Shifting from Carceral Feminisms to Transformative Justice Feminisms

• In Event: Decarceration, Abolition, and Critical Carceral Studies

Abstract

A continuing trend in mainstream feminist circles is the ongoing reliance on criminalization and legislation as solutions to gender-based violence. The carceral feminist framework that advocates for state-sanctioned punishment and other punitive responses is thriving despite a strong critique of approaches that promote arrest and incarceration rather than investment in communities. Transformative justice work takes a very different approach to responding to and ending violence, seeking to transform the lives of those who cause harm and those who are harmed, while also transforming the cultural values that allow such harm to take place. Important transformational justice work is happening in multiple locations in California and in the nation as a means to resist oppression and expand the conversation within feminisms for making our homes and communities safe.

Author

• Patricia O'Brien, University of Illinois at Chicago