30.-gender-violence-and-the-pic.pdf
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JOINT STATEMENT From

incire! women oF COLOR
AGAINST WIOLence
and
CRITICAL RresisTANce

on Gender viocence and
THE PRISON INduSTRIAL
comevex
We catt on social justice movements to develop strategies and analysis that 3
address both state AND interpersonal violence, particularly violence against women.
Currently, activists/movements that address state violence (such as anti-prison, anti-
police brutality groups) often work in isolation from activists/movements that
address domestic and sexual violence, The result is that women of color, who

suffer disproportionately from both state and interpersonal violence, have become
‘marginalized within these movements. It is critical that we develop responses to
gender violence that do not depend on a sexist, racist, classist, and homophobic
criminal justice system. It is also important that we develop strategies that challenge
the criminal justice system and that also provide safety for survivors of sextal and
domestic violence. To live violence-free lives, we must develop holistic strategies for
addressing violence that speak to the intersection of all forms of oppression.



The anti-violence movement has been critically important in breaking the
silence around violence against women and providing much-needed services to
survivors. However, the mainstream anti-violence movement has increasingly
relied on the criminal justice system as the front-line approach toward ending
violence against women of color. It is important to assess the impact of this
strategy.





1) Law enforcement approaches to violence against women MAY deter some acts of
violence in the short term, However, as an overall strategy for ending violence,
criminalization has not worked. in fact, the overall impact of mandatory arrests laws
for domestic violence have led to decreases in the number of battered women who
kill their partners in self-defense, but they have not led to a decrease in the number of
batterers who kill their partners. Thus, law protects batterers more than it protects
survivors.



2) The criminalization approach has also brought many women into conflict with
the law, particularly women of color, poor women, lesbians, sex workers, immigrant
women, women with disabilities, and other marginalized women. For instance, under
mandatory artest laws, there have been numerous incidents where police officers
called to domestic incidents have arrested the woman who is being battered. Many
undocumented women have reported cases of sexual and domestic violence, only to
find themselves deported. A tough law and order agenda also leads to long punitive
sentences for women convicted of killing their batterers. Finally, when public
funding is channeled into policing and prisons, budget cuts for Social programs,
including women’s shelters, welfare and public housing are the inevitable side effect.
These cutbacks leave women less able to escape violent relationships.

3) Prisons don’t work. Despite an exponential increase in the number of men in
prisons, women are not any safer, and the rates of sexual assault and domestic
violence have not decreased. In calling for greater police responses to and harsher
sentences for perpetrators of gender violence, the anti-violence movement has fueled
4
the proliferation of prisons which now lock up more people per capita in the U.S.
than any other country. During the past fifteen years, the numbers of women,
especially women of color in prison has skyrocketed, Prisons also inflict violence on
the growing numbers of women behind bars. Slashing, suicide, the proliferation of
HIV, strip searches, medical neglect and rape of prisoners has largely been ignored
by anti-violence activists. The criminal justice system, an institution of violence,
domination, and control, has inereased the level of violence in society.



4) The reliance on state funding to support anti-violence programs has increased
the professionalization of the anti-violence movement and alienated it from its
community-organizing, social justice roots. Such reliance has isolated the anti-
violence movement from other social justice movements that seek to eradicate state
violence, such that it acts in conflict rather than in collaboration with these
movements,

5) The reliance on the criminal justice system has taken power away from
women’s ability to organize collectively to stop violence and has invested this power
within the state, The result is that women who seek redress in the criminal justice
system feel disempowered and alienated. It has also promoted an individualistic
approach toward ending violence such that the only way people think they

can intervene in stopping violence is to call the police. This reliance has shifted our
focus from developing ways communities can collectively respond to violence.





In recent years, the mainstream anti-prison movement has called important
attention to the negative impact of criminalization and the build-up of the
prison industrial complex. Because activists who seek to reverse the tide of mass
incarceration and criminalization of poor communities and communities of
color have not always centered gender and sexuality in their analysis or
organizing, we have not always responded adequately to the needs of survivors.
of domestic and sexual violence.







