Resolved: In the United States, juveniles charged with violent felonies ought to be treated as adult

I firmly negate. I share the same Value and Value Criterion as my opponent. The order will be AC, NC. I also agree that deterrence is a huge part of the Value Criterion, Util, (as does my opponent) based on the three reasons he gives (magnitude, reversibility, and probablity). My opponent's first contention is based on two sub points. Sub point A explained what factors in Adult courts lead to deterrence. Regardless of how adult prisons try to deter people, the only question that leads into our Value Criterion of Util is what the impact/consequences are. How much good is actually achieved? He only offers empirical consequences in subpoint B. The only applicable study he gives is the Levitt study in 1988 that found states with harsher punishments experience less juvenile crime. And this is why his sole piece of offense is invalid. 1) The fallacy in this study is that correlation does not imply causation. There could be other possible factors involved. 2) Deterrence logically does not work. The very offenders who can be enraged enough to commit a violent felony such as murder are obviously irrational when they commit the felony. If so, then deterrence (which holds that offenders think about consequences when about to rape, murder, or assault someone) would not function since irrationality would take hold of the perpetrator and that perpetrator would not be able to look at consequences. So when it counts, deterrence logically fails. 3) Empirically denied. If you want to look at my opponent's own writer: Brian Oliver, you realize that the question of deterrence is empirically questionable. Oliver writes: Not all research has provided support for the theory of deterrence, however. In New York, the Juvenile Offender (JO) Law of 1978 was passed in response to concerns about violent juvenile crime. It provided that all juveniles who were between the ages of 13 and 15 and were charged with murder would automatically be tried as adults. To see if this law had a deterrent effect on crime, Singer & McDowell (1988) analyzed arrest data using an interrupted time series model for the years between 1974 and 1984. They found that after the law was implemented, the New York arrest rates for 13- to 15-year-old for homicide and assault increased. Additionally, while the New York arrest rates for 13- to 15-year-olds for rape and arson did decrease following the implementation of the law, similar declines in the arrest rates for 16- to 19-year-olds from New York and for 13- to 15-year-olds from Philadelphia were seen, indicating that the decrease in these crime rates was not the result of the new law. These findings led the authors to conclude that the implementation of the Juvenile Offender Law in New York did not deter juvenile crime. After discussing even more studies, Oliver concludes: The evidence, thus, is not clear whether or not harsher juvenile transfer laws deter juveniles from committing crimes. So the literature that even my opponent cites does not justify an affirmative vote as he has not fully fulfilled his burden of truth required for his argument to be taken with concern in the round. I shall crystalize here: As of right now, I have already justified a negative ballot as the judge must presume Neg when given no reason to Affirm. My opponent has no offense since I refuted his sole contention that he can only regain if he refutes all three refutations I gave against his argument. Now the NC 1) Adult leads to Recidivism and Recidivism Bad: Jane Wilson (1) writes: Research shows that juveniles convicted in adult courts are 50% more likely to recidivate than those convicted in juvenile courts for the same crimes. Therefore, juveniles placed in juvenile courts will recidivate significantly less than those in adult courts. This links into the magnitude, reversibility, and probability arguments my opponent advocated for earlier since it is much like the impact my opponent gave for deterrence since live's will be saved and there will be less offenders.