Transformative justice is a spectrum of social, economic, legal, and political practices and philosophies that aim to focus on the structures and underlying conditions that perpetuate harm and injustice.
As defined by American activist Mariame Kaba, transformative justice is a framework that focuses on community-building and collective solidarity against the repressive mechanisms of the carceral state.
[2] First popularized by Queer, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other marginalized communities due to their perception that they were unable to rely on the police and the courts to obtain justice after being victimized by interpersonal harm (such as hate crimes, sexual assaults, and domestic violence), it prioritizes the relationships between the individual, the communities to which they are accountable, and the broader systems and surrounding environment in which we are implicated.
[3] Contemporary transformative justice theorizing traces its lineage to other anti-carceral and abolitionist social movements as led by Black, Indigenous, and other racialized communities who are often directly harmed by the carceral state.
Transformative justice aims to resist and divest from traditional methods of state-sanctioned punishment such as police, prisons, the judiciary, and juvenile delinquency programs.
[2] Transformative justice also rests on the belief that interpersonal harm interacts with and reflects systemic and institutional mechanisms of oppression.
Therefore, transformative justice recognizes that addressing individual interpersonal harm and conflict must simultaneously aim to dismantle systemic structures of power (such as patriarchy, cisheteronormativity, racism, ableism, and colonialism).
[4] With respect to those impacted, it aims to recognize instances of harm as an opportunity for a transformative, relational, and educational intervention for victims, offenders, and the broader community.
This model for decarceration may have roots in the work of Samuel Tuke and B. F. Skinner but departs by relying on individual volunteers' caring and supporting capacity, not any socially imposed etiquette derived from civilization.
[12] adrienne maree brown uses the example of a person who has stolen money in order to buy food to sustain themselves, writing that “if the racialized system of capitalism has produced such inequality that someone who is hungry and steals a purse to resource a meal, returning the purse with an apology or community service to does nothing to address that hunger”.
Transformative justice also refers to policy and practice responses to socioeconomic issues in societies transitioning away from conflict or repression.
For these advocates, climate change provides an opportunity to reinforce democratic governance at all scales, and drive the achievement of gender equality and social inclusion.
Acknowledging the interconnectedness of individual and social justice, advocates of transformative justice hold that experiences of intimate partner violence and sexual violence are linked to the broader ways that factors such as race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, migrant and legal status, and beyond manifest as hierarchies of power and oppression.