Welcome to a conversation surrounding Restorative and Transformative Justice. We ask that you all engage with us via QUOTE tweeting to not inturupt the thread.

Ask any and all questions! We want this to be a constructive and solution based conversation

America’s current justice system operates as a punitive one. We punish those who commmit harm through state policing and prison practices, and in our everyday lives.

We as people living in America, and much of the western world, have been conditioned to require punishment as a response to harm.

As abolitionist, our work focuses on dismantling the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) which includes policing, prisons, detention centers (such as ICE), and the active surveillance of Black and marginalized communities in America.

As abolitionists we understand our current punitive system does not actually deter crime and violence from happening. If it did, naturally the country with the highest prison population would also be the safest country.

The US is currently the worlds top jailer with over 2.3 million individuals incarcerated in prisons, jails, detention centers, parole and probation.

In most studies the US doesn’t even make the top 20 in the list of the world’s safest countries. In fact the US ranks 128th on the Global Peace Index (GPI) which considers safety & security, militarization, and ongoing conflict.

Our current punitive and retributive system of punishment, which operates with the absence of accountability, rehabilitation, and the lack of social community care, all contribute to the growing violence in our communities.

How can we abolish the police and prisons if we don’t also focus on why crime happens in the first place?

Furthermore, crime itself is a social construct depended on specific cultural morality/norms. In the US we punish certain individuals for killing, but uphold state killings such as capital punishment and military related murders.

We also understand that the US criminalizes many social needs. We criminalize issues that arise from the lack of basic needs being met such as homelessness, drug abuse, theft, hunger, and various other needs

This is where restorative and transformative justice enter the conversation.

Restorative Justice (RJ) is a decades old philosophy and a social movement which provides an entirely different way of thinking about crime and victimization.

Restorative justice views crime as more than breaking the law – it also causes harm to people, relationships, and the community. So a just response must address those harms as well as the wrongdoing.

Instead of our current retributive approach that asks “what rule was broken? Who is to
blame? What punishment do they deserve?”

Restorative justice approach asks “who has been hurt & what are their needs? Who is obliged to address those needs? Who has a ‘stake’ in this situation & what is the process to involve them in making things right and preventing future occurrences?”

Restorative justice focuses on restoring and repairing the harm for all parties involved. We understand that people who do harm sometimes have also been harmed before in their life. Harm is NOT a binary concept- meaning someone is either always a victim or always a perpetrator.

Harm is fluid - and as humans we have all harmed others and been harmed ourselves. When a person does a bad thing their actions are bad. Those actions don’t necessarily determine the worth or humanity of the person who committed them.

Restorative justice focuses on that repair through real consequences, accountability, and face to face dialogue.

Transformative justice (TJ) takes this concept even further. It focuses on the environment surrounding the parties involved that facilitated, encouraged, or instigated the harm to occur.

TJ approach asks “What social circumstances promoted the harmful behavior? What structural similarities exist between this incident and others like it? What measures could prevent future occurrences?”

Transformative justice works on transforming the entire community, whether it be a friend group, family, work environment, neighborhood, or college campus and so on.

Changing the way we interact with each other and actively holding one another accountable drastically reduces harm and other forms of heightened conflict within our communal relationships. We have all contributed to the harm in our community in some form no matter how small.

We encourage everyone who believes in the movement for Black lives, who are in support of abolition, or the persons who just want a more constructive society, to please utilize the resources below.

We cannot dismantle punitive systems in society and still perpetuate those systems within ourselves and communities. We must challenge ourselves to think about our larger impact on the world which starts in our own circles.

There will be a zoom meeting Saturday morning July 25th to discuss these topics within our community. Please join, ask questions, and share your thoughts respectfully.

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