Recommendations: Structural Change, Social Change

Today, increasingly more community-based organizations are developing strategies to end domestic violence that do not primarily rely on the state. These interventions are not largely based in what are typically known as "domestic violence" programs, and hence they often do not receive sufficient attention for their innovation and creation. In addition, because these models attempt to get at the root causes of violence, they do not offer simple panaceas for addressing this problem. However, this work does suggest some possible directions that the anti-violence movement could take in eradicating violence, including sexual and domestic violence.

A simple question all domestic violence advocates must ask themselves is: What is our primary goal? To develop solid domestic violence programs or to end domestic violence? While we may say that our goal is the latter, most work is geared towards the first goal. Providing services to survivors is important, but services in and of themselves will not stop domestic violence. Thus, it becomes critical that we create more space to ponder the second goal: to end domestic violence in communities of color. If we do, some directions we might take could include the following strategies.

(1) Develop interventions that address state violence and interpersonal violence simultaneously. One model intervention is that of Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA) in Seattle. CARA began monitoring incidents of police brutality in Seattle. They found, the majority of time, that those police officers involved with brutality on the job did so in poor neighborhoods of color where they were responding to domestic violence charges. As a result, CARA began organizing around the issue of prison abolition from an anti-violence perspective. At a prison abolition film festival in 2002 that they co-sponsored with Critical Resistance, they outlined their philosophy in the program book:

Any movement seeking to end violence will fail if its strategy supports and helps sustain the prison industrial complex. Prisons, policing, the death penalty, the war on terror, and the war on drugs, all increase rape, beatings, isolation, oppression, and death. As an anti-rape organization, we cannot support the funneling of resources into the criminal justice system to punish rapists and batterers, as this does not help end violence. It only supports the same system that views incarcerations as a solution to complex social problems like rape and abuse. As survivors of rape and domestic violence, we will not let the anti-violence movement be further co-opted to support the mass criminalization of young people, the disappearance of immigrants and refugees, and the dehumanization of poor people, people of color, and people with disabilities. We support the anti-rape movement that builds sustainable communities on a foundation of safety, support, self-determination, and accountability.

What is also significant about CARA is the manner in which they have followed Beth Richie's mandate to organize around the women of color who are least acceptable to the mainstream public. In particular, they began a campaign against "Children Requiring a Caring Community" (CRACK), which pays women (and some men) who are substance abusers to be sterilized and focuses primarily in recruiting women from poor communities of color. CARA's organizing framework emphasizes how an organization that targets substance abusers necessarily targets survivors of violence. Furthermore, CARA is unique in organizing specifically around women with disabilities. In the CRACK campaign, for instance, they address the manner in which the success of CRACK is dependent on the notion of "crack babies" as being "damaged goods" because they may have disabilities.

(2) Emphasize base-building approaches that see domestic violence survivors as organizers or potential organizers rather than simply clients.

Long-time activist Suzanne Pharr argues that one of the ways in which the domestic violence movement fails to be a violence reduction movement is that it focuses on providing services to "clients" rather than seeing survivors as organizers or as potential anti-violence organizers. Because they become focused on providing services, those involved in the anti-violence movement tend to be professionals who may or may not be interested in truly challenging the larger norms and structures of society that give rise to violence. In addition, they miss the opportunity to significantly increase the number of women involved in the anti-violence movement on a grassroots level by refusing to see survivors as organizers rather than clients.

One organization that focuses on base-building (recruiting people who are not currently activists to become activists) is Sista II Sista in Brooklyn, N.Y. This organization of young women of color addresses violence against girls in the neighborhood committed both by the police and other members of the community. Sista II Sista created a video project documenting police harassment after one girl was killed and a second was allegedly sexually assaulted and killed by the police. In addition, it has recently created a community accountability program, called "Sisters Liberated Ground," to organize its members to monitor violence in the community without relying upon the police. One of the ways it increases its base of support is by recruiting young women to attend freedom schools that provide political education from an integrated mind-body-spirit framework that then trains girls to become activists on their own behalf.

(3) Develop community accountability strategies that do not depend on a romanticized notion of "community" and ensure safety for survivors.

As Pharr's previously described analysis suggests, the success of community accountability models will always be limited as long as survivors are seen as "clients" rather than as organizers. Furthermore, community accountability models will be limited in their success if they do not happen in the community itself.

One such group that has developed a model for accountability within communities is Friends Are Reaching Out (FAR Out) in Seattle, an organization which works with queer or LGBT communities of color. The premise of this model is that when people are abused, they become isolated. The domestic violence movement further isolates them through the shelter system, where they cannot tell their friends where they are. In addition, the domestic violence movement does not work with the people who could most likely hold perpetrators accountable - their friends.

This model begins with encouraging people to have conversations with their friends to build connections in an ongoing relationship so that it is less likely for people to become isolated. Many times, when people begin a relationship, according to FAR Out, they put their friendships to the side. If a person ends up in an abusive relationship, s/he is more likely to become isolated, making it difficult to resume friendships. FAR Out's model is based on developing friendship groups to make regular commitments to stay in contact with each other. In addition, these groups develop processes to talk openly about relationships. One way abuse continues is that we tend to keep our sexual relationships private. By talking about them more openly, it is easier for friends to hold us accountable. In addition, if a person knows s/he is going to share her/his relationship dynamics openly, it is more likely that s/he will be accountable in the relationship.

