4 Essential TJ Reads to get you started!

So many people are tuning into the viable possibilities of Transformative & Healing Justice as alternatives to Punitive Carceral Justice. People are turning to frameworks and strategies for community held responses to conflict, violence & harm that center healing & transformation of harmful behaviours without replicating the violence of isolation and disposability. Here are some some essential reads to get you started on your learning journey! 
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The Creative Interventions Toolkit:  
Creative Interventions (founded in 2004 by OG Mimi Kim) gathered information created during the Community-Based Interventions Project pilot and stories from the StoryTelling & Organizing Project (STOP) to construct a comprehensive Toolkit for anyone interested in carrying out a community-based intervention to violence.
The Toolkit contains a basic model for violence intervention,  useful information, worksheets, and stories based upon the experiences of Creative Interventions during its development and pilot stages. You can download it for free from the CI website - which is also an immense resource!
www.creative-interventions.org/
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The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence within Activist Communities
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The Revolution Starts at Home is as urgently needed today as when it was first published. This watershed collection breaks the dangerous silence surrounding the “secret” of intimate violence within social justice circles. Just as importantly, it provides practical strategies for dealing with abuse and creating safety without relying on the coercive power of the state. It offers life-saving alternatives for survivors, while building a movement where no one is left behind. Ching-In Chen (Editor); Jai Dulani (Editor); Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Editor)
Purchase the full book at AK Press
Or download a mini zine version at Critical Resistance - Another great website full of resources!

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Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement
In this collection, a diverse group of authors focuses on concrete and practical forms of redress and accountability, assessing existing practices and marking paths forward. They use a variety of forms—from toolkits to personal essays—to delve deeply into the “how to” of transformative justice, providing alternatives to calling the police, ways to support people having mental health crises, stories of community-based murder investigations, and much more. At the same time, they document the history of this radical movement, creating space for long-time organizers to reflect on victories, struggles, mistakes, and transformations. ​Ejeris Dixon (Editor); Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Editor)
​For purchase at AK Press
View a conversation with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha & Laura Flanders - Mutual Aid Justice & Beyond Survival

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We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice
In We Will Not Cancel Us, movement mediator adrienne maree brown reframes the discussion for us, in a way that points to possible paths beyond our impasse. Most critiques of cancel culture come from outside the milieus that produce it, sometimes even from its targets. Brown explores the question from a Black, queer, and feminist viewpoint that gently asks, how well does this practice serve us? Does it prefigure the sort of world we want to live in? And, if it doesn’t, how do we seek accountability and redress for harm in ways that reflect our values?
Written by adrienne maree brown. With an Afterword by Malkia Devich-Cyril. 
You can purchase the book here.
You can read the original blog post which became the reader on adrienne's website here.

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This list is not exhaustive. There are many more books to explore & we plan to keep sharing along with reviews and other goodies. Let us know what you think of these & feel free to suggest others! Rittenhouse will be digging into our archive to share vintage TJ & Rj resources as well as producing some new print resources in 2021, so stay tuned!

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