In the present circumstances, perhaps the abolitionist position is premature. Notwithstanding this observation, the naivety of some sectors on the US Left on the question of prisons has long ceased to amaze me. The U.S. prison-industrial complex differentially oppresses the poor and especially African-Americans. Is that so difficult to understand? Is it so difficult to understand, therefore, that the demand for abolition originates from those subject to the oppression of the prison-industrial complex?
In this context, the anti-racist demand for equity in sentencing, for example, or equity in promulgation of drug laws should be supported even though it is simply a liberal demand. More radical demands, in the present context (I cannot emphasize this enough), include substantial reductions in spending for police departments & the apparatus of surveillance, and that racist cops be brought to book.
epoliticus
-- "In the tender annals of Political Economy, the idyllic reigns from time immemorial ... the present year of course always excepted." -- A German refugee, circa 1867 --
http://epoliticus9.blogspot.com/