Decarceration – AFF – Opening Packet –

Spartan Debate Institute – 2020

Introduction
 About the Opening packet

How the content for the starter pack is selected:

The camp Administration is interested in researching a starter pack that reflects these two guiding
principles:

- Current events can function as an “on-ramp” for our activity.

Hopefully, debating the issues of the day acts a magnet and attracts newcomers to a High School
Debate class or Team. As such, the SDI shares this starter pack with High School teachers. If
SDI attendees find these debates timely, that may create conversations that eventually turn
classmates into teammates. Participation can begin with the tiniest sparks. We strive to ignite a
few.

- A controversy that rests at the center of the topic

Most high school resolutions are drafted broadly enough to allow the Affirmative Team to find a
strategic corner of the topic. Competition means savvy, trickier Affirmative approaches will
surface during the season. While understandable, an Affirmative that dodges the core controversy
may not be the ideal place to begin our summer conversations. In debating something that rests at
the heart of the topic, we suspect students will pick-up on patterns that can guide their approach
to many debates over the course of the season.

Why have a starter pack at all ?...

The traditional summer camp blueprint had everyone arrive and – instead of debating – devote the first
week to producing research for use in subsequent debates.
Years ago, we realized that research turns out best when that sequence gets inverted.
Early debating builds curiosity about ways to build-off of the opening starter pack. And, curiosity tends
to drive better research.
 Content Warnings and Sensitivity to the experience of others

This summer’s starter pack is about “decarceration” – the process of moving people out of correctional
facilities.
The Affirmative and Negative research touches upon two especially timely events:

- The Criminal Justice System – including sentencing, policing, and disparate outcomes that arise
in communities that do not hold racial and-or economic privilege.

- The COVD-19 pandemic – which carries distinct complexities for correctional facilities.

As mentioned earlier, the SDI strives to discuss current events. That commitment comes with a
responsibility to remind participants to be sensitive to the moment.
As you argue, judge, and converse, please consider that these current events may impact others in unique
and powerful ways.
If – during the course of an argument or conversation – you find that it is all a little too much, know that
the SDI will be supportive and work to create an understanding environment.
 Topic wording

The national high school topic for the 2020-21 season related to the criminal justice
reforms. The precise wording is:

Resolved: The United States federal government should enact substantial criminal justice reform in the
United States in one or more of the following: forensic science, policing, sentencing.
Glossary
 Ten Background Concepts

We have created a larger glossary in the next section – but these 10

concepts are especially likely to arise in your first practice debates.

“Carceral”, “Carceral State”, and “Mass incarceration” :

Pronounced “kär-sə-rəl”, the word “carceral” refers to or relates to a prison and the idea of incarceration.
“Carceral State” is usually a reference to a government that emphasizes the use of imprisonment as a
social policy to punish individuals in the context of a criminal justice system. The “carceral state” is often
used to explain the high levels of incarceration in the United States.
The U.S. criminal justice system holds approximately 2.3 million people in:

- 1,833 state prisons

- 110 federal prisons,
- 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities,
- 3,134 local jails,
- and 218 immigration detention facilities,

The 2.3 million statistic also includes facilities run by the US military and by Native American nations, as
well as civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, prisons in the U.S. territories, and facilities
run by private companies (“private prisons”). This website offers a more precise breakdown:
https://static.prisonpolicy.org/images/pie2020.webp?v=1
“Mass incarceration” is an associated term – and can refer to large percentage of the US population that is
behind bars. Despite carrying roughly 5% of the global population, the U.S. has nearly 25% of the world's
prison population.
Some scholars use the phrase “carceral state” to refer not only to the large number of incarcerated people
– but also to a broader culture that favors punishment over prevention/treatment.
A tip that may be helpful for debaters new to this subject: In critical and cultural theory (kritik literature)
– the phrase “carceral state” arrives with a negative connotation. It often implies a deeper motivation to
keep correctional facilities crowded (like profit motives or structural biases against certain identity
groups).

