Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action
Jump to graphics and fact sheets, toolkits, reports and other resources, videos, and more.
Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action is a new initiative launched in fall 2018 through the BCRW Social Justice Institute by Researchers-in-Residence Andrea J. Ritchie and Mariame Kaba. The project aims to interrupt and end the the growing criminalization and incarceration of women and LGBTQ people of color for criminalized acts related to public order, poverty, child welfare, drug use, survival and self-defense, including criminalization and incarceration of survivors of violence.
This project will combine participatory research, data analysis, and systemic advocacy toward local campaigns and grassroots organizing efforts. Participants will develop accessible research and distribute it to organizers, advocates, policymakers, media makers, and philanthropic partners working at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and criminalization. The initiative will also host convenings of these distinct and overlapping constituencies to deepen analysis and skills, and to develop and implement campaigns to end the criminalization of women, girls, and trans and gender-nonconforming people of color.
What is Criminalization?
Criminalization is the social and political process by which society determines which and whose actions or behaviors will be punished by the state. At the most basic level, criminalization involves the passage and enforcement of criminal laws. While framed as neutral, decisions about what kinds of conduct to punish, how, and how much are very much a choice, guided by existing structures of economic and social inequality based on race, gender, sexuality, disability, and poverty, among others.
The practice of criminalization extends beyond laws and policies to more symbolic and entrenched processes by which people are deemed categorically “criminal.” This process is fueled by widespread and commonly accepted stereotypes, which are highly racialized and gendered–whether they are about “thugs,” “crack mothers,” “welfare queens,” or “bad hombres.” These narratives create generalized states of anxiety and fear, and brand people labeled “criminal” as threatening, dangerous, and inhuman. In this context, restrictions on freedom, expression, movement, and survival, as well as violence, denial of protection, banishment, and exile are the inevitable and natural responses.
Criminalizing narratives are also projected onto entire groups of people to justify practices such as “stop and frisk” programs targeting Black youth in low-income communities of color or immigration checkpoints in Latinx communities. As a result, even as criminal laws change, the same populations continue to be targeted through new laws and ongoing legal and social practices.
Key Areas of Focus
Survivors of Violence
The initiative will generate new research and analysis on policing and prosecutorial practices that drive the criminalization and incarceration of survivors of violence, particularly those who are charged with violent crimes carried out in defense of their lives. In addition, Ritchie and Kaba will train advocates to use participatory research models and strategies to support ongoing campaigns to free incarcerated survivors, including the #FreeThemNY campaign calling on Governor Cuomo to use his clemency powers to free all criminalized survivors in NY State. The project will also contribute to ongoing legislative, policy, and narrative work sparked by #MeToo and the Me Too Movement by developing research and strategies to prevent sexual violence by police officers.
Criminalization of Daily Survival
Interrupting Criminalization will also focus on disseminating information on the policing and prosecutorial practices that enable the criminalization of acts related to poverty, survival, drug use, mental health, child welfare, and self-defense, among other acts that drive the growing incarceration of women and LGBTQ people of color. This research will be developed into reports, curricula, and toolkits available in accessible formats for advocates and organizers to use in campaigns to end pre-trial detention, close jails, and reduce the criminalization and incarceration of women, trans, and gender-nonconforming people overall.
Learn more about Andrea Ritchie and Mariame Kaba by visiting their SJI profile pages.
Graphics and Fact Sheets
Download the Fact Sheets: What Is Driving the Mass Criminalization of Women and LGBTQ People? (PDF)
Toolkits, Reports, and Other Resources
Trans Women and Femmes of Color at Work: A Report (read the policy brief here)
Woods Ervin and Joss Greene
June 20, 2020
#DefundPolice Toolkit: Concrete Steps Toward Divestment from Policing & Investment in Community Safety
Released June 14, 2020
Steps to End Prisons and Policing: A Mixtape on Transformative Justice
Mariame Kaba with Justice Practice
Released August 14, 2020
Epicenter: Chicago: Reclaiming a City from Neoliberalism
Andrea J. Ritchie in collaboration with Black Lives Matter Chicago
Political Research Associates
June 12, 2019
Expanding Our Frame: Deepening Our Demands for Safety and Healing for Black Survivors of Violence
Andrea J. Ritchie for the National Black Women’s Justice Institute
February 2019
Andrea J. Ritchie and Beth E. Richie. “The Crisis of Criminalization: A Call for a Comprehensive Philanthropic Response,” New Feminist Solutions: Volume 9. Fall 2017.
Mariame Kaba and Survived and Punished, Criminalizing Survival: A Resource of Curricula and Activities. October 2018.
Mariame Kaba and Survived and Punished, Criminalizing Domestic Violence: A Curriculum. October 2018.
Andrea J. Ritchie and Monique W. Morris, Ed.D., Centering Black Women, Girls, Gender Nonconforming People, and Fem(me)s: In Campaigns for Expanded Sanctuary and Freedom Cities. National Black Women’s Justice Institute and the Ms. Foundation for Women. September 2017.
Richard Saenz, Lambda Legal, Kara Ingelhart, Lambda Legal, and Andrea J. Ritchie, Barnard Center for Research on Women, “The Impact of the Trump Administration’s Federal Criminal Justice Initiatives on LGBTQ People & Communities and Opportunities for Local Resistance,” A Report by the National LGBT/HIV Criminal Justice Working Group, Lambda Legal.
Videos
Introduction to Mutual Aid
The Janine Soleil Abolitionist Youth Organizing Institute (AYO, NYC!)—a collaboration between Project NIA & EFA Project Space
Recorded June 17, 2020
6Ds Until She’s Free: A Comprehensive Cross-Sector Strategy to Interrupt, Reduce and End Criminalization and Mass Incarceration and Deportation of Women, Trans and GNC People
A collaboration between Interrupting Criminalization, an initiative led by Mariame Kaba and Andrea J. Ritchie, BCRW Researchers-in-Residence, and Sensitive Visuals
Spring 2020
Building Accountable Communities: A Video Series
Conversations with Kiyomi Fujikawa and Shannon Perez-Darby
Fall 2018
More information
This initiative is entirely dependent on donations and foundation funding. For more information or to support the work of Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action, please contact Andrea Ritchie (aritchie@barnard.edu) or Mariame Kaba (mkaba@barnard.edu).
Image Credit: The Crisis of Criminalization: A Call for a Comprehensive Philanthropic Response