It's not a "step in the right direction" if it is a less overt or less brutal reenforcement of the existing societal structures.

It's like saying that verbal abuse is a step in the right direction compared to physical abuse, totally ignoring the larger context of abuse and its relation to patriarchy and how any act of abuse reenforces patriarchal values, beliefs and myths.

The whole idea of progress being small steps in the right direction is an attempt to hide the co-optation of any genuine attempt at breaking oppressive societal structures.
Reform or alternatives that don't fundamentally destroy the power flow of white supremacy, ableism, human supremacy and allocishet patriarchy is not a step in the fight for abolition, it is an attempt to kill it.
If an abolitionist org still works on capitalist principles, or holds onto semi-hierarchical structures or ideologies, it is not abolitionist.
Abolitionism needs to necessarily move beyond the state, capitalism, cops, any legalist framework, families, schools and any hierachical structure to be effective and not its own death.

There is no legal way towards prison abilition, state abolition or border abolition. And a legal way towards them is impossible to create, since any attempt to find a legal way would reenforce the idea of a legalist framework.

If we want prisons and other oppressive structures to fundamentally dissapear, we need to burn them down.

dont "build power" build *anti*power

cultivate habits, ties, and spaces that evade, resist, and sabotage the logistics of power

become ungovernable and illegible to power

leverage strategic placement or insight to exploit points of vulnerability

build underground market economies and guerrilla trade networks

participate in cultures of hopeful resistance and defiant joy