Instigator / Pro
8
1472
rating
2
debates
0.0%
won
Topic
#577

Perpetrators of minor crimes should not be arrested

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
6
Better sources
4
4
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
2
2

After 2 votes and with 6 points ahead, the winner is...

Barney
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
Two weeks
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
14
1810
rating
49
debates
100.0%
won
Description

Resolution: This House would encourage perpetrators of minor crimes not to be arrested

Definitions: Minor crimes are those which are of a less serious nature [1]. These include petty theft, vandalism, public intoxication, trespassing, and the like.

Rules: (1) No kritiks (2) BOP is shared (3) No new arguments in the final round

Sources: [1] https://definitions.uslegal.com/m/minor-offense/

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@shas04

Current events really bring this one to mind. Were this debate to happen today, I am quite certain I would lose; and justly so.

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@shas04

Thanks for the debate.

To be clear, I agree there are serious problems with our prison systems, in particular regards to abuse of three-strike laws.
In the case of shoplifting, just charging them for the merchandise and trespassing them, would be a more fitting solution than anything I've heard of produced by the criminal justice system for such a puny violation.

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@Ramshutu

Thanks for voting.

Voting conclusion.

In the end Pro did not directly and causally link arrest to imprisonment. It is left implicit that the systemic issues with incarceration are as a product of arrest. I could have believed the link if the angle taken was related to guilty pleas and bail conditions - which I feel con could have made a good counter plan on (I would have liked con to have done this preemptively, but won’t hold it against him that he didnt - but pro doesn’t give a compelling link, so I have to reject the majority of his arguments

Benefits of arrest. Con didn’t do much at all here: but he did point out the necessity of police arresting individuals at the scene - the clear counter plan, and example plan in my view does enough to negate the majority of pros harms - whilst providing a small nominal benefit of arrest that I don’t believe was refuted.

The big thing for me is decriminalization. Pro himself argues for lack of prison sentencing and lack of arrests for minor crimes, and con clearly shows how this is tantermount to decriminalization, and emphasizes impact of victims. While pro disagree, broadly speaking his plan appeared to be to eliminate criminal records for both arrest and no prison time for crime. This is as close as you can get imo, and I have to side with con

The only point that i could have given to pro was related to racism and arrests. This is the only true harm pro states that is arrest related that maybe effected. I am tasked with weighing this against victims, and decriminalization - and so in my view the point is not strong enough to overcome the points con raises - as fundamentally in pros opening this doesn’t eliminate the issue - and cons counter offer plan sufficiently nullifies the harm.

As a result arguments to con

Recidivism/overcrowding. this seems again primarily related to imprisonment - with the exception that pro argues that arrest does get included in a criminal record. I must discount all of the imprisonment specific arguments.

Counter plan: cons counter plan is arrest but no imprisonment - this removes almost all of the issues presented and, imo is not the same as no arrest or imprisonment.

Round 2; con.

Kritik: I’m not buying this at all. I don’t feel that arguing the consequences of arrest is challenging the assumptions of the debate topic.

Ad hom: I’m going to reject this too, what pro said didn’t seem outside of the ordinary

Minor offences: I missed that this was defined by pro in the beginning, through his source. I don’t find it as cut and drop as con states (the sources include “can include”, and an example that includes class D felonies), but I would prefer running with the slimmer interpretation.

Decriminalization: con points out that pros objection here appears to be angling for full decriminalizafion - of these minor crimes. Re-reading pros rebuttal, this does seem to be the primary argument pro is making in context: no prison, no arrest. Con clearly justifies through victims why this shouldn’t be accepted.

I feel this covers the aspects of c3 which con didn’t cover elsewhere.

Round 3: in my view there was not anything new in this round that I have not already mentioned.

Con also points out the absurdity of the policy not being able to arrest and remove a perpetrator of a minor crime at the scene - to me this establishes a good core case for arrest.

Cons c1-2 seem to be echoing my point on arrest vs imprisonment. I will not go into details

C3: I will defer.

C4: con offers the counter plan of allowing arrest, but limiting the scope of imprisonment. This seems like a reasonable plan which does indeed seem to cover the majority of pros points with the exception of imprisonment without bail - con doesn’t make clear what’s going on here.

Round 2: pro.

Pro contends that there are more impacts from arrest other than the arrest itself. I can’t accept this without examples and context. Some generic “harm” that is unspecified is unweightable by me.

Pro contends that what constitutes minor crimes differs from that of con. Im going to see how this definition side of things plays out.

In the final observation - pro again seems to confuse arrest with imprisonment. Unless pro doesn’t provide me a knock out reason why I must accept the two as synonymous - I can’t accept this, ESPECIALLY i light of the counter plan.

Proportionality: given my response above, I can’t buy pros poaition here. He gives no real harm to weigh, and no clear link from arrest to imprisonment.

Arguments:

My major issue issue with this debate, is that it appears pro is confusing arrest with imprisonment. As a result, I cannot accept any of pros arguments that directly relate to imprisonment as a punishment as opposed to the arrest as topical unless con agrees (I haven’t read this far yet!)

