First, I'm really - really! - sorry this happened to you.

Second, I agree with you. People do actually evil things and there is a need for both rehabilitation and punishment.

But - you knew there was going to be a but, but it isn't that bad a but - I think you miss the point of people calling for prison abolition.

When you negotiate, you need to ask for more than you want, so you can give up something and still hit your targets. If you are negotiating with with hostile or crazy people, you need to ask for even more at the start, so they can feel they have really beaten you are the start, and so they can get their hate out by screaming at you.

After FDR, the Democrats inexplicably forgot about this and started asking for tiny, marginal improvements, which they mostly didn't get.

This is pushed the Overton Window far to the right, to the point that politicians who call for social services to be improved so they're about half as effective as your average European social democracy are universally considered to be extremists.

In order to bring the Overton Window back, we, the good guys, need to start asking for really big things. If you fail on a small goal, you get nothing. But if you fall short of a huge goal, you can still get a big win.

Bickering over tweaks is not a win for us. We have to eventually go big, if only to make up for four decades of losses.

"Defund the police! Abolish the prisons!" People are aghast. But you can make a good case even for these extreme positions, particularly compared to now.

My father died young. I cannot tell you how sad this story makes me feel - robbed of your father for nothing. Hell, I feel angry about this and I know nothing about you.

But there are also Black kids sitting in jail right now serving hard time for miniscule offenses, or in many cases, on trumped-up false charges, and these kids will never have a proper life.

So reformists are asking to abolish the jails - but what they're hoping to get is major reform of the jail system, one that does punish serious wrong-doers but also teaches people to be better humans if this is possible, and balances the rights of the incarcerated.

But if you ask for that, you'll get almost nothing.

"That seems reasonable, so I'll give you a punch in the face instead. Or would you prefer a kick in the stomach?" -Republicans.

So you ask for abolishing the prisons, and explain that extreme as it is, it would overall be fairer than now (with over two million incarcerated, but then their lives destroyed after they get out, and most for non-violent, minor crimes) and then allow yourself to be talked down to what you really wanted in the first place.

"Tear down the jails" is a much better slogan than "reduce the number of people who are incarcerated in jail through rehabilitation"

I now live in the Netherlands, where we are closing jails - and yes, there are complaints about inadequate policing, but I've seen cops arrest people here very effectively and fast when it needed to happen.

And a secret about these north-western European countries is that even though they have low sentences, a small number of people are never allowed out of jail, ever, because they are simply too evil. Theoretically Norway has a hard maximum of 21 years for any crime, and very comfortable jails but the demon who committed the Norway massacre is not in one of those jails, and there's a little asterisk in the law that allows them to keep people who are a danger to others indefinitely.

Ask for a lot more than you want, and maybe you'll get something you can use. You are on the same side as the people who claim to want to abolish prisons - you should just embrace them. As someone who has suffered through crime, your voice would be a particularly powerful one.