Prisons seem to be a feature of all modern authoritarian systems. Gulags in the former Soviet Union were known for separating people from their communities and shipping them to remote areas of the territory. They were famously described as an archipelago due to their isolation from Soviet society and their island-like separation from each other. While Siberian labor camps existed under the Russian Empire, they were expanded under Stalin's regime to be the primary form of punishment for political dissent. Their purpose has been adapted and enlarged under the Russian Federation with the introduction of western market reforms. Along with 'free-market' changes, prisons in population centers were revitalized and now operate in tandem with Siberian work camps as a single Federal Penitentiary Service.

The state of California holds more people captive than the Soviet Union at its most oppressive, and holds an even larger portion of the population. Over half of California prisons and 80% of prisoners are located more than 50 miles from major population areas, often in places called 'prison towns' where the biggest employer is the CDCR. These modern gulags are designed to sever the ties between incarcerated people and their communities, and impose exorbitant costs on families of the victims to maintain proximity. People are shuttled between these remote prisons to undermine friendships and alliances they form inside prison communities, with the intention to undermine political organization within prisons.

The prison system is structural to capitalism, and a testament to its authoritarian nature. If prisons and police were abolished, capitalism would collapse like a building under demolition. Prison is a load bearing structure in the pyramid of all authoritarian systems.

Any interest in returning to this conversation? I'm involved in abolitionist organizing in Arkansas, USA, but after recently reading The State and Revolution, I've gotten kinda shaken about this very question posed by @mambabasa@slrpnk.net. I will write a bit below about some of the important take-aways from this text, but in the case of tl;dr I guess what I'm especially interested in is this conversation that Robin D.G. Kelly encourages. Could you drop some links to where Kelly says this, whether that's in these comments or in their own posts? Looking forward to it :) -Clairexo

In The State and Revolution, the key points about policing are made by way of Engels and Marx, quoting from The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State:

But in order that these antagonisms, these classes with conflicting economic interests, might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power, seemingly standing above society, that would alleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of 'order'; and this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state."

The modern state has two distinguishing features: dividing its subjects according to territory, and establishing a public power. Regarding the latter:

The second distinguishing feature is the establishment of a public power which no longer directly coincides with the population organizing itself as an armed force. This special, public power is necessary because a self-acting armed organization of the population has become impossible since the split into classes.... This public power exists in every state; it consists not merely of armed men but also of material adjuncts, prisons, and institutions of coercion of all kinds, of which gentile [clan] society knew nothing...." “It [the public power] grows stronger, however, in proportion as class antagonisms within the state become more acute, and as adjacent states become larger and more populous. We have only to look at our present-day Europe, where class struggle and rivalry in conquest have tuned up the public power to such a pitch that it threatens to swallow the whole of society and even the state."

As @Five@slrpnk.net noted, prisons aren't unique to capitalist societies; they are necessary to any authoritarian system. An authoritarian system requires prisons and policing in order to manage political dissent. A capitalist system, to whatever degree it's clearly authoritative, requires prisons and policing in order to maintain some form of equilibrium amid the inherent antagonism between classes. Since I've just recently begun studying Marxism, I'm partial to the argument that capitalism's end comes through a workers' revolution, and that the revolutionaries will require systems of force such as an army in order to engage in self-defense lest the bourgeoisie regain power. I'm open-minded about this, I just haven't yet had any conversations with people who are both serious about PIC abolition and informed in the basic theories of political economy underlying Marxism.