Article by Terrie Quinteros
Our focus here at Crime Survivors [0] for Community Safety is preventing the sort of violence that happened to us from happening to anyone else, to create a different world. In order to fully realize that different world, it’s important for crime survivors to pay attention to the racism that drives the criminal justice system and how it shapes our responses to violence. Racism is a primary factor preventing society from creating a holistic system that provides support to survivors, holds people accountable, and respects everyone’s dignity. It is critical that we acknowledge that racism still exists in our country and that it has a negative impact on individuals, families, communities, and our various institutions.
Racism Undermines Our Personal Safety Through Misinformation
In my years of work with domestic and sexual violence survivors I learned many new tools and skills regarding my own personal safety. One very important lesson I learned, given to me by a beloved mentor, was about how I had internalized our society’s racist messages even as a person of color myself. Years ago, my mentor pointed out that I was scared of certain people based on the color of their skin. She also reminded me that I had received this misinformation from a variety of places (friends, school, pop culture, TV, family, etc.), so unconsciously this information was consistently reinforced and had become true.
Many people don’t challenge their belief in racist stereotypes, because they mistakenly believe that their fear is keeping them safer. Yet when we rely on stereotypes to help us determine whether or not we are safe, we will likely miss something. If I am so focused on watching a dark-skinned man walking on the opposite side of the street, I will not see the person coming directly in front of me.
Advocates working against sexual assault still strive to debunk the myth of “stranger danger.” The large majority of people who are sexually assaulted are victimized by someone they know, but people are regularly taught directly and indirectly to fear the unknown or people who are different than themselves. My mentor helped me think more deeply and not jump to the wrong conclusions – not just for my own safety but also to practice respect for others.
Unfortunately, prejudice and stereotyping very much manifest in the policies and practices designed to prevent violence. People of color are stopped by police more often than their white counterparts and arrested more often for crimes (like drug possession) that occur across races. Profiling may happen based on someone’s perceived race, ethnicity or class, among other identities. Amazingly, people are still in denial about this reality, despite all of the research (including official data collected by police departments) that proves that racial profiling happens with regularity across the country.
Racism has Limited the Traditional Crime Victims’ Movement
The same prejudice and misplaced assumptions behind racial profiling has created a false notion of who all crime victims are. Historical media coverage of crime over-emphasizes pictures and images of people of color as perpetrators of violence alongside white victims. These stories and images develop misinformed perceptions of reality similar to the media-created notion that crime is constantly on the rise even when we are experiencing historic lows.
Let’s look at the reality: Low-income communities and communities of color experience the highest concentrations of crime; so logically we can conclude that those communities must have the highest concentrations of survivors of crime and violence. Yet the more traditional crime victims’ groups, the ones that primarily advocate for punishment and long prison sentences, are mostly made up of middle-class white people. To make matters worse, these traditional crime victims groups at best lack a useful race analysis and at worst perpetuate racism either subtlety if not overtly. This dynamic has reinforced the notion that people are either perpetrators or “victims,” yet we know that our world is much more complicated and that often people are both.
People actively involved in Crime Survivors for Community Safety regularly visit prisons to talk about our work. In doing so, we know that many people in prison may have caused harm to someone but they may have also experienced violence as well. If we truly want an effective public safety system, we must acknowledge how violence can perpetuate violence. This notion would allow our system to develop a much- needed compassion for people along with a more complicated analysis of the root causes of crime needed to develop a truly effective system of prevention. Therefore, we encourage people to move past these overly simplistic notions of non-overlapping identities of “perpetrators” and “victims.” And we challenge the proposed solutions of groups who position themselves as speaking for “all” crime victims as they call for harsher punishments.
Racial Disparity in Access to Services for Victims/Survivors
Across races, once violence happens, we often share similar experiences as survivors but may have very different needs. This is where victims’ services can play an especially important role. If someone does experience violence, they and their loved ones should have all the support they need readily available to them. And that support should be available equally to people of all backgrounds. However, people of color often experience barriers in accessing the support they need after a crime. For example:
- A Spanish-speaking rape survivor may be unable to access an interpreter at the local hospital, even though the service providers already know that there is a need for interpreters expressly for this purpose.
- A murder victim’s family member may be unable to maintain their job because of Post Traumatic Stress and the lack of culturally-specific counseling services in their area.
- A survivor of domestic violence who is considering a shelter may be reluctant to go there once she contacts the program and discovers that there are no staff members of her same race or from her community.
It is key that we press for more services that are available and appropriate for crime survivors of all races and from all communities. Often the stated reason for not having culturally-specific victims/survivors services is that there is not enough money. We find that to be an insufficient excuse.
Conclusion
If we want to help create a better world, we must look at the entire picture. We have to acknowledge that racism exists, and that we have created a world where punishment is valued over prevention.
The more we examine the misinformation that we have been taught about racism and other oppressions, the more useful our tools to prevent violence will be and the closer we will all be to a world with less violence. In this world, our responses to violence will support survivors, hold people accountable, and respect everyone’s dignity.