(child sexual assault, enraging beyond words but my mind went to the hard cases and it was shitty enough to pull this up)

@alpine_thistle @Satsuma But like... what does restorative justice have to say, I wonder, about a rich father and son who raped and murdered a small girl who was a houseguest at their house? And then covered up the evidence with the corrupt police while the girl's working-class mother sold what little property she had to afford a lawyer, all in vain?

I'm against the death penalty yet I cannot think of a fitting consequence other than a bullet each to the head, and even that seems too kind. How can they "restore" what they've done to that girl and her family, even if they gave away all their property, even if they repent and suffer for the rest of their lives--which they won't?

@alpine_thistle @ljwrites if the police helped him cover it up, how do you ensure he gets the death penalty instead of their preferred fall guy? can justice truly be served by placing all the blame on the father and son, resolving the issue with a showy distracting murder trial, instead of attacking the system which enabled their actions?

i am not actually a hardline prison abolitionist personally — i don’t believe in prison as a form of punishment but i do think its sometimes a necessary form of harm prevention — but i do think that even in the most extreme examples of someone deserving punished, one needs to remember “how can i ensure this never happens again” must be answered in the broad as well as the narrow to be truly satisfactory

@alpine_thistle @ljwrites “its the system thats the problem” can absolutely be used to dodge accountability, but considering that we’re coming from so much time in which blaming individuals has been used to avoid the hard questions of institutional inequality i’d rather overcorrect than under

@Satsuma @alpine_thistle Yeah that is largely my thinking, too, that what allows these things to happen and for perpetrators to dodge accountability are the systems of violence and inequality, like capitalism, the existence of a propertied class lording over the working class, and the police who are in cahoots with them. It's why I'm not sure if I can accept restorative justice as a kumbaya (this may be my own prejudice speaking) inside the framework of these oppressive systems rather than as part of radical systemic change.

I'm also very game for A Time to Kill solution in these cases if one happens to present itself. The perpetrator of a revenge killing in a case like this, I am fully ready to accept into the community and afford restorative justice to haha.

@alpine_thistle @ljwrites hmm our difference of perspective may be coming from regional differences — i’d say upwards of 90% of the people i’ve personally talked to who are involved in restorative justice came to that position through anti racist activism & Black liberation so they view tearing out existing systems of harm as pretty clearly central to the work