Gender Violence and Anti-Black Racism: Reflections on the problem of Carceral Feminism and the possibilities of Prison Abolition
Beth E. Richie
Director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy
Professor of African American Studies and Criminology, Law and Justice
University of Illinois at Chicago
While the movement to end gender-based violence can claim many successes, this presentation will critique the ways that some anti-violence strategies have relied on approaches that leave Black women and other marginalized groups in dangerous positions in the face of state violence. It will provide evidence of the ways that anti-Black racism has limited the effectiveness of intervention programs and the ways that carceral feminism has undermined attempts to reform public policy leading to an increase, rather than a reduction in harm. Qualitative and quantitative data will be presented that support moving toward Prison abolition as a strategic and political commitment.
In her scholarly and activist work, Beth E. Richie has emphasized the ways that race/ethnicity and social position affect women’s experience of violence and incarceration, focusing on the experiences of African American battered women and sexual assault survivors. Dr. Richie is the author of Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence and America’s Prison Nation (NYU Press, 2012), which chronicles the evolution of the contemporary anti-violence movement during the time of mass incarceration in the United States, and numerous articles concerning Black feminism and gender violence, race and criminal justice policy, and the social dynamics around issues of sexuality, prison abolition, and grassroots organizations in African American Communities. Her earlier book, Compelled to Crime: the Gender Entrapment of Black Battered Women, is taught in many college courses and is cited in the popular press for its original arguments concerning race, gender, and crime. Dr. Richie is a qualitative researcher who is also working on an ethnographic project documenting the conditions of confinement in women’s prisons. Her work has been supported by grants from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The National Institute for Justice, and The National Institute of Corrections. Among others, she has been awarded the Audre Lorde Legacy Award from the Union Institute, The Advocacy Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and The Visionary Award from the Violence Intervention Project. Dr. Richie is a board member of The Woods Fund of Chicago, The Institute on Domestic Violence in the African Community, The Center for Fathers’ Families and Public Policy, and a founding member of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. In 2013 she was awarded an honorary degree from the City University of New York Law School.