What are Obstacles to Accountability?
Featuring Sonya Shah, nuri nusrat, Mimi Kim, Ann Russo, Esteban Kelly, adrienne marie brown, Rachel Herzing, Stas Schmiedt, Lea Roth, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Mia Mingus
Join us for an online discussion on Friday, October 25, 2019 at 4pm EST.
Because human beings will inevitably harm each other, we need to develop responses that address the needs engendered by these harms. Often, we rely on punishment as the consequence to harms. However, as criminalization has expanded, many are rethinking punishment and calling instead for accountability. What does that mean? Accountability is, as Connie Burk of the Northwest Network explains it, “an internal resource for recognizing and redressing the harms we have caused to ourselves and others.” It is a practice rather than an end. It is a continuous process rather than just an individual act.
In this video, people with years of experience facilitating transformative, restorative, and community accountability processes between survivors of harm and people who have done harm talk frankly about what gets in the way of accountability.
This video is part of the Building Accountable Communities video series. The Building Accountable Communities Project promotes non-punitive responses to harm by developing resources for transformative justice practitioners and organizing convenings and workshops that educate the public.
Created by Project Nia and the Barnard Center for Research on Women. Video produced by Mariame Kaba, Dean Spade, and Hope Dector.
Watch more from the Building Accountable Communities Project: