What is Swing R&R?
Swing Reports & Restorations is a program designed with the intention to increase the safety of West Coast Swing dance events through policy consultation and development, as well as partnering with events to provide a safety and incident response program.
As part of the safety and incident response program, Swing R&R offers reporting methods which allow event participants (attendees, volunteers, and staff) to report safety concerns/incidents of any magnitude and to request actions that may restore or improve upon a sense of safety for the reporter and/or the overall safety of events.
Guiding Values of Swing Reports & Restorations
1) Reporter Safety
The program centers the reporter’s needs and requests, prioritizes reporter anonymity and/or confidentiality, and facilitates the restoration of safety whenever possible.
2) Centering Marginalized Experiences
The founder of Swing Reports & Restorations, Riley Crozier, acknowledges that there is a historical precedent of safety policies and response protocols being utilized and leveraged against marginalized communities. Riley is committed to a continuing education in equitable practices and transformative justice (see below).
3) Applying the Praxes of Restorative Justice and Transformative Justice
Restorative Justice
Operating off a model of Restorative Justice, it is believed that people can change, learn, grow, and work to repair harm they have done, and that offering support, education, and guidance around restorative actions can help a person who has caused harm become a more harmonious and aligned member of the community.
Ideally, harm response plans based in Restorative Justice allow for
a) The restoration of the reporter to their state of being before the harm occurred.
b) The coexistence of all involved parties after completion.
It is acknowledged that there are circumstances where complete restoration and/or coexistence is not possible.
It is also acknowledged that, in cases of severe harm or harm that is likely to occur again without intervention, it may be necessary to temporarily deny the person who caused harm access to shared community spaces while restoration plans are drafted, negotiated, and enacted. However, under the values of Swing Reports & Restorations, no community member will be unconditionally banned from community spaces. It is integral to the values of the program that IF a person’s access to community spaces is denied or limited, that the individual has a clear path to return.
Transformative Justice
Operating off a model of Transformative Justice, it is understood that there are larger, societal, and systemic conditions that influence harmful behavior. Harm response must not only address the harm to the individual, but investigate the conditions under which the harm occurred.
In action, this can look like providing education and opportunities to help people investigate the systems of oppression or dehumanization that dispose of us to causing harm to one another. While Transformative Justice often exists in opposition to structural justice systems, Swing Reports & Restorations takes influence from Transformative Justice in approaching event policy consultations – helping event organizers investigate and develop the policies that could help create more equitable and just spaces.
The work of Transformative Justice is, “the work of addressing harm at the root, outside the mechanisms of the state, so that we can grow into the right relationship with one another.” – adrienne maree brown
In the words of activist Mariame Kaba, “. . .a system that never addresses the why behind a harm never actually contains the harm itself. Cages confine people, not the conditions that facilitated their harms or the mentalities that perpetuate violence.”
For feedback, questions, consultations, or partnership inquiries, please email Riley at SwingReports@gmail.com.