Dear DTTS community,
April is Second Chance Month here in the U.S. This commemoration was coined by the Prison Fellowship in 2017 to shine a light on the one in three Americans with criminal records who navigate barriers to accessing employment and housing, and struggle to get their “second chance” as they reintegrate into their communities following incarceration.
As we learned from Dara Baldwin back in season 2, the criminal justice system disproportionately impacts disabled people, especially disabled people of color. An estimated two in five, or nearly 40% of individuals in federal and state prisons report having one or more disabilities, and disabled people are nearly four times more likely to be victims of crime. Disabled people are harmed and traumatized on all sides of the criminal justice process, from policing, to the courts, to prisons and jails.
I often wonder: what would the world look like if we could grapple with the harms, big and small, that we will inevitably cause each other as human beings, and work toward achieving healing, and not punishment? If, rather than just trying to help someone who has survived the trauma of incarceration find their “second chance,” we could help that person be accountable, heal, and repair the harm that was caused? How could we transform the world to prevent the harm from occurring again in the first place?
This reimagined world is where the movements for restorative and transformative justice want to lead us: A place where we can hold ourselves accountable for the harms we cause and rebuild our community spaces so that those harms are not repeated. As Mia Mingus powerfully explains, this approach has to start with the small hurts, so that we are all equipped to navigate those bigger harms.
Healing and accountability
Like so many in the disability community, I have experienced the harm and trauma that comes with discrimination in the workplace. In one instance, the situation was so severe that I had to seek legal intervention. I received some financial recompense, but no clear admission of wrongdoing on the part of my former employer in order to avoid further legal liability.
Imagine if, instead of the lawyers and the settlements (or rather, in addition to them, because compensation is also a part of returning to wholeness and healing), there was true accountability. A deep and real commitment to doing better—to ensuring that disabled employees were treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.
I could not and should not rely on someone else’s accountability for my own healing, but I would have liked to see that my experience led to more justice and equality in the world—to know that what happened to me, and to the person who caused me hurt, would somehow transform the workplace into a less ableist one.
This, of course, is a very small example of what truly transformative change could look like. Especially for very serious harms, this type of healing takes time and tremendous effort on all sides. It’s not easy.
Transformative justice
The Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network and other disability justice-oriented communities have shared their wisdom about the relationship between restorative justice, transformative justice, and disability justice. Elliott Fukui and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha explain that disability justice and transformative justice are connected because, in both movements, healing and accountability come through the building of community trust that fosters agency and self-determination, especially when systems and institutions we typically rely on to bring justice cause us further harm and trauma.
Of course, for those gravest of harms, there may not be full repair or healing—we may not reach reconciliation between the harmed person and the person who created the harm, but aspiring to a place where we can hold ourselves accountable, and likewise count on our communities to support us as we strive to do better, to me, is our best pathway to a collective second chance for all of us.
If you want to learn more about how disability justice and transformative justice intersect, check out:
These resources from the Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network
Among those, the program, Moving at the Speed of Trust: Disability Justice and Transformative Justice created by Elliott Fukui and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha for the Barnard Center for Research on Women
And finally, this powerful summary of a community accountability process, shared generously by members of Black Youth Project 100 (CW: There are references to sexual assault, so please take care to protect your peace).
For those who are experiencing hurt and harm, and those who may have caused it, I wish you a pathway to accountability, healing, and peace.
In solidarity,
Qudsiya