So pro round 1:

C1a: appears to relate to bail, rather than arrest - I will accept this only if con doesn’t challenge

C1b: appears to be relating to imprisonment as punishment - not arrest. Not topical

C2a: seems again bail related (imprisonment pending trial), I will treat this like c1a.

C2b,c: these again seem non topical and related to imprisonent

C4: this seems again relying to how crimes should be punished rather than arrest. Non topical.

C3 seems topical: that preventing anyone being arrested for minor crimes, will stop minorities being targeted by police for arrest. However, it is ripe for a counter plan here.

Con R1:

Con starts with definitions, I am going to reject his argument that class D felonies and third degree rape are “minor crimes” in the context meant by this debate. It’s too much of a semantic argument, with not enough meat - however what I will do, is I will take into account the fact that we may not all agree on what a minor crime is. I will factor this into the arguments.

Yeah, I figured out what I did wrong before. Thanks though.

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@Wrick-It-Ralph

Thanks for voting.

I can't speak for Virtuoso, but I suspect the vote was just slightly below the level of detail the standard requires. For example: "Brining the justice system into the topic after the fact was pro's critical mistake." That I slapped the lily pads of that into the water, gets to the heart of the issue, but doesn't quite explain how I slapped them into the water (or for that matter how pro defended their inclusion).

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@David

I explained my reasoning for each point of voting. Votes are necessarily opinions. This is just bad modding.

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@Wrick-It-Ralph

Vote Reported: Wrick-it-Ralph // Mod Action: Removed

Points awarded: 3 points to con for arguments

RFD: Sources were robust on both sides. All attacks made were to ideas, not people, so I call good conduct on this.
As for arguments. Pro spent most of the debate jumping off of the lily pads that Con was slapping into the water. Con stuck to the initial topic by keeping to arrests. Pro seemed to want more ground as the debate went on even though Pro's current grounding was already unjustified. Brining the justice system into the topic after the fact was pro's critical mistake. If pro had stuck to the initial topic, it would have been easy to make a practical appeal against direct arrests and Con had even left room for this during the debate. Ultimately, Con's conclusion seemed to handle the problem in the most efficient way. Con's best argument was demonstrating that their is a real element of danger in choosing not to arrest someone at the wrong time. A night in jail keeps everyone alive at the end of the day no matter how it goes down afterwards. Good debate.

Reason for mod action: The voter fails to meet the requirements set forth by the COC found here https://www.debateart.com/rules

In order to award arguments points, the voter must:

Survey the main arguments and counterarguments presented in the debate
Weigh those arguments against each other (or explain why certain arguments need not be weighed based on what transpired within the debate itself)
Explain how, through the process of weighing, they arrived at their voting decision with regard to assigning argument points

The voter fails to do this thus his vote is removed.

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@ArgentTongue

Vote reported: ArgentTongue // Mod Decision: Not Removed

Reason for mod decision: Vote is sufficient per the standards

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@ArgentTongue

Thank you for that very detailed vote.

I fully agree with you about conduct being within the tied range. Given what a jerk I was about the sources, I would not protest if anyone pinged me on that.

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@Barney

I apologize for taking the discussion into voting, but I just had to clear this up. I was under the assumption that the kritik you accused me of in round one ( i.e, 'the only punishment of arrest is the act of arresting a person', and 'this is not a debate about the entire justice and healthcare systems') was your main area of focus, because that as what you fell back on to respond to many of my arguments. I responded to this claim in round 2 (Observation 1). I thought the kritik you accused me of in round two fell into he same category as the previous one (regarding the features of the prison system), so I didn't feel the need to respond to it individually.

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@shas04

I try to not discuss my debates while in voting, but in short...
1. You would call that an outright concession that it was a kritik (four separate times you claimed that of arguments if they were not responded to enough).
2. I did not accuse you of a kritik until after your R2, it was ironically your R2 response to topicality which identified K as your intent.

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@Barney

Just for your information, regarding your idea that I was kritiking the resolution, I responded to this the first thing in round two (see Observation 1). I didn't have enough space to address it again in the next round (due to the character limit), but I felt like my response in round 2 was sufficient.

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@Barney

Just reminding you that you have around an hour left to post your final argument.

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@Barney

I'm really sorry. There seems to have been a misunderstanding about the sources in round two. I thought I had set the google doc to 'share'. Turns out I had not. In any case, the link is below. You should be able to access it now. If not, please inform me.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PdkHl-t_vdwPQGMYFsv4tkUzx2sJTppxrUj-ZFXTccI/edit?usp=sharing

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@Barney

I hope you're planning on posting your argument soon. You have around an hour and a half left.

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@Barney

Just reminding you that you have around eleven hours to post your next argument.

Thanks! Had to deal with some stuff, but I'll whip something up before I go to sleep.

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@Barney

Just reminding you that you have about nine hours to post your argument.

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@Barney

Thanks. Take your time.

At a glance, looks like a well formulated R1. I'm not sure when I'll have the uninterrupted time to respond, but probably not for a couple days.

Thanks for challenging me to this debate. I have a fairly concise negative argument in my head, but look forward to seeing what angle you've got on this issue.