I’m going to be live tweeting this from 6pm — pray for my thumbs and for some fab audience questions! If you want to join in, the hashtag is #SafetyForWho https://twitter.com/laurenbull_/status/1323870258394882048

. @Georgemax16 opens by acknowledging the voices of those who can’t be with us — those in custody, those on temporary visas who aren’t safe to speak up, and those still in unsafe relationships. their voices are unheard but matter

“Because apparently it needs to be said, we agree coercive control is bad and needs to be stopped. We just don’t think the police and criminal justice system are the way to do it”

First up is @haveachattabs, who has always been interested in abolishing prisons, and then ended up on the other side of the fence. This made her angry — the things that were happening to her, and seeing the Blak faces in and out of the system.

Anger is a good emotion for her — the fight came back. She looked back and said “I will be back” when she left — back to tear it down brick by brick. Her people aren’t new to these politics and this fight, but they are true to them. It’s a continuation of her ancestors fight

. @_pcthug is up next —how she came to abolition isn’t a clear cut path. It’s a subtle progression, from a liberal interest in criminal justice,pushed there by harm committed against herself and harm against her community. She felt there had to be an alternative to what is offered

Abolition, started by Blak and Black people, was a channeling into a better future. That was a way forward for her. She has been involved in campaigning against Black deaths in custody for years and it’s shaped the way she’s seen the system: reform is ultimately futile

. @donManike on what has gotten her to these politics: it’s also been gradual. She has largely worked in training and facilitation in women’s health and family violence, and currently trains support workers at WIRE. It’s felt really important to think about how to do that work

within an abolition context. Her politics today were formed by the different community projects she has been involved with (s/o Undercurrent and Sisters Inside), and the voices of Black and Indigenous women around the world, as well as the voices of

trans and gender diverse thinkers, sex workers, and drug users, whose work and voices are central to this work

“Police, prisons and the CJS are said to reproduce patterns of violence against women” — thoughts?
@haveachattabs states that the grossest, largest violence is perpetrated by the agents of the state, by the structures - even their physical structures, on stolen and sacred land

She may have divorced an abusive man, but now she’s in an abusive relationship with the state — daily violence on her body, done in the name of the broader public, of ‘justice’.

She didn’t meet one person inside who hadn’t suffered at the hands of man. We take those women, who have fought, and we put them in a cage and we replicate those violent relationships

. @haveachattabs notes the PIC is propped up by so many sectors — it becomes all-pervading.

. @_pcthug notes that these systems don’t just replicate gendered violence, they replicate colonial violence.

As someone who has experienced police violence, Georgia recalls male police officers going out of their way to grope female protestors appearances, degrade these women. Where do they turn? We’re told the police are where we go

The definition of coercive control: pattern of degrading, abusive behaviour to control people — this is absolutely reproduced by prisons.

The idea that we can remove “danger” by punishing people and kicking people out of communities, with so little evidence that it works, treats people as disposable and operates based on fear, says @donManike

The incredibly high number of women who have experienced violence, the overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in custody, and high number of people on remands- these statistics don’t make sense.

The people inside prisons are not more dangerous than the people outside them. What would it actually look like if you locked up the most dangerous people? Who actually cause the most harm?

So often callers to WIRE will be told by their other support workers to call the police - if they’re on a temporary visa, if they or their partner are trans, or if they’re experiencing psychosis — the police aren’t safe to call

To think about putting someone in a cage - to use violence to stop violence - is so strange

It’s not a free choice that women have, @_pcthug notes. If women need $ via support services, they’re often required to report to police. The police being involved is often mandated - it’s all propped up and funneled to police

Let’s talk about this propping up of the PIC!

. @_pcthug notes victim services provide access to $ and material needs, also psychological support and counselling. Which is a helpful thing! But the system is inherently tied to police - you need a police report.

For public housing - you need ‘evidence’ to relocate a person. A thing they will give the most weight to is a police report or an IVO. The police’s voice is held in much higher regard than the victims, than their supporters.

The way that the legislation works now is that you have to go to the police and they have to be satisfied. They are considered to be the ‘experts’. @_pcthug can’t see how the proposed coercive control criminal laws will be handled any differently

On 2 Aug 2014, police responded to a call out at Ms Dhu’s house. Her partner had breached an IVO. Ms Dhu was arrested for an outstanding warrant, she was detained, and she was killed in custody. @haveachattabs notes Ms Dhu did what she was told to do to keep her safe: call police

We have to do differently and we have to do better - but for her mob it means death. We don’t have the luxury of time - Aboriginal people’s lives depend on us doing it differently

. @donManike notes the sector is dominated by white women, and good intentions being a big part of it. They want to do good, but they’re not required to have a systemic look at their relationship to power.

