This project analyzes the societal conceptualization of innocence as it impacts criminalized survivors of gendered violence. As seen in the “objective” legal framework of innocence and guilt, the racialized and gendered nature of such a dichotomy is shown in the stark racial disparities within the demographics of incarceration. This analysis seeks to shine a light on central contradictions baked into the criminal legal system’s core tenets of providing justice and safety to all by illuminating the startling trend of incarcerating and punishing survivors. As shown in the problem of criminalizing survival, we see not only how the criminal legal system has not provided safety for people who have been victimized by gendered violence, but also how it has punished them for surviving, a form of state violence. This text draws attention to the ways that certain survivors, especially women and genderqueer people of color, are disproportionately affected by this trend and by no accident. By illuminating the ways that these marginalized survivors have experienced various forms of state and interpersonal violence throughout their lives this thesis analyzes how this state violence is normalized by way of institutionalization and thus ignored or not seen as violence as a result. Lastly, the analysis herein addresses larger societal conceptions of worth and humanity rooted in ideas of innocence versus criminality as framed by the criminal legal system. This project examines the ways that innocence is a malleable term disguised as an objective legal framing of right and wrong – when in fact it often highlights those closest to power and those furthest from it.