Compassionate release:
A program through the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) under the First Step Act. It allows for certain
incarcerated individuals to be released from a federal prison early or have their sentences reduced due to
extraordinary circumstances. Inmates and their lawyer(s) can request compassionate release through the
BOP, and can also directly petition federal courts if the request is denied by the BOP. Some versions of
the Affirmative will argue that BOP and/or the Court System should expand criteria for compassionate
release on the basis of health concerns related to COVID-19. This should release more inmates – likely to
home confinement.
“COVID-19” vs. “Coronavirus”:
“COVID-19 refers to the Novel Coronavirus of 2019 and is the illness caused by SARS-CoV-2 (Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2). “CO” stands for corona, “VI” for virus, “D” for disease,
and 19 for the year that the virus was first discovered. There are many different types of Coronaviruses,
but COVID-19 refers to the unique strain.
Technically, “coronavirus” refers to a family of viruses that infect birds and mammals causing respiratory
issues. In current common usage, however, it often refers to the COVID-19 strain which is a member of
the larger family of Coronaviruses.

Decarceration:
The process of removing people from correctional facilities such as prisons and jails. It is the opposite of
incarceration.

Disparate Impact Theory and the Disparate Racial Violence Advantage:

Disparate Impact Theory studies how an event (COVID-19, a government policy, a Court Ruling) has
different consequences for different communities.
In theory – for instance – a law that enhances the mandatory minimum sentences is “color-blind”,
meaning that – as drafted – the new sentencing scheme could impact communities in the same fashion. In
practice, however, studies reveal that increasing sentences is apt to have a disparate impact on people that
lack socio-economic privilege. This is – in part – due to biases that exist at the various stages of the
criminal justice system (some communities are more apt to encounter policing or may lack the resources
for a high-powered defense attorney).
A “disparate impact theorist” would study an event and use social science data to show how various
communities are disparately impacted by an event.
The Disparate Racial Violence Advantage in the starter pack argues that mass incarceration is not color-
blind in its outcomes. It argues that black and brown communities – in particular – are disparately
impacted by high levels of incarceration. The aff goes on to argue that persons who are disparately
impacted by over-incarceration would benefit from a decarceration agenda.

Incarceration:
The confinement of individuals on the local, state, and federal levels by law enforcement of individuals
suspected to have committed a crime and those convicted of crime. Incarceration can take place in
prisons, jails and other correctional facilities.
The term “incarcerated populations” is often used to refer the grouping of people confined within all such
facilities. It is also sometimes deployed as an alternative to the phrase “inmate” – which has been
critiqued for holding negative connotations.
Jim Crow, The New Jim Crow:
These terms/concepts are most apt to arise as part of a Neg argument in the starter pack (The Abolition
Kritik).
Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation (primarily) in the Southern
United States. Jim Crow laws were upheld in 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessy vs. Ferguson, in which
the U.S. Supreme Court laid out its "separate but equal" legal doctrine. Jim Crow laws mandated the
segregation of public places (including schools, transportation and restrooms). In most instances, the laws
were initiated in the 1870s and 1880s. Many Jim Crow laws were enforced until 1965.
In 2010, Michelle Alexander wrote a prominent book called The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in
the Age of Colorblindness. The thesis is often referenced by other authors as simply “The New Jim
Crow” (including by authors in the 1NC Shell for the Abolition Kriitk – for example Coates ‘19).
The New Jim Crow thesis roughly proceeds as follows. Change or progress in the Law often does not
result in true change on the ground because attitudes held towards black people will not/have not
meaningfully changed. Legal slavery, for instance, concluded at the end of the Civil War – but Jim Crow
laws emerged in its wake. Jim Crow laws ended legal segregation – but forms of de facto segregation still
exist (radically different support for local schools, etc).
Alexander’s thesis of New Jim Crow is most relevant to the 2020-21 high school topic because it
connects this thesis to mass incarceration. It argues, in part, that the growth of incarceration – especially
for black people – is another example of how alteration in the Law has not resulted in change on the
ground.
In short, the Negative can cite this book’s thesis to question whether the Aff’s pivot from incarceration
will follow a similar path – namely that the end of legal slavery meant that energies got re channeled to
Jim crow legal segregation, which - once formally ended - got rechanneled to mass incarceration. The
Neg would argue this error replication will continue – even in a world of Affirmative’s effort to
decarcerate.

