One such mechanism is the mentality of "believing victims". Not a bad thing on the face of it, but my feeling is that we've tipped over into a world where people are incentivized to become victims. In this way the mechanism ends up becoming weaponized and wielded like a cudgel by those good at playing the victim against a new set of victims who just aren't as good at that game.
These new victims may end up even more disadvantaged due to ideological fashions which shape who we see as victims (e.g. "girls are more likely to be victims than boys") and dictate to what degree we should mete out empathy (e.g. "we have to make sure we aren't overly empathetic towards the white kids since we are biased and they are privileged").
If there is no disincentive for abuse, then abusive people will continue to inflict abuse on others for as long as they derive some emotional/social/financial gain from it. You are arguing that it is wholly up to those others (ie non-abusive people) to change themselves by making themselves less attractive targets in some fashion. But this has a cost and meantime the abusive person is gaining in strength and confidence. Also, new people are coming along all the time who are vulnerable to abusive behavior, so if previous targets become unattractive, abusers can rely on a relatively steady supply of new ones. I think you need to explain what the overall benefit of your approach is at the collective level.
It's also perplexing to me that you equate inflicting penalties upon abusers with 'becoming the abuser instead'. An abuser, by definition, is someone who inflicts pain or suffering on someone else who doesn't deserve it. Retaliation against abuse cannot be considered abuse, unless you want to argue that there is no such thing as a right to self-defense, only to self-protection. That seems similar to suggesting everyone become like turtles or snails, building shells which they can withdraw into when attacked but never developing any retaliatory capability.
I look forward to considering your alternative perspective.