Watching Angela’s Davis’ interview on Democracy Now in class, left me wondering what addressing sexual assault without a reliance on police and institutional forms of punishment (courts and prisons) might look like. Would this be possible? Are there avenues for assisting survivors of sexual assault, and confronting perpetrators independent of institutional involvement? While I acknowledge that Angela Davis was more generally critiquing the prison industrial complex, and was perhaps not calling for the complete elimination of all police and prison-related procedures surrounding violence, I believe it is a helpful idea to consider.
Poking around on the internet, I came across a report called “Alternative to Police” put out Rose City Copwatch, an organization from Portland. This document echoed Davis’ argument that the prison complex is grounded on (raced, gendered and sexuality-oriented) violence. The document notes that “the police rarely meet our needs. They don’t help us to heal. And they don’t prevent future harm (...) they use their incredible power to reinforce the oppressive status quote. They threaten us with violence and incarceration and target the most oppressed and vulnerable people in our society” (3). The Rose City Copwatch’s is a group of police abolitionists, whose long-term vision is a world without police, where “communities function and thrive without the intervention of the heavy and often deadly hand of the State” (Rose City Copwatch 24). The Rose City Copwatch is an example of a group committed to radically challenging “police violence, and disrupting the ability of police to enforce race and class lines” by shifting public consciousness to create social change. The document that I came across curated resources for addressing sexual assault that were independent of the police.
This large list of suggestions included...
- rape crisis centers
- sista’s liberated ground (SLG) a coalition of women reclaiming space and fighting back against sexual violence
- gang truces
- sex offenders anonymous (for perpetrators)
- restorative justice programs (which work to heal communities rather than punish individuals)
- Bad Date Lines
This Weekend I was in Vancouver at the Social Space Summit, a knowledge-share space for activists. One of the participants spoke of emailing their queer community to out an individual from their community as a perpetrator. This served as a form of accountability without State intervention. I have heard many similar stories to this. While ‘outing’ folks within our own communities works as a means of accountability within our own circles, I wonder how this same accountability could be held, for instance, if a queer woman was sexually assault by a white, hetero, cis-man who was not a part of her communities? How do we keep folks accountable who are not in our circles? And, does this example of addressing perpetrators (along with the the list of suggestions from Rose City Copwatch) depend on the assumption that folks have community? What about those who are alienated from community - how can we support survivors and address perpetrators who are seemingly isolated from community?
Works Cited
Rose City Copwatch. Alternative to Police. Portland, Oregon. 2008. Web.
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