What do we mean when we talk about transformative justice and accountability? What does a survivor-centered response look like in practice? How can we support those who have caused harm without defaulting to punishment? What does real accountability look like? What has worked, and what obstacles have organizers and community members faced in building this difficult and necessary practice?

Created with Project NIA, these videos are part of the Building Accountable Communities Project, promoting non-punitive responses to harm by developing resources for transformative justice practitioners and organizing convenings and workshops that educate the public.

As the ongoing worldwide protests against police violence so vividly demonstrate, there is an increasing demand to end policing and develop real strategies for keeping each other safe. On October 21, 2020 longtime anti-violence organizers and transformative justice practitioners Shira Hassan and Mimi Kim joined us for a conversation about the history and development of transformative justice, its importance in current movements towards liberation, and everyday practices.

In response to heightened levels of abuse and violence experienced by people with disabilities, disability justice organizers have developed tremendous knowledge and creative approaches to care, safety, and preventing and stopping violence without relying on the state. How do disability justice strategies and knowledge inform transformative justice practices? How are disability justice and transformative justice interconnected? On April 10, 2020, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Elliott Fukui joined us for an online conversation about the intersections of disability justice and transformative justice.

On October 25, 2019, anti-violence and transformative justice organizers Nastassja “Stas” Schmiedt and A. Lea Roth joined Mariame Kaba for an online discussion about supporting harm doers in being accountable, shame and other obstacles to accountability, and the roles of consent and conflict in practicing transformative justice.

Accountability is a familiar buzz-word in contemporary social movements, but what does it mean? How do we work toward it? In this series of four short videos, anti-violence activists Kiyomi Fujikawa and Shannon Perez-Darby ask and explore: What does it look like to be accountable to survivors without exiling or disposing those who do harm? On October 26, 2018, Kiyomi and Shannon joined Mariame Kaba for the first online discussion in the Building Accountable Communities series.