Wylted 100th Debate: The United States should implement caning as a punishment for criminals.

Thanks, Wylted.=Framework=The resolution should be evaluated in a traditional policy manner--the affirmative presents a plan, and negative defeats it in any way possible. I will present counterplans and if you are convinced that they are superior to Pro's plan, you vote Con. If you are not convinced by by my counterplans but I poke enough holes in my opponents case to make it nonviable, you vote Con. =My Case= I. The resolution is a moral abominationWe have to work under the assumption that virtually every convict will choose caning over imprisonment. Since my opponent chose to defend such an extreme resolution, the question then becomes if judicial corporal punishment is a just penalty for all crimes and the answer is a resounding no. Indeed, there's a reason that Singapore does not let it's murderers off with a few bruises, because doing so would cause the justice system to fail in it's social responsibility. The Criminal Justice Center explains[1]: "It has been understood that a criminal justice system has two primary and possible conflicting goals: preventing and controlling crime, and achieving justice." My opponents case fails on both levels. Affirming will allow individuals who forcibly ravaged little girls to go out and do it again after some mild bruising from a cane. The very thought of such a travesty happening even once should be enough to cause a public outcry, but Pro's plan allows it to happen constantly. Indeed, while Pro says that his plan encompasses a mechanism of determining which individuals are safe to society, he describes no machanism of doing so and it's a moot point anyway. Even if we were to assume that under Pro's plan there would be no recidivism, the justice system has still failed in it's duty to provide justice. The purpose of making laws and prosecuting people in the first place is because these individuals deserve punishment. Letting serious criminals go with what is, quite literally, a slap on the hand is a travesty. Pro's plan also fails to uphold the justice systems first goal of preventing crime. Evidence on the mental effects of corporal punishment on adults seems to be nonexistent, but virtually all psycologists agree that it does not work on children[2] and that the harms outweigh the benefits. It seems an insurmountable barrier to the Aff case that crime is going to go absolutely through the roof when word gets out that you can do *anything* and the only penalty will be some physical discomfort. II. The death penaltyPro's plan gives convicts the opportunity to choose caning over imprisonment--it says nothing about the death penalty. When juries are faced with the stark choice of executing a murderer or letting him go free with a few bruises the vast majority will choose to execute as letting an individual who committed such a henious crime go is morally repungant. The entire incentive structure to murder trials in the United States will change as prosecutors choose to seek the death penalty for even the flimsiest of reasons and judges and juries respond in kind. This is bad for a variety of reasons:a) The death penalty is a moral abomination. The citizen-state relationship ought not include a provision giving the state the right to kill. The very idea of immutable and sacred human rights is rendered obsolete when the state is given the right to determine which citizens are worthy of the most fundamental of rights: life itself. Implementing Pro's plan would see the death penalty go from a shrinking trend in a handful of states mostly concentrated in the south to the default sentence for murderers as states who have abolished it rush to implement the death penalty and those that already have it lower the requirements for a death sentence to try and slip by the caning mandate. Whatever one's opinion of the death penalty, each case is different and creating a situation where Juries must impose the death penalty or fail in their social responsibility to punish law breakers robs them of their autonomy. Pro's plan will lead to a vast amount of innocents executed as juries impose the death penalty on criminals they would previously imprison as juries are extremely reluctant to hand down the death penalty without overwhelming evidence.b) Increased use of the death penalty costs the taxpayer some serious green. As a typical example, it costs California about $90,000 a year more to house those sentenced to death compared with those given life imprisonment[3]. There were around 1800 murders in the state in 2012[4], and we can safely assume that each of these have the death penalty handed down to them which amounts to about $162 million a year for only those murderers that year on top of the trial and legal costs which, for a capital case, are enormous. The large amount of criminals kept in extremely expensive death rows and kept alive through lawyering about the appeals process will eat away at state budgets. These large costs can be extrapolated to the United States as a whole. These numbers may look small in comparison with my opponents, but my next contention shows how I actually save a lot of money in the long run.III. Counterplan: Legalize drugs and reform prisonThe biggest problem with the penal system in the United States is that we imprison large amounts people for crimes that aren't crimes. Indeed, in 2011 in the United States roughly half (48%) of inmates in federal prison and 17% of those in state prison were imprisoned for drug offenses[5]. This amounts to around 345,000 people, about 20% of the population as a whole. I propose that the United States immediately legalize all drugs and pardon all criminals imprisoned for drug crimes. I also make a significant amount of revenue for the government: an analysis by CATO found that legalizing drugs and taxing them at the same way Tobacco is taxed would generate about $46.7 billion in annual revenue[6]. These revenues are unique to my case as I make drugs safe, regulated, and taxed while my opponent instead paddles those caught possessing them. Moreover, since people punished for drug crimes are overwhemingly from some kind of minority group[7], Aff has the unique disadvantage of stoking up racial tension as large numbers of minorities are physically punished in a similar way slaves were punished by a largely white justice system. The global drug war continues under the Aff case, oppressing poor people everywhere and continuing to allow large parts of Mexico to be under the control of the cartel while the country is in a literal drug war that has led to the death of over 100,000 people[8]. Negating will save thousands of lives.The numbers also bear out the flaws in Pro's case: only 17% of inmates in state prison were there drug offenses. The majority (53%) of those in state prison were there for violent crimes. There are more murderers and rapists in state prison than there are drug offenders--these people should certainly be punished. Only so much of the large prison population in the United States can be explained through bad policy, the US simply has a uniquely high violent crime rate among developed countries. The US should, however, reform it's prison system. Rothbard explains the flaw in the system of imprisonment used in the West[9]:"What happens nowadays is the following absurdity: A steals $15,000 from B. The government tracks down, tries, and convicts A, all at the expense of B, as one of the numerous taxpayers victimized in this process. Then, the government, instead of forcing A to repay B or to work at forced labor until that debt is paid, forces B, the victim, to pay taxes to support the criminal in prison for ten or twenty years' time. Where in the world is the justice here?" The prison system should be reformed to force inmates to work until their debt to their victims is repaid. Moreover, where people do have to be imprisoned, the US should focus on the approach Norway has taken where prisoners are treated as people and rehabilitation is emphasized: leading to the lowest recidivism rate in Europe[10]. Thus, I extend my opponents impacts about how the prison system in the US is flawed, and cross apply them with my counterplan. You're voting neg because Pro's plan is a moral abomination, and whatever offense he does have is covered under my counterplans. Sources:1. http://www.cjimagazine.com...2. http://healthland.time.com...3. http://www.deathpenalty.org...4. http://www.disastercenter.com...5. http://www.bjs.gov...6. http://www.cato.org...7. http://www.drugpolicy.org...8. http://en.wikipedia.org...9. http://mises.org...10. http://www.theguardian.com...