Mission

Who we are: Our mission

Free Battered Women seeks to end the re-victimization of incarcerated survivors of domestic violence as part of the movement for racial justice and the struggle to resist all forms of intimate partner violence against women and transgender people. We achieve this through community organizing, parole advocacy, public education, media campaigns, and policy work.

What we believe: Our vision & guiding principles

• We envision a criminal legal system and parole system that recognizes how women and transgender people’s experiences of being abused by intimate partners contribute to their involvement in activities that are considered criminal.
• We recognize that responsibility for a crime cannot merely be judged by the crime itself, but that one must consider the full history of any abuse the parties experienced (including tactics of power & control used by the abusive partner, self-protection strategies used by the survivor, and responses by community institutions such as the legal systems, health care system, and other resources to the survivor and the abusive partner), when making such determinations.
• We understand that without a full exploration of the history of abuse, the state (i.e., the government and its institutions) commits further violence against women and transgender people, and exploits the racial and gender inequalities that disproportionately affect women of color and transgender people.
• We recognize that the violence and control used by the state against people in prison mirrors the dynamics of battering that many incarcerated survivors have experienced in their intimate relationships and/or as children.
• We work to ensure that public discussions about incarcerated survivors of domestic violence recognize the connections between state violence and domestic violence and reflect the realities of survivors’ lives.
• We acknowledge that people who have been battered by intimate partners are survivors, and that by drawing on their/our strength, we can collectively challenge the re-victimization of incarcerated survivors of domestic violence by the state.
• We strive to highlight the strength and healing of incarcerated survivors and to serve as an outlet for survivors’ struggle to heal from and resist the injustices they/we have experienced and continue to experience.
• Those of us who are outside prison work in solidarity with incarcerated survivors to build a movement to free incarcerated survivors from prison.
• We believe that incarcerated survivors are the experts in their own lives – those of us who haven’t been there are not the experts.
• We understand that intimate partner battering is experienced differently by different survivors, depending on their race and ethnic identities, gender identity, sexual orientation, access to formal education, class status, immigration status, dis/abilities, age, parenting status, and other identities, and that these differences are shaped by forces of oppression.
• We recognize that power is not distributed equally in society and that people of color, women and transgender people, poor people, queer people, people with disabilities, immigrants, and members of many other communities are marginalized, targeted, and exploited by people and institutions with power, including the criminal legal system and parole system.
• We strive to dismantle these hierarchies of power both within the larger culture and within our organization.
• We seek to actively promote principles and practices of racial justice in our organization. We recognize, however, that as a multi-racial organization, white supremacy and other forms of institutional oppression are often replicated. It is the responsibility of white staff members and volunteers to engage in anti-racist self-education and training.
• We seek to promote the leadership of formerly incarcerated survivors and people of color within the organization.
• We aim to create structures of accountability within our organization to communities of color and others most impacted by incarceration, currently and formerly incarcerated survivors of domestic violence, and their family members.
• We are invested in exploring community-based alternatives to relying on the criminal legal system to address intimate partner battering.
• We envision a world without prisons, a world where all people have access to the material, educational, emotional, and spiritual resources necessary to be safe and thrive in our communities.

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