Being anti-carceral is no longer a choice; it's the only way forward

The news broke this week of a perpetrator hiding in plain sight in 20 child care centres across Melbourne. It's safe to say it's been distressing for parents who send their child to one of the centres involved. I've loved seeing the influx of educational posts about sexual abuse on social media. It warmed my heart. But is sharing information after the fact going to bring real change to violence against women and children?

Australia, and I would imagine the world, is in an epidemic of violence against women. You might be asking What does that have to do with the sexual abuse of children in a childcare centre? Everything. This is not an isolated event; it's common practice for women and children to be the victims of sexual violence. And I know that’s shocking to read, but if we don't start to look at the bigger picture of this circumstance, then real change can't happen.

Real change involves seeing the whole picture of this problem and how it directly relates to systemic oppression of women. It's ironic that the same week we hear about a perpetrator in childcare centres in Australia, P. Diddy is not held accountable for a major operation of sex trafficking, including the trafficking of underage children. We didn’t see outrage. We saw footage of people dancing and cheering for his release by the masses outside the court. A very different reaction to what we saw in Melbourne this week, hey? 

I remember the gut-sinking feeling I felt when I first heard about what P. Diddy had done. I saw the video of him violently beating Cassie, his wife, and I thought to myself, how is he going to get out of this? And here we are. A jury of 12 people sat in a courtroom and listened to the overwhelming evidence and deemed the women to be lying. They found him guilty of driving sex workers across state lines, but not trafficking. These victims were apparently willing participants. And this is not the first time there has been a huge amount of evidence of violence against women by a celebrity, and they were not charged. Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Johnny Depp, Chris brown, Donald Trump, just to name a few.

Is this a celebrity problem? Do they get acquitted because they have money and power? Let's dig into how the judicial system goes for everyday people who perpetrate violence against women. Two months ago, a man sexually harassed 12 women in a nightclub in Australia with CCTV footage of the crimes; the judge sentenced him to community work, stating, “I accept this offending was out of character for you”. But was it? Or was it a pattern of behaviour that will continue to escalate?

Two months ago, a woman reported that she believed she was being stalked to the police in QLD. Instead of investigating her claim, the police involuntarily detained her in a psychiatric facility. Both the police and medical staff believed she was delusional. It was later discovered that she was, in fact, being stalked by a man who was sleeping in her roof. 

Three months ago, a former Australian test cricketer strangled, stalked and assaulted his former partner. This was not his first victim; he has multiple victims over the last year, but a judge decided to give him a suspended jail term. He walked free. 

This month, a woman was abducted from a shopping centre car park in Australia. A man assaulted her and then drove her car to pick up his friends. They drove around for six hours, taking turns assaulting her. The police officer who managed the case said, “It was an isolated event and was not a premeditated incident because the men didn’t know the woman they abducted”. But was it? They may not have known the women, but they planned to abduct a woman from that shopping centre that day. 

A study's results were released in the last month that revealed 33% of Aussie men admit to abusing their partners. Men on social media were outraged, “Who participated in this study? I didn’t!” “33% of who?” “This is bullshit!”. The Australian Institute of Family Studies tracked 16,000 men for 10 years. One-third of them said they abused their partners physically, emotionally, financially, or by other means. 

The rate of family violence has risen by 11% in the last ten years in Australia. What does all of this have to do with the recent child sexual assault case? If we take a step back from this incident, it’s clear society has a problem with holding perpetrators accountable for violence against women. Violence against women is directly related to the sexual assault of children. It has become our culture. The norm we see over and over again in the news, on social media, and throughout attitudes within communities. Women and children are not valued in the same way as men are in society. 

“We talk a lot about the danger of dark alleys, but the truth is

that in every country around the world, the home is

the most dangerous place for a woman (and her children)”

Jess Hill 

Child sexual assault is more likely to be committed by a family member or someone the victim knows. 80% of sexual abuse is by a family member in Australia. Sexual abuse is a large part of family violence. We can’t address one without addressing the other - they are interconnected. 

One of my favourite researchers in violence against women is Dr Ann Burgess. She pioneered the assessment and treatment of trauma in rape victims in the 1960’s. Before Dr Burgess’s work, the FBI believed rape left no psychological damage to a woman. It wasn't a big deal in their eyes. Burgess researched violence against women by interviewing victim/survivors of rape in the 60’s. She believed the survivors and turned their stories into qualitative evidence to support real change within the judicial system. The FBI developed a psychological profile of serial killers based on her research into survivors and perpetrators of violence.

The most interesting thing that stood out to Burgess in her work with perpetrators and victim/survivors was sex was not the dominant reason in raping a woman; dominating another person was. The power of it was almost addictive and was the driving force behind the violence.

This was an important turning point in understanding how family violence is committed and, more importantly, continues to be committed in record numbers. Power and control. That’s where it starts, and that’s where it ends. Power is given to men through systems like the court, police, education systems and “running their households”. All of our systems that could stop this are filled with perpetrators in plain sight - judges, professors, police officers, doctors, psychiatrists, jury participants, lawyers, presidents and ministers. The systems we rely on to bring justice and set the standard for appropriate behaviour are riddled with those very people who perpetrate violence against women and children. 

Being anti-carceral is no longer a choice; it's the only way forward. Anti-carceral is a political and ethical stance that opposes the use of prisons, policing, and punitive systems as the primary response to harm, conflict, or social issues. Instead, anti-carceral approaches advocate for transformative or restorative justice, community-based care, and addressing the root causes of harm, such as poverty, racism, ableism, and trauma. And those who are most affected must be involved through community intervention. Victim/survivors of sexual assault and family violence, including those most marginalised - racialised people, the LGBTQIA+ community, people with mental health challenges and disabled folk need to be at the centre of this change. 

Remove perpetrator's power. Stop the patriarchal culture. Centre the most marginalised and provide real care for those harmed by this power imbalance. We need to understand how systemic issues (like colonialism, capitalism, and white supremacy) create the conditions for harm. 

Addressing child sexual abuse within community spaces alone isn't enough to bring real change in this area. Addressing this epidemic at the root cause, the systemic patriarchal, capitalist power, is the only way to bring real, lasting change.  

For more information on the epidemic of family violence in Australia, follow Sherele Moody and her incredible advocacy at The Red Heart Campaign. https://australianfemicidewatch.org/