Abolition, to me, is an uprooting of the system we have in place, and for prisons, I think, like policing, that needs to happen because these systems have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The idea of prison, the prevailing justification behind it, is that it is seen as a method of rehabilitation, a punishment that you serve, whether for a time or the rest of your life, at which point you re-enter society, humbled by your rehabilitation.
But is that happening? Our prisons are absolutely jam packed still, with crime (until recent spikes) being at all-time lows. New York City is not the New York City of the 1970's. Some of that is criminal justice reform that has had disproportionate effects on black and brown populations, but that's a different argument. The point being that crime statistics have been going down for years now, and yet somehow are prisons are more full up than ever.
Part of that is because the system does not see prison as rehabilitation, but as a coin-operated machine that not only makes money for those who own them, but rely on being filled to the brink. Thus we have our current model of parole and probation, which essentially follows former prisoners around in perpetuity. Millions of dollars are spent arming and paying people to follow ex-cons around, waiting for the slightest slip-up as they re-enter society so they can put them right back in jail. This all feeds itself, and ensures that "rehabilitation" is in the eye of the beholder, who finds it profitable to keep the prisons full.
The vast, vast majority of prisoners are not the serial murderers and rapists. Many people, who lack the ability to obtain legal counsel to defend themselves, accept plea bargains from the state in order to receive a somewhat reduced sentence. "Murder" lumps in both serial murder and those who were in the commission of a felony when someone around them accidentally died. 1 in 5 people in prison are there for nonviolent drug offenses, and drug and public order offenses (prostitution, drug use, disorderly conduct, etc.). If you go to a place where dehumanization and keeping the cells full is the name of the game, and your offense was nonviolent, what chance do you have to escape that life?
That said, there are a not-small amount of repeat violent offenders who do commit murder and rape. And I do agree that isolation from society is sometimes the only answer for these people. At the same time, I don't think the state should operate as an apparatus for cruel, carceral violence as some sort of Code of Hammurabi-cosplay. I think facilities for isolation should still be dedicated to true rehabilitation, through proper medical care, mental health resources, education, etc. I think seeing prisoners as not human is a fundamental moral failing, and that logic, that those who break with what the state interprets as the rule of law are lesser humans, has been used to justify an incredible amount of violence not just stateside, but globally against others.
Tl;dr: I do think the prison industrial complex as it exists in the United States needs to go away, it's the greatest committer of violence that we have going today. I do not believe in "no prisons," but I also do not believe in sardine-packed cells patrolled by cruel guards who uphold the status quo of the prison's rich owners and enforce their cruelty on prisoners long after they've left the prison. I think there are better ways.
