Community Accountability
Community Accountability (CA) strategies aim at preventing, intervening in, responding to, and healing from violence through strengthening relationships and communities, emphasizing mutual responsibility for addressing the conditions that allow violence to take place, and holding people accountable for violence and harm. This includes a wide range of creative strategies for addressing violence as part of organizing efforts in communities when you can’t or don’t want to access state systems for safety.” – The Audre Lorde Project, National Gathering on Transformative and Community Accountability, 9/2010
From Incite! Women of Color and Trans People of Color Against Violence (2012):
Community accountability is a process in which a community – a group of friends, a family, a church, a workplace, an apartment complex, a neighborhood, etc – works together to do the following things:
- Commit to ongoing development of all members of the community, and the community itself, to transform the political conditions that reinforce oppression and violence
- Provide safety & support to community members who are violently targeted that respects their self-determination
- Create and affirm values & practices that resist abuse and oppression and encourage safety, support, and accountability
- Develop sustainable strategies to address community members’ abusive behavior, creating a process for them to account for their actions and transform their behavior
Community Accountability (CA) strategies aim at preventing, intervening in, responding to, and healing from violence through strengthening relationships and communities, emphasizing mutual responsibility for addressing the conditions that allow violence to take place, and holding people accountable for violence and harm. This includes a wide range of creative strategies for addressing violence as part of organizing efforts in communities when you can’t or don’t want to access state systems for safety.” – The Audre Lorde Project, National Gathering on Transformative and Community Accountability, 9/2010
From Incite! Women of Color and Trans People of Color Against Violence (2012):
Community accountability is a process in which a community – a group of friends, a family, a church, a workplace, an apartment complex, a neighborhood, etc – works together to do the following things:
- Commit to ongoing development of all members of the community, and the community itself, to transform the political conditions that reinforce oppression and violence
- Provide safety & support to community members who are violently targeted that respects their self-determination
- Create and affirm values & practices that resist abuse and oppression and encourage safety, support, and accountability
- Develop sustainable strategies to address community members’ abusive behavior, creating a process for them to account for their actions and transform their behavior
ARTICLES
MEDIA
CURRICULUM
OTHER
Articles

Thinking Through Perpetrator Accountability
by Crimethinc. Original article found here This article is from Rolling Thunder #8, a quarterly journal by Crimethinc. Thinking Through Perpetrator Accountability “They” is used
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10 Strategies for Cultivating Community Accountability
by Ann Russo Original article found here My commitment to prison abolition grows daily in part because I see the possibilities for responding to abuse and
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The NYC Punks Who Built a Support Network for Sexual Assault Survivors When the Justice System Failed Them
by Ok, Merritt Original article found here America has a rape problem. For every 1,000 sexual assaults, only 310 are reported — and from the investigation stage to
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Community Accountability Factsheet
by Incite! Please visit | Original article found here
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For Tasha Amezcua, Safety Starts by Not Calling the Cops
by Madhuri Sathish Original article found here BROOKLYN, New York (WOMENSENEWS)— Tasha Amezcua identifies herself as a “queer, femme, Chicana survivor of violence . . .
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Community Acountability: Emerging Movements to Transform Violence
by Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo, Alisa Bierria, Mimi Kim Original article found here
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Community Accountability Within People of Color Progressive Movements
by Incite! Original article found here
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Taking The First Step: Suggestions To People Called Out For Abusive Behavior
by Wispy Cockles (originally published in the Jan/Feb issue of Clamor Magazine) Original article found here Introduction What you see before you is a work
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Media
Play Video
Self-Accountability and Movement Building
by | Presented by Project NIA with support from NYC TJ Hub
Accountability is a human skill, not something that happens to bad people. How many times have movements been pulled apart not because of external forces but because of internal conflict and strife? So often we ask how others can be accountable without first looking internally and asking, "How have I been accountable?" Join us to explore the role self-accountability plays in building strong, sustainable movements. We'll discuss how self-accountability—that is accountability with and for ourselves—is essential in building accountable communities and the movements to sustain them.
Shannon Perez-Darby is an anti-violence advocate, author, and activist working to create the conditions to support loving, equitable relationships and communities. With over 15 years of experience, Shannon centers queer and trans communities of color while working to address issues of domestic violence, accountability, and prison abolition.
Presented by Project Nia & The NYC TJ Hub on September 12, 2020.