Gender is the main focus - it’s so hard to talk about other forms of violence, like racial violence.

If we asked the questions more in this sector - what do we want to build on, what do we want to keep?

It’s strange we can take this form of violence out and look at it out of context. Theres such a strong connection to FV and colonisation but it’s just not talked about.

Women on temporary visas aren’t inherently marginal — we never talk about who is marginalising them, notes @donManike.

Criminalising coercive control will add to the difficulties for these people - it won’t enhance their safety or access to services.

. @_pcthug makes the important point that there are a number of professionals who work in FV sector that are mandatory reporters, and a lot of social workers hold carcarel views. The FV sector is not an inherently good force - we need to accept critical analysis of it

“The reliance on the CJS has taken women’s power to fight violence away, and invested it in the state” (quote from INCITE) - what do panelists think about us always being made to look ‘up’ to power structures, rather than looking to our communities for this kind of work?

. @haveachattabs begins - these systems are forced on us and take away Black people’s ability to organise and take care of each other. The state wields criminal punishment as social control weapons. Every time a Black person speaks up, it puts a direct threat to their life.

What we consider a crime is one of the most important civil justice questions of our time, says @haveachattabs. Carcarel feminists trot out the same answer every time: lock em up.

The reasons this is so:
Racial capitalism and the punishment philosophy, the cal to vengeance. The system does this to ensure white capital accumulation and protection. Criminal law reflects and serves elite interests - this is where the power and social control rests

This impacts our ability to organise and be active in these spaces. For people like @haveachattabs - the CJS inhibits her ability. Every time she raises her lived experience Black voice she puts her life and liberty at risk.

. @donManike: What will liberation look like? There’s an idea that it’ll be a big dramatic moment. But it’s been helpful for Monique to think about the smaller moments, that can be spaces where we can embody these practices and challenge the system

It’s a really colonial idea that you have to be the first doing something, you have to be new. We are building on the work of Black and Indigenous activists, from so many years

. @_pcthug has been reading recently about the development of women’s shelters in syd: the community would identify FV, go to a woman’s house, grab everything and her and run with her. She can’t do that now - it’s ‘unprofessional’.

What she CAN do, is call the police, and they will come with her for 15 mins to escort her.
We have ceded so much power to the police - even in this single example. In what world is that more effective?

So much of carcarel systems has embedded into us that if we go outside the state or police to solve harm, what we’re doing is unprofessional. When what we’re actually doing is going back to the way our communities know how to keep us safe. Great example from @_pcthug

. @Georgemax16 asks: “abolition has somehow become synonymous with nihilism - how can we reframe this?”

. @donManike: it seems like it is used to create a feeling of lawlessness, to make it seem like it will become unsafe. It’s fear tactics, and an implication that abolitionists don’t care about safety.

What abolition has meant to her is about creating lasting alternatives and reducing harm. Looking at the larger context, seeing the link between FV and colonisation, and ongoing genocide. It’s a process of strategically reallocating resources.

The aim is about building life sustaining systems that will better reduce and prevent harm.
It’s not defeatist or nihilistic. When people dismiss abolitionists they forget that we’re also the victims and survivors of that harm - we have lived experience too.

It’s wild to @donManike that it’s been reframed in this way! To her it’s the exact opposite.

Sometimes people think @_pcthug is naive - that she doesn’t know what harm is. But abolition is optimistic! As opponents to the criminalisation of coercive control, the resistance has developed in response to the violence and limits of the PIC and police.

Abolition demands an optimism. It demands responding to violence without reproducing harm. It’s optimism and creativity is situated there.

Nihilism is limiting as a tool of analysis, to @haveachattabs. It doesn’t evaluate the relationship between ideology and material conditions. Fighting ideology with ideology won’t work.

Abolition is a way of living! It’s about love, about loving people for whoever they want to be. She wants to challenge the ubiquitous belief that there are disposable people, that we can throw them away.

It’s focused on abundance and healing, not scarcity and harm.

It’s about a way of living that shapes life, rather than takes life.

Aboriginal people have been doing abolition work for 232 years, says @haveachattabs. First Nations justice is first and foremost. That’s why Aboriginal people don’t have a problem imagining a world with abolition.

People don’t stand with First Nations people consistently. Half measures by all the white people around them is more harmful. Movements (socialism and abolition and sovereignty) intersect, but is commitment consistent? No.

