#restorative justice
Restorative Justice Responses to Sexual Assault
If anyone’s interested the paper linked here (free to read and available as a pdf) is a good read especially if you’re new to the concept of restorative justice. It’s also relatively short (15 pages.)
The topic of restorative justice as it relates to sexual assault is a difficult one. I as a victim of multiple sexual assaults have a hard time wanting anything but like… painful death for my r*pists but like, being wholly committed to abolishing the prison system and our current punitive/carceral conception of justice, you can’t just pick and choose to who and what it applies. If we are to seriously consider restorative justice as an alternative to the current system - it’s got to include sexual assault too!
看到這段頗為震撼（和感慨）：
『那些在我們看來似乎是在某些方面相當野蠻的社會，如果我們從另一個角度考慮，可能會變成相當仁慈而且人道。讓我們拿北美洲平原區的印地安人（Plains Indians）為例子，舉他們做例子來討論這個問題具有雙重意義，因為他們既具有一些輕度的食人肉風俗，同時還具有在原始社會中甚為少見的組織化的警察制度。他們的警察（同時也是司法人員）永遠不會想到以切斷罪犯的社會關係來懲罰罪犯。如果某個土著觸犯部族的法律，處罰他的辦法是把他的一切財產全部毀壞，包括他的營帳和馬匹在內。但在處罰他的過程中，執法的警察卻也同時等於欠他一筆債：警察必須負責組織社會成員，集體償還因為犯罪而遭到的所有損失。集體償還罪犯的一切損失，就使那個罪犯有負於整個社會，罪犯也就不得不對他們表示感激，表示感激的辦法是由整個社會包括警察在內的一切成員幫助他累積一大堆禮物來送給償還他損失的人，這樣子也就把整個取予關係又倒轉過來；這樣的一來一往接二連三繼續下去，致送禮物，歸還禮物，一直到由該項犯罪行為所引起的失序狀態漸漸消失於無形，整個社會又回復以前秩序井然的時候為止。這樣的習慣不但遠比我們自己的辦法人道，這樣的辦法之邏輯也更完整一致，即使我們把這個問題用現代歐洲心理學的名詞陳述出來，他們的辦法還是更完整一致；從邏輯的觀點來看，施予懲罰這樣的概念既然表示把罪犯「小孩子化」（infantilization），罪犯也就理所當然有權得到獎勵，如果光只處罰，而不加以獎勵的話，原來的處罰程序便不會有效，甚至會產生出和我們想要的完全相反的結果。我們的制度是最高程度的荒謬，因為我們既把罪犯當做小孩，以便我們有權對罪犯施加懲罰，同時又把罪犯當做大人，目的是為了拒絕給他任何安慰；同時我們卻相信我們在精神上大為進步，而所依據的理由只不過是，我們不把我們的幾個同胞吃掉，而是使他們飽受身體上與道德上的割體斷魂。』
——
王志明譯（1989，2007）。p.546-547，〈三十八．一小杯蘭姆酒〉，《憂鬱的熱帶》（原作者：Claude Lévi-Strauss）（台北，聯經）（原著出版年：1955）
clicking on ‘callout posts’ here is wild because there’s like, a 90% chance it’ll be something like ‘they once reblogged a post from someone who follows someone who drew amethyst as white’ and a 10% chance that it will be like ‘stole a human being’s kidney in an alleyway’
honestly though there is something very deeply and sincerely odd about making posts or google docs or entire blogs linking screenshots of every slightly questionable thing a person has ever said, sometimes stretching back to their early teenage years, and using this as a sign that they are a Deeply Bad Person and that anyone in their radius is tainted by being in their presence. like. this is abnormal behaviour, folks.
some of you will make post after post about the importance of kindness and community and then suicide bait someone for using a questionable word a decade ago when they were thirteen years old and i need you to understand that you are not the good guy in these interactions
okay nope: one more thought because this show Does Things to me.
ofmd sort of… instinctively understands that to say a relationship is toxic isn’t necessarily a statement on the morality of the people involved, or their ability to do and be otherwise than toxic (whether that ultimately means separate or together)
instead, it’s an assessment of the overall net effect on the people involved.
they also understand that people stay in toxic cycles because they’re getting something out of it they can’t get anywhere else. it’s the feast/scraps metaphor in a new light, and the show allows so much empathy for the people trapped in their own versions of the cycle.
it’s interesting to me how lowkey passionate about all forms of restorative justice ofmd is, but how it might be easy to miss if punitive justice is any given viewer’s unconscious framework for how all this works because it’s sort of… part of the show’s overall mission statement, i guess, but also one of my FAVORITE NARRATIVE TRICKS TO PULL
aka, the audience litmus test. shit like this is a reflection turned outwards and sort of… forces accidental commentary and gets very We Live In A Society funhouse mirrors real fast
anyway: love it. love this insanely thoughtful team!!!!