1) Prison and police accountability activists have generally organized around and
conceptualized men of color as the primary victims of state violence. Women
prisoners and victims of police brutality have been made invisible by a focus on the
‘war on our brothers and sons. It has failed to consider how women are affected as,
severely by state violence as men, The plight of women who are raped by INS
officers or prison guards, for instance, has not received sufficient attention. In
addition, women carry the burden of caring for extended family when family and
community members are criminalized and warchoused. Several organizations have
been established to advocate for women prisoners; however, these groups have been
frequently marginalized within the mainstream anti-prison movement,
2) The anti-prison movement has not addressed strategies for addressing the
rampant forms of violence women face in their everyday lives, including street
harassment, sexual harassment at work, rape, and intimate partner abuse. Until these
strategies are developed, many women will feel shortchanged by the movement, In
addition, by not seeking alliances with the anti-violence movement, the anti-prison
movement has sent the message that itis possible to liberate communities without
secking the well-being and safety of women.





3) The anti-prison movement has failed to sufficiently organize around the forms
of state violence faced by LGBT! communities. LGBTI street youth and trans,
people in general are particularly vulnerable to police brutality and eriminalization,
LGBT prisoners are denied basic human rights such as family visits from same sex
partners, and same sex consensual relationships in prison are policed and punished.

4) While prison abolitionists have correctly pointed out that rapists and serial
‘murderers comprise a small number of the prison population, we have not
answered the question of how these cases should be addressed. The inability to
answer the question is interpreted by many anti-violence activists as a lack of
concem for the safety of women,

5) The various altematives to incarceration that have been developed by anti-prison
activists have generally failed to provide sufficient mechanism for safety and
‘accountability for survivors of sexual and domestic violence. These altematives
often rely on a romanticized notion of communities, which have yet to demonstrate
their commitment and ability to keep women and children safe or seriously address
the sexism and homophobia that is deeply embedded within them,

We call on social justice movements concerned with ending violence in all
forms to:



1) Develop community-based responses to violence that do not rely on the criminal
justice system AND which have mechanisms that ensure safety and accountability
‘for survivors of sexual and domestic violence. Transformative practices emerging
{from local communities should be documented and disseminated to promote
collective responses to violence.

2) Critically assess the impact of state funding on social justice organizations and
develop alternative fundraising strategies to support these organizations. Develop
collective fundraising and organizing strategies for anti-prison and anti-violence
organizations. Develop strategies and analysis that specitically target state forms of
sexual violence.

3) Make connections between interpersonal violence, the violence inflicted by
domestic state institutions (such as prisons, detention centers, mental hospitals, and
child protective services), and international violence (such as war, military base
prostitution, and nuclear testing)
‘

4) Develop an analysis and strategies to end violence that do not isolate individual
acts of violence (either committed by the state or individuals) from their larger
contexts. These strategies must address how entire communities of all genders are
affected in multiple ways by both state violence and interpersonal gender violence.
Battered women prisoners represent an intersection of state and interpersonal
violence and as such provide and opportunity for both movements to build coalitions
and joint strugeles.

5) Put poor/working class women of color in the center of their analysis,
organizing practices, and leadership development. Recognize the role of economic
oppression, welfare “reform,” and attacks on women workers’ rights in increasing
‘women’s vulnerability to all forms of violence and locate anti-violence and anti-
prison activism alongside efforts to transform the capitalist economic system.



6) Center stories of state violence committed against women of color in our
organizing efforts.

7) Oppose legislative change that promotes prison expansion, criminalization of
poor communities and communities of color and thus state violence against women
of color, even if these changes also incorporate measure to support victims of
interpersonal gender violence.



8) Promote holistic political education at the everyday level within our
communities, specifically how sexual violence helps reproduce the colonial, racist,
capitalist, heterosexist, and patriarchal society we live in as well as how state
violence produces interpersonal violence within communities.



9) Develop strategies for mobilizing against sexism and homophobia WITHIN our
communities in order to keep women safe.

10) Challenge men of color and all men in social justice movements to take
articular responsibility to address and organize around gender violence in theit
communities as a primary strategy for addressing violence and colonialism. We
challenge men to address how their own histories of victimization have hindered
their ability to establish gender justice in their communities,



11) Link struggles for personal transformation and healing with struggles for
social justice.

We seek to build movements that not only end violence, but that create a society
based on radical freedom, mutual accountability, and passionate reciprocity. In
this society, safety and security will not be premised on violence or the threat of
violence; it will be based on a collective commitment to guaranteeing the
survival and care of all peoples.




www. incite-national.org
www.criticalresistance.org
The Boston Anarchist Black Cross functions as the defensive arm of
local anarchist struggl



igles. We work to forge an organized support network
for local activists in need and for folks behind bars. We seek the total

abolition of prisons and work on projects in support of this cause.