maximum security prisoners should be used as slaves
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 2 votes and with 7 points ahead, the winner is...
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Prisoners such as rapists, child rapists, murderers, serial killers, and people along those lines, should essentially be used as slaves by the people, for the people, to fix our roads, to work for us for free to pay back something to the communities they took so much from, instead of getting free breakfast in bed and a TV. Being a leech to the tax payers' money. If we decide to keep them alive, why not make them useful towards society through means of hard labour?
- Pro evidently bears the entire burden of proof in this debate. Thus in the absence of upheld burden, the resolution defaults to me, the contender position.
- What makes slavery immoral? It deprives humans of the basic dignity of being treated as an end in themselves. Why are prisoners not allowed to be raped or tortured? Well because we give inherent rights to everyone in society, including the offenders within it. The freedom from slavery should fall under such rights such as the freeom from torture, rape, etc.
- Prison slavery provides no incentive for prisons and governments to focus on rehabilitating prisoners [1]. Rehabilitation I posit, or rehabilitative justice should be the idea as it is an undoubtedly superior system [2], to simple retributive justice. It offers prisoners help and an avenue toward becoming productive members of society and reduces criminal recidivism thus improving society [3]. I argue that we ought to pursue any policy that maximizes the incentive and actualization of prison rehabilitation and that includes ending forced prison labor.
- 6% of prisoners are innocent. We should reduce the harm done to innocent prisoners to the best of our ability. This is why the death penalty that executes innocent people [4] should be abolished. In a similar sense, the risk of enslaving innocent people should be removed by replacing the slavery system with a voluntary work system that most prisons already have [5].
- There are main costs associated with prison slavery. For one: "Although using unpaid prison labor seemingly appears to be free, there are associated costs that must be considered. The greatest expense is for the guards who have to supervise the prisoner workers – a significant cost that is borne by the government agency responsible for providing prison work crews. Other costs include transportation, training and the provision of meals, tools and safety equipment" [5].
- Secondly "prison slave labor also comes with another cost – the cost of free world jobs that are lost to prisoners, both in the public and private sectors" [5]. Why should we continue the slavery of prisoners when it takes jobs and opportunities away from innocent people who have committed no crime? This is nothing but immoral.
- Because of this effect: "While prison slave labor is usually touted as saving money, it may actually harm the local economy."
What makes slavery immoral? It deprives humans of the basic dignity of being treated as an end in themselves. Why are prisoners not allowed to be raped or tortured? Well because we give inherent rights to everyone in society, including the offenders within it.
It deprives humans of the basic dignity of being treated as an end in themselves.
kill them (as I've previously said in the other round).
Prison slavery provides no incentive for prisons and governments to focus on rehabilitating prisoners
- 6% of prisoners are innocent. We should reduce the harm done to innocent prisoners to the best of our ability. This is why the death penalty that executes innocent people [4] should be abolished. In a similar sense, the risk of enslaving innocent people should be removed by replacing the slavery system with a voluntary work system that most prisons already have [5].
- There are main costs associated with prison slavery. For one: "Although using unpaid prison labor seemingly appears to be free, there are associated costs that must be considered. The greatest expense is for the guards who have to supervise the prisoner workers – a significant cost that is borne by the government agency responsible for providing prison work crews. Other costs include transportation, training and the provision of meals, tools and safety equipment"
- Secondly "prison slave labor also comes with another cost – the cost of free world jobs that are lost to prisoners, both in the public and private sectors" [5]. Why should we continue the slavery of prisoners when it takes jobs and opportunities away from innocent people who have committed no crime? This is nothing but immoral.
- Pro makes a crucial mistake here. In analyzing the ethics of enslaving prisoners we are speaking normatively. "A normative claim is a claim to the effect that some standard ought to prevail, a claim about what ought to be done or would be good if it were" [1]. The current law is irrelevant to a normative assessment or judgment of how things ought to be.
- I previously argued that the death penalty must be abolished as well as prison slavery. Anything that violates fundamental human rights and treats them like a means to an end rather than ends in themselves. In retrospect, pro's claims of a "hypocritical legal system" serve as an admission of a lack of ethical consistency in this debate on his part, something that loses him the point of morality.
- What is pro's argument here anyway? We do immoral things therefore we ought to do more immoral things? This obviously doesn't follow. Even if the current legality of the death penalty had anything to do with our debate, it doesn't follow that it should also be legal for guards to rape inmates or use them as target practice.
- I believe the lack of response allows me to extend my argument that in the same fashion that prisoners have and ought to have protections from being raped and tortured, they should also have freedom from slavery. Fundamentally, items included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
People don't want rehabilitational justice just yet
- Citation needed?
