For any UK peeps, this is a really good intro report that works through the myths of incarceration and rehabilitation, prison labour, and the entire geography of British Prison industrial complex

https://corporatewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Prison-Island-by-Corporate-Watch-Low-Res.pdf

There's also this really short and succinct intro to what abolition is (in the British context) and answers to frequently asked questions

https://oucriminology.wordpress.com/2017/02/22/prison-abolition-in-questionspart-one/

There's a part 2 to this intro to prison abolition in the UK too

https://www.academia.edu/33332561/Prison_Abolition_in_Question_s_Part_Two

And there's the start of this book called 'Why Prison?' which gives some history

https://www.academia.edu/11411613/Why_Prison

This paper covers New Labour's role in prison expansion, https://sci-hub.tw/ 
to access

This is quite a long book but it gives a really good history of the prison with respect to capitalist accumulation and gender, again https://sci-hub.tw/ 

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781315542362

This is a pretty short article and gives a really good summary of crime, prisons and abolition https://redfightback.org/free-them-all-for-public-health/amp/