Mariame Kaba explains Transformative Justice and why it is essential to improving the lives of all humans. From Kaba's opening statement at the Abolitionist Gathering at the 2022 Allied Media Conference.
For me, the key question for abolitionist organizing is “what are the conditions that will increase everyone’s well-being?” and how do we create them?
I am intentionally using the term well-being over safety because the carceral state has completely colonized the concept of safety - it has made it impossible to to talk about safety without talking about carceral responses.
When I am thinking about well-being, I am thinking about it on all levels: in our beings, in our communities, and in our societies.
I believe the key to moving toward well-being at all levels is transformative justice (TJ). TJ processes are the “how” in the question of “How do we create well-being outside of carceral logics?”
It’s important to remember that TJ was created by Black, Brown, Indigenous, LGBTQ, immigrant, sex working, and homeless people, who couldn’t access existing carceral systems - and didn’t want to - particularly because people have started practicing TJ who aren’t the people who it was created for.
There are many different ways that people talk about TJ - for me, TJ is a framework to prevent, intervene in, and address harm that prioritizes relationship building and developing our skills and that uproots violence. TJ is about addressing violence without more violence. TJ is rooted in relationships and relationship building. It takes trust and slow work, because trust is so fragile. Ultimately, TJ focuses on repair and resources. To focus on repair without resources or resources without repair is ridiculous.
TJ is a framework for inquiry:
- How do we respond to violence and harm that doesn’t cause more?
- How do we not rely on the punishing state?
- How do we prevent future violence?
- How do we meet immediate needs?
There are no fixed answers to these questions. I have my own thoughts, but who cares what one person thinks about anything? What we need are collectively produced responses. How do we develop those? How close are we to the answers? I don’t know, but I’m going to throw some stuff out there, mostly in the form of more questions, for instance:
- Who do we need to train in the politic and practice of TJ? Who needs to skill up? Who will train?
- How will we know that the folks who train are qualified to do the work?
- What infrastructure exists for training and skilling people up in the practice of transformative justice?
- Colleges have created courses - will there be TJ certificates now? Do we want that?
- Should TJ practitioners be paid?
- Who will pay? There has been no massive influx of resources and most TJ practitioners haven’t sought that out.
- How would payment shape TJ processes in ways that might be contrary to the vision and principles of TJ?
- Do TJ processes need to be public so as not to be perceived as coddling harm doers?
- Who has the right to know?
- What is a successful TJ intervention? Who decides?
Next Spring Interrupting Criminalization will be hosting an international gathering on TJ and maybe we can think through some of our responses there together (ed. Practicing for Abolitionist Worlds was held in May 2023 - more information can be found here).
Some of the questions we will be exploring are
- What is the best of what is? What’s going well?
- What’s possible? What do we want more of?
- What should be the ideal?
- What should be our focus of the work to get to the ideal?
TJ is only one way forward. It’s going to vary in terms of approaches, it’s not a one size fits all model. It’s going to vary in terms of who uses it. Ultimately, we need a thousand tools, not one. We can work with those people who want to take accountability, and work to create a culture that allows for accountability. And we need other structures, practices and frameworks for people who do not want to take accountability.
Individually, our imagination is limited. But being intentionally in relationship with each other can help us to create new worlds - we can imagine ourselves differently. We can move past the questions “what do we have now? How can we make it better?” to envision an end to death making institutions.
Abolitionists are the realists -we know the futility of reformist reforms. We’re also dreamers. We are not afraid of unanswerable questions. We’re dreaming as we pursue struggle. Our world can be different - let’s make it so.
My friend Harsha Walia asks a question I often turn to: “Is what we’re doing increasing the possibility of freedom?” If my answer is NO, then I’m not doing it.
We have a lot to learn. Defund is the floor. We’ve moved on. I promise you, by 2028 the Democratic Party will have Defund as their platform - we will be 10 million miles past them. In the meantime, stand in the shoes of your own beliefs. Thanks so much!
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