As a survivor of child sexual abuse, working for abolition via transformative justice, more police and more prisons will not stop sexual violence. If it did, we would not have the devastatingly high epidemic-level rates of sexual violence that continue to persist.
Anti-abolitionists trot out survivors who will vouch for the need for police/prisons, when the reality is the state itself is one of the most rampant perpetrators (& sites) of sexual violence (e.g. sexual assault is 2nd most common form of police brutality, rape as weapon of war)
It is clear that the state has no interest in ending sexual violence because it uses and relies on sexual violence as a way to maintain its power, even as it positions itself as a “protector.”
Never mind that it is notoriously hard to get convictions when it comes to sexual violence and that even when convictions happen, they do not lead to any kind of true accountability or fundamental change (i.e. it doesn’t stop the harmer from harming again).
Domestic and sexual violence survivors have historically been used to argue for harsher sentences, to legitimize and expand the state’s power and legislate further criminalization (e.g. the sex offender registry).
Child sexual abuse (CSA) in particular has been used again and again as a wedge issue to fight for more police and more prisons. This is one of the many reasons why work to address and end CSA is a strategic site for abolition work.
If we want to be able to respond well to sexual violence, we must invest in building transformative justice within our communities. We must work to respond in ways that will ultimately *end* sexual violence.
This is a core concept of TJ: How do we respond to harm in ways that transform the conditions (which allowed for the harm to happen) so that the harm cannot happen again?
How do we work to meet the immediate needs of a situation in ways that get us closer to kind of world, community and relationships that we ultimately long for?
More cops and more prisons do not do this and put BIPOC disproportionately at risk.
More cops and more prisons do not do this and put BIPOC disproportionately at risk.
