Roundtable: Healing Justice Perspectives in Criminology

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract/Description

Within criminology, holistic approaches to harm and justice are crucial. This roundtable delves into the dynamics of healing justice —as articulated by Cara Page Erica Woodland, and Susan Raffo—and abolitionist criminology across diverse socio-legal contexts from community initiatives to settings such as schools, foster care systems, and carceral institutions. As an abolitionist praxis with ties to transformative justice, healing justice is a personal ethos and a political strategy. Healing justice approaches prioritize responses to violence and trauma that are grounded in collective care. Guided by healing justice principles, this session will interrogate the complex interplay between micro-level interventions and systemic transformations. Healing justice paradigms provide alternative pathways for societal repair while simultaneously challenging dominant legal norms and emphasizing the urgency of addressing systemic injustices. In this roundtable, presenters will offer strategies for bringing a healing justice lens to studies of crime, harm, and repair, highlighting grassroots initiatives and mutual aid networks operating at the margins of formal institutions. Presenters will also unpack the structural constraints and possibilities inherent in scaling up these initiatives, grappling with questions of resource allocation, institutional co-optation, and the ethics of formalization.

Sub Unit

• Area XIV. Roundtables

Chair

• Brianna J. Suslovic, University of Chicago

Discussants

• Miguel Rodriguez, CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice

• Hannah Boyke, Michigan State University

• Jax Kynn, Michigan State University

• Vivianne Guevara, Network to Advance Abolitionist Social Work