Self-Defense Is a Practice of Freedom: Comprehensive Study Notes
The Intersection of Domestic Violence and the Prison System
Prevalence of Abuse and Incarceration: Prisons do not effectively end domestic and sexual violence; instead, they intensify and institutionalize these forms of harm.
The Abuse-to-Prison Pipeline Statistics:
Approximately of people in women’s prisons have experienced domestic and/or sexual violence prior to their incarceration.
of girls in juvenile detention have experienced family violence.
The Criminalizing Pipeline: This pipeline encompasses various systems that utilize institutional power to dehumanize survivors, including:
Policing and child welfare systems.
Medical systems.
Pretrial lock-up in jails and prosecution in court.
Imprisonment, ICE detention, and deportation.
Punitive reentry systems.
Contexts of Criminalization: Survivors are often criminalized for various actions related to their survival, such as:
Defending themselves against attackers.
‘Failing to protect’ children from an abuser.
Taking children away from an abusive relationship.
Being an immigrant, being a runaway youth, or being in the sex trade.
Being coerced into criminal activity by an abuser or self-medicating with drugs.
Structural Construction: Certain survivors, specifically Black and disabled survivors, are constructed by the criminal punishment system as being ‘intrinsically criminal.’
Survived & Punished (S&P) and the Defending Self-Defense (DSD) Report
Organization Background: Founded in 2016 by a coalition of organizers from campaigns such as the Chicago Alliance to Free Marissa Alexander, Free Marissa Now, Stand With Nan-Hui, and the California Coalition for Women Prisoners.
Core Mission: S&P is a national feminist abolitionist organization advocating for the freedom of all survivors and the decriminalization of survival.
Defending Self-Defense (DSD) Report (2022):
Produced in collaboration with Project Nia and the UCLA Center for the Study of Women.
Focuses on the criminal punishment of survivors gendered as cis women, trans men, trans women, lesbian/bi/queer women, heterosexual women, and non-binary people.
Lead Researchers: Marissa Alexander, Colby Lenz, Sydney Moon, and the author of the essay.
Survivor Advisory Board Members: Marissa Alexander, Aylaliyah Birru, Tewkunzi Green, Robbie Hall, Renata Hill, Wendy Howard, Roshawn Knight, Bresha Meadows, Ky Peterson, and Anastazia Schmid, with additional insights from Patreese Johnson and Alisha Walker.
Report Design: Structured as a proactive tool for learning about criminalization, conceptualizing abolition, and taking action. It identifies patterns in the systematic criminalization of self-defense and provides legal and advocacy resources.
Theoretical Framework: Self-Defense as a Paradigm
Reconceptualizing Self-Defense: The report suggests that self-defense is not just a single act of refusal during a violent event but can be understood as a practice and a paradigm.
Shift in Meanings: It enables shifts in the perception of the ‘self,’ nonlinear formations of time (beyond the discrete moments of an attack), and radical conceptions of agency.
Challenge to Carceral Patriarchy: Survivor self-defense poses a foundation challenge to carceral patriarchy by refusing both the violence itself and the normalization of that violence.
Brief Political History of Survivor Self-Defense
1970s Catalyst: The anti-violence field in the US was sparked by the women’s liberation movement, Black Panther Party mobilizations, and mass anti-colonial struggles.
Early Resistance (1972): The first rape crisis centers and battered women’s shelters emerged, often critiquing state violence alongside intimate violence.
Participatory Defense Campaigns: Grassroots coalitions advocated for the freedom of individuals such as Joan Little, Dessie Woods, Yvonne Wanrow, and Inez Garc#a.
Joan Little Precedent: Set a legal precedent for survivors to use lethal force against sexual violence.
Wanrow and Garc#a Decisions: Broke ground by allowing courts to consider the context of domestic violence in cases where survivors killed their abusers.
Mainstream Alignment (1980s-1990s): The anti-violence field became more aligned with criminalization systems, a shift Beth Richie describes as ‘winning the mainstream and losing the movement.’
Resurgence (2000-Present):
INCITE! (2000): A national feminist of color organization mapping abolitionist politics.
2011–2012 Campaigns: New campaigns emerged for CeCe McDonald, the New Jersey 4 (Venice Brown, Terraine Dandrige, Renata Hill, Patreese Johnson), and Marissa Alexander.
Clemency Legacies: Organizations like Convicted Women Against Abuse (founded 1989), Free Battered Women, and the Michigan Women’s Justice & Clemency Project have advocated for the release of survivors after conviction.
The ‘No Way Out’ Bind
Marissa Alexander’s Summary: ‘If the violence is unabated, we risk losing our lives. If we defend ourselves, we risk losing our freedom.’
Framework Definition: The ‘no way out’ bind is a deadly political economy that erodes safety. It consists of three interlocking elements:
Pervasiveness and Lethality of Gender-Based Violence: Over half of all homicides of women are domestic violence related. In the US, women are murdered by intimate partners every day. Violence often escalates during escape attempts.