Prison vs. Jails vs Detention Center:

Jails are short term holding facilities for individuals newly arrested and awaiting trial sentencing. Jails can
also be used for those serving a short sentence (usually a year or less) for the whole sentence, and are
under the jurisdiction of a city, county, or local district. Prisons are under the jurisdiction of the state or
federal government and are used for individuals serving longer sentences. State prisons are used for those
who are convicted of violating state laws and federal prisons are used for those who are convicted of
violating federal laws. This excerpt from Professor John Pfaff may be helpful:
Pfaff ‘20
John Pfaff, Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law - MEMO: LOCAL OFFICIALS SHOULD QUICKLY
REDUCE JAIL POPULATIONS TO SLOW THE SPREAD OF CORONAVIRUS - Data for Progress - April 2, 2020 - #E&F -
https://www.dataforprogress.org/memos/reducing-jail-populations-coronavirus

To understand why jails pose a unique threat to public health during the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is
important to appreciate how they differ from prisons. As a general matter (there are a few exceptions),
prisons hold people who have already been convicted of a felony and sentenced to spend at least one year
behind bars . Jails, on the other hand, are used to detain (1) those who are awaiting trial and either cannot
raise the funds to make bail or have been denied bail outright and (2) those who have been convicted of
misdemeanors or other minor offenses and generally sentenced to under a year in confinement.
Jail populations, in other words, are defined by “churn”: by people spending short stints in them before
returning to their homes. In New York City, for example, nearly 10% of those admitted to city jails are
discharged the same day, 40% within a week , and nearly half within two weeks . And New York City is
not an outlier. The average length of stay at the Erie County Holding Center outside Buffalo, NY, is three days for pre-trial detainees and
forty for those convicted. In Monroe County (Rochester) the average stay for those convicted and awaiting trial is about four weeks, and it’s
about the same in Onondaga County (Syracuse) as well.

In Los Angeles , the average length of stay of a pre-trial

In this respect, New York is no different than the rest of the country.
detainee is just six days ; in San Diego , just twelve. For people convicted of crimes, the average jail stay is 62 days in Los
Angeles and 72 in San Diego. Cook County, Illinois, has created a “rocket docket” to try to help people leave
Cook County jail within thirty days; even prior to the existence of the rocket docket, the average time spent in Cook County jail was
under two months.

By ignoring the amount of short-term churn in jail populations , we systematically understate their
size . The most common statistic we hear about jails is that they hold about 750,000 people nationwide—but that
is the number of people in jail on the average day , not the number of people churning through over the
course of the year. The number of annual admissions is something on the order of ten million , with
estimates suggesting that these ten million admissions are made up of five million unique people . In New
York State alone, it’s about 267,000 unique people every year. That is nearly 2% of the entire adult population for both the US as a whole and
New York State entering—and almost immediately leaving—jails every year

Although there are some jails that are run by State Governments or even the Federal Government, jails
are usually local. The term “detention center” is more often used for a facility where the Federal
Government confines individuals who have not yet been convicted of a crime. The term “detention
center” can also be used in a broader sense and refer to any facility where persons are confined.

Resurgence:
This word can mean different things based on context. “Resurgence” – as used in the starter pack - argues
that COVID-19 cases are beginning to level-off. The “rate” is slowing – and, according to the
Affirmative, this is a good thing. That slower “rate” is a huge plus from a public health perspective, for
the prospect of re-opening of economy, etc.
The Affirmative argues that COVID-19 will “re-surge” unless action is taken to stem the forthcoming
moment when spread spills from correctional facilities and into communities.

Reproduction number:
R0, pronounced “R naught,” is a mathematical term that indicates how contagious an infectious disease
is. It’s also referred to as the “reproduction number”. As an infection is transmitted to new people, it
reproduces itself.
The “reproduction number” refers to the average number of people who will contract a contagious disease
from one person with that disease. It specifically applies to a population of people who were previously
free of infection and haven’t been vaccinated.
For example, if a disease has a “reproduction number” of 18, a person who has the disease will transmit it
to an average of 18 other people.
Even the greatest optimist does not believe the Affirmative could bring the “reproduction number” to
zero. The goal of most public health officials – and the Affirmative - is to lower the reproduction number
and have it fall into one of the first two categories (below):

- If the reproduction number is less than 1, each existing infection causes less than one new
infection. In this case, the disease will decline and eventually die out.

- If the reproduction number equals 1, each existing infection causes one new infection. The
disease will stay alive and stable, but there won’t be an outbreak or an epidemic.

- If the reproduction number is more than 1, each existing infection causes more than one new
infection. The disease will be transmitted between people, and there may be an outbreak or
epidemic.
This entry came with an assist from this web address – you can read more there:
https://www.healthline.com/health/r-nought-reproduction-number#meaning
 Additional Terms that are apt to arise:

13th Amendment:
The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution was the first of three “Reconstruction Amendments” passed
after the Civil War. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude “except as a
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” – meaning for
prisoners/criminals. As a result, many argue the 13th Amendment allowed legal slavery to continue in a
different form – as mass incarceration became a way to ensure a continued and racialized supply of free
labor. Due to this, it is often cited by Afropessimists as an example of failed progress.

