Prisons should focus on rehabilitating criminals

My opponent starts by saying that if deterrence worked, the crime rate would not be rising, but this is illogical. The crime rate is rising because of poverty, society's loss of morals, and things like that. Deterrence is the only thing keeping it from rising more explosively. I did not ignore the Pro's statistics about Norway. I said that Norway was a separate country from the US and policies that work there would not necessarily work here. He also says that Norway has a lower crime rate than they US because of rehabilitation. This does not mean that rehabilitation is the cause of this lower crime rate though, because almost every other country has a lower crime rate than the US and most do not have Norway's rehabilitation system. If rehabilitation were the only difference, there would be a clearer line between rehabilitative countries and non rehabilitative. On my incentive to offend argument, the Pro gives no real rebuttal, he only says that rehabilitation works. This does not address the issue or provide any reason that it is not true. If we are offering potential criminals all these benefits, then there is really much less reason to stay out of jail. The Pro says "If poorer people are not successful in school, why would they be successful in prison?" but this helps my argument. If, as the Pro says, people will be equally unsuccessful in prison, why would rehab work? Against my argument about justice and rewarding criminals, the Pro says that they would still be punished. While they will still be kept out of society, they will still be given rehabilitation, free education, free drug rehab, and other things that they did not earn. Justice is getting what is deserved, and criminals do not deserve a reward for crime. The Pro goes on to say that public opinion should have no part in this because public opinion can't change facts. I'm not saying that public opinion being against rehabilitation will make it any less effective, but it will make it less of a possible choice. Policies and laws that go against a majority of the public opinion do not usually last very long and elected officials that make unpopular choices do not stay in office. Because America is a democracy, we cannot go against the will of the people. The Pro tries to discredit my argument about public opinion in three ways. First, he says that my source says nothing about public opinion and actually supports him. While the article I sited does give support for both sides, that does not mean it cannot help me. The Pro says that "it says LITERALLY NOTHING ABOUT PUBLIC OPINION", but he does not appear to have read the article. If he had read past the first paragraph, he would eventually have come to the part that says "'We don't want your sort here,' was the very clear message they were given." and "The popular prejudice about prisoners remains stuck in Dickensian times " they are a bad lot and always will be and should be treated as such." This clearly supports my public opinion argument, so it is still valid. The next way he attacks my public opinion argument is that it has no numerical stats, but I provided those from a different source that said 75% of people already think courts are too easy on criminals. Finally he says that it is not from the US, so it is irrelevant. That may be true, but if it is then all my opponent's evidence about Norway's rehabilitation system is also irrelevant. I will agree to drop this article if the Pro agrees to drop his Norway evidence. The evidence against deterrence that the Pro brings up looks nice in the title, but it is not really talking about the same thing as I am. If you actually read the article, it argues that prisons do not deter recidivism, but I am arguing that prisons deter crime from happening in the first place. Because the article says nothing about deterrence before committing the crime, it has no effect here. Also, the Pro tries to disprove deterrence by saying there would be a huge number of crimes without it, but that is my point exactly. While rehabilitation will not take away all deterrence, having enough rehabilitation to make a difference on recidivism would still cause a significant reduction of deterrence. I win this debate for four main reasons. First, I have shown how deterrence from a prison based system stops more crime than can be avoided with rehabilitation. Second, I have shown how rehabilitation is not justice. Third, I have shown that it would be impractical to actually use rehabilitation because public opinion is against it. Fourth, in the first round the Pro accepted the majority of the burden of proof but has only focused on rebutting my arguments. For these reasons, you should vote for me.