The Violence Interruption Process
Working Assumptions

Violence is learned and can be unlearned. The most basic assumption underlying the VIP way of working is that people are basically good, intelligent, curious about life. and embedded with a cooperative spirit. The phenomenon of violence, which is manifested in acts of antisocial or criminal behavior or other destructive acts, is not in any way inherent to particular individuals or communities.

Violence is interpersonal and institutional. While verbal, emotional, and physical violence occurs between people, institutions are also violent in their treatment of individuals because they belong to a particular group. VIP assumes that violence has an institutional dimension as well as an interpersonal one. This translates into the systematic mistreatment of individuals. Violence is the invalidation, denial, or the non-recognition of the complete humanness (the goodness, uniqueness, smartness, powerfulness, etc.) of those in the mistreated group.

A person's choices in areas of attitudes, actions, and values are made as the best perceived survival strategy at the time. Individuals who have not been exposed to nonviolent attitudes and behaviors cannot be expected to practice them. VIP recognizes and respects that. VIP exposes individuals to ways of thinking that interrupt and do not rely on violence.

No one is safe until everyone is safe. VIP assumes that if violence against one group or individual can be condoned. then it sets the stage for violence to be justified against us all.

Information alone does not change attitudes. Individuals' attitudes are closely tied to their emotions and therefore need to be worked through on an emotional level. VIP creates an atmosphere that encourages respect for other individuals' intelligence, experience, and humanity.

We need to go through it before we can do it. We encourage awareness of and dealing with our own issues and feelings so that we can hear and support others non- judgmentally.

Change is a process, not an event. Empowering individuals is partly a process of healing previous hurt or pain and disempowerment. Change cannot be forced on anyone. When individuals can work through past pain, they can arrive at creative, productive, nonviolent solutions to their problems.

Individuals come with respect for another's humanity. Humans possess a core being of love, vivacity, intelligence, cooperativeness, and curiosity. VIP encourages participants to recognize that each human being has the potential to possess these qualities.

In any group of people, there is tremendous healing power. VIP assumes that each individual is an expert on his or her own experience. Collectively, all the members in the VIP group have all the information and experiences they need to help one another.

Our greatest resource is our community. Individuals' empowerment comes through community and happens most easily and effectively when it is supported and nurtured by group energy.

Liberation is the undoing of the effects of internalized oppression. The achievement of human liberation on a global scale will require far-reaching changes at the institutional, group, and individual level. These changes will involve transforming or unlearning oppressive behavioral patterns and attitudes.

Each group targeted by oppression inevitably internalizes the mistreatment and the misinformation about itself. Internalized oppression is always an involuntary reaction to the experience of oppression. The target group so often hears misinformation and observes or experiences mistreatment that members become convinced of the legitimacy. This misbelieving expresses itself in behavior and interactions between individual members of the target group which repeat the content of their oppression.

Tell the truth. Any situation in which a person prevents others from engaging in a process of inquiry or alienates one from his or her own decision-making or truths is violence.

We are all connected. We become disempowered by believing we are separated, by fearing others, and by not cooperating with one another. VIP realizes that we are all connected, that we must rely on one another, and that we must interrupt violence.

There is no magic dust. VIP does not offer immediate solutions to individuals' problems but rather helps them to work through issues themselves, utilizing the information, experiences, and support of others in the group. Liberation is possible. It is possible to recover the buried memories of our socialization, to share our stories, to heal the hurts imposed by the conditioning, to act in the present in a humane and caring manner, to rebuild our human connections, and to change our world.