Abolition movement/ Abolition Kritik.

A difficult term to define – as people in the movement often debate amongst themselves over the breadth
of change that is being sought.
In a limited sense, the abolition movement refers to the movement to eliminate incarceration in the form
of prisons and jail as well as the surrounding apparatus of policing, parole administration, and more.
Instead, many members of the prison abolition movements want to replace many of the functions prison
serves with social services – e.g. instead of incarcerating those who use drugs give them addiction
counseling, focus on resolving mental health problems, focus on keeping people with families and
providing them education and jobs, etc.
In a broader sense, some members of the Abolition movement seek deeper changes to concept of
punishment. This sometimes extends into whether the ecosystem should be punished or whether penalties
at schools should be revisited.
The Negative has an “abolition Kritik” in the starter pack – and it argues that decarceration is too narrow
of a reform. According to the Negative, the narrowness of the effort could quell support for deeper
abolitionist efforts.

Alexander, Michelle:
Author of the book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010). The
book advances many themes – but the most central one for this packet may be that progressive reforms -
like the end of Jim Crow laws - did not necessarily change racial inequity on the ground.
Instead, Alexander argues the shift in Jim Crow laws caused counter-moves (circumvention, “serial policy
failure”, etc) which resulted in a large increase in mass incarceration – especially for black and brown
people. Please review the glossary entries on the “13 th Amendment” and “Jim Crow, The New Jim Crow”
for additional detail.

Arrest Warrant:
An official document signed by a judge (or magistrate) authorizing police to arrest individuals named
within the warrant. Arrest warrants typically identify a crime that the arrest is being made for and can
outline restrictions on how the arrest may take place. An arrest warrant is obtained by police submitting
an affidavit to the judge or magistrate outlining information that reaches the level of probable cause that
the individuals on the warrants committed a particular crime. More about the freq of use of arrest
warrants.

Attorney General:
The Attorney General (AG) represents the federal government in all legal matters. The AG is nominated
by the President and then confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The AG does not have a term limit, and can be
removed by the president at any time or impeached by congress. The current attorney general William
Barr assumed office on February 14th, 2019. State governments also have “Attorneys General”.

BOP:
The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a department within the Department of Justice that manages federal
prisons as well as community-based facilities that provide work and opportunities to assist offenders. The
Federal BOP does not run corrections policies of the 50 State Governments. The State Government have
administrative entities (Departments of Corrections) of their own.

CCP:
Chinese Communist Party – this is the ruling party of the People’s Republic of China.

Circle Bear, Andrea:

Andrea Circle Bear was a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux and was serving a two-year (26 month)
sentence for a nonviolent drug offense starting in January of 2020. While in prison she contracted and
showed symptoms for COVID-19. She was pregnant at the time, and - while her unborn baby was
delivered safely, Andrea Circle Bear passed away in April of 2020. She was 30 years old. She was the
first female in the federal prison system to die from COVID-related complications.
Her death has raised outrage for many reasons – including:

- questions as to why a pregnant person at risk of death from COVID is in prison in the first place;
- highlighting the over-incarceration of offenders on non-violent charges;
- the failure of the federal prison system’s capacity to provide adequate medical care amid the
COVID pandemic;
- that other offenders – including former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and former Trump
attorney Michael Cohen – were released from Federal facilities. It is arguably the case that both
Cohen and Manafort did not meet criteria for early release. Many point out that Andrea Circle
Bear had a stronger basis for early release than Cohen or Manafort.

Commuting sentences vs. pardoning sentences vs. clemency:

“Clemency” is a broad term that refers to the Executive’s constitutional power to provide leniency against
individuals who have been convicted of federal crimes. Commuting refers to the either partial or total
reduction of an individual’s sentence who is currently servicing their sentence. Pardoning refers to
removing a conviction from an individual’s record after they have served their sentence. Both commuting
and pardoning are examples of clemency.