. @donManike thinks it’s clear that Aboriginal sovereignty should be the basis for all this work. But it’s clear also that that isn’t also the case in practice. For her it all fits together, but the reality isn’t always recognised. A lot of the work is then refocusing sovereignty.

These systems rarely heal or redeem. What does a system that heals or redeems look like?

@haveachattabs thinks these questions are lazy. Abolition is about real, localised responses to harm. It’s hard to say “this is what I’d like to see happen” other than the principles

(communities of care, radical reciprocity), but she can’t sit here and say how your community should respond to harm. She would be no better than the politicians imposing their view.

We need to build a more nuanced view of harm, and a more nuanced view of how to respond to that. This is a chance for all of us to be involved! A chance for all of us to respond. Isn’t that exciting? (YES @haveachattabs)

In terms of a system that heals, @_pcthug wants us to recognise a diversity of harm, and a diversity of healing. Not that we have a neoliberal idea of individualised response, but that we let ppl speak to their own harm, and communicate with their own community about their needs

The CJS and prisons never ask this of people. Ppl plead guilty for many reasons other than remorse or acknowledgment of harm.

And we need to acknowledge that we do all cause harm to each other - it’s not about some ppl causing ‘worse my harm. It’s something we all do, but not something we have to reproduce.

. @donManike shouts out the brilliant Loz Caulfield’s work on asset mapping and safety planning outside of a police response: which kickstarts this creative thinking for many ppl, leaves them feeling community focused and like the possibilities have expanded a bit

Abolition is not just about responding to harm, notes @haveachattabs. It’s about changing the conditions that cause harm. She wants to create an environment that means the harm doesn’t happen in the first place

she also really likes the idea that it’s not just focused on the victim or the perpetrator - every single one of us in the community need to confront our role in harm that takes place. If we are in the community, we need to take responsibility

Audience question; What if coercive control was criminalised? How would it play out?

@_pcthug starts with what won’t happen: coercive control won’t end. In the same way that FV and sexual assault haven’t ended.

Some things that she worries could occur: real problem with perpetrator misid; a neglect of the abuse against disabled women (continuing to solidify the exclusion of their experiences - the way the legislation refers explicitly to intimate partners, but not carers)

The creation of any new offence in this field squarely places women in the CJS, and for Aboriginal women that is deadly notes @haveachattabs. What women actually want from the system will not be what they receive - it all has the potential to cause Aboriginal women harm

How can we trust the police with extended powers? Which will rely on discretion? And a keen eye for nuanced gender and family violence?

Already people are criminalised for a failure to protect their children if they’re victims, they’re being charged with kidnapping if they are on a visa and keep their children safe - we see this all playing out notes @donManike

If carcarel feminists won’t fight against the coercive control Aboriginal women experience at the hands of the state now, can we really believe they care? Asks @haveachattabs

Why aren’t we campaigning for more trauma services? Or public housing? Things that we know would make a material difference to FV ( @_pcthug)

. @haveachattabs doesn’t want to talk about “what do we do instead”? She wants to look at what’s the goal of what we’re doing? If the goal is we don’t want anyone else to be harmed or abused, then the job isn’t incapacitating someone. It’s addressing the reasons they harmed

We cannot waste any more time replacing one violent system with another - @haveachattabs

The building blocks that @_pcthug sees for abolition aren’t that creative - it’s knowing your neighbours, building relationships. It’s things that have been done and we can do again.

But carcarel systems and neoliberal responses to harm have pushed us into thinking we can only behave in certain ways. So this DOES seem creative, when it’s just going outside the limits of what the state has provided

. @DebKilroy talks about never once calling the cops on anyone - if you listen to the system, their clients are the most “harmful” and their workers the most “at risk” - if they can do this, why the hell cant everyone else asks @haveachattabs

For the people who work in these spaces - if your work means you’re reproducing this harm, calling police on people, and actively doing harm — what is your workplace asking you to do? @_pcthug would withdraw her labour from such a workplace. Encourages everyone to do this too!

. @donManike with an interesting point about worker safety and what it’s like to work in opposition to your values - being honest with yourself about where you draw the line at work. We are all complicit, no possibility of being a neutral observer

. @haveachattabs gets why organisations stick to the way they do things - there’s funding in it! There are people making their careers off the back of Black dysfunction and deficit - if that’s your organisation and you’re not working to make it obsolete, you’re complicit

You’re meant to be standing with us to change the conditions that have led to this. She gets that it’s complex, but unless you’re doing really hard work to make your profession unnecessary, you’re part of the problem.