Resolved, rehabilitation ought to be valued higher than retribution in criminal justice systems.

Hello and welcome, This debate is open for everyone, the format will be; round 1. Acceptance of challenge and your case. round 2. 1st Rebuttal of opponents case. round 3. 2nd Rebuttal and closing remarks. The Ancient system of justice summed up into a single sentence goes something like this; An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I will be supporting the general idea of this rule with 3 points. 1. The benefits of using punishment. This sounds a little harsh but I will give an example that shows that it is necessary. When I was in Wal-Mart the other day I saw a kid that was screaming and kicking for not getting his way. You might think that he was being treated harshly or something like that, but instead he was throwing a fit over not getting the toy he wanted. I had the same problem when I was a kid and sure you did too, what is important is that I wasn't allowed to get away with acting like that and I was punished for misbehaving. I can assure that I am a far more self controlled person now than I would be if I had gotten my way. My point in bringing up this example is that in the same way adults that get there way still don't behave properly all of the time. And the response isn't to give them their way just like it wasn't the proper response in my example. Adults just like kids need firm consequences for misbehavior. The important thing here is that the consequence is appropriate. 2. The proper response. First of all I would like to say that every situation is different as expressed in the following excerpt from a book. "The idea that wrongdoers should be "paid back" for their bad deeds need not lead to a demand for primitive vengeance. Retributive justice requires that the punishment fit the crime and that like cases be treated alike. Wrongdoers deserve blame and punishment in direct proportion to the harm inflicted. Retribution can therefore be seen as vengeance curbed by outside intervention and the principles of proportionality and individual rights"[1]. Let me give you a more definite standing for my case. In cases of extreme violence or extreme offenses the death penalty would be appropriate. Here are some reasons; The current response to many crimes is to give people a life sentence in prison, which is incredibly inefficient. It costs over 31,000 dollars per inmate per year average according to the VERA institute for justice. Also it would give a precedent for other criminals not to attempt crimes themselves. So in an example of the Boston bomber I think that that would be an appropriate use of the death penalty. An easy standard for weather or not to use the death penalty would be if the person had killed someone as that would be a fair recompense. However there are different responses for different crimes. For example I am an advocate for putting drug addicts through some type of program that would allow them to break their addiction. This, in my opinion is a just response, you just have to look at the circumstances. 3. why it matters. The benefits of using retribution in the criminal justice system are huge. For one the budget of housing prisoners would plummet by an immense amount. The savings could be used to pay for drug addiction programs and keep more people out of jail for drug related issues. Which would also increase the economy, because the people that were on drugs are now out of jail and working in the workforce at the same time. Therefore reducing tax payers burden and increasing the economy from extra laborers. Finally criminals that were violent have less of a chance of acting out on it because now there is a appropriate, and very unpleasant consequence. If this country is to recover it needs many things, one of those things is the use of a system of criminal justice that is strict enough for justice but civilized enough for 1st world countries. I stand firmly on the value of retribution in criminal justice systems. [1] Martha Minnow, Between vengeance and forgiveness, 1998, http://www.beyondintractability.org...