CRIMINALIZATION OF SURVIVAL

CRIMINALIZATION OF SURVIVAL
Adding to the trauma of patriarchal violence is the experience of being criminalized explicitly for the strategies that bring people safety, security, healing, and self-determination — or even for just existing in the world.
For some people — especially Black people, queer and trans, non-US citizens, young people, people with mental illness, disabled people, neurodivergent people, people who use drugs, people living outside, people living with HIV— the criminalization of survival exists as a method for social control and makes them more vulnerable not only to imprisonment, but also to poor health outcomes, abuse, and exploitation. People with these identities and life experiences are also those who have been historically excluded from public health discourse, stigmatized, exploited by public health research, practice, and institutions.

The following selected resources provide insight into criminalized survival practices with the hopes of illuminating the need for alternatives to carceral solutions for people whose survival is criminalized.
Selected Resources
“No Choice but to Do It”: Why Women Go to Prison
We Deserve Safety: Ending Criminalization of Women and Girls of Color
Criminalizing Survival Curricula from Survived and Punished
A Legacy of Injustice: U.S. Criminalization of Migration
The Penrose Effect and the Acceleration of the War on Drugs
Critical Resistance: Uncoupling Health and Mental Health Care from Policing and Prisons
The School to Prison Pipeline, Explained
Criminalization of Homelessness
Mental Health First
Discussion Questions
What biases does my institution hold against people with criminalized identities including people living with mental illness, people who use drugs, people who live outside, and people living with HIV?
How can my institution work to reframe our approaches to shift blame from survivors of the criminal legal system and create genuinely supportive structures?
Who will provide the biggest barrier in implementing these new approaches, and what resources do they need to understand the shift in organizational culture?
How has your institution encouraged a public health response to these experiences instead of a criminal legal response? What would it look like to have a truly public health and community-centered support of survival practices?
How can we institutionalize efforts to reject initiatives that further stigmatize and criminalize communities who are already disproportionately policed?
Who To Follow
Survived and Punished @survivepunish
Project Nia @projectnia
Positive Women’s Network @PositiveWN
Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS) @safespacesdc
Mad in America @Mad_In_America
Fireweed Collective
Chase Strangio @chasestrangio
California Coalition of Women Prisoners @c_c_w_p
TGI Justice Project @tgijp
Detention Watch @DetentionWatch
Subini Annama @DrSubini
LA CAN @LACANetwork
Services not Sweeps @nosweepsla
For Further Learning
5 Pillars of Civil Rights for the Homeless
Oakland: School District to Expand Restorative Justice Programs to all 86 Schools
Mad World: Psychiatry, Abolition, and New Horizons
Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex by Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith
The Criminalization of Homelessness Explained
TAKE ACTION

1
Find out where your city and state fall on criminalizing people experiencing homelessness, people living with HIV, sex work, and people who use drugs and advocate for alternatives to incarceration for people with these criminalized identities.
2
Identify ways in which you and your colleagues can advocate for people’s autonomy and increase the quality of life for people who engage in criminalized survival practices. How can you utilize your institutional power to support community led initiatives for safer outdoor spaces and drug decriminalization initiatives?
3
Donate to bail funds, like the Black Mamas Bailout.

CRIMINALIZATION OF SURVIVAL

Adding to the trauma of patriarchal violence is the experience of being criminalized explicitly for the strategies that bring people safety, security, healing, and self-determination — or even for just existing in the world.

Selected Resources

Discussion Questions

Who To Follow

For Further Learning

TAKE ACTION

Find out where your city and state fall on criminalizing people experiencing homelessness, people living with HIV, sex work, and people who use drugs and advocate for alternatives to incarceration for people with these criminalized identities.

Donate to bail funds, like the Black Mamas Bailout.