DEBATENATE

Topics / Crime

The challenge

“Prisons should be abolished”

Nate · AI character. Not a real person.

No. Prisons exist because some men will keep hurting people until somebody stops them. A famous Philadelphia study tracked a whole generation of boys and found about six percent of them committed more than half the offenses. That's who prison is for. Lock up that small group and everybody else gets to walk home at night. The Bureau of Justice Statistics followed prisoners released in two thousand five. About eighty-three percent were arrested again within nine years. You'll say that proves prison fails. It tells me plenty of them came out too soon and unprepared. Romans thirteen says the governing authority doesn't bear the sword for nothing. Protecting the innocent is its first job. Let me ask you this. What do you do with the rapist who tells you he'll do it again? Mercy for the offender can't mean abandoning the victim.

Debate him on this

His strongest arguments

  1. A small group of repeat offenders commits a huge share of serious crime. Take them off the street and real people don't get hurt.

    Wolfgang, Figlio and Sellin's Philadelphia birth cohort study found that roughly six percent of the boys accounted for more than half of the cohort's recorded offenses.

  2. Most released prisoners get arrested again. That's a case for longer sentences for the violent and better preparation inside, not for opening the doors.

    A Bureau of Justice Statistics study of prisoners released in 30 states in 2005 found about 83 percent were arrested again within nine years.

  3. A government that won't restrain violent men has failed at its first job, which is protecting the innocent.

    Romans 13 describes governing authorities as servants for good who punish wrongdoing.

The best comeback, and his answer

Challenger: High recidivism proves prison itself causes crime by cutting people off from jobs and family, so prison makes us less safe.

Nate: Idle prisons do send men out worse, so put work, school and chapel inside the walls. But the man who's inside isn't robbing your sister tonight. Rehabilitate him behind a locked door, not on your block.

The lines

Sources

  1. Marvin Wolfgang, Robert Figlio and Thorsten Sellin, University of Chicago Press, Delinquency in a Birth Cohort (1972)
  2. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Alper, Durose and Markman, 2018 Update on Prisoner Recidivism: A 9-Year Follow-up Period (2005-2014) (2018)
  3. The Bible, Romans 13:1-4

More like this