Challenging anti-carceral feminism: Criminalisation, justice and continuum thinking

Gender-Based Violence and Carceral Feminism in Australia: Towards Decarceral Approaches

“…Thus, there is not necessarily one coherent set of justice interests that apply to all survivors at all times, and what survivors may require to feel a sense of justice has been achieved is constantly evolving. Instead, this work suggests the need to develop a continuum of responses that recognise and account for the diversity of justice interests grounded in understanding intersectionality (Boyle 2019;Kim 2020;McGlynn 2022). As indicated earlier, the solution since the early 2000s has been restorative justice, with important evidence indicating this approach is meaningful for some Indigenous survivors of domestic and family violence (Marchetti 2010(Marchetti , 2015.…”

“…Recent scholarship on survivors' justice interests 9 further brings into question whether criminal legal system reforms will achieve a sense of justice for survivors of gender-based violence, their families, and communities. In saying this, it is important to recognise that some survivors do invest in a criminal justice response and place value in the symbolic power of the state in recognising the harm committed against them (McGlynn 2022). Likewise, some survivors do value punishment or having the individual who caused harm removed from the community, particularly if this prevents them from harming others (Clark 2010;McGlynn 2022).…”

“…In saying this, it is important to recognise that some survivors do invest in a criminal justice response and place value in the symbolic power of the state in recognising the harm committed against them (McGlynn 2022). Likewise, some survivors do value punishment or having the individual who caused harm removed from the community, particularly if this prevents them from harming others (Clark 2010;McGlynn 2022). While we have outlined reasons why many Indigenous scholars, activists and survivors do not consider criminal legal responses adequate or appropriate, some advocate for improved laws, particularly relating to strangulation or choking in family violence context and accounting for prior convictions in sentencing for family violence (see Langton et al 2020).…”

Trafficking Chains

“…These varieties of modernity are shaped by capital (Brenner et al 2010), post-colonial (Bhambra 2007;Boatcă 2015;Go 2016) and current colonial (Al-Dayel et al 2022; Lewis and Blitz 2023) relations, and by gender regimes (Shire and Walby 2020; Shire 2023 While the location of the boundary between social democratic and neoliberal forms has been a key site of debate (Giddens 1998), there is increasing interest in authoritarianism in the context of de-democratization (Verloo 2018;Lombardo et al 2021;V-Dem 2022). Within these debates, there is a cluster of work that focuses on political economy (Esping-Andersen 1990;Brenner et al 1999;Hall and Soskice 2001;Bruff 2014) and another relatively separate cluster focused on the regulation of violence (Garland 2000;Lacey 2009;Wacquant 2009;Bernstein 2010;Hörnqvist 2020;McGlynn 2022;Ballesteros Pena et al 2023).…”

“…The debates on the regulation of violence focus on whether the response of the state is carceral, poorly targeted, and disproportionate (Davis 2003;Wacquant 2009;Bernstein 2010;Davis et al 2022) or is potentially providing justice to those who suffered violence and reducing the impunity of offenders (Taylor 2018;McGlynn 2022). The former is associated with neoliberal and authoritarian forms where democracy is thin or non-existent, while the latter is associated with social democracy and greater depth of democracy.…”