Thread by @aliciasanchez

In March, my friend, Nkiru and I published a 25-page chapter in the Handbook of Interpersonal Violence "Future Directions in Advocacy in Response to Interpersonal Violence" where we talk about policing, social services, and state + interpersonal violence. link.springer.com/referenceworke…

We wrote this before widespread calls to #DefundMPD and mainstream engagement w/ concepts of #abolition, but what I think this writing does is set the groundwork for why divestment from the state (including social services and any anti-violence programs that engage with police) +

divestment from the state is a mandate for survivor safety. policing is NOT an inevitability. state violence is not a necessary by-product of keeping survivors safe. we will never end sexual assault if we don't end the carceral state.

anyway, always happy to call in mainstream sexual assault, #DV and #SocialWork practices, and excited that two Black queer femmes got to publish work about the necessity of divesting from state interventions for #survivors in a handbook that will be used for the next decade.

ok, another thing I'm really proud of in this chapter is that we directly name #socialworkers, social services, #childprotectiveservices, mainstream #DV organizations and other institutions connected to policing as arbiters of racism, state and interpersonal violence.

we've already said this, but it's not enough to replace cops with social workers because social workers are policing too: they are controlling access to resources, housing, they are calling police on clients, institutionalizing us, recommending family separation, surveilling.

SA and #DV services and all anti-violence organizations have to rethink our relationship to police, relationships to state or philanthropic funding that restricts our ability to organize, our relationship to social services and our relationship to "professionalism." #DefundPolice