Resolved: In the US, juveniles charged with violent felonies ought to be treated as adult criminals.

Road Map: First, I will attack my opponent's case and then, rebuild my own. In today's debate, my opponent is focused on the value of safety and he sees that this can be achieved through incapacitation and deterrence, which is essentially scaring the victim out of committing criminal acts. While I believe that safety is essential to the well-being of society, we need to be focused on societal welfare through rehabilitation in today's debate, as this is the ultimate goal of a society. In order to achieve more effective and long-term societal welfare, rehabilitation best achieves this because by properly rehabilitating these juvenile criminals, we allow them to contribute to society rather than being incapacitated and scared out of doing this again. In addition, deterrence is not an effective approach to dealing with juvenile criminals because the deterrence theory presumes a rational decision maker who weighs the expected costs and benefits of criminal activity against the risk and perceived consequences. However, juveniles lack the prefrontal cortex of their brain controlling decision making, and therefore, they cannot think logically and deterrence cannot work for them. In my opponent's first contention, he suggests that juveniles ought to be equally punished for their actions because essentially, they have a basic sense of right and wrong. First, I will address my opponent's point concerning equality of punishment. In society, the degree of crime is not equivalent to degree of punishment. For example, manslaughter and murder have the same outcome but different punishments. Juveniles do not fully function and therefore, the degree of crime should not be equal to degree of punishment. Many juveniles who are charged with criminal offenses may not know the difference between right and wrong. Many of these juveniles are raised in less than desirable homes and may not have sufficient training in morals to recognize the difference. In addition, while juveniles may have a sense of right and wrong, we have proven medically that their brains are not as matured as adults in the prefrontal cortex, which governs reasoning, advanced thought and impulse control. While a juvenile may know right and wrong, they do not have the capacity to consistently act upon this knowledge. Moreover, my opponent contradicts himself and further proves the negative when he provides that if juveniles do not know the difference between right and wrong, they should be treated differently by the courts. As I have deemed his right/wrong point invalid, we can only turn to that if they do not have impulse control to make good decisions, as proven medically, they ought to be treated differently by the courts. My opponent's second contention is essentially questioning the deterrence and overall effectiveness of the juvenile justice system. He is not able to show how these programs and facilities are not effective, with the exception of higher deterrence, which decreases our ability to evaluate the infrastructure of juvenile justice. As I have already stated deterrence is not the answer to our problems because the juveniles' underdeveloped brain does not learn from deterrence. Rather, we need to be focused on rehabilitation, with the goal of using these juveniles in the future. In addition, my opponent claims that juveniles who are tried by juvenile courts have a 51% recidivism rate. According to the Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report, "There is no national recidivism rate for juveniles. Such a rate would not have much meaning since juvenile justice systems vary so much across states." I would ask my opponent to provide his source for this and the specific details of the study. My opponent's third contention states that the adult system acts as deterrence, which is the answer to our problems with juvenile offenders. Once again, juvenile deterrence is not effective. My opponent attempts to justify the fact that by incapacitating these offenders, this will somehow rehabilitate these juveniles. Deterrence is superficial and shallow, but if we focus on rehabilitation, these juveniles will be able to function in society once again because true rehabilitation is changing the character of the person itself rather than putting them behind bars or scaring them out of doing something. To rebuild my own case: My opponent states that societal welfare is best achieved through his value criterion of deterrence and incapacitation but this not the case. In order for our society to truly achieve its best, we need the use of these juveniles in the future, which cannot be achieved through deterrence or incapacitation, as these are merely simplistic solutions to major problems. In addition, if these juveniles are rehabilitated there will be no need to worry about safety because these juveniles will not be a threat. In his attack of my second point, my opponent is essentially advocating for the act of child abuse, because they "deserve" it. In addition, he advocates for the idea of eye for eye and tooth for tooth: If these juveniles committed a violent felony, why shouldn't they be harmed? In addition, while prisoners do not hold as prominent a position in society, they are still in society. My opponent suggests that for the good of society, we ought to allow these juveniles to be beaten. When attacking my third contention, he states that doctors results concerning juvenile brain development is inaccurate because they solely use monkey brains and that juveniles are responsible for their actions because their sense of morality is developed. I have adequately refuted the latter above by saying, "Many juveniles who are charged with criminal offenses may not know the difference between right and wrong. Many of these juveniles are raised in less than desirable homes and may not have sufficient training in morals to recognize the difference. In addition, while juveniles may have a sense of right and wrong, we have proven medically that their brains are not as matured as adults in the prefrontal cortex, which governs reasoning, advanced thought and impulse control. While a juvenile may know right and wrong, they do not have the capacity to consistently act upon this knowledge." To the point concerning monkey brains, it must be made clear that my opponent stated that "much of what we know" comes from monkey brain research. This is open-ended and therefore, we cannot be sure that our research concerning cognitive functioning did not come directly from a human brain. But let's assume that this research did indeed come from the brain of a monkey. The doctors who are doing this research are extremely educated on the similarities and differences between the human brain and the monkey brain and would not waste their time if they did not see this study useful. Also, in a very critical science world, if these studies were completely wrong, as my opponent would like you to believe, this would data would not have been published. For these reasons, I can only see a negative in today's debate.