Rebel Justice: Janine Ewen on Survival, Systems—and Building Something Better

“You’re not alone.” That’s the steady heartbeat of this week’s Rebel Justice from The View Magazine, where host and guest peel back the idea that justice is something distant and abstract. It’s not. It regulates our everyday lives until it fails, and the failure lands at home. Our guest, Janine Ewen, grew up in Northern…

8 November 20250Comments

ByThe View Magazine

“You’re not alone.” That’s the steady heartbeat of this week’s Rebel Justice from The View Magazine, where host and guest peel back the idea that justice is something distant and abstract. It’s not. It regulates our everyday lives until it fails, and the failure lands at home.

Our guest, Janine Ewen, grew up in Northern Ireland amid the Troubles and an even closer war behind her front door. She describes a childhood of alarms and escape plans, of neighbours who cared and systems that didn’t. Police responses were inconsistent; safeguarding faltered; family courts, she warns, can still be weaponised. Eventually, Janine, her mother and brother fled to Scotland and found safety in a women’s refuge, proof that community can repair what institutions neglect.

From those beginnings, Janine forged a career in public health, harm reduction and trauma-informed practice, bringing survivors’ voices into policing, research and policy. Her work champions needs-led, community approaches of the kind that don’t let “the police agenda” swallow care. She’s clear-eyed about what must change: early mental-health support for children, honest scrutiny of frontline failures, and family courts that put safety above procedure.

This episode is a conversation about pain and what comes next: creative methods that help young people speak, accountability that prevents re-traumatisation, and the stubborn hope that systems can be remade by those who’ve survived them.