Transformative Justice
Transformative Justice
According to Philly Stands Up!, Transformative Justice is a way of practicing alternative justice which acknowledges individual experiences and identities and works to actively resist the state’s criminal injustice system. Transformative Justice recognizes that oppression is at the root of all forms of harm, abuse and assault. As a practice it therefore aims to address and confront those oppressions on all levels and treats this concept as an integral part to accountability and healing.
From Generation 5: Transformative justice [is] a liberatory approach to violence…[which] seeks safety and accountability without relying on alienation, punishment, or State or systemic violence, including incarceration or policing.
Three core beliefs:
- Individual justice and collective liberation are equally important, mutually supportive, and fundamentally intertwined—the achievement of one is impossible without the achievement of the other.
- The conditions that allow violence to occur must be transformed in order to achieve justice in individual instances of violence. Therefore, Transformative Justice is both a liberating politic and an approach for securing justice.
- State and systemic responses to violence, including the criminal legal system and child welfare agencies, not only fail to advance individual and collective justice but also condone and perpetuate cycles of violence.
Transformative Justice seeks to provide people who experience violence with immediate safety and long-term healing and reparations while holding people who commit violence accountable within and by their communities. This accountability includes stopping immediate abuse, making a commitment to not engage in future abuse, and offering reparations for past abuse. Such accountability requires on-going support and transformative healing for people who sexually abuse.”
Source: Toward Transformative Justice (PDF) by Generation 5
Articles
Transformative Justice: A Brief Description
By Mia Mingus This was written for a transformative justice (TJ) intervention I led and I’m sharing it here for others to use in
What is/isn’t transformative justice?
by Adrienne Maree Brown Original article found here I’ve been thinking a lot about transformative justice lately.In the past few months I’ve been to a couple
Building Community Safety: Practical Steps Toward Liberatory Transformation
by Ejeris Dixon Original article found here Mom, when you were growing up, did you ever call the police? I can’t remember any time that
A LOOK AT FEMINIST FORMS OF JUSTICE THAT DON’T INVOLVE THE POLICE
by Kristian Williams Original article found here This is an excerpt from the book Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America, whose third
Still Choosing to Leap: Building Alternatives
by Mia Mingus Original article found here I am engaged in the work of building transformative justice responses to child sexual abuse with the Bay
What Would it Take to Actually End Intimate Violence?
by An Interview with Mia Mingus by Miriam Zoila Pérez Original article found here Transformative justice activist Mia Mingus reflects on responding to sexual assault
Communities Need to Reduce Violence Against Women of Color Without Police
by Andrea J. Ritchie Original article found here Invisible No More is a timely examination of police violence against Black women, Indigenous women and other women
Challenging Men, Changing Communities: Reflections on Male Supremacy and Transformative Justice
by Gaurav Jashnani, RJ Maccani, and Alan Greig Original article found here Since 2008, the three coauthors of this essay have been working together as the
We Will Not Cancel Us
by Adrienne Maree Brown Original article found here We will not cancel us. We hurt people. Of course we did, we are human. We were
Arresting the Carceral State
by Mariame Kaba & Erica R. Meiners Original article found here In 2013, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published a listicle on Buzzfeed highlighting
Prelude to Transformation
by Sean Norris Original article found here While both learning and doing Transformative Justice work there have been many eye opening moments, maybe none more
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