Resolved: In the United States, Minor Jail Time Ought to be Replaced with Significant Rehabilitation

I'd like to welcome everyone to Round 4 of the debate tournament. Congratulations to my opponent for staying in the winner's bracket thus far. This ought to be a very fun debate. I personally very much enjoy LD debates, but I don't think they really have a place in online debating. I agree that this ought to be kept as a general debate. However, the format of this speech will be different than my opponent's problem-solution style, and I will respond to both parts of his case through my first two points (I and II). I agree with my opponent's interpretation of the meaning of "minor jail time"; so, for the purposes of this round, we shall assume it means 30 days to 10 years of jail time. Formalities aside, let's move onto my points. I. Recidivism. The only concern my opponent raised about the minor jail time system in the "Problem" portion of his case, and one of the three reasons he gives for changing to a rehabilitation system in the "Solution" section of his case, deals with recidivism rates. There's no question that recidivism rates are high, as the statistics he provided show. However, the assumption that recidivism rates are high because minor jail time is imposed upon criminals rather than rehabilitation does not naturally follow from the data. There's really no way to know for certain whether or not recidivism rates would decrease if minor jail time were replaced with rehabilitation, because there has never been such a system in place in the United States, so there are no statistics to look to for this. In other words, there's no reason to assume, as my opponent did, that rehabilitation would "uncriminalize" criminals. But based solely on logic, I would say the current system is superior to a system based upon rehabilitation, in terms of recidivism. After all, which is a better deterrent to repeated offenses – a system where the state gives the criminal a slap on the wrist and says, "Now don't do that again, please"; or a system where the criminal is subjected to a harsh, restrictive prison environment for a few years? I would think the incentive of staying out of prison would be a stronger deterrent for most criminals than a rehabilitation program. Even if you think a rehabilitation program is superior in this regard, though, that's not enough reason to move to such a system. After all, if reducing recidivism rates is the only concern, then why don't we just execute everyone who commits a felony, and reduce recidivism rates to zero? Obviously we won't do that; so clearly, recidivism rates are not all we ought to look for. II. Cost My opponent makes the claim that, "significant REHAB would save tax dollars." But really, it's quite impossible to tell for certain whether or not this is true, as my opponent provided no description of what exactly a rehabilitation program would entail. It is important that he do so, because no such system has ever been in place in the United States, so we have no past experience to assume would be replicated. But assuming a rehabilitation program would involve at least education, monitoring, and psychiatric analysis and assistance, it's easy to see how the costs could become quite large – too large for most people to handle on their own. What we would end up with is a bulky, expensive system, which requires a much larger bureaucracy to handle (since we're foregoing a one-size-fits-all approach in favor of an individualized approach, which would be necessary if we wanted rehabilitation to have even the slightest possibility of success); and we would pretend to be pushing the costs off of taxpayers and onto the criminals, when in reality the government would be forced to provide massive financial assistance to such a high percentage of the criminals being processed that the government would essentially be paying for the whole thing. III. Humanitarian concerns. My opponent briefly stated that rehabilitation is superior to minor jail time in terms of humanitarianism. However, it's important to remember that we're talking about convicted criminals, not some friendly, innocent people who the evil government is tossing into a rough prison environment. As I said before, that roughness is a useful deterrent to repeat offenses. IV. Efficiency. As I mentioned in (II), a rehabilitation system would require a large management bureaucracy, in order for it to employ the necessary individualized approach. On the other hand, the current prison system is one-size-fits-all, and thus needs just a bare minimum of management and oversight. Not only does this make the current system cheaper; it also makes it more efficient. Just imagine how much time it would take for a government bureaucracy to decide what sort of individualized rehabilitation treatment every single criminal who would otherwise be given minor jail time needs, and then track each of those criminals through their individualized rehabilitation, ensuring that they get all of the treatment they have been slated for, and make the necessary improvements to meet a complex set of bureaucratically-determined standards of fitness to return to society. It would be absolutely ridiculous. The current system, on the other hand, uses simple standards to determine what sentence is proper, under the oversight of just one person (the judge); and once the sentence is determined, no further decision-making is necessary. This is obviously the superior approach, in terms of efficiency. V. Punishment. The current prison system provides punishment for crimes as one of its primary functions, and the appropriate punishment for a given crime is a primary factor in determining what sort of sentence a convicted criminal gets. This punishment also provides peace of mind to the victim and their family; and, as I have already stated twice, works as a deterrent to future crime. A rehabilitation system would completely ignore the punishment aspect of the system, an aspect that has been central to criminal justice for millennia; and instead of punishing criminals, it would hold their hand and ask them how they feel. And once the powers that be decided that a criminal was mentally and emotionally fit to return to society, the criminal would immediately be released, regardless of how little time it may have taken. The rehabilitation system, in short, would fly in the face of thousands of years of development in criminal justice, and replace it with a system that treats convicted criminals like innocent newborn babies. Conclusion. No one can deny that the American criminal justice system has some unresolved issues. But that does not mean we ought to completely scrap the current way of doing things in favor of an even more flawed approach. With this in mind, it's clear that the current system of minor jail time ought to be kept in place, and most certainly NOT replaced with rehabilitation. Thank you.