.

Organizers mention andrienne maree brown and building common language but I did not write down
what that is in reference to, sorry.

Breakout group assignment: What things are associated with the three kinds of justice, criminal /
retributive / punitive justice, restorative justice, and transformative justice?

After the breakout groups worked on this, the big group together came up with these charts:

Criminal/Retributive/Punitive Justice:
-prison industrial complex -takes the least work and investment
-primary model used in homes, schools, jails -pathologizes people
-proportionality of harm (eye for an eye) -predetermined punishments / sentences

Restorative Justice
-mediation
-interpersonal
-binary victim/perpatrator
-focused on fixing
-tit for tat -works in a system that doesn't address
-how to compensate power imbalances
-process presented as a choice
-restoring relationships
Transformative Justice
-holistic/ecological/systemic -hard
-acknowledges endemic trauma -community based
-effective -“no right thing under the wrong conditions”

Sources mentioned included “We Will Not Cancel Us” by adrienne maree brown, “Beyond Survival”
by Ejeris Dixon, and the Creative Interventions Toolkit
https://www.creative-interventions.org/tools/toolkit/

Breakout groups were again used to discuss how these justice systems affect survivors. When the big
group reconvened, we compiled the following:

How Do These Systems Affect Survivors?

Criminal/Retributive/Punitive: Isolation, offender recidivism, retraumatization, revenge, domino effect
(personally and in whole community), burden of proof placed on the victim.
Restorative: Possibly repaired relationships, some accountability, detente, perpetuation of status quo,
futility, support, empowerment, retraumatization.
Transformative: Community support instead of isolation/abandonment, reduction in interpersonal
violence in community as a whole, increasingly loving and compassionate community, inclusion vs.
isolation, self-compassion, change in perspective, negative cycles broken.

We were asked to reflect on the following questions: What model of justice do you think our society
primarily uses? What model do you primarily use in your personal life? Why? What would need to
change for things to improve?

Breakout groups were asked to consider the following situation: you hear your upstairs neighbors
involved in what is clearly a domestic violence dispute. How would you respond under each justice
model?

Criminal model: You have the option to call the cops, or not. You can try to bang on the ceiling to get
them to stop. You can try to interrupt the situation by knocking on their door and asking for a cup of
sugar or something like that. You can try to shame or shun one or both of them socially if you think you
know who's to blame.

Restorative model: You can call a social worker or CAHOOTS, plus the options listed previously.

Transformative model: Formulate a community based response, tailored to the people in the situation
and the resources available on hand.

Someone mentions that outsourcing the work of the community onto the police when we don't
participate with our neighbors socially is bad.

We need intervention skills that we can use to not cause further harm.
We were next invited to consider the following mismatch:

What Do Victims of Harm Say They Need?

-to be heard/believed -retribution/punishment
-safety -resources/alternatives
-to not be afraid -to not be judged
-ongoing support - to find meaning in harm
-to not be separated from transgressor

What Does Rebributive Justice Offer Victims?

-Isolation, revenge, temporary, safety, revictimization, punishment for whoever system says did harm,
deterrence (maybe), knowledge perpetrator can't hurt those outside prison until term is expired,
reinforces criminalization, escalates suspicion, moves perpetrator farther from wellness

There seems to be a very large discrepancy between what victims tend to say they need and what our
current justice system offers us.

The organizers then shared a clip from an Indian campaign called “Ring the Doorbell” which
encourages people to interrupt domestic violence (CW for sounds of DV):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DWK2115LI4&ab_channel=BreakthroughIndia

Group discusses how this is a tricky situation – inserting yourself into violent situations is potentially
dangerous to you and also to others. It is mentioned that de-escalation training is available from
different groups. We discussed strategies for interruption in this situaiton, and the 5D's of bystander
intervention were mentioned (Here is a link for that https://www.ihollaback.org/bystander-resources/)
Interrupting a situation like this gives people one more chance to re-consider what they're doing.
Suggestions for what to say included: Can I borrow some sugar, do you want these bananas, they're
getting too ripe, have you seen my kids? Womenspace is mentioned as a resource – if you're stumped
about DV particularly, you can always call Womenspace.

Here are some resources the organizers provided for education:

tinyurl.com/y28exjm3

Organizers asked us to consider what we could do this week to further decriminalization and
transformative justice, and said that they would be in touch about when the next unit in the series
would be.