Prison Activism Now: SAFES

Justice Matters: When was SAFES started and why?

Arwen Bird: We started in early 1999 as a collaboration between myself (the survivor of a drunk driving crash), Michele Kohler, whose father was killed during an armed robbery, and Robin Shanafelt, whose husband died when he was struck by a stray bullet in downtown Portland. We were frustrated that tough-on-crime “victims” groups purported to be the voice of crime survivors, when they didn’t represent our views or perspective at all. We saw their tough-on-crime stance as vengeanceoriented and not really based on what is needed to prevent crime, support crime survivors, and ensure public safety. As crime survivors we wanted nothing to do with that kind of every-person-for her/ himself thinking–the same type of thinking used to commit crimes in the first place. We set out to create an alternative voice for crime survivors in Oregon – one that would represent the majority of crime survivors. After organizing for a while, we found the Restorative Justice (RJ) Movement and found that a lot of the values and goals with RJ mirrored our own values and goals. It was then that we decided to incorporate restorative justice in our mission.

JM: Who belongs to your group?

AB: We represent about 200 survivors of crime who are in our membership. We reach another 1100 through our newsletter. When we say “crime survivor” that includes people who have survived personal violence, or are a family member of someone who was killed or survived violence. Regardless of whether the crime was committed by an individual (such as partner rape, or the state such as assaults by police officers and the death penalty), the effects of the crime are still the same – thus we include a broader array of folks than the media portrays as crime survivors. This may go without saying, but it is important to emphasize that we include survivors who have not reported their crimes in our definition. Last year that was more than half of the people victimized!

JM: What are some of your biggest accomplishments?

AB: We established SAFES as a credible alternative to the dominant crime victims group; we determine that by what we are asked to participate in – we are asked to be at many of the same “tables” as the dominant group even though we represent a very different point of view. We also organized a Support and Action Network for murder victims’ family members. Family members participate regularly in public education and advocacy through the network and reach out to “new” family members to offer support.

One of the things we are most of is that we helped improve compensation and restitution systems for crime survivors. For the past two legislative sessions we have worked closely with other advocates and state agencies to make these forms of support accessible to all survivors. I was also appointed to the Oregon Attorney General’s Restitution Reform Task Force. We’ve also done grassroots education about restorative justice for hundreds of Oregonians. Through community presentations, events and media, SAFES members have been able to use their stories to educate community members about the need for a restorative justice system.

JM: What issues are you currently working on?

AB: SAFES is part of a committee working on the Serious and Violent Crimes Dialogue that is trying to create safe and empowering means for survivors to be able to meet with their offenders. Such dialogues have tremendous power to change the lives of participants – helping each other to recognize their shared humanity. We also participate in the Oregon Anti- Death Penalty Coalition and have long worked to remove the death penalty in Oregon. This coalition is made up of grassroots organizations, professional organizations and the faith community.

Right now, we are at the preliminary stages of reaching out to survivors of police brutality and setting up a Support and Action Network for survivors of police violence. We are working with the Alliance for Police and Community Accountability to work toward a truly community-oriented police force.

We also work on restitution reform and regularly participate in efforts to reform restitution and compensation for crime survivors in Oregon. Our goal is to create a system that is responsive to the needs of survivors and falls into place automatically—rather than at the urging of a survivor in need.

JM: Why is SAFES so important to the criminal justice reform movement?

AB: The majority of crime survivors have been marginalized by our current criminal justice system. People of color and people living in poverty are victimized by crime at a much higher rate than others–these groups are also over-represented among people in prison. This dynamic speaks to a system that is less focused on community safety and crime prevention than on locking up specific groups of people in order to make the public feel safe, whether or not they actually are safe.

Conservative crime survivors have been very vocal and have played a big part in expanding our reliance on incarceration as the solution to crime. As progressive survivors, we use our stories of surviving rape, burglary, the murder of a loved one and assault (to name a few) to speak out in favor of a system that works to repair the harm that crime causes to communities, offenders and survivors, and for policies that prevent crime before it happens. We represent the majority voice among crime survivors, a voice that hasn’t often been heard above the din of “tough-on-crime” political noise

JM: What is one thing you’d like to say to our readership?

AB: We are all human beings. Violence affects all of us, sometimes in really subtle ways (such as a racist or sexist joke) and sometimes in really devastating ways such as domestic violence or murder. Many of our members are survivors of crimes they did not report and many people who are incarcerated are crime survivors themselves.

As survivors who seek a restorative justice system, we see much of our current system as anti-survivor; not just because retribution in the form of tough-oncrime sentences takes resources away from prevention and needed services— but because it emulates the same thinking that was used in committing the harm in the first place. Any time we regard someone else as less than human we can justify harming them, discriminating against them and not helping them to get what they need (such as shelter, food or clothing). As survivors we want a system that treats people who commit crimes with fairness, respect and compassion, because they, like us, are human beings.

This interview originally appeared in the Summer 2003 issue of Justice Matters.

Note: In Fall 2004 SAFES consolidated with the Western Prison Project leading to the creation of Crime Survivors for Community Safety.