Social Abandonment: The decimation of the social safety net (housing, childcare, legal representation).
In a single day in , there were unmet requests for domestic violence services due to resource shortages.
Punitive policies in shelters (e.g., mandatory reporting, exclusion of trans or disabled people) make ‘escape’ dangerous or impossible.
Systems of Criminalization:
A New York study found that of women incarcerated for killing someone close to them had been abused by that person.
Parole boards often use a survivor’s disclosure of abuse as evidence of failing to take ‘responsibility’ for the crime.
Historical Roots: The dismantling of the welfare state (Nixon/Reagan ‘wars’ on crime/drugs) and Clinton’s Crime Bill and Welfare Reform Act solidified the transition into a ‘prison nation.’
Limitations of Legal Frameworks for Self-Defense
Design Flaw: Self-defense laws were originally designed for property-owning white men.
The Objectiveness Standard: Courts use the ‘objective reasonableness’ standard, or what an imaginary ‘reasonable person’ would think. This often ignores the subjective reality of survivors.
Legal Thresholds:
Necessity and Proportionality: Defending against a homicide charge requires a belief that lethal force was both necessary and proportionate to repel an imminent attack.
Imminence: The law defines imminence as a discrete, immediate event. Survivors experience abuse as a constant, looming condition.
Stand Your Ground (SYG) Laws: While designed to eliminate the ‘duty to retreat,’ they are often applied unequally.
Of states with SYG laws, only provide protections for victims of domestic violence, while specifically require victims of domestic violence to retreat before using force.
Example: Marissa Alexander was sentenced to years for a warning shot, while George Zimmerman was acquitted for killing Trayvon Martin; critics argue this shows how Black life is treated as disposable.
The Inconceivability of Self-Defense for Marginalized Groups
Historical Legacy of Celia (1855): A young Black woman in Missouri sentenced to death for killing her enslaver/rapist; legal protection for self-defense did not apply to her.
Exclusionary Politics: Black, Native, and trans survivors are often excluded from ‘conceivable’ self-defense due to racist and sexist tropes.
Stereotypes: Survivors are often painted as aggressive or angry (‘angry Black woman’) rather than afraid. The New Jersey 4 were labeled a ‘lesbian wolf pack’ by media.
Vulnerable Populations:
Native Survivors: Face gendered colonial violence; incarceration is used as a tool of Indigenous removal (e.g., Maddesyn George).
Sex Trade Workers: Branded as ‘inherently criminal’ and thus undeserving of protection (e.g., Alisha Walker and Cyntoia Brown).
Immigrants: Often barred from Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) protections if they have any conviction, failing the ‘good moral character’ standard.
Nine Principles of Survivor Self-Defense
Principle 1: Self-defense is how survivors halt an attack, whether imminent or unabating.
Principle 2: Self-defense is how survivors get to safety within a ‘no way out’ bind.
Principle 3: Self-defense is how survivors stay alive amidst social abandonment.
Principle 4: Self-defense is a life-affirming practice that includes de-escalation, self-advocacy in prison, and telling one’s story.
Principle 5: Self-defense resists identity annihilation (resisting the erasure of the ‘self’ by carceral and intimate violence).
Principle 6: Self-defense is collective defense (utilizing participatory defense campaigns).
Principle 7: Self-defense echoes and connects survivors across time and space (e.g., Tewkunzi Green being inspired by Marissa Alexander).
Principle 8: Abolition means that survivors’ lives are essential; self-defense is a practice of refusal against layered forms of violence.
Principle 9: Self-defense is a practice of freedom.
Questions & Discussion
Marissa Alexander on the Law: Alexander questions the efficacy of the legal system for marginalized people: ‘If you do everything to get on the right side of the law, and it is a law that does not apply to you, where do you go from there?’
Renata Hill on Systemic Failure: ‘I pray one day a new system will be created by people like us… This system was not made for us at all.’
Tewkunzi Green on the Power of Clemency: Green describes clemency as a chance to be visible: ‘Clemency made me visible after the courts and prison had made me feel invisible.’
Patreese Johnson on Policing: ‘Because of our history with the police, we’re definitely not calling the cops… We’re going to defend ourselves.’
Bresha Meadows on Failed Intervention: Meadows recalls calling the police to report she didn’t feel safe at home as a runaway, only to have them send her back home ‘with no questions whatsoever.’
Ky Peterson on Survival: ‘It’s that split-second where you have to decide, do you want to live?’
The survivor self-defense framework reconceptualizes self-defense, viewing it as a practice that transcends a singular event. It emphasizes the need to challenge the carceral patriarchy and highlights the continuous threat survivors face, arguing that traditional legal definitions of self-defense often fail them. Bierra points out that these legal frameworks, designed for property-owning white men, utilize an 'objective reasonableness' standard that ignores the lived realities of survivors. For instance, Marissa Alexander, who was sentenced to 20 years for firing a warning shot to escape her abuser, illustrates how the law fails to recognize the context of ongoing domestic violence, criminalizing her act of self-defense instead of validating her survival instinct.