Resolved: In the United States, minor jail time ought to be replaced with significant rehabilitation

I. Justice versus Societal Welfare My value premise for the Criminal Justice system if Justice. My opponent's is Societal Welfare. Since mine is more relevant, more integral to the integrity of the Criminal Justice system, my value premise should be used to evaluate the round. My opponent claims that achieving societal welfare results in greater justice because if you achieve societal welfare, "more people receive their due". He supports this by saying "It is simple to see that if the society has a high sense of "welfare" and the general good is high, you will see the most possible people getting their "due reward."" --- Well I for one am too "simple" to see why a high sense of "welfare" results in the receipt of "due reward". Many Republicans out there would join me on this =P. Until my opponent actually proves this (which he hasn't all debate despite repeating this multiple times), he does not have a case to support his value premise. II. Appropriate Punishment In response to my argument that rehabilitation is not within the Jurisdiction of the state, my opponent writes "... well, why not?" It appears he has chosen not to read my arguments ... yet expects me to read his. Fortunately his is non existent so it makes for a quick read. And now, having done so, I'll respond to his "... well, why not?" (again) "For society to "rehabilitate" those who commit minor social infractions, it would have to pass moral judgment on certain life style choices.Take for example the common misdemeanor of prostitution. The government has the right to short term incarceration, but my opponent wants the government to instead "teach" them that prostitution is wrong, and then "fix" them to make them "regular" citizens." (See III. Opening Argument) Just because my opponent wants rehabilitation to be within the moral jurisdiction of the State Criminal Justice System does not make it so. Well why not is irrelevant, even though I answered anyway. In the interest of Justice, the State has a duty to act within its boundaries and jurisdictions. ------- My opponent claims that I did not answer whether rehabilitation is more or less "just" than jail time. He also states that I argued that rehabilitation is not just because it is outside the State's jurisdiction. He seems to be confusing himself. He then sounds even more confused saying "Also you will see that justice and just are different." Of course they're not. Justice is a noun. Just is an adjective. But them being different doesn't prevent you from stating the obvious: Justice is just. ------ III. Forced Rehabilitation is against the societal welfare At this point discussing societal welfare is unnecessary. But for the sake of argument I'll indulge my opponent. 1. "Significant rehab gives the greatest chance for rehab" Sure, I'll grant that. Significant crime reduction efforts gives the greatest chance for crime reduction too. 2. You will see that with less crimes, there is more societal welfare. With all things being equal, of course, less crimes almost certainly leads to greater societal welfare. Of course ... all this assumes that forced rehabilitation has no other consequences. "SIGNIFICANT REHAB DOES NOT EQUAL BRAINWASHING BELIEFS ABOUT LORD XENU" I'm not sure if this is willful ignorance or just unintended oversight ... but my opponent does know that Criminon is a subset of the Church of Scientology and in addition to "rehabilitation" it also "recruits" people to become Scientologists right? The simple fact of the matter is, just because a method is good at stopping crime does not necessarily make it good for societal welfare. In fact, very often methods good for reducing crime also happen to be bad, sometimes very bad for societal welfare. Examples: Torture. Spying. Wiretapping. Police State. The difference between forcing people to become "model", "respected" citizens who follow the "correct" behaviors of society and offering them the opportunity to learn is as wide a gap as between the freedoms of our Democracy and the tyranny of a Police State. Rehabilitation is wonderful. Forced Rehabilitation is tyranny. IV. "The only thing that significant rehabilitation hurts is the criminal" A fundamental principle of economics is the notion of "opportunity cost". Paying for forced rehabilitation, besides hurting the subject, also hurts the general population. Where do you get the money to pay for rehabilitation? You take it out of other social services. My opponent says "money ought to not be a concern", but at the same time he espouses Societal Welfare. I'm allowed to say money is not a concern because it is not when it comes to Justice. But when it comes to Societal Welfare, money is a critical component, because to institute this forced rehabilitation, we would need money drawn from other sources, and Unless my opponent overcomes the burden of evidence to show that the money spent on forced rehabilitation could not be better spent on education or health care, he CANNOT maintain that forced rehabilitation is good for the social welfare.