Decriminalizing Survivors: Alternatives and Off-Ramps
Jennifer Suchland, PhD & Sasha Naiman, JD | September 24 | 11:45 AM-12:45 PM
Topic: Legal | Knowledge Level: Intermediate
Anti-trafficking practices often emphasize criminalization, including arresting survivors, sex workers, undocumented immigrants, purchasers, and traffickers (Bernstein 2018; Fukushima 2019; Musto 2016). In turn, the criminal legal system creates a faulty dichotomy between “victims” and “criminals,” constraining the scope of services
available to survivors and prioritizing punishment rather than care for people outside of the “victim” mold. Moreover, the criminal legal system can retraumatize survivors and is fraught with injustices, including the over-incarceration of Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and other racialized people (Kaye 2017; Lam 2019). Drawing on recent research and legal advocacy, the speakers will explain why criminalizing survivors of trafficking creates negative consequences, which must be considered in anti-trafficking advocacy. The presentation will discuss responses to human trafficking based on health, empowerment, and social justice, rather than punitive, carceral measures. The audience will learn about “on ramps” that people, including survivors, take to enter the criminal legal system, as well as effective “off-ramps” that people take to exit the criminal legal system during arrest, prosecution, and post-conviction (e.g., R.C. §§2935.36, 2951.041, 2929.15, 2953.38). Presenters will discuss nuances of diversion programs, which can be alternatives to incarceration but also can prolong negative power dynamics that courts wield over victims. Criminalization should not be the only or primary pathway to human rights. Furthermore, alternative anti-trafficking responses can mitigate the underlying racial, gender, and economic injustices which criminalization intensifies.
Presentation Objectives:
· Explain the main negative consequences of a carceral approach to anti-trafficking, including racial and social injustices, potential for re-traumatization, and reinforcement of a problematic dichotomy between victims and criminals
· Explain how survivors enter the criminal-legal system as criminal defendants
· Discuss effective alternatives to over-criminalization, including support services, diversion programs, and “off ramps” in the criminal legal system