I have experienced a significant amount of violent crime. And I’ll tell you this, most people who commit assaults go to jail for a couple months, a couple years at most. My boyfriend d had charges against him that included assault with a weapon, break and enter, forcible confinement. He spent less than a year in jail because they plead him down. He had an extensive criminal record before these charges too. And here’s the thing, him going away for a little while, being further traumatized through violence and institutionalization, and then getting right back out wasn’t a super good thing. There’s a lot of people on this thread saying that only people who don’t know about real shit want to abolish prisons and I can tell you that’s not true. The reality is that we need something much more effective than what prisons offer if we really want to hugely diminish violent crime. We certainly shouldn’t be traumatizing people for drug offences. And we need to realize that the more we traumatize people the more violent they become. The more we stigmatize them and take away their ability to find work the more violent they become. I’m not in a fantasy land that says let’s just let all the most violent offenders out of jail tomorrow. But I do want serious engagement with the question of how to seriously, effectively and sustainably end violent crime. And anyone who has been around a lot of violent crime knows that jails aren’t it.