This community-based, survivor-centered research report identifies key patterns in the criminalization of self-defense and recommendations to transform the conditions of criminalized survival. Decades of research confirms that the legal system systemically fails to protect survivors from domestic and sexual violence, and then punishes them when they save their own lives. This report foregrounds the insights, analyses, and recommendations of survivors who were punished for defending their lives, as well as organizers and advocates who have collaborated with criminalized survivors to secure their freedom.