- First, this is flat-out wrong. In a poll for the Justice Action Network (JAN) published in January 2018, "85 percent of respondents supported making rehabilitation the goal of the criminal justice system rather than punishment" [2] so the overwhelming majority of people both want and actively support rehabilitation justice.
- But even if what you said was true, what ethical relevance does that hold? The majority of people used to support slavery, but that didn't mean it should continue right?
I realise rehabilitation prisons work better for crime rates, visitation rates, and the economy.
- Pro concedes that rehabilitation is an undoubtedly superior system. in every aspect. This concession is of course a truism but I argue that my opponent implicitly contradicts themselves. Pro has stated both:
- "There is currently no incentive in America to enact rehabilitation-based policies."
- "rehabilitation prisons work better for crime rates, visitation rates, and the economy."
- This may lead the voter to be rightfully confused. Proposition 2 is an incentive to enact rehabilitation-based policies. Pro affirms that rehabilitation is better in essentially all conceivable ways and then says that we have no incentive to use an objectively better system? That would be like saying lightbulbs work better than candles but we have no incentive to use lightbulbs.
- I already showed evidence that the benefits of prison slave labor remove any incentive to progress into rehabilitation. We ought to do anything that logically makes rehabilitation the most efficient and successful and that involves ending slave labor.
- Pro does not seem to have refuted my argument from the prospect of innocent people. I argued in essence that we ought to remove human rights violations from prison not only as a prospect of morality but for the sake of innocent prisoners.
- Pro makes the self-evidently weak counter-case that we can provide other things like television or entertainment to prisoners to make up for such. We could also do this and simultaneously rape and torture them as well. The introduction of other materials that have positive utility does not justify an action any more than giving someone's family money after you murder them does.
- Pro also objects to the number of innocent prisoners. Similar to the rate of death row, between 4-6% of people incarcerated in US prisons are actually innocent [3].
- Conclusively, we ought not to preserve grave human rights violations for individuals who could be innocent. This includes removing the death penalty as well as the slavery of prisoners.
- Secondly "prison slave labor also comes with another cost – the cost of free world jobs that are lost to prisoners, both in the public and private sectors" [5]. Why should we continue the slavery of prisoners when it takes jobs and opportunities away from innocent people who have committed no crime? This is nothing but immoral.
With rehabilitational justice, this is a problem too. Although at least I have the argument to say we can make the prisoners do jobs where there is a massive need for workers no one in society wants to fulfil. With rehabilitational justice, these child abusers and gangbangers become competitive in the IT business, a business you and I may partake making our lives harder.
- With rehabilitation justice prisoners working would be as a fundamental baseline, voluntary with a wage attributed. This would take significantly fewer jobs away from people than forcing prisoners to work for free and we ought to best reduce the harm we cause.
- The claim that they do jobs "nobody wants to fulfill," can be dismissed as a baseless and unsubstantiated assertion.
- Lastly, how exactly does it make our lives harder to incorporate a system you previously conceded is better "for crime rates, visitation rates, and the economy." That would make our lives significantly better, no? your own words demonstrate this.
- https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/
- https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/
- https://www.georgiainnocenceproject.org/
I'm not saying prisoners should be raped Novice! I've been saying all this time that we should do what leads to maximum economic efficiency and uplifts the lives of those they ruined and took. Maybe this does include giving them TVS', clothes on their back, maybe some Gucci slippers?
First, this is flat-out wrong. In a poll for the Justice Action Network (JAN) published in January 2018, "85 percent of respondents supported making rehabilitation the goal of the criminal justice system rather than punishment" [2] so the overwhelming majority of people both want and actively support rehabilitation justice.
- But even if what you said was true, what ethical relevance does that hold? The majority of people used to support slavery, but that didn't mean it should continue right?
- Pro concedes that rehabilitation is an undoubtedly superior system. in every aspect. This concession is of course a truism but I argue that my opponent implicitly contradicts themselves. Pro has stated both:
Pro makes the self-evidently weak counter-case that we can provide other things like television or entertainment to prisoners to make up for such. We could also do this and simultaneously rape and torture them as well. The introduction of other materials that have positive utility does not justify an action any more than giving someone's family money after you murder them does.
- Pro also objects to the number of innocent prisoners. Similar to the rate of death row, between 4-6% of people incarcerated in US prisons are actually innocent [3].
- Conclusively, we ought not to preserve grave human rights violations for individuals who could be innocent. This includes removing the death penalty as well as the slavery of prisoners.
