How to Support Survivors Who Seek to Hold Harm-Doers Accountable Without Engaging the Police or the State

What does survivor-focused and trauma-informed community accountability look like? How do we create long-term change that reduces abusive or violent behaviors? How can we do all of this while keeping people safe from police and other forms of state violence?

Over the last year, the #MeToo movement, set against a backdrop of movements to end mass incarceration, encouraged survivors to seek accountability for their abusers.

While some feminists put their faith in policing and imprisonment as the best solution to addressing sexual violence, communities of color and other communities on the margins know firsthand that our so-called “criminal justice system” isn’t capable of ending rape culture.

In fact, our judicial system does the opposite by creating and fueling rape culture. Point, blank, period!

People are desperately looking for broader strategies to end sexual violence that also actively confront state violence. We can’t rely on the police to help survivors when they’re often the ones dismissing and perpetuating violence against us.

You may have heard of a radical form of addressing harm and violence that’s gained traction over the last two decades: Transformative Justice & Community Accountability.

Transformative Justice & Community Accountability are community-based strategies rooted in grassroots justice movements led by and for People of Color, immigrants, women, femmes, LGBTQIA+ people, low-income communities, and disabled folks.

As activists and organizers doing this work for the last 25 years, we frequently engage with people who are unsure of how to find survivor support outside of state systems. Transformative justice isn’t easy, and unfortunately, there are no exact blueprints to guide the process.

For these reasons, we’re excited to bring you a brand new webinar designed to share our body of knowledge and to offer you a set of skills to address and end sexual violence.

During this webinar you’ll learn:

• Community accountability strategies for responding to sexual violence outside of state systems
• Ways to support each other after violence happens within our communities
• Methods for holding ourselves and each other accountable when we cause harm
• How to collectively work together to address violence within our organizations, collectives, and communities
• Tools for navigating issues of power, privilege, oppression, and trauma as they come up in our transformative justice & community accountability work

During this webinar, we’ll be deeply honest about our successes, challenges, opportunities, and regrets. This work is hard, but so incredibly necessary if we wish to build a world that’s safer for everyone.

Who is this webinar for?

Our webinar’s designed for anyone with a desire to learn valuable skills, expand their knowledge on addressing violence “outside the system,” and practice community accountability from a place of healing rather than punishment.

We’re looking forward to sharing our personal triumphs and hard-earned knowledge with you. Our goal is for you to leave this webinar feeling grounded in knowledge about transformative justice & community accountability tools that can be applied within your workplaces, friend groups, families, and organizations.