🧵 cw abuse /// part of why we started this group is a shared experience of being further abused in Restorative Justice processes after seeking help about an abuser, as well as regularly witnessing victims of the most heinous abuse smeared for ‘not using rj’
we appreciate ppl doing the work to prefigure new systems to address abuse and sustain survivors, & some ppl (not a ton!) are even doing good work under the name RJ/TJ. we dont talk to cops, we dont encourage comrades to expect justice from courts. they’re not of us.
at the same time we want to intervene in this discourse bc ppl carry the assumption that RJ is at its core anarchist/abolitionist. It absolutely is not. It is employed many different ways, but it is a practice with an origin, and that origin/continued history is from the colony.
and this isnt a matter of semantics. the way it’s used, and the way it has hurt many of the survivors we work with, is absolutely a continuation of the logic of counter-insurgency, victim blaming, abuse apology, and forced reconciliation in settler colonial justice systems
We did a discussion around Juan Marcellus Tauri’s ‘Indigenous Peoples and the Globalization of Restorative Justice’ and we’ll be summarizing the article and discussion here. Tauri is a Māori criminologist/activist who has been writing about RJ for ~30 years
He starts by situating the rise of RJ in the globalization of crime technologies. Settler colonies cant function when Indigenous ppls have their cultural practices intact, and Indigenous practices of conflict resolution are incompatible bc settlers need a monopoly on violence. 
In the wake of wide armed Black/Indigenous resistance in the 60s/70s, settler colonies moved to undercut 4th world autonomy thru pushing RJ in the us, canada, and new zealand. global crime consultants facilitated this.
He outlines how RJ became a massively profitable crime control business. He notes the ubiquitous origin story of the canadian parole officer credited with the framework (Richards’ ‘Towards a Genealogy of RJ’ actually traces it separately to u.s. parole officers a decade earlier)
“The impact of RJ’s globalization on Indigenous peoples should not be underestimated. … Indigenous and critical commentaries reveal that the globalization of RJ is sustained by …”
“a purposeful and significant commodification of Indigenous life-worlds by policy workers, RJ advocates, and justice entrepreneurs - especially in settler colonial jurisdictions”
Consulting firms headed by settlers from australia sold RJ in australia and north amerika by playing up its supposed Māori origins in new zealand. the firms were then contracted by the pigs in various colonies to teach them RJ
He busts the myth of the ‘Māoriness’ of new zealand’s Family Group Conference. In reality, Māori satisfaction with the RJ program is low and cop satisfaction is high (Richards). That doesnt stop settler crime consultants from packaging and selling it to pigs as a Māori concept.
There was, obviously, never any intention to build the self-determination of the Māori thru this program. Like any other supposedly benign state intervention, it was and is an attempt to recuperate and decontextualize Indigenous life-worlds
Tauri recounts representatives from the Stó:lo Nation in so-called canada encountering these frameworks and recognizing that there was nothing Indigenous about what was being pushed on them.
Notes from our discussion: [It’s shocking to see RJ described as this international crime control product when we all encounter it for the first time as a DIY supposedly anti-state framework]
[This is counter-insurgency, and recalls all the other ways cop logic flourishes in activist subcultures. The end result of liberal recuperation of Black insurgencies and recuperation of Black/Indigenous life-worlds is that the abusers maintain control by pushing nonviolence]
[These distorted knowledge systems are soft weapons to reinforce the state. Everyday settlers are deputized to carry out RJ just as they spontaneously form vigilante mobs to steal land/murder]
[it’s a super-gaslight to make ppl think that they are in control and this RJ process is giving them power when in reality its further entrenching the abuser-as-state]
[in starting an RJ process, we are told to learn about non-violence. We are primed to coddle our abuser. We are primed to blame ourselves. It resembles how in some co-dependency groups women are taught how to put up with their drunk abusive husbands]
[We need to have a separate meeting to research and discuss the role of the self-help industry. We find that we’re swimming in a sea of ppl who accept victim-blaming and abuser-coddling as an uncontestable reality, that on social media …
[the language of therapy is weaponized against survivors at all times, that our own community is making pro-bono propaganda for this counter-insurgency, much like what we saw last summer during the uprising]
[‘where do we go from here?’ respond how any revolutionary responds to counter-insurgency: strong ties with the people. Foment a multitude of autonomous groups supporting the mutual protection of gender oppressed ppl. Catalyze a culture of militant mutual self defense …
and of radical care for isolated survivors. no rest for sex pests and their abusive orgs. build up gender oppressed ppls capacity for revolution by isolating predators. make our community a no-go zone for abusers]
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