Day of Blogs

In the SAFER post, I mentioned community-based models of justice for sexual assault survivors.  I personally do dream of a day when we live in a world where we can trust our criminal justice system to be accountable to society, non-discriminatory, and non-threatening and non-punitive to marginalized communities and those who have committed non-violent crimes.  We’re not there.  And while I’d love to get there, I’m not sure that we will in my lifetime.  We also need to recognize that while all sexual assault survivors are affected by the drastic shortcomings of our current legal system, some are more affected than others — particularly people of color, low-income, gay, lesbian and transgender individuals.

And that means that in the meantime, we need to look at other models.  INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence is an amazing organization, and probably the most well-known of those who work within a social justice, community accountability framework to bring about change and end violence.  And thanks to Nora at SAFER, I now also know about Safe OUTside the System, run by the Audre Lorde Project.  Both are worth our time, attention, support and willingness to listen and learn.  If you know of more organizations that do similar work, please leave that information in the comments.