Well, no. Someone can be a slave and we can have rules in place against conduct that is acceptable and manners in which you cannot touch them. For instance, in the Bible, it says you can have a slave but you cannot inflict permanent damage on their body of any sort. If this does come to pass, you must let the slave go. We have rules about owning animals, such as dogs. Is a dog a slave? Yes, pretty much. Do we let someone do whatever they want to their dogs? No.
With rehabilitation justice prisoners working would be as a fundamental baseline, voluntary with a wage attributed. This would take significantly fewer jobs away from people than forcing prisoners to work for free and we ought to best reduce the harm we cause.
- The claim that they do jobs "nobody wants to fulfill," can be dismissed as a baseless and unsubstantiated assertion.
- Lastly, how exactly does it make our lives harder to incorporate a system you previously conceded is better "for crime rates, visitation rates, and the economy." That would make our lives significantly better, no? your own words demonstrate this.
- Applicable at this stage.
- Pro drops the following points:
- Normative Judgements vs Analytical ones.
- His lack of ethical consistency.
- I am the only person that has established a moral framework in this debate where I said we ought to treat people as ends in themselves rather than means to an end, an obvious application of Kantian ethics. I also am the only person in this debate that operates ethically consistently. I argued that there is no coherent ethical separation between slavery and the violations of other freedoms
- I also cited the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (pro also drops) which clearly stated in article 4, "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms." I argued that we ought to extend this to all people as it is ethically inconsistent to grant people freedom from rape and torture but not from slavery. Has pro responded to my argument? Of course not. Pro has argued:
- The death penalty is legal in some areas therefore enslaving prisoners isn't wrong, however, my argument on normative judgments already refutes this, the death penalty is legal but it ought not to be as it executes innocent people. Secondly, even if this was a relevant case the existence of one system does not in turn justify another (ie. bombing Yemen does not justify nuking Yemen). This causes an axiological slippery slope where the proposition of your system would, in turn, justify other impositions upon prisoners such as rape or torture, and the proposition of those actions, in turn, would justify other actions (to illustrate the fallacy).
Your entire argument is that it is immoral to treat rapists and serial killers the way they have treated their victims
- My argument is that we ought to treat them in a way that grants them fundamental human rights such as the freedom from rape or torture, and that we ought to treat them as ends in their selves.
You are using very morally charged language like, "If it's already immoral, aren't we making it worse?" No, we're not making it worse.
- No one has said this. However, I argued that pro's appeal to the current legality of the death penalty is arguing that "we do immoral things therefore we ought to do more immoral things." This is not a valid or sound argument. It would be similar to saying we already enslave prisoners so why can't we use them as target practice. This presents the axiological slippery slope that currently implicates pro's case.
I'm not saying prisoners should be raped
- However pro admitted himself that he is fine with prisoners being raped below: "you say I'm ok with raping psychopaths who have no empathy, and maybe I am." Additionally, what is the ethical barrier between giving prisoners freedom from rape and giving them freedom from slavery? This statement has been proposed in many different areas of the debate and pro has failed to exhibit any.
I've been saying all this time that we should do what leads to maximum economic efficiency and uplifts the lives of those they ruined and took.
- However, we have already shown that forced prison labor takes millions of free world jobs as a result of its cost incentives, and such has caused entire cities to shut down forced prison labor programs. Pro's system lacking a rehabilitative approach will also lead to a higher criminal recidivism rate ensuring that more innocent people will be harmed in the future. Conclusively, the social cost is much higher than any economic benefit that remains unsubstantiated.
Maybe this does include giving them TVS', clothes on their back, maybe some Gucci slippers?
- The introduction of other materials that have positive utility does not justify an action any more than giving someone's family money after you murder them does.
I'm unsure where you got this poll from
- I clearly linked all of my sources.
I can also get another one that simply disagrees with yours.
- This is a poll that says 32% of people believe people spend too little in prison for certain crimes. I posted a poll that shows "85 percent of respondents supported making rehabilitation the goal of the criminal justice system rather than punishment."
- Pro has stated himself that "I realise rehabilitation prisons work better for crime rates, visitation rates, and the economy," even saying that his own system is the "next best thing." We have already shown that to be false, but such an admission also makes the debate an easy decision. Why would we want the next best thing, as opposed to the best one?
- Pro concedes that rehabilitation is the best system but is unwilling to allow the system to function effectively by removing prison slavery. If we have candles and lightbulbs we ought to choose lightbulbs. If rehabilitation is preferable to slavery ethically and empirically in every aspect possible, we ought to choose rehabilitation and end slavery.
