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This week, we& #39;re diving into a new zine from @prisonculture highlighting and contextualizing Santa Cruz Women Against Rape& #39;s "Letter to the Anti-Rape Movement" (1977): http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2020/04/19/new-zine-letter-to-the-anti-rape-movement
Keep">https://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2020... an eye on this thread for discussion of the zine all week!
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Keep">https://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2020... an eye on this thread for discussion of the zine all week!
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In the introduction, Mariame Kaba outlines the complex history of efforts to end sexual violence, rape crisis programs& #39; increased reliance on the criminal legal system, and how this harms victims/survivors. Kaba reminds us that criminalization will not end sexual violence.
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Kaba also reminds us that many survivors regularly DO NOT want to involve the police or courts in their lives; they simply want the violence to end. Fewer than half of people who are victims of crimes ever report to law enforcement.
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In the realm of sexual assault, fewer than one third of people who experience sexual assault report to law enforcement. The reality is that most victims/survivors do not see engagement with the criminal legal system as a solution to ending violence in their lives.
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"We will not end rape through criminalization," Mariame Kaba writes. In the current #MeToo 
https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt=""> moment, in which sexual violence is garnering attention from the public-at-large, Kaba encourages us to look to the past and avoid past mistakes.
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. @prisonculture created this zine to help us look to the past, to introduce the 1977 letter from Santa Cruz Women Against Rape to a new generation of anti-violence organizers, advocates, and workers who may not yet have encountered it: http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2020/04/19/new-zine-letter-to-the-anti-rape-movement
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The authors wrote this letter to express concerns about the relationship of the anti-rape movement to the criminal justice system in the 1970s. The authors witnessed the growth of anti-rape groups working in collaboration with police and other criminal justice agencies.
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As these organizations developed relationships with criminal justice agencies, they gained access to government funding. State agencies overseeing this funding gained control of anti-rape organizations and encouraged further collaboration with law enforcement.
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While these anti-rape orgs ostensibly did not push survivors to report to law enforcement, SCWAR observed that the only options presented were reporting to police or doing nothing. Survivors who wanted to take action were really just given one option: reporting to police.
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When a survivor did decide to go through the criminal justice system, SCWAR observed that they encountered an unresponsive, insensitive, and hostile system. The ordeal of reporting rape and seeing it through trial can be painful and degrading.
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SCWAR observed that reporting to law enforcement and going through trials more often than not resulted in no resolution for survivors, with rape having a low conviction rate.
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The authors of the letter remind us that low conviction rates for rape are due to sexism and the sexist myths in our culture. They write that while they abhor the reasons for the low conviction rate, it doesn& #39;t mean that they should fight for a higher conviction rate.
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As is the case for most crimes, people who are convicted of rape are most often poor people and/or people of color (the authors use the language, "Third World and/or poor White men"), which shows how anti-rape laws are disproportionately enforced along race and class lines.
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When someone was prosecuted, SCWAR observed that incarceration meant being forced into prisons that do nothing to end rape. They are forced into a microcosm of society that does not encourage changed behavior. Instead, it makes them likely to be harmed and to harm again.
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Instead of focusing energy on a violent and hostile system, the authors argue that the anti-rape movement should work on community education and developing practical alternatives that deal with the systems and roots of sexism and violence.
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Some alternatives discussed include:
1. Encouraging people to discuss ways to watch out for each other, including block watching, organizing at workplaces, and organizing at schools.
2. Creating consciousness in people that they should respond to a scream or call for help.
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1. Encouraging people to discuss ways to watch out for each other, including block watching, organizing at workplaces, and organizing at schools.
2. Creating consciousness in people that they should respond to a scream or call for help.
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3. Making rape a public issue, including printing the descriptions of people who harm others, so they lose their anonymity.
4. Confronting people who choose to do harm, informing them that they are responsible for their actions and have the responsibility to change.
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4. Confronting people who choose to do harm, informing them that they are responsible for their actions and have the responsibility to change.
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The authors remind us that rape will only end with the development of a new system that provides a context for these alternatives in people& #39;s lives. They remind us that anti-rape groups should focus not on isolated issues but instead on a broader analysis of sexual violence.
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The authors also remind us that the anti-rape movement needs to develop an anti-racist politics and practice. Women of color, and especially Black and Native women, have been particularly subject to rape by White men in US history.
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Moreover, the myth that most people who choose to harm are Black men has had significant consequences for Black men.
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The authors argued that it is crucial that anti-rape groups fight racist myths, stereotypes, and institutions that are associated with rape, including the criminal justice system.
"We must fight racism and sexism together," they wrote.
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"We must fight racism and sexism together," they wrote.
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SCWAR saw themselves as a political group offering educational services and trying to provide alternatives that broadened people& #39;s awareness of different forms of oppression and the need to change the system.
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Much of what SCWAR members called attention to in this letter still persists today: collaborations between anti-rape organizations, including coalitions, and criminal justice agencies; and reliance on criminalization and incarceration to respond to rape.
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Tomorrow, we& #39;ll discuss what changes coalitions and other anti-rape organizations can make to address the concerns raised in the letter.
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