Shannon Perez-Darby is an anti-violence advocate, author, and activist working to create the conditions to support loving, equitable relationships and communities. With over 15 years of experience, Shannon centers queer and trans communities of color while working to address issues of domestic violence, accountability, and prison abolition.
Presented by Project Nia & The NYC TJ Hub on September 12, 2020.
adrienne maree brown on Cancellation, Abolition and Healing
by | The Final Straw Radio
BUILDING ACCOUNTABLE COMMUNITIES
Featuring | Kiyomi Fujikawa and Shannon Perez-Darby
Accountability is a familiar buzz-word in contemporary social movements, but what does it mean? How do we work toward it? In this series of four short videos, anti-violence activists Kiyomi Fujikawa and Shannon Perez-Darby ask and explore: What does it look like to be accountable to survivors without exiling or disposing those who do harm?
Tags: videos, anti-violence, kiyomi fujikawa, shannon perez-darby, community accountability Ethan Viets-VanLear is a part of Circles & Ciphers
Tags: restorative justice, circles, circles and ciphers, ethan viets van lear, harm, healing
Tags: videos, anti-violence, kiyomi fujikawa, shannon perez-darby, community accountability Ethan Viets-VanLear is a part of Circles & Ciphers
Tags: restorative justice, circles, circles and ciphers, ethan viets van lear, harm, healing
Play Video
Community Accountability for Safety: Building Capacity to Make Sexual and Domestic Violence a Community Responsibility
by | CALCASA
Tags: webinar, criminalization, domestic violence, non profit, service, liberation, first responders
Play Video
Don't be a Bystander: 6 Tips for Responding to Racist Attacks
By | BCRW and members of Project NIA
Created by BCRW and members of Project NIA, this video offers an abolitionist approach to bystander intervention that does not rely on the police.
The United States has a long history of violence against People of Color, disabled people, Muslims, immigrants, and LGBTQ people. In the current political moment, white supremacists and white nationalists have been emboldened. As a result, public attacks are on the rise. Many people aren't sure how to respond if they witness a racist or transphobic attack. This video provides some tips.
Connecting individual acts of violence to a broader systemic analysis, this video is intended to be a resource for activists, students, educators, and anyone who wants to interrupt the violence of white supremacy and anti-blackness.
Narrated by Aaryn Lang. Directed and produced by Lewis Wallace and Hope Dector. Tags:
The United States has a long history of violence against People of Color, disabled people, Muslims, immigrants, and LGBTQ people. In the current political moment, white supremacists and white nationalists have been emboldened. As a result, public attacks are on the rise. Many people aren't sure how to respond if they witness a racist or transphobic attack. This video provides some tips.
Connecting individual acts of violence to a broader systemic analysis, this video is intended to be a resource for activists, students, educators, and anyone who wants to interrupt the violence of white supremacy and anti-blackness.
Narrated by Aaryn Lang. Directed and produced by Lewis Wallace and Hope Dector. Tags:
Play Video
Creatively intervening in interpersonal and state violence
By | Dulwich Centre Foundation with Rachel Herzing
Rachel speaks from a community organizing perspective. She speaks about work that she has done to intervene in interpersonal harm as well as to end the violence of imprisonment and the violence of policing in the United States. She also talks about the liberation of black people.
Community Response to COVID-19
Featuring | AAPI Women Lead’s Dr. Connie Wun sits down with Mia Mingus
AAPI Women Lead's Dr. Connie Wun sits down with Mia Mingus, Transformative Justice & Disability Justice organizer, advocate and leader. In episode 2, Mia + Dr. Connie Wun talks about ways communities have been supporting each other through this time using tools such as Mutual Aid + Pod Mapping + how we must recommit ourselves to supporting each other. Check out the video.
Play Video
Introduction to Close to Home: Community-Driven Approaches to Violence Prevention
By | Prevent Connect
This is part 1 of a 3-part podcast based on one of PreventConnect’s newest eLearning courses, “Community-Driven Approaches to Violence Prevention: Close to Home.”
On this podcast, Susan Ghanbarpour interviews Aimee Thompson about Close to Home and its community mobilizing approach to preventing violence. Check out part 2 and part 3 of this podcast to learn more about the Close to Home approach to preventing violence.
