Five Ways Policy Can Disrupt Rape Culture

Ending rape culture requires action on many fronts, including our systems and structures. Policy change has the power to fundamentally shift them.

DIVEST FROM POLICING

Police sexual misconduct is cemented into the structure of law enforcement, and we cannot end sexual violence until we end policing. Reliance on policing to end sexual violence leaves 70% of survivors who don’t report to police behind. For every Black woman who reports a sexual assault, 15 don’t. We demand:

• Divestment from policing and mass criminalization
• An immediate end to all detention, deportations, Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) raids, and roving Border Patrols.
• Investment in community-based sexual assault prevention, intervention and healing for Black women, girls, trans and gender non-conforming survivors.

INVEST IN BLACK COMMUNITIES

Chronic divestment from Black communities creates conditions where violence is more likely to occur. We demand:

• Investment in community-based transformative violence prevention and intervention strategies that offer support for criminalized populations.
• Investment in safe, accessible and affirming housing, health care — including mental health and reproductive care — child and elder care, transportation, income support and living wage employment — all consistently named by survivors as things they need to avoid, escape, and heal from violence which are currently defunded.

PROTECT BLACK TGNCI PEOPLE

Black trans and gender nonconforming people report some of the highest levels of sexual violence by police and in institutions like schools and prisons are routine targets of criminalization in specifically racialized and gendered ways. We demand:

• An end to profiling, criminalization, police, and prison violence against Black trans and gender nonconforming people.
• Investment in community-based violence prevention, intervention and healing programs led by and centered around Black trans and gender nonconforming people.

END ALL JAILS, PRISONS, AND IMMIGRATION DETENTION

Sexual violence is such a hallmark of incarceration that it’s widely considered part of the punishment. Sexual violence cannot end until we end all forms of forced detention. We demand:

• An end to all jails, prisons, immigration and youth detention, and civil commitment facilities.
• An immediate end to all private and public immigration detention centers.

REPARATIONS

One of the ways that Black women, trans and gender nonconforming people routinely experience police violence is by being targeted by police for sexual harassment, extortion, and assault. We demand:

• Reparations to survivors of police violence and their families, and to survivors of prison, detention and deportation violence, and their families.

For details on these policy recommendations, check out the M4BL’s Vision For Black Lives.