Perpetrators will listen to the people they love before they will listen to court mandated orders, contends FAR Out. In addition, given the homophobia in the criminal justice system, involving the criminal justice system is not generally workable in queer communities. What has made this model work is that it is based on pre-existing friendship networks. As a result, it develops the capacity of a community to handle domestic violence.

At the same time, as previously mentioned, it is important to critically assess these community resources for their accountability to survivors of violence. Sometimes it is easy to underestimate the amount of intervention that is required before a perpetrator can really change his behavior. Often a perpetrator will subject her/himself to community accountability measures, but can eventually tires of them. If community members are not vigilant about holding the perpetrator accountable for years and not assume that he is "cured", the perpetrator can turn a community of accountability into a community of enablement. For instance, L. reports that she was involved in a community accountability strategy in which the community's strategy what to refuse any physical affection to an individual until this person learned proper boundaries. This individual was one who was willing to be held accountable, yet, according to L., who took her several years of constant vigilance on the part of the community before this person was ready to resume physical contact.

(4) Expand our definition of community.

Given the high-level of mobility in geographically-based communities, the challenge is how do we develop accountability structures when people can so easily leave communities, or when these communities may not really exist. Thus part of establishing community accountability processes may involve developing communities themselves.

In addition, it is important to expand our notion of community to include communities based on religious affiliations, employment, hobbies, athletics, etc, and attempt to develop strategies based in those communities. For instance, one man was banished from a community for committing incest. However, he simply moved out of that area. But because he was a well-known academic, the family held him accountable in the academic community by making sure that when he gave academic talks in different communities, his history of incest was exposed.

Traci West's Wounds of the Spirit is very important in this regard as it looks to church communities as possible sites for building strategies of accountability. What is particularly noteworthy is West's attempt to locate at least some crisis intervention services within community structures (in this case, the church), rather than separately constituted agencies that often force women to leave their communities (or in the criminal justice system). Her approach also involves communities holding social service agencies accountable to those communities.

(5) Build transnational relationships in the fight to end violence against women.

Currently, the mainstream domestic violence model in the U.S. is exported to other countries as the model for addressing violence. This export is based on the notion that the U.S. is the enlightened country on this issue. However, in many countries where reliance on the state is not an issue or a possibility, other organizations have developed creative strategies for addressing violence that can inform the work done in the U.S. Masum, a women's organization in Pune, India, addresses violence through accountability strategies that do not rely on the state. The members of Masum actively intervene themselves in cases of domestic violence by using such non-violent tactics as singing outside a perpetrator's house until he stops his abuse. They report they have been able to work on this issue without community backlash because Masum simultaneously provides needed community services such as micro credit, health care, education, etc. After many years, this group has come to be seen as a needed community institution and, thus, has the power to intervene in cases of gender violence where their interventions might otherwise be resisted.

Another model is from Brazil which has a strong "Movement of Landless People" (known as Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurail Sem Terra or MST). This movement is based in networks of families which claim territory that is owned privately, but is not being used. The families set up tents and fences and defend the land, which is called an "occupation." If they manage to gain control of the land, then they form a settlement in which they build houses and more permanent structures. Over the past 20 years, 300,000 families have been involved in these occupations. Families rather than individuals take part in this resistance. About 20 families form a nucleus, which is coordinated by one man and one woman. The nuclei are then organized into the following sectors: (1) production/cooperation/ employment, (2) education/trading; (3) education, (4) gender, (5) communication, (6) human rights, (7) health, and (8) culture. Both men and women participate in the gender sector. This sector is responsible for ensuring women are involved in all decision-making positions and are equally represented in public life. Security teams are mixed gender. The gender team trains security to deal with domestic violence. Obviously, since the MST is not a legal organization and, thus, cannot utilize the state to address domestic violence, it must develop accountability structures from within.

All issues are discussed communally. As time progresses, participants report that domestic violence decreases because interpersonal relationships are communal and transparent. Also, because women engage in "physical" roles, such as being involved in security, women become less likely to be seen as "easy targets" for violence; and the women also think of themselves differently.

In addition, sectors and leadership roles rotate so that there is less of a fixed, hierarchical leadership. Hierarchical leadership tends to promote power differentials and hence abuse. This leadership model, thus, helps prevent the conditions of abuse from happening in the first place.

Beth Richie asks the question: What if funding had been located instead in agencies other than criminal justice? 0 Perhaps we would be organizing around providing affordable housing for women so they can leave. Or perhaps we would be focused on ending poverty so that women would not be trapped in abusive relationships because of economics. By de-centering a criminal justice approach we can enlarge the strategies we employ. Increasingly, human rights organizations such as Amnesty International advocate that States act with "due diligence" in the prevention of domestic or sexual violence. However, this due diligence is often equated with increased criminalization. What if demands around "due diligence" focused less on criminalization and more on the U.S. ensuring economic, social, and cultural rights that would decrease women's vulnerability to violence (such as eradicating poverty, providing adequate housing, etc).

Of course it is important not to make the mistake of simply appropriating models from other countries without assessing how the current conditions in the U.S. may impact what will and will not work. However, one principle that seems to come through clearly from these models is that it is mistake to look at developing community accountability only from the point of crisis intervention. And that is why the criminal justice approach ultimately cannot stop domestic violence - because it only works at the point of crisis rather than preventing the abuse from happening. Strategies to prevent and respond to domestic violence will be more effective if they address the underlying structural and cultural conditions in the community that make abuse possible in the first place. In short, social change is demanded to end violence against all women.

And if we focus our attention on preventing violence against women of color, then all women will benefit.

Activism and Social Justice: Inside and Outside