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Curriculum
Community Accountability for Survivors of Sexual Violence Toolkit
By | Jane Hereth & Chez Rumph
Support New York Curriculum
By | Support New York
We Don't Want To Be Stars:
A 21st-Century Intersectional Feminist Organizing Curriculum for These Times
By | Auburn Seminary Staff
Accountability
By | AWG of DIY Space for London
Community Accountability for Survivors of Sexual Violence Toolkit
By | Jane Hereth & Chez Rumph
Support New York Curriculum
By | Support New York
Creative Interventions Toolkit
By | Creative Interventions
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Other Resources | Links
The Devil Wears Dashikis, Pt. 4: Theoretical and Practical Lessons for the Struggle (Conclusion)
Get in Formation
By | Vision Change
New Resource: Get in Formation
Get in Formation is a collection of security and safety practices built by years of learning in the streets from Black, Indigenous, and People of Color movements within the U.S.
Developed and edited by safety and security practitioners with a range of 10-40 years experience, this toolkit includes handouts, tips, and worksheets to support you in growing or building your community safety practices and/or teams.
List of Resources on Rape and Accountability
List Compiled By | Anna
compiler's note: i created this resource list because i want transformative justice work to be sustainable, and i want to give credit to the healers that have come before me. the scope of this list is resources which are focused on the creation of new structures for dealing with rape and rape culture. if you have concerns, additions, questions, etc., contact me at anya.kark@gmail.com
On creating a world where we can hold each other accountable for sexual misconduct - PDFs
List Compiled By | Anna
compiler's note: i created this resource list because i want transformative justice work to be sustainable, and i want to give credit to the healers that have come before me. the scope of this list is resources which are focused on the creation of new structures for dealing with rape and rape culture. if you have concerns, additions, questions, etc., contact me at anya.kark@gmail.com
Resources for Organizing
By | INCITE!
INCITE! HISTORY:
In 2000, INCITE! founders organized the “The Color of Violence: Violence Against Women of Color” conference held at University of California-Santa Cruz on April 28-29. The primary goals of this conference were to (1) develop analyses and strategies around ending violence that place women of color at the center; (2) to address violence against women of color in all its forms, including attacks on immigrants’ rights and Indian treaty rights, the proliferation of prisons, militarism, attacks on the reproductive rights of women of color, medical experimentation on communities of color, homophobia/heterosexism, and hate crimes against queer women of color, economic neo-colonialism, and institutional racism, and (3) to encourage the antiviolence movement to reinsert political organizing.
Summary Statement Re: Community Accountability Process (March 2017)
By | Transform Harm Tumblr
Tags: community accountability, process, restoration, harm, accountability, sexual assault, chicago
Whose Security?
By | The PIC is…
Tags: community accountability, process, restoration, harm, accountability, sexual assault, chicago
Love the People Webinar Series
Webinar by | Aorta
AORTA is a worker-owned cooperative devoted to strengthening movements for social justice and a solidarity economy. We work as consultants and facilitators to expand the capacity of cooperative, collective, and community based projects through education, training, and planning. We base our work on an intersectional approach to liberation because we believe that true change requires uprooting all systems of oppression.
For more on our framework, check out our Theory of Change.
Tags: sexual abuse, trauma, intervention, healing, community based strategies, harm
Tags: sexual abuse, trauma, intervention, healing, community based strategies, harm
Overview of Just Beginnings Collaborative & PreventConnect Web Conference Series
By | PreventConnect
In January 2019, PreventConnect hosted a 3-part web conference series highlighting the work the Just Beginnings Collaborative fellows do to prevent child sexual abuse. The conversations that occurred during these web conferences hold immense value for the field of prevention. To facilitate continued learning, PreventConnect, along with Eb. Brown of the Just Beginnings Collaborative and the guest presenters from this web conference series, summarized key highlights and takeaways in the document “Overview of Just Beginnings Collaborative & PreventConnect Web Conference Series.”
Tags: community accountability, process, restoration, harm, accountability, sexual assault, chicago
Tags: community accountability, process, restoration, harm, accountability, sexual assault, chicago
artist protection network
By | Catherine Hernandez
As an author, Catherine Hernandez has endured countless incidents of stalking and harassment. While touring her book, she began speaking to her colleagues about her experiences and found out she was not alone. The members of this unfortunate club decided enough was enough.
The Artist Protection Network is comprised of numerous international artists and event organizers who work together to create braver and safer spaces for artists to showcase their work, free from stalking and harassment.
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