abolitionist responses to sexual violence

We have added a new collection of abolitionist resources to addressing sexual violence, which can be accessed under the resources page. This collection of resources came out of a recognition that sexual violence is systemic at USC, just as it is systemic across the U.S. and the world. As abolitionists, we recognize that harm will always happen; people will harm and people will be harmed. We believe it is our responsibility to attempt to lessen those incidents of harm and have non-carceral systems in place to address them when they do happen. We follow Melanie Brazzell’s theorization that safety is “a toolkit to be deployed,” and we hope this document can serve folks in increasing the number of tools at their disposal to support themselves and their loved ones – be they harmed or harmers. To quote Mariame Kaba and Eva Nagao: “PIC abolitionists don’t demand police and prison abolition in spite of “the rapists.” We demand abolition because the current system produces and reinforces sexual violence while using survivors to justify its existence.”