Mercy vs. Strict Justice

Thanks, famous! I will now rebut Con's case.OVERVIEWI think it is important to take a moment to clarify and re-frame the debate. Con spends much of his time defending the ideal of "justice," but this implies that my world is somehow justice-less; rather, Con is called on to defend a particular kind of justice, namely, "strict" justice. In fact, this topic does not treat mercy and justice as separate concepts, rather it views mercy as a kind of justice. This was noted in the topic overview given in round one. So, what this debate is really asking is which TYPE of justice is better: merciful/soft justice or harsh/strict justice. Furthermore, this is not a debate about the justice system. Con focuses almost exclusively on criminals and the criminal justice system; however, the resolution can be applied to any issue of justice anywhere in the world, whether it is criminal or not. This is key because Con is ceding a lot of ground by only defending a small sliver of his side of the topic, so I am probably already outweighing him (presume Pro).ARGUMENTSCon's case was a bit hard for me to follow, so I will be reorganizing his case into a few succinct chunks. I may quote him directly, in which case I'll italicize his remarks.Justice as a Principle"Justice prevents us from viewing life subjectively. I am not against viewing certain things subjectively, for example, complimenting your family members...When it comes to governing the country and judging criminals in court, it is absurd to judge them based your views."1. Why is it permissible to treat some people in an arbitrarily preferential fashion, but not others? This just seems utterly contradictory. Unless Con can provide a morally compelling reason why it is permissible to treat family members preferentially just because I want to, but not to do the same with criminals, then Con's argument as no basis to stand on, because he will admit by default that subjectivity in treatment is permissible.2. Con fails to actually articulate any reason why this subjectivity is undesirable? Surely, the circumstances must matter. If I passed a law that said "all homicide is illegal," and I applied this law with no regard for mitigating circumstances, every soldier, every person killing in self-defense, every person who accidentally kills through no fault of their own, would go to jail. Clearly, this kind of blind application of rules produces unreasonable results. Mitigating circumstances must be factored in, lest we incur the risk of failing to see the forest through the trees. Justice in Application"Justice is also the most effective for regular citizens. It prevents future crimes due to citizens fear of punishment. As a result it stops most people from committing future crimes.1. Harsh Sentences Don't Actually Deter Crime a. "The New York State prison population has gone from 12,500 in the early 1970's to more than 40,000 today. Yet our crime rate is not significantly lower now than it was in 1970. This is true in spite of increased sentences and a decrease in the percentage of the population in the 'crime prone' 16- to 30-year-old age group, which some demographers predicted would reduce crime rates all by itself." [1]b. "An analysis of a federal program in Virginia that imposed more severe punishments for gun crimes found that 'the threat of enhanced sentences had no apparent deterrent effect,' the report said." [2]c. "A California law requiring minimum prison sentences of 25 years for three-strike offenders had only a minimal deterrent effect, studies showed. One study found the law created a 2% reduction in the felony crime rate at most, limited only to people with two strikes" [2] 2. Harsher Sentences are Likely to Boost Crime a. Longer prison sentences expose people to hardened criminals and to a culture of violence and fear. This culture teaches them how to be criminals, and may actually increase their likelihood of recidivating.b. Longer prison sentences deny people access to the economy. Particularly for young people, being out of the job market means missing out on learning job skills and it means seeing those skills they do have atrophy. This makes it less likely that they'll successfully find jobs upon exiting prison, turning them back to crime. 3. His system leads to lots of people filling up prisons and languishing their for years, as we see now currently in the U.S. This wastes massive amounts of taxpayer dollars, and it seems unjust to take my tax money and spend in on programs that are not effective. Surely, the government has an obligation to spend my money efficiently, because the social contract I have with the government presumes that there is some constructive purpose to my submitting to coercive requirements of this nature."Rehabilitation: The punishment changes the felon in order to make him a better citizen afterwards. (mandatory vocational training, counseling, drug treatment, etc.)"Rehabilitation is Pro ground. Mercy is necessarily a relative term, and it is, per the topic analysis in round one, being juxtaposed against "retributive" justice. Rehabilitative prison programs are necessarily more clement, forgiving, and kind that non-rehabilitative programs, making them "merciful." Moreover, the topic overview explicitly describes rehabilitation as part of a merciful system of justice. This has two impacts: (a) any arguments Con tries to make in favor of rehabilitation cannot count in his favor, because they are not his ground, (b) TURN: if rehabilitation is good, vote Pro to see more rehabilitation."The felon harmed society; therefore society (or the victims) is entitled to inflict harm in return."Why is this necessarily the right way to go about doing something. Let's return to the Hatfield and McCoy example I provided in my speech. A Hatfield killed a McCoy, does this mean a McCoy can then kill or beat up a Hatfield? Obviously not. Even if we can agree that some retribution is appropriate, I think a system that primarily encourages retribution necessarily also encourages recrimination and ever-escalating cycles of violence."Recent polls show that 1 in 3 men would rape if they could get away with it."This is just factually inaccurate. Con's own source (see his first link) notes that the "poll" in question surveyed just 86 men as part of a college course, and they got extra credit for participating. This is totally unscientific, and the results are utterly bogus.What is Mercy?"We should value justice because it keeps our society in order. Criminals do not roam freely around the streets." And "Without strict justice governing our lives there is nothing to stop us from doing whatever we like."Mercy is not the position that criminals should walk freely on the streets. It is the position that people should be treated less harshly than they otherwise would. Mercy is not necessarily the same as a free pass, nor, as per my case's analysis, does a merciful world preclude any use of strict justice. Mercy is necessarily relative: it is gentler than "strict" justice, but that doesn't mean that it forgoes all punishments. This has two impacts: (a) I do not object to incarceration or penalties on principle, (b) I am imposing a kinder version of justice, but justice nonetheless. Obviously, there are upper limits on what can be tolerated. MISCELLANEOUSAs Con's sources aren't enumerated, I can't always tell which sources go with which claims, which makes it hard to determine which arguments these sources are supposed to be warrants for. Any data in his sources not directly entered into the text should be ignored, as it circumvents character limits.SOURCES1 - http://www.nytimes.com...2 - http://www.businessinsider.com...