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Justice and Sexual Aggression

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John V. Wilmerding

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May 3, 1998, 3:00:00 AM5/3/98

This inquiry (see below) is from CERJer Matt Mercer -- please reply direct
to him at <mgme...@integrityol.com>

If you are interested in Matt's topic, I recommend a 1991 essay by the late
and prophetic Quaker activist Fay Honey Knopp, whom I regard as the
spiritual founder of the Campaign for Equity-Restorative Justice (CERJ).
It is called 'Community Solutions to Sexual Violence: Feminist/
Abolitionist Perspectives' and is contained in the ground-breaking 1991
Indiana University Press anthology 'Criminology as Peacemaking', edited by
Harold Pepinsky and Richard Quinney. In this essay, Honey put forward the
four-point plan that is the basis for the CERJ coalition-building effort:

1. A moratorium on the building of new prisons and prison cells (which she
called 'cages';

2. A 'decarceration strategy' focusing on ways to get large numbers of people
out of prisons where the harm if keeping them there outweighs the benefits;

2. An 'excarceration strategy' focusing on ways to keep people out of
prisons where the harm of sending them there would outweigh any benefits
(this is where most Equity-Restorative Justice methods fit in);

4. The 'restraint of the few'.

A quote: "As long as the primary feminist response to (sexual
transgressions) is to demand longer, harsher sentences for (offenders), we
inhibit ourselves from addressing the roots of this behavior. Until we as
feminists have a coherent, well-articulated well-taught analysis to counter
the war-model response to criminal sexual behaviors -- behaviors that are
not only socially and culturally learned, but in fact are supported and
perpetuated by societal institutions and practices -- we will foster an
increasingly caged and punitive society."

> Hello,
> I am already on the CERJ list. I have a question for you. I am an
> Educator, with therapists, Correctional Officers, etc., who have sex
> offenders as clients. I am seeing a real trend to lock up all offenders,
> for life, without any kind of community based treatment programs--because
> intense fear, projects a stereotype on all offenders, regardless of their
> offense and history.
> Do you know of anyone else, working in the criminal justice system,
> or who is involved in reform, who might also have a interest in this
> area--that I could connect with?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Matt Mercer, MA
> FreshSTART
> (888) 794-1614
>
> mailto:mgme...@integrityol.com

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