Reconsidering What Justice Looks Like for Crime Victims

In her new book, "Survivor Injustice: State-Sanctioned Abuse, Domestic Violence, and the Fight for Bodily Autonomy", journalist and Jezebel staff writer Kylie Cheung explores how the carceral state operates within patriarchy and colludes with perpetrators of interpersonal gender-based violence to exercise control over survivors and pregnant-capable people. 

In researching the book, Chueng spoke with L. Tomay Douglas, a restorative justice practitioner working for the Center for Restorative Justice at the University of San Diego, about her work to promote restorative justice practices on campus. Douglas believes a common misconception about restorative justice is that it’s a “soft science” and gives perpetrators of harm an “easy out.” Instead, she says, on some level, it can present an even greater challenge than carceral “solutions," as it forces perpetrators to reflect deeply, to sincerely acknowledge and reckon with the reality that they’ve harmed someone and must take meaningful steps to fix this.

“That thinking, of restorative justice as ‘soft," is the result of a punitive mindset,” Douglas said. “What [restorative justice] does is give agency to the survivor. It’s the community coming together to heal itself, not including institutions and police that reproduce harm.” Restorative justice is essential to create an environment where survivors of sexual harm can feel safe coming forward without fear of retraumatization, Douglas explained.

Chueng also spoke with Marilyn Armour, Director of the Institute for Restorative Justice and Restorative Dialogue at the University of Texas at Austin, School of Social Work. “Restorative justice views crime not as a depersonalized breaking of the law but as a wrong against another person,” Armour wrote for Charter for Compassion, an international organization that advocates for and educates about restorative justice. “Accordingly, restorative justice seeks to elevate the role of crime victims and community members; hold offenders directly accountable to the people they have harmed; and restore, to the extent possible, the emotional and material losses of victims by providing a range of opportunities for dialogue, negotiation, and problem solving.”

Below is an excerpt from "Survivor Injustice."

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There is a misconception that supporting abolition and decarceration means being opposed to accountability. No victims’ paths to healing will ever look entirely the same—but many would agree that repeated claims of innocence from their perpetrators, accusations that they are liars, prolonged and retraumatizing trials and adjudication, inflict greater harm on them. What many survivors are seeking is some form of apology and remedy, some acknowledgment from their perpetrator of the harm they’ve committed. But the threat of incarceration and a lifetime of punishment obviously has the impact of discouraging this outcome, if not rendering it altogether impossible.

Punishment for perpetrators can certainly, understandably bring satisfaction for both victims and their supporters. But as abolitionist scholar-activist Mariame Kaba has argued, personal anger and vendettas shouldn’t be the driving force behind policymaking. “It’s not wrong to feel what you feel—relief, or even happiness—when the system snaps up the powerful, but the only way to achieve real justice is to build it ourselves, outside of the system,” Kaba has said. “Abolitionism is not a politics mediated by emotional responses.” State-rendered punishment for abusers also doesn’t improve the material conditions of victims’ lives; it doesn’t provide them with mental health services or other health care, or address the economic ramifications of surviving abuse by compensating them in any way.

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Kylie Cheung writes about gender and power at the intersections of culture and politics, and is currently a staff writer at Jezebel Magazine. You can purchase "Survivor Injustice: State-Sanctioned Abuse, Domestic Violence, and the Fight for Bodily Autonomy" from Penguin Random House Books.