a foundational overview of our purpose, politics, and programs.
Perpetrators Anonymous (PA) was born from a hard truth: that without naming and working with those who cause harm, cycles of violence will continue. We exist to create space for honest reckoning, collective accountability, and transformative healing.
We serve communities often overlooked—queer, poor, disabled, undocumented, displaced, or otherwise structurally othered. In these spaces, harm is often invisible, rationalized, or softened into silence. We disrupt that silence with care, clarity, and courage.
PA is not about excusing harm. It is about transforming it. We walk with those willing to be accountable—not those seeking comfort or forgiveness. Our politics are not neutral. We stand with survivors, and with those ready to change.
We believe that justice begins where harm happens—in community—and that anonymity can offer safety for deep truth-telling. In our spaces, accountability is not a performance, it is a process. Not a sentence, but a step forward.
our vision
Healing, restoring, and transforming our communities from violence.
our mission
To interrupt cycles of harm through restorative, transformative, and healing approaches grounded in justice, care, and collective responsibility.
🕊️ what we stand for
🔹 I. Naming Harm, Building Foundations
1. Harm must be named to be transformed.
Violence thrives in silence. We create spaces where all forms of harm—subtle, normalized, and internalized—can be named without fear and held with care.
2. Accountability is love in action.
True accountability is not punishment. It is a continuous practice of reckoning, repair, and responsibility—rooted in compassion, not coercion.
3. We believe in early, layered interventions.
Prevention is not enough. We intervene early and consistently—before harm becomes normalized, and long after it has occurred.
4. Survivors must be centered.
All our work begins with the dignity, safety, and agency of those harmed. Survivors shape our ethics, our interventions, and our direction.
🔹 II. Holding the Harming Without Excusing Harm
5. Some people who cause harm are ready to change.
Change requires more than remorse—it demands consent, courage, and care. We walk with those ready to be accountable.
6. The right to heal on one’s own terms.
Healing is not one-size-fits-all. We honor personal, cultural, and collective paths that resist professional gatekeeping.
7. Violence in marginalized communities is often invisible.
In “othered” communities, harm can wear the mask of survival or loyalty. We name these patterns to break their grip—not to shame them.
8. Care must include boundaries.
Love includes limits. We create spaces that hold both accountability and safety.
9. Remorse is only a beginning.
Feeling sorry is not the same as changing. We support those willing to do the work—not those chasing redemption without repair.
🔹 III. Reimagining Justice and Systems
10. Justice begins with community.
While systems exist, we root our justice in relationships, dialogue, and community-based repair.
11. Transformation is impossible without abolition.
We reject carceral, patriarchal, and capitalist systems that punish instead of heal. We build what we need—not just tear down what harms.
12. Feminism must be liberatory.
Inspired by bell hooks, our feminism is relational, inclusive, and anti-oppressive. It makes room for truth—not just slogans.
🔹 IV. Creating Cultures That Hold
13. Healing is sustained through collective care.
Transformation needs community. We build networks of care—because no one changes alone.
14. Culture is part of the solution.
We use story, dialogue, and art to shift the roots of violence and imagine something better.
15. We believe in radical tenderness.
We hold contradiction, discomfort, and truth with courage and care. Not all kindness is softness—but all truth must be held with humanity.
🔹 V. Commitment to Political Healing
16. Our work is political.
We are not neutral. We side with the harmed, the honest, and the brave. Justice is not abstract—it’s personal, collective, and ongoing.
17. We build what we need before we need it.
We don’t wait for crisis. We build systems of care now—so that when harm happens, we meet it with readiness, not reaction.
our core values
Accountability: True change begins when responsibility is claimed—not avoided.
Anonymity: Confidentiality makes space for courage. Silence protects healing, not harm.
Collective Healing: We do not heal alone. Community is the soil for transformation.
Justice: We replace punishment with practices that restore and repair.
Liberation: We challenge the systems that teach and protect violence—patriarchy, capitalism, ableism.
Survivor-Centeredness: Those harmed guide the ethics of our work.
the politics that guide us
"Love is an action, never simply a feeling." — bell hooks
PA draws inspiration from the radical, love-rooted feminist work of bell hooks, whose vision of feminism is one of inclusion, wholeness, critical thought, and courageous healing. For us, feminism is not about competing oppressions or gatekeeping identity. It is about creating spaces where harm can be named, understood, and dismantled—whether that harm comes from the state or from within our own communities.
We understand that feminist practice requires self-examination, community responsibility, and a commitment to unlearning patriarchal ways of relating. We believe that love, as hooks writes, is an action, an ethic—and a powerful force for accountability and liberation.
who we're for...and who we're not
Who We Support
People who have caused harm and are ready to be honest, accountable, and transformed.
First-time or non-chronic offenders showing deep remorse and commitment to change.
Individuals whose harmful behavior is rooted in trauma and are willing to confront it.
Those who have caused non-violent harm and meet our criteria for risk and readiness.
People seeking trauma-informed rehabilitation who are open to long-term accountability work.
Who We Don't Support
Serial or repeat offenders, especially those with a history of violent abuse.
Individuals convicted of sexual violence or currently involved in severe abuse cases.
People unwilling to take full responsibility or who deny their harm.
Individuals currently involved in legal proceedings that could compromise survivors or our work.
Those who pose an active or continued threat to survivor or community safety.
🔍 Who Are “Others”?
For Perpetrators Anonymous (PA), the term "others" is a powerful political category—it names those who have been systematically marginalized, misunderstood, excluded, or over-monitored by dominant social, legal, or cultural systems. We support those who have been pushed to the edges, not because they are weak—but because something powerful has tried to silence or erase them.