Death Penalty

Thanks, tejretics, for another great round. Thanks, Allah, for creating the universe!In this round I will be rebutting my opponent's R2 case.New York Crime DropTejretics claims that because there was a decrease in homocide after the legalisation of capital punishment, there is a direct correlation between the death penalty and that because of this correlation, we must allow the death penalty to happen. But what does his source say about this interesting correlation?His source actually doesn't provide this information, at all. He cites synapse9, and at the end of the page they show this picture (below), which shows that the real "change" in murder rate happened in about 1993 [1]. Now, yes, immediately after the legalisation of the death penalty, there was a slight dip in the amounts of murders, I do concede this. However, just a few years after this dip in the amount of murders, the rate actually skyrocketted from about nine to about fifteen. What this means, according to my opponent's logic (the logic being that if there is a spike or a trough in the data that this data is a direct correlation to the issue at hand), is that the death penalty actually *ended more lives than it saved*. In an attempt to show that my opponent's source was not only faulty, but that the entire argument that New York had saved lives is faulty, I will show some corroborating evidence that shows that after the reinstatement of the death penalty, there was actually more murder.In fact, QZ shows that the murder rate did decline immediately after the legalisation of the death penalty (below), but just a few years later the rates actually *increased* s://qzprod.files.wordpress.com...; alt="" />Now, I know what my opponent is thinking and is about to say... "it is true that this happened, but eventually the amount of homocides went down, so the death penalty must have done it!" Well, actually, no. As QZ shows in the above graph, there was just a big spike that lasted from the 1960's to the 2000's, but for the majority of the graph, the amount of murders was at a relatively low ~40 per million residents. Before the spike that resulted in the death penalty and after the spike, the rates actually didn't change that much. The 2010 rate is similar to the 1900 rate... or the 1920 rate... or the 1950 rate... What I am trying to get across here is that the death penalty didn't do anything to pre-spike and post-spike conditions, more than 30 years later. My opponent's claim that it did is completely decimated.The DP prevents recidivism0. Point of orderIf it is shown that there is a small difference between life in prison murder rates and death row murder rates, pro's point is able to be voided because the difference is so small that it is negligible.1. In-prison recidivism is too small to really be worth mentioningAs tejretics points out, and I totally agree, having a dead person means that this person cannot commit any crimes, which means that they cannot cause any more deaths and lives are saved. However, this implies that the same thing cannot be acheived with life in prison.Now, the crux of pro's argument is that a dead person cannot commit any crimes out in the world or in the prison. As for the first part of that statement, a person that is in for life without parole cannot either - they are in prison for life and they do not have any sort of possibility for parole. As for the second part of the statement, the difference between in-prison murder rates for death row and the general population is not really worth mentioning, as a report finds.Between 2001 and 2007, states with the death penalty had a 4.25 per 100,000 inmates average murder rate, which meant that in each state during this time there were 4.25 people being murdered (on average). In the same time frame, states without the death penalty had an average of 0.92 per 100,000 inmates murder rate. This means that in each state, there was less than one person that was being murdered while in prison. Not only this, but seven of te twelve states that do not have the death penalty reported that they had zero homocides during that time frame [3].Ladies and gents, this means that there is a 0.00092% difference of murder rates between those on death row that ultimately die on death row, and those that are just in prison normally. I concede that there is a difference, but the difference is so small that it is completely negligible.JusticeThis seems fairly defensive as an argument for a constructive case, but I'll rebut it anyways.Basically what tejretics is arguing is that because there is a sense of autonomy to humans, they should have consequences based on their actions. And, I must say, I totally agree with this. But what my opponent is implying (because this is a death penalty debate, after all) is that the death penalty is the only way to preserve justice by giving consequences based on autonomous actions, which is totally wrong.Based on what my opponent said, if we made the consequence for theft death, then that upholds justice and is completely valid. I know that this may appear that I am clinging to strawmen, but let me give you some quotes that actually prove that this is the case: "... if a person makes a choice knowing it has a negative consequence, putting forth that consequence upholds justice." "Human autonomy is the ability to make a choice, and if a criminal has such an ability to make a choice such as murder, he elicits a certain consequence depending on the severity of the choice. If the death penalty is unjust, no punishment is just and the concept of punishment becomes an intrinsically unjust concept, but punishment is the consequence elicited by a choice, and, as such, upholds justice." Tejretics explicitly says that if someone commits a crime and the punishment for that crime is applied, it upholds justice. Back to our theft and execution example, if someone makes the autonomous choice to steal a Milky Way bar from a gas station, and the LAW says that it is illegal and you must be executed, that the action of execution is actually *just*. There is no way that this actually helps pro's burden to prove that the death penalty should still exist in the US because of the implications of such an argument, thus it is completely demolished. [1]. http://www.synapse9.com...[2]. http://qz.com...[3]. https://death.rdsecure.org...Note: According to the debate structure that was outlined, it said that we are allowed to crystalise during our final round. However the rules say that this is not allowed. I propose that we follow debate structure over rules. Thanks