ABSTRACT
In this creative non-fiction piece, the author describes her personal journey from victim to survivor to activist to social worker to non-profit director to professor to scholar-activist. Over the past three decades, she has moved from a pro-incarceration and pro-police stance to becoming a dedicated advocate for transformative justice, anti-carceral responses, and abolitionist approaches. After a rape in at age 13 by a 20-year-old camp counselor, the author decided not to report the crime. For two decades, she grappled with whether to report. At age 31, she found the rapist on LinkedIn, only to learn that the statute of limitations meant she was too late to file a report. Then, in the mid-2010s, the statute was changed, and she was once again confronted with having to decide whether to report. Throughout her journey, she realizes the limitations of a statute in providing justice, safety, healing, or meaningful accountability. Instead, by embracing feminism, Queer joy, abolition, and activism, she has dedicated her life’s work to imagining and creating a different world than the one we were given—one without violence or the prospect of it.