- Pro does not even respond to my argument here and I believe pro has effectively dropped the majority of them in retrospect. Pro previously argued that we could give prisoners TVs as if that would make up for making them slaves. I counter-argued that we could also rape prisoners or use them as target practice and give them TVs as compensation, essentially, showing that adding factors that may provide positive utility does not sufficiently justify an action or practice itself.
- Instead pro seemingly responds to a strawman argument about giving prisoners rights at all. Extending, within any incoherent axiology, you can simultaneously give prisoners some rights and still use them for target practice or torture them.
You say I'm OK with raping psychopaths who have no empathy, and maybe I am
- Here pro even admits that he is okay with raping maximum security prisoners. My previous assertions remain justified in that pro has no ethical grounding for anything he asserts.
How would it leave fewer jobs being taken?
- Basic economics indicates that forced, free labor would take more jobs as it allows companies or even prison entities to reduce their costs with the use of slave labor. If prison slavery is removed prisoners will no longer be exploited this way and would be paid a fair wage under a voluntary system. This transitions prisoners from chattel slaves to sub-competitors in a labor market.
there is a massive worker deficit in construction and extraction workers in mining.
- Pro's own source refutes his point. The source clearly says "conversely, in the transportation, construction, and mining industries, there is a labor surplus." There is literally the opposite of what pro tells us. The jobs have too many people.
- This not only indicates that pro has not read his own source, but it essentially fragments what was left of pro's argument.
- What jobs does pro's source say are actually in shortage? Well the occupational fields it documents are food service, education, and health services, hospitality, and I don't even need to explain how dangerous and untenable it would be to have convicted murderers and rapists forced to cook and serve your food in restaurants, teaching your schools, and being public nurses and doctors!
I could go through a lot of points given in this debate, but honestly, I think it all comes down to a single quote from Pro:
"I realise rehabilitation prisons work better for crime rates, visitation rates, and the economy".
This, essentially, functions as a concession that Con's CP is better than Pro's case. I could buy every argument Pro is making and all it would tell me is that the slavery-based system is better than status quo, not better than Con's case. Pro's only argument against said case is that there is an inherent barrier to action, i.e. the US (which was the focus of this debate) would not implement a rehabilitation-focused system of prisons. Setting aside the fact that the only support for this is a single poll that doesn't detail political will (or lack thereof) to implement such a system, and the fact that Pro largely just assumes that his case will pass in spite of the fact that slavery is and has been banned via constitutional amendment, cases in debate function based on fiat. Both sides, not just Pro, have the capacity to fiat that something will happen. This debate topic uses the word "should" and thus focuses on whether an action is the right course to take, as distinguished from a "could" resolution that would focus on the capacity to implement a given change. Pro can argue that impediments to Con's plan would yield consequences if he simply bypassed them entirely, but he can't argue that Con's case is impossible, especially given the lack of support for such an inherent barrier to such a proposal.
As such, I vote Con.
First, there was a constant lack of distinction (mostly on the part of PRO) about the group of prisoner being brought up. The title specifies maximum security prisoners, but the statistics cited by PRO in R1 refer to all federal prison inmates. Other groups brought up include death row inmates, "[convicted] rapists and serial killers" and the general U.S. prison system as a whole (which would include state prisoners as well as federal). This makes it very difficult to evaluate the validity of various arguments and I personally wouldn't mind seeing a rematch where this was held more strictly. I will be be trying to judge arguments based on how they refer to maximum security inmates as that is the group named in the title of the debate.
The main point that PRO brings up is that the prison system runs at a massive deficit and this could be alleviated by slave labor. The most relevant counterargument in my opinion on the part of CON as this is a economically motivated argument was that of COST. Through a quote, CON brings up that there are costs associated with employing prison inmates in addition to the regular costs of just keeping them in prison, such as transportation and training. Pro mainly dismisses this argument saying that without statistics it doesn't prove anything.
There's a lot of moral arguments about various groups of prisoners and innocence and stuff, but these are almost impossible to parse if I try to apply them to maximum security prisoners specifically. I will save elaboration on that for if there's a second debate or I decide to take up con's position myself.
Overall I what I could make out of the arguments, I will give points to CON as his main point went undefeated. Statistics would have been ideal if this was an actual policy debate instead of a yea or nay debate, but I think the quote and other sources get the point across.
I won't award any points for sources because none of them actually referred to maxsec prisoners specifically.
Spelling and grammar were equal as far as I could tell, no egregious errors that I noted, a few sentences definitely could have been worded better, but the points got across.
