US Prisoners Should Have Access To Prostitutes

My opponent is new to this site, and I was not extremely clear in my instructions, so please do not give me 7 points automatically for his deviation from the debate structure. Generally when someone says that the second round is for opening arguments, that means to post your own reasons without addressing the ones your opponent presented in the same round. MY OPPONENT QUESTIONS..1. The legitimacy of my statistic showing that 90% of prisoners are out in a year. While I think my source is just fine, I'm not going to sit back and assume everyone else will be. Though I was unable to find the activists who made the statement, I found what we should all be able to agree is a more reputable source, that supports, if not the the statistic, the spirit of the statistic. We can see that the average time spent in jail overall is hovering a little under 3 years[1]. I think we can see that the original statistic is either true or close to true, as the 10% would be spending a lot of time, and thus raise the average somewhat. And even if that isn't quite the case, and, for instance, 90% got out in 1 and a half or 2, my point still stands. 2.A) My opponent says the topic is not in relation to the topic without addressing my reasoning for why it is. It is relevant because it shows that we're sending out prisoners who could've acquired AIDS due to widespread prison rape at a rapid rate. B) My opponent claims that there is no connection to support the idea that the 10% would rape the 90%. I believe there is a very clear connection, that being excessive loneliness. The 10% would've spent a lot of time in jail. Keep in mind also that those among the 90% could be frequent offenders, who keep getting shuffled in and out of jail. C) Here my opponent says that we can assume rape wouldn't happen in under a year, and I'm assuming he means new inmate on new inmate rape. This contention is based on the validity of contention B), which I have already refuted, therefore, I have nothing to say for this one.3. My opponent says he could argue that my sources are improperly linked, but then says he won't, therefore this isn't something I really need to refute.MY OPPONENT DISAGREES..1. A) My opponent says that AIDS is no longer a death sentence, though it is not curable. I assume he refers to the treatments that can allow one to live a normal life. The problem with this contention is that the yearly costs for AIDS treatment is over $23,000[2]. Even if you were a median earner of income in the US, making roughly $51,000[3], this would be an extremely burdensome cost. After all, it's not as if the average person gets to the end of the year with half their income unspent. But we're not even talking about your average American, we're talking about prisoners. As far as employment goes, things look much bleaker for any recently released prisoners. To quote the Urban Institute, "Eight months after prison, 65 percent of respondents had been employed at some point, but only 45 percent were currently employed. "[4]"Most respondents relied on family and friends for income after release, more so than legal employment."[4]Additionally, only 52% of released prisoners have a high school diploma or GED[4]. All of this information factors into the contention that AIDS is not a death sentence. Clearly it is, if you're in the economic position that recently released prisoners are. We can see that few are holding steady jobs, most are relying on their family and friends for economic help, and most lack the education necessary to get anywhere in life. The average non-diploma holder earns $25,000 a year[5][6][7], and the average diploma holder $33,000[5][6][7]. Compare those incomes to $23,000 a year for treatment, and you can see that the odds of AIDS being a death sentence for these people is quite high.B) My opponent states, correctly, that the US Prison system does not give the prisoners AIDS themselves. This is, I assume, in reference to the part of my opening where I talked about ignoring/condoning the rape. I don't think it would be necessary for my opponent and I to argue who's condoning what, as whoever wins that argument hasn't helped themselves in arguing towards the resolution. Therefore I won't be rebutting this, or C and D, as they're along the same thread.PROSTITUTION IS ILLEGALMy opponent claims that this proposition is hypocritical, and therefore shouldn't be implemented. My response is two-fold.First, differing motivations remove hypocritical nature of acts. Prostitution is outlawed in the interests of keeping people safe (whether or not it does that is an entirely different debate, of course), and this prostitution would legalize prostitution in prisons in the interests of overall safety. If the motivations were along the lines of, "Normal citizens can't have sex with prostitutes but prisoners can just because", then there would be hypocrisy. However, this is not the reasoning behind this proposal, and it is therefore not hypocritical. Second, assuming it were hypocritical for the sake of those unconvinced by the above refutation, hypocrisy does not necessarily mean an act is wrong. For instance, this act would prevent rape. Your thinking the use of prostitutes in jail does not change this fact. It does not change the fact that it is doing something good, even if it appears hypocritical. As an example, look at the case of Native America tribes and African Americans. Native Americans get special tax exemptions[8], but black people do not. Why not? Both groups have been severely mistreated by the US Government in the past, why is it that only one of them is getting compensative treatment? I don't know, but I would ask you, just because it's hypocritical to withhold tax exemptions from black people whilst giving them to Native Americans, would you then say the Native Americans should lose their exemptions? No, of course not. It might be a hypocritical situation, but that doesn't mean you should make the situation worse for the NA. The same could be said for my proposition, assuming it were hypocritical. Just because you think the situation is hypocritical, doesn't mean you should make the situation worse for the prisoners and prostitutes who could benefit.COST AND REALISTIC APPROACHMy opponent's contention here is that A) this would be too expensive, and B) it would never become a law in reality.My rebuttal is pretty short here. This debate is about whether or not we 'should' implement this proposition, not if we 'could'. Part A of this contention applies in part to 'should', but whether or not politicians would have the balls to even touch this idea is not related to 'should'.So, for the cost, there are many solutions. Off the top of my head, I see two great ways to raise funds for this undertaking. First, trim a little of military spending. This year (2014), the military spending will be at $526 billion[9]. It is planned to rise. It wouldn't be too great of an issue to take out one or two of those many, many billions to help fund this proposition, no? Or, we could put some kind of tax on all Americans. If we levied a $5 tax on all Americans we could raise $1.585 billion[10][7] to help prevent rape and provide a safer line of work for prostitutes. Or we could do a bit of both. There's plenty of creative ways to provide funds for this proposition. Additionally, remember that the gov't won't be shouldering all of the cost, the prisoners will be subsidizing this in part with the money they pay for the prostitute, even if the money they pay doesn't come out to a profit for the government.THE PROBLEM, 'SOLVED'1. Masturbation is not the same as sex, even if there are 'tools' involved. Perhaps this would reduce rape to a certain degree, but we can safely assume these guys have been masturbating a lot before turning to someone outside their usual sexual preference. Therefore, if we really want to reduce this pandemic in a significant way, I recommend sticking with my proposition. 2. 'Make a better system' is a lot simpler to say than do. I recommend we try to do both. Try to make the situation better for prostitutes, but also follow through with my proposition. Unless the situation is improved so significantly that we run out of prostitutes for my proposition, we can do both, and improve the situation in both categories.THE PROSTITUTES THEMSELVES1. My opponent says here that the prostitutes would be abused, ignoring my rationale for why they wouldn't be. I'm running out of characters, so I will not be re-stating why prostitutes would be very safe in jail, and why it's preferable to them being out on the streets with their pimps and clients.2. My opponent says that prostitutes wouldn't want to take this job. Same rebuttal as part 1 of this section.3. My opponent says the prostitutes would likely go to white-collar prisoners, and therefore wouldn't really be targeting the issue of rape. Nowhere in my proposition did I say this would be the case. I have already said that this would be aimed at all prisons, and failing that, prisons with high incidences of rape. Sources: [1] http://www.pewtrusts.org...[2] http://www.cdc.gov...[3] http://money.cnn.com...[4] http://www.urban.org...[5] http://www.bls.gov...[6] https://www.google.com...[7] https://www.google.com...[8] http://smallbusiness.chron.com...[9] www.prwatch.org[10] http://www.usnews.com...