Session 7:

Abolish the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

Friday 16 April 2021 ~ 1:30 - 3:10pm Pacific

Recording available here (90 mins)

Humanising Justice through Indigenous and Restorative Justice

Judge Clivia von Dewitz

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field...I will meet you there." --Rumi

Is Indigenous Justice and Restorative Justice a path towards that field? And what can we learn from the South African Truth Commission? Each of these entities embrace a broad range of practices, focusing on healing relationships, making wrongdoers accountable and repairing the damage after a crime has been committed. The importance of bringing the focus back towards healing and restoring dignity by allowing victims to share their story; encouraging wrongdoers to be accountable, to make amends and to recognize the harm imposed on the victims. That is what we need to bring back into our Judicial Systems. I have already organised two panels on Healing instead of Punishment with Lawyers, police officers and ex inmates from Canada, the US, Aotearoa (New Zealand) in 2020 for the Restorative Justice Conference of Alberta, Canada and World Unity Week.

Judge Clivia von Dewitz is a Youth Court judge in Germany who has done research around the world and drafting a book on restorative Justice and Indigenous Justice. In 1997 she interned at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa for 2 months. She wrote her PhD on how Germany dealt with Nazi-propaganda after 1945 and a book on how South Africa dealt with Apartheid-past. In 2014 she trained judges in Tunisia on democracy and human rights. In 2019 she trained judges, prosecutors and lawyers in restorative justice in Nepal.

Beyond Carceral Justice: Re-imagining Accountability Through Transformative Justice Practices for Sexual Violence

Abigail Barefoot

While critical carceral studies scholars argue transformative justice challenges carceral logic by moving away from an adversarial and punitive system, there is little academic research on how these theories are put into practice and understood by those involved. Building upon 12 months of ethnographic research within a California-based transformative justice group and semi-structured interviews with facilitators, survivors, and people who caused harm, I explore the challenges activists face as they develop an abolitionist praxis to address sexual violence within their community. In particular, I address the various conceptualizations of “accountability” and “justice” held by participants. I demonstrate that while all parties agree behavior change is a vital component of a successful accountability process, they struggle to define and evaluate what change looks like. Facilitators see accountability as a lifelong process, victim-survivors are distrustful of change and worry about manipulation, and individuals who have caused harm believe they will never be welcome in the community again. Despite these worries, all parties rely on a belief that justice will one day be achieved. Building upon disability scholar and prison abolitionist Liat Ben-Moshe’s concept of prison abolition as a “dis-epistemology,” I argue rather than understanding justice as linear and time-fixed, justice in this context reflects a form of futurity and embracing the unknowable. Thus, justice is presented as something not entirely achievable in the moment but as something ever evolving and yet never completely foreclosed.

Abigail Barefoot is a doctoral candidate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Kansas. Her research explores how transformative justice groups address sexual violence, create alternatives to carceral feminist frameworks and their impact on survivors. Abigail’s work has appeared in The Kansas Journal of Law and Policy and The Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis. In addition to her scholarship, she is involved in her community’s mutual aid group and provides support for formerly incarcerated individuals as they return home.

Imagining Abolition Community Justices: Abolition and 500+ Indigenous Grassroots Initiatives for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two Spirit+

Vicki Chartrand and Isabelle Martinez Gosselin

In the face of an ongoing colonial violence across the land known as Canada, Indigenous families and communities of the missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit+ (MMIWG2S+) continue to navigate and mobilize in response to a “criminal” justice system that has long ignored and neglected the murders and disappearances. In this presentation, we imagine abolition through community justices looking at 500+ documented Indigenous grassroots initiatives in support of the MMIWG2S+. This grassroots energy not only highlights the vastness of Indigenous resource and strength but provides insight into the many things that justice is and needs such as constellations of support, safety, caregiving, healing, connecting, community accountability and remembering among many others. Against the backdrop of a criminal justice system, Indigenous families and communities shape a landscape of alternative understandings and actualized possibilities for justice.

Dr. Chartrand is a Mama and Associate Professor in the Sociology Department at Bishop’s University, Québec, the traditional and unceded territory of the Abenaki people. She is also Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa, Criminology Department. Her general research includes penal and carceral politics, modern day colonialism, grassroots justices and collaborative methodologies. She also has over 15 years of experience working in the non-profit, government and voluntary sectors that includes advocating for and with women and children, Indigenous communities and people in prison.

Isabelle Martinez Gosselin is a recent honours graduate with distinction from Bishop’s University in Sociology with a Minor in Criminology. Recipient of the H. Greville Smith Memorial Scholarship. Isabelle was born in Mexico and immigrated to Canada when she was eleven years old. Her personal and cultural background have made her overtly aware of the incredible diversity that surrounds us, yet they have also made her exceptionally cognizant of the possibilities for victimization and criminalization. She is committed to social justice and dreams of making meaningful change.