Conduct: there was a lot of use of intentionally charged language in referring to severe crimes such as rape and murder. This is one of the things I hate about political debates. Everyone immediately jumps to using words like pedophile and instantly anyone who says a single word of defence for the other position is enabling pedophiles or is a pedophile or something. CON didn't bend though, and insisted that even terrible people deserve certain rights (there was a whole separate argument about the validity of the death penalty for the same people that I didn't address because it has no bearing on the slavery: yes/no argument in my opinion.) This might be an unconventional reason to award the points but for being a decent human and treating other humans like humans, conduct points to CON
Prison is torture no matter how you turn it. Work or no work, its torture. So using prisoners as slaves probably will not be much different for them, except they will be doing something useful.
Also, this argument makes no sense:
"We do immoral things therefore we ought to do more immoral things? This obviously doesn't follow."
When you do an immoral thing you are saying that immoral things are allowed and that there is no reason for others not to do more of them if they desire, just as you did more of them when you desired. Do you claim you have special rights that others dont have?
"I realise rehabilitation prisons work better for crime rates, visitation rates, and the economy".
i intended to say this in comparison to how the current prison system is run. I did later say that may not be the case compared to a slave labour prison system. Understandable vote nonetheless
"It already runs at a deficit?"
the current prison system. not a slave labour program. The slave labour program could bring in profits but the overall prison system could still be ran at a deficit if its only a small sector of prisoners being used as slave labour. I should have brought up the gulags. They certainly weren't run at a deficit. I'm not going to continue though. It's a troll debate, so I don't particularly care about the vote or anything of the sort.
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"The main point that didn't come up imo is that maxsec prisoners are maxsec for a reason. Usually they aren't placed there for their crimes, but to prevent more violence in the prison itself."
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That's on con to point out. If that's the case, why would I build his argument for him? It sounds more like you voted based on what you would have done and the flaws in my argument that you think you could have countered as opposed to what actually happened. All you really point out is the fact that you already agreed with Con before reading the debate and debated vicariously through him.
"He didn't prove it would now be run at a deficit."
It already runs at a deficit?
You said that the federal prison system currently makes 5.8 billion and loses 182 billion every year. So unless you think the relatively small number of maxsec inmates being forced to perform slave labor could make up 177 BILLION dollars, they would STILL run at a deficit.
The main point that didn't come up imo is that maxsec prisoners are maxsec for a reason. Usually they aren't placed there for their crimes, but to prevent more violence in the prison itself. This includes inmates who commit assault/murder in prison, high profile cases where they're likely to get murdered themselves if put in a regular prison, and gang members and leaders. This is a very different category from the run of the mill rapists and murderers that you two kept bringing up. This is a class of prisoners that are extra difficult to work with, and can barely be trusted to eat in a cafeteria together without killing each other, much less doing jobs with tools and the like. My expectation would be that if there were any easy profit to be made employing maxsec prisoners in addition to the prisoners already doing $5.8 billion of work already, it would already be being done.
"The main point that PRO brings up is that the prison system runs at a massive deficit and this could be alleviated by slave labor. The most relevant counterargument in my opinion on the part of CON as this is a economically motivated argument was that of COST. Through a quote, CON brings up that there are costs associated with employing prison inmates in addition to the regular costs of just keeping them in prison, such as transportation and training. Pro mainly dismisses this argument saying that without statistics it doesn't prove anything."
Well yeah, he didn't prove anything. He didn't prove it would now be run at a deficit. The debate, as you said, was simply speculation. I cant combat the point as it's literally impossible to find statistics on it. Same for him. Its not like that information is laying around on the net and i intentionally ignored it, it simply isn't. He was doing guesswork like me too but my guess work is unjustified and his isn't?
If you give me the heavier burden of proof (understandably) then i admittedly lost the debate. If you don't, i cant see a loss as being justified.
That sounds like an amazing idea until a prisoner intentionally sets his bed on fire to kill himself.
perhaps something more like this,
https://youtu.be/IlaNKKHzNKQ
That's a really good video, thank you for sharing. If someone has no arms and legs they cannot riot. Although on a personal note im very much in favour of rehabilitatory justice. A vengeance based justice system stops pretty much nothing. A fire will not put out a fire, therefore only the opposite of hate will rid it.
placing all prisoners in hospital beds tends to cut down on riots
https://youtu.be/_flYlbBpSok
Its a troll debate. I like thinking of extreme ideas and seeing how far i can take them.
if you don't believe in human-rights for all humans, you don't believe in human-rights
A slave is someone who has minimal rights of their own, or becomes property. There is of course property laws, hence you can have laws against treatment of slaves as has been the case through most of history.
You mean labor? You can’t just call them slaves.
Please fix this road near vulnerable people.