Read on Twitter
#DVAM2020: a thread. This #DomesticViolence Awareness Month, I wanted to share some of the anti-violence work that I'm most excited about. @freefromorg is putting money directly into the hands of survivors to address immediate safety needs. https://www.gofundme.com/f/safety-fund-for-survivors-of-domestic-violence
Toxic masculinity and the failure to address trauma feeds intimate partner violence. @prisonfeminism works with people who have done harm to help them identify the sources of their beliefs and change--a key component of an abolitionist future. https://www.successstoriesprogram.org
The anti-violence movement has embraced policies that harm people of color. We should be an anti-racist movement. Organizations like @antiviolence are leading efforts to build support for #DefundThePolice & #BlackLivesMatter 
in the anti-violence community. https://avp.org/lgbtq-anti-violence-organizations-blacklivesmatter-and-we-must-reallocate-government-budgets-from-policing-to-survivor-services/
in the anti-violence community. https://avp.org/lgbtq-anti-violence-organizations-blacklivesmatter-and-we-must-reallocate-government-budgets-from-policing-to-survivor-services/
The U.S. anti-violence movement has so much to learn from others doing this work all over the world. Too many to name here, but I'm personally indebted to @HDouglasLaw and @Kate_FitzGibbon, who I've been lucky enough to work closely with.
The best book I've read about intimate partner violence in a long time is @carmenmmachado's In the Dream House. Buy it from your local independent bookstore! https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/dream-house
Thousands of victims of violence are currently incarcerated for crimes related to their own victimization or are otherwise mistreated by the criminal legal system. Journalists like @LVikkiml, @justinevdl, @angelinachapin, @ZoeSCarpenter and @quasimado are telling their stories.
Activists and advocates with groups like @survivepunish, @survivepunishNY, @BLACKandPINKorg, @MomsUnitedChi, @freeheartsorg, @lovejusticeproj, and @JusticeGirls are working everyday to amplify the stories of criminalized survivors and bring them home.
Despite forty years of criminalization, there are hundreds of thousands of incidents of intimate partner violence each year. Survivors are bearing the brunt of the unintended consequences of criminalization. Violence will never stop violence. Criminalization is failed policy.
But there is great work going on to make this movement anti-racist, anti-poverty, truly intersectional. This movement will create a non-carceral VAWA and VOCA, free criminalized survivors and reframe conversations about responding to harm. I'm excited to be part of it.
