In situations of domestic violence, survival can become criminalized in unexpected and chilling ways. However, because isolation is a central strategy of abuse, many survivors lack the community and resources needed to find support for both the violence as well as the risks of criminalization. What can concrete support for intimate partner violence survivors look like from a prison abolitionist perspective? What can it look like in practice to support survivors while being acutely aware of both the dangers of abuse and the overwhelming violence of the criminal legal system? Join us for a lively exploration of the concept of “abolitionist safety planning” from feminists and abolitionists, who will share their experiences, challenges, and lessons learned from supporting survivors in situations of active and ongoing violence.

Updated to add: For a Spanish language version, please download here!

This event is now past, but you can watch the video here:

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Speakers:

Mariame Kaba (moderator) is an organizer, educator, curator, and prison industrial complex (PIC) abolitionist who is active in movements for racial, gender, and transformative justice. Kaba is the founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots abolitionist organization with a vision to end youth incarceration. Mariame is currently a researcher at Interrupting Criminalization, a project she co-founded with Andrea Ritchie in 2018. Kaba is the author of We Do This Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, Missing Daddy, See You Soon and Fumbling Towards Repair: A Workbook for Community Accountability Facilitators with Shira Hassan.

Aracelia Aguilar (she/her) is one of the Empowerment Directors at DeafHope, providing direct services to Deaf DV/SV survivors. DeafHope recognizes the system barriers and institutional oppressions Deaf survivors navigate through to get to safety, and Aracelia’s advocacy strongly focuses on putting the survivor at the center of the work. Aracelia has also received training under Sujatha Baliga and Mimi Kim to incorporate Restorative and Transformative Justice into the work of DeafHope. Aracelia provides Teen Dating Violence, Consent & Boundaries, and Sexual Violence presentations for Deaf teens at High Schools all over the Bay Area.

Rachel Caidor (she/her) has spent over 25 years providing direct service and organizational support to rape crisis and domestic violence survior support agencies in Chicago. She is a member of Love and Protect and supports the work of the Chicago Community Bond Fund.

Shira Hassan (she/her) is the founder, co-creator and principal consultant for Just Practice, a capacity building project for organizations and community members, activists and leaders working at the intersection of transformative justice, harm reduction and collective liberation. She is the former executive director of the Young Women’s Empowerment Project, an organizing and grassroots movement building project led by and for young people of color that have current or former experience in the sex trade and street economies.

Hyejin Shim (she/her) is a Building Community Power Fellow at Community Justice Exchange. She has over a decade’s experience in supporting survivors of domestic and sexual violence, particularly immigrant, refugee, and criminalized survivors of abuse. Her work includes grassroots community organizing as well as formalized direct service work in domestic violence and sexual assault organizations. Hyejin is a co-founder of Survived and Punished, a national organization dedicated to supporting criminalized and incarcerated survivors of gender-based violence.

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This event is sponsored by Community Justice Exchange, Survived and Punished, Interrupting Criminalization, and Haymarket Books. While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our important organizing, programming and publishing work.