Rehabilitation is more effective than punishment.

Thanks BH for your acceptance and hope to have an enjoyable debate with you. My opponent and I have decided that we’ll be debating on what’s more effective, in circumstances of usefulness. Is it sending criminals to rehabilitation or just sending them to prison? Opening Arguments: These are my arguments for the opening round. Please note that I may introduce new arguments/rebuttals as the debate proceeds further. P1: Upside of Rehabilitation: C1: Rehab is more humane. Rehab is an important kind of punishment, as it treats people to become good. The rehabilitating process tries its very best to change the offender’s ways, to prevent him from reoffending and to help reduce crime. It promotes a humanizing idea that law-breakers can be saved from their negative aspects. If we just incarcerate people for punishment’s sake, it gives a bad name in society, if we really want to achieve justice, the best way is to help and treat them, not leave them to rot in prison. C2: Rehabilitation reduces recidivism. Kimberly Irish-Tarbox, a criminal justice expert, in an article she wrote, states that the justice system focusing on rehabilitation is important, as it also impacts law enforcement, court procedures, correctional facilities and community services in a high level. She stated that those who complete rehab are less likely to reoffend. Law enforcement can focus on current offenders. Those in rehabilitation programs or who have completed rehabilitation are less likely to increase the case load in the courts{1}. According to a study conducted by Canadian psychologists, they found out the rehabilitation, in general, reduces recidivism rates. They’ve analyzed effective rehabilitation based on meta-analyses. They compared a few rehabilitation programs, and the successful rehab centers, which had lower recidivism rates were the ones that use cognitive-behavioral treatment, the ones that focus treatment on high-risk offenders, the ones that employ well-trained staff and ones who provide patients with aftercare after treatment {2}. C3: Rehabilitation has economical advantages. Putting offenders to community center facilities and rehabilitative facilities for treatment and service are cheaper than being put to prison and rot. I’ll compare costs in the UK and in the US. Incarcerating adults in the UK costs about £37.5K, while sending juveniles to juvie prison costs £42K whereas sending people to rehab or community service costs less. For instance, in the UK, a year of Community Rehabilitation costs £3K. A year of Community Punishment costs £2K. A year of Community Punishment/Rehab cost £4K. A year of Drug Treatment/Testing Order cost £8K. A former UK Prison Chief Inspector stated that if we lessen people serving in prison for low crimes (instead of serving in rehab), we would save up to £690 million. And for that money, we could implement 400 new complete schools and atleast 3 hospitals {3}. In the US (North Carolina, to be exact), the average prison cost per inmate per year is $27K, whereas yearly costs per inmate in rehab/community centers range from $350 to $5K {4}. So far, I’ve proven that rehab is not only more useful, helpful and effective, but also saves money. In addition, if we’re talking about rehabilitating youth offenders, we could rehabilitate 5 times as many juvies as we can incarcerate with the same amount of money, and people are more willing to pay for it. Elizabeth S. Scott & Laurence Steinberg, in a piece they wrote entitled, Adolescent Development and the Regulation of Youth Crime, they stated in 2006, they conducted a “contingent valuation survey,” finding out on how much 1,500 Pennsylvanians were willing to pay (from their tax dollars) for either an additional year of incarceration or a rehabilitation program, they found out that the people were willing to pay more for rehabilitation than for punishment. “Of course, this kind of survey is somewhat artificial, since the willingness-to-pay question is hypothetical.” They said, but they stated that these findings may affect lawmakers and that “a year of juvenile incarceration actually costs five times as much as a yearlong rehabilitation program.” {5}. P2: Downside of Prison: C1: Imprisonment increases recidivism. Furthermore, in addition to rehabilitation reducing recidivism rates, its counterpart, imprisonment, does the opposite. Now only that it deters crime, but people who go out of prison end up going back after some time. The Guardian, who published an article concerning reoffending/recidivism rates, wrote that reoffending is higher among criminals who were imprisoned, with 74% of former prisoners at one prison convicted again within a year. They also state that there was a 2010 statistic conducted by the Ministry of Justice in Great Britain that found reconviction rates are above 70% in England & Wales {6}. I’d also like to introduce the Bureau of Justice Statistics report on the rearrest/reconviction/reincarceration rates of of ex-inmates. These people represent 2/3 of the ex-inmates released in the US {7}. It showed that the criminals released with the highest rearrest rates were robbers (70%), burglars (74%), larcenists (75%), carjackers (79%), people in possession of stolen property (77%), people in possession or ones using/selling illegal weapons (70%). Also, it showed that in 3 years, 2.5% of rapists were rearrested raping again, and 1.2% of homicide prisoners were rearrested for homicide. The statistics are from 1994, and the 272K prisoners released that year had received 4.1 million arrest charges before they were rearrested and reincarcerated, plus another 744K charges within 3 years of another prison release. C2: Imprisonment doesn’t deter. Obviously, if imprisonment increases recidivism rates, it surely disproves the argument that send criminals to prison deters crime. We hear crime reports everyday, the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world {8}, this just shows crime is not getting any lower in the US. Since I’ve shown more than one statistic on recidivism, it’s safe to assume deterrence fails. I’ll finish this contention by citing a news article from USA Today where they stated that most states are failing to deter crime, where states’ recidivism rates rose by 30% {9}. C3: Prisons are prone to abuse: may lead to suicide. Imprisonment (esp. to juvenile offenders) is quite dangerous, it undermines the criminal justice system, it gives the “protecting people’s safety” bit a bad name. Juveniles in adult facilities are more likely to be abused by inmates and staff. The US DoJ with experts who have a PhD degree made an assessment entitled, “Juveniles in Adult Prisons Jails: A National Assessment.” It was reported that juveniles are more likely to be victimized in adult prisons, especially violated/raped. 47% of juveniles in 1988 suffered violent victimization. Some were being violated by prison staff. Sexual assaults (plus rape) were 5 times more likely in prison. Beatings were 2 times as likely and weapon attacks were 50% more common in adult prison {10}. The severe violence in these prisons is serious, and assuming an offender does know these kinds of things are happening, we can assume that they would rather die instead of rotting in a hellhole. Prisons can also make a person more psychotic and insane, which is a bad thing. I’ll explain this further if contested since I’m running out of characters {11}. Conclusion: Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve proven above that rehab better, cheaper helpful, effective, useful and desirable. I now await my opponent’s response. I may expand these contentions further. Thank you and good luck! Citations: {1} http://goo.gl... {2} http://goo.gl... {3} http://goo.gl... {4} http://goo.gl... {5} http://goo.gl... {6} http://goo.gl... {7} http://goo.gl... {8} http://goo.gl... {9} http://goo.gl... {10} http://goo.gl... {11} http://goo.gl...