Ideas and proposals that once existed at the margins are now central to conversations on criminal justice. Today, we must ask ourselves, “Over the past years of cultural and political reckoning, how has my thinking and practice shifted?”
This panel will explore the US justice system from multiple angles, including but not limited to abolition, advocacy, experience, redemption, diversion, art, gender, community, therapy, healing, and race. These panelists will challenge the audience to look beyond lessons learned and ask new questions, with the goal of encouraging individuals to identify their own limitations and work towards an abolitionist mindset while pushing against the boundaries of practice. In this program, abolition will be defined as the elimination of interrelated systems that deem that some life is not precious and the investment in strategies that allow for a productive and violence-free life. Rather than look at our positions along a spectrum of difference, the panelists will attempt to situate our collective work along a continuum of change. In order to do so we must invite tension so that in our differences we may locate our shared values. The core questions for attendees are quite simple: “What are the questions I’m not asking myself? What questions am I not considering? How do I show up?”
