On the twelfth episode of The Activist Files, Senior Legal Worker Leah Todd talks with educator, organizer, and director of Project NIA Mariame Kaba and journalist, author, and organizer Victoria Law about their work on issues of violence, incarceration, gender, criminalization, and transformative justice. Mariame and Victoria share the personal experiences that brought them to their social justice work. They discuss the cycles of violence created by carceral solutions to social problems, and talk about the growing phenomenon of mass criminalization, including how the term allows us to think beyond just the impacts of incarceration and see ways that surveillance and punishment affect people's lives even outside of prison walls. In a comment that may remind Activist Files listeners of our last episode, Victoria and Mariame discuss the ways that prisons and carceral solutions have "stripped away our imagination," providing a one-size-fits-all response to harm that often causes more harm without providing resolution, safety, or healing. This episode highlights the importance of thinking in new ways about healing and providing accountability for harm, which is explored in Mariame's project transformharm.org. Episode 12 of The Activist Files is vital listening for anyone interested in how to go beyond punishing harm, to healing from, being accountable for, and preventing it.
Victoria Law - https://victorialaw.net
Tenacious zine (editor) http://resistancebehindbars.org/node/19
Books Through Bars NYC (co-founder) https://booksthroughbarsnyc.org
Resistance Behind Bars (author) http://resistancebehindbars.org - 2009 PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) award
Don't Leave Your Friends Behind (co-author) https://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=502
Freelance journalist - major articles at https://victorialaw.net/writings/
Mariame Kaba - http://mariamekaba.com
Project NIA (founder and director) http://project-nia.org
Survived and Punished (co-founder) https://survivedandpunished.org
Transform Harm (creator) https://transformharm.org
Prison Culture blog (writer) http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/
Lifting as They Climbed (co-author) http://liftingastheyclimbed.zibbet.com/lifting-as-they-climbed-mapping-a-history-black-women-on-chicago-s-south-side
Missing Daddy (author) https://www.missingdaddy.net
Chicago Freedom School (co-founder) http://chicagofreedomschool.org
We Charge Genocide (co-founder) http://wechargegenocide.org
Chicago Community Bail Fund (co-founding advisory board member) https://chicagobond.org
Barnard Center for Research on Women (Researcher-in-Residence) http://bcrw.barnard.edu/fellows/mariame-kaba/
Just Practice Collective (co-founding member) http://www.shirahassan.com/just-practice-collaborative/
Critical Resistance (community advisory board member) http://criticalresistance.org/community-advisory-board/
Writings - http://mariamekaba.com/publications/
Building Accountable Communities Conference - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/building-accountable-communities-a-national-gathering-tickets-57695927071
