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?
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.