If prison abolitionists spent as much time coming up with an answer than they do complaining about people raising it we would all be better off. 'What do we do with people who are a danger to others' is the crux of the whole prison system. You can absolutely acknowledge the ways it's failing and advocate for change. But the principle question doesnt change. What do we do with people who hurt others? This is the most obvious question people are going to have! Everyone should have seen it coming. So why don't you have an answer? You need to be able to explain your position in order to sway people to your cause. Referring me to an essay that also doesn't answer the question does not count. Maybe you would stop getting the same questions if you answered them.
The examples that this comic uses are very telling - the one questioning who we are afraid of (fear of the Other) depicts a scared white man and 2 black people, implying that the issue is white people's irrational fear of Black people. This is racist! But Black people don't commit 90% of sexual violence. Men do. Women being afraid of men is not the same thing as white people being afraid of Black people. The 'bad people who aren't in jail' news article is about a dog murderer. Seriously? We can all agree that's awful, but how common is that compared to rape? The example for not incarcerating murderers is a youth that killed her abusive father, something the average person already agrees with. None of these address the question she references at the beginning.
The prison system is harmful, and that should be talked about. It is often (especially in the United States, with their for-profit prisons) used as a way to punish poor people for poverty, and disproportionately targets people of color - particularly Black and Indigenous people. But this is regarding things like staying in jail because you can't afford bail, or drug laws targeting Black neighborhoods. Things like addiction, mental health, and poverty can lead to criminal activity, and these are things that can be addressed by social and public health programming. I don't know any leftists who aren't pro-social programs! But poor men rape. Rich men rape. Refugee men rape and CEOs rape. Men of all races and age and class and ability and and and rape women. Often women in similar classes and positions as them! If this was going to be solved by social programs it would have been.
Your argument to radically restructure society can't just be that the current state isn't working. Obviously that's part of it, but you need to talk about what you would do better! How are you improving on prisons? What are you doing to hold rapists accountable, since the prison system isn't? But if the whole discussion stops after 'well rapists are already getting away with it', then I'm forced to believe you don't actually care that much about victims. Much like the issue of 'we just want to pee!', the fact that women already face sexual violence from men in female-only spaces doesn't mean we should open those spaces up to any man who wants to enter.
I googled Project Nia, which focuses on ending youth incarceration. From their website: "We helped to pass juvenile expungement legislation, to close youth prisons in Illinois, to successfully demand transparency about suspension and expulsions at Chicago Public Schools, to popularize a demand for "Counselors NOT Cops in schools, and to successfully pass historic reparations for police torture survivors in Chicago." They've done a couple initiatives to support young people who are currently incarcerated, created community groups for young men who were otherwise getting into trouble in their neighborhood, and are campaigning against police brutality. These are all good things! I'm not denying that. But even her big project doesn't seem to be doing restorative justice with people who commit sexual or otherwise violent crimes - and that matters. Presumably if her org worked with youth rapists then she would have an answer to this question, because she could pull from her real-life examples. She works with women and girls who have killed in self-defence, but again, not the same thing. Like appropriately-inappropriate points out, would she believe in restorative justice if Bresha's abusive father had killed her, and not the other way around?
I also have experience in youth restorative justice; I've talked about it before. And my main takeaway is that it's fine for property crimes, petty assault (fist fights, etc), theft, things like that. But it's fine to focus on community connection and accessing services when the offence wasn't bad, or not violent, or a response to poverty. But what does it look like for violent crime? Do you put a woman in a circle with her rapist and make her take turns explaining how this affected them? Who is in the circle? Are women supposed to trust their male community members to be on their side? What happens when one of them is bros with the rapist? Women are already accused of lying and ruining men's lives now, never mind when the men in question could become involved in the community response.
