In the United States, misdemeanor jail time ought to be replaced with significant rehabilitation.

Alright, I would first like to point out to my Judges that this is suppose to be an LD round according to the tournament format on Cazoic. We are not debating plans, as that would be policy; we are suppose to be debating values. Thus, since my opponent hasn't presented a value or criterion, and doing so in the next round would be abusive to the Pro side, Pro then takes both the value and criterion debates. Now, since my opponent has posted arguments that resemble contentions, I will continue the debate by refuting his arguments. 1) So basically what you are saying here is that it's okay to let criminals go to prison, for up to a year as the resolution states (misdemeanor crimes), let them out and, as I mentioned before, have two thirds of them commit yet another crime and go back to prison. How exactly are we achieving societal good by letting criminals off easy so they will once again commit a crime? I'll agree, we need to help the poor, yet, upstanding members of society, but that is an entire different policy debate. We are looking solely to helping the members of society who turn to crime as a measure of desperation and that we need to help them become upstanding members of society. 2) On this argument, I'll admit, there are always people trying to cheat the system, getting a free education by committing a crime, but I would prefer a few people cheating the system rather than letting criminals back into society with so much as a slap one the hand. While the people that cheat the system will commit a small crime, they will later enter society and once again become a member of society. If however, criminals don't receive rehab, they will spend less than a year in prison and will more than likely return to prison. Moreover, they will return to prison usually based on a single crime, the one that they were caught for. What about crimes that they weren't caught for? The people cheating the system will commit only one crime and make sure they get caught, but a regular criminal will do everything in their power to avoid getting caught and that may mean that they are successful on occasion. For overall societal good, taking a few cheaters of the system would be better than not treating those who actually need help, who would commit more than one crime. 3) What I am basically saying here is that ALL first time offenders should undergo some form of rehab so that we can prevent them from committing crime again. Repeat offenders are usually stubborn in their ways and are harder to rehabilitate, which is why we need to start with the first time offenders. Here, in the long term, we would be preventing for larger numbers of repeat offenders which will be the best societal good. Furthermore, on your argument, if they don't receive jail time, than they are off topic because we are specifically talking about replacing jail time with rehabilitation. 4) Expungement, along with education, is a part of rehab. Together, the two are working side by side to prevent recidivism, but nothing is 100%. And, again, expungement isn't just the reason for it, but it's a combination of everything together in rehab, thus it can't be solved with minor jail time either. Now, again, since Pro has offered a valid Value and Criterion, that went completely un-argued, Pro wins that debate. The prior arguments are only the contentions that back up the rest of my case. I the end, only the Pro is able to achieve Societal Good through Utilitarianism and thus is the only side that is able to properly support the resolution. Thank you