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this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
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What I'm getting from this is that you aren't, in a common person's use of these terms, supporting abolishing prisons, but that you are supporting abolishing "Prisons," which is sort of an abstract category that relates to some of the historical approaches to confinement and torture but is much more specific than the general use of the word prison in common language, and beyond that I guess also that the literal physical prisons are architecturally designed in ways that are overly conducive to abuse, but that there should still literally be physical prisons where people are kept for as long as we can't feasibly trust them not to cause certain types of meaningful harm to the community.
Am I missing something as relates to my original question?
abolition is about dismantling the current system because it's irredeemable and corrupt by design.
there's some tiny percentage of people who will do horrible things regardless and we'll always have something for them that "sounds like a prison" if you're paying no attention to the differences or purposes of the systems.
I'm just speaking in terms of common English because I don't have a degree in critical theory. I do not view two places being prisons as making them equivalent, just as two places being states does not make them equivalent, they just have certain specific features in common that both make them fit that definition.
If someone said, for instance, that I don't support the ultimate destruction of "the state" in common language but rather a more specific and abstract definition of the "State" inherited from Marx referring to the apparatus that mediates class antagonisms, but that if one uses "state" to simply mean "government" then yes, I think there should always be a government, my reply would be "yes, that is correct". I can speak at length about how my desired government would be different from the existing one, but by their definition it would still be a "state" and that's fine.
It's important to be able to communicate in a way where people who are trying to understand what you're saying can understand what you're saying, even if there will always be concern trolls doing a Young Turks fear mongering routine (who only need to be accounted for in terms of combating them, which being understood by sincere listeners helps with)
you’ve basically got what i’m saying. sorry, i got my university minor in critical theory so it’s easy for me to slip into jargon. i also suspect that the New Soviet Social Worker wouldn’t build prison blocks, but something more like a supervised collection of condos (like the stereotype of Scandinavian prisons). That’s just supposition though
You don't need to apologize, it's fine. I am not sure how to communicate this effectively, but if you want to both hold on to the "prison abolition" framing (which is fine) but also be understood by laypeople, it would probably be helpful to your advocacy to lead with the fact that you are using that much more specialized definition of "prison" and that in terms they would use, you do still acknowledge the need for prisons but basically want to replace the whole justice and carceral system with one that still has prisons (by the common definition) but is radically oriented toward rehabilitation and humane treatment. I truly think you'll have an easier time discussing with people and get fewer attacks that feel like mischaracterization (some of which will remain because there are malicious actors, but some stemming just from communication issues).
And if not, that's fine, I'm mostly saying this because I misunderstood you at first and saw a few other people also misunderstand you, despite the fact that I think everyone involved basically agrees.