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By Julie Shackford-Bradley
In the videos posted on InMyWords, people talk about their desires or expectations for justice after sexual harm.
Check out these videos and add your own.
Some samples:
“Justice to me looks like being able to have conversations in my community about how many people around them are being hurt by other community members and being able to develop responses to it.”
“I still feel really frustrated that I don’t know if either of them understand what was wrong with their behavior and if they’re committing the same acts that they were doing a couple of years ago in college…”
“I did know at the time that what I wanted was… for him to know he had done something wrong and never do it again. That’s what I wanted at the time.”
“One thing that I wish could’ve happened is that when I confronted the people who harmed me I wish they had taken accountability and instead they called me crazy and said it was all in my head. I wish some of my friends had supported me more at the time.”
“If he can reflect on how he has changed and why he has changed, that’s something that I want from him.”
“For me, justice would be an acknowledgement that something was done to me without my consent, that something happened to me that was wrong, and accountability would be an apology.”
“What I need is for my perpetrator to fundamentally change his behavior and understand why what he did to me was wrong, unacceptable and inappropriate. I never want him to do to anyone else what he did to me. The way I see that transformation coming about is to share with him, in my own words, how his actions have impacted me.”
“Accountability to me looks like survivor-led justice.”
Julie Shackford-Bradley is the Co-Founder and the current Director of the Restorative Justice Center at Cal.