> Yes, prisons are unpleasant
I think that's a bit of an understatement. For a vast number of inmates, prisons seem to be hell on earth.
Are they really that bad though compared to historical prisons? What makes them "hell on earth"? Modern prisons you get climate control, TVs, gym access, library access, (limited) internet access, 3 meals a day, etc. Not even 200 years ago, prisons were often the crawlspace under a building where the ceiling was only 4 feet off the exposed ground. If it was summer, you sweltered. If it was winter, you froze. No entertainment of any kind was provided, you couldn't even stand up straight without hitting the ceiling and you were lucky to be fed once a day.
> Are they really that bad though compared to historical prisons?
Yes. But that particular comparison wasn't the point anyway.
> What makes them "hell on earth"?
Beatings. Rapes. Gangs. Drugs. Being forced to do illegal things by the guards. Prisoners being at the mercy of people whose word always trumps theirs (which means they will lose most cases of "I said, he said", which is a big deal in prison). Many inmates enter prison as petty criminals and end up graduating to the big leagues inside.
Put him in a secure hospital.
How is a "secure hospital" different from a "prison"? Presumably the patient can't leave, which means locked doors, barbed wire fences, etc. If the patient is violent, that means security personnel, meals through slots in the door, etc.
"secure hospital" is just a euphemism for "prison"
He was put in two different secure hospitals, but he attempted to murder a patient at both. The prison service and the forensic psychiatry service have thus far been unable to change Bronson's violence and hostage-taking behaviour; solitary confinement thus far appears to be the only reasonable option to protect society from Bronson.
He is an outlier and is in no way representative of the broader prison population, but he does rather puncture the case for abolitionism.
"If something makes me feel bad, therefore it is bad. If something makes me feel good, therefore it is good."
Yes, prisons are unpleasant. Yes, we have a lot of people in there that probably don't belong there.
But we also have a lot of people that just can't integrate without society without committing egregious crimes no matter how many chances they get. What do we do with people like Charles Bronson[1]? Of course, fluff pieces like this don't propose any solutions, just make sweeping declarations that prisons should go away because a 5-year-old spoke a profound truth that keeping people in cages is wrong.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bronson_(prisoner)