Davis. Angela Y:
Early pioneer of the prison abolition movement. In the mid 1960s she was hired to teach at UCLA, and
while there was a member of an all-black branch of the Communist Party and the Black Panther Party.
She was fired by UCLA for her ties to the Communist Party and sued in order to be rehired before leaving
voluntarily in 1970. In the 1970s, she became an activist supporting the release of the Soledad brothers—
three men accused of killing a prison guard. During one of the trials, an escape attempt was made and
several people were killed—Davis was arrested for a supposed role in the operation but was later
acquitted at trial. Since then, she has held a variety of academic jobs and become a leader of academic
conversations on social issues relating to race and gender with a specific emphasis on doing work on
prison abolition.

DOJ:
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is a cabinet agency responsible for enforcing the laws of the United
States federal government and is tasked with ensuring public safety against foreign and domestic threats.
The DOJ includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the US Marshals, the bureau of alcohol,
tobacco, and firearms (ATF), and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The department is
headed by the attorney general. The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is housed within the Department of Justice.

DuBois, W.E.B. :
WEB DuBois was an early sociologist who became the first African American to earn a PhD before
founding the NAACP and publishing highly influential pieces regarding “the color-line” in America. In
early debates about ways for African Americans to socially advance, DuBois challenged the “Atlanta
compromise” forwarded by Booker T. Washington which would have had Southern black accept white
rule in exchange for educational and economic opportunities. Instead, DuBois advocated for the
“Talented Tenth” arguing that only a tenth of African-Americans were “ready” for advanced education or
political leadership and that by investing in a Talented Tenth in this generation, future generations would
have even more African Americans be given education and advance into upper-classes of society. In The
Souls of Black Folk, arguably his most influential work, DuBois argued for the idea of “double
consciousness” – that black people had to understand themselves doubly as themselves and as how
society understands them as Black people – and that this majorly shaped the way racism functions. All of
this work taken together causes some to describe him as an early Afropessimist.
DuBois is cited in the 1AC card by Liat Ben-Moshe (disparate ravial violence advantage) – and that
section of the evidence outlines both a version of the Afro-Pessimism Kritik, as well as one Affirmative
response to it (namely that Aff decarceartion reform is not inconsistent with changes called for by some
Afro-pessimists).
Epidemiological:
A branch of medical science to investigate all factors that determine the absence or presence of diseases.
Research is conducted to understand how many people have a particular disease, if the number of those
affected are increasing or decreasing, and how the disease affects society and the economy.

“Extraordinary and Compelling reason”:

Refers to a phase in the First Step Act that provides guidelines for compassionate release. In order to be
granted compassionate release an incarcerated individual must provide “extraordinary and compelling
reasons” as to why there sentenced should be reduced. Some have argued that the spread of COVID-19
among individuals in prisons and jails meet the standards of “extraordinary and compelling reason” to
allow for compassionate release. The affirmative – through a Federal Court, the US Surgeon General, or
via Congress – could clarify that health concerns related to COVID-19 explicitly constitute a
“extraordinary and compelling reason” for release to home confinement.

Federalism:
Federalism arguably has a title that creates confusion. It does not mean “more power to the Federal
government”.
Instead, the phrase “federalism” refers to the balance of power and responsibilities shared between the
federal government and the states/local governments.
Oddly, when people call for “federalism” they most often mean that the balance is out of sync and has
drifted towards too much federal focus.
Criminal Justice and Prison policy is regularly “left to the State/Local governments”. The Negative will
argue that when Washington DC (Federal government) dictates prison policy, that throws off the “balance
of federalism” giving excessive influence to centralized entities (Congress, White House, etc) and not de-
centralized entities (States, localities).

First Step Act:

Refers to a law passed in December of 2018 to limit mandatory minimum sentences for low level drug
offenses, provide sentence reductions for those currently serving their sentences, and expand federal
rehabilitation programs. The Act provides mechanism for early release such as compassionate release
which can be used to lower the level of prison populations. It has received a great deal of attention
because the Trump Administration surprised many political commentators when it decided to pursue a
reduction in mandatory minimum sentencing. The First Step Act is limited to addressing criminal justice
reform at the federal level, but it does authorize grant programs for state governments to provide reentry
and education programs.

“Flattening the Curve” :

“Flattening the curve” refers to the strategy of reducing the rate of infections of COVID-19 spreading in a
community to the point where hospitals, clinics, testing infrastructure, and more are able to handle the
influx of COVID-19 patients. Moreover, the idea is to ensure there are medical resources available for
COVID-19 patients. Strategies used to “flatten the curve” include stay-at-home orders, canceling non-
essential businesses or schooling, wearing face masks/shields, and “social distancing” strategies more
broadly. The goal of “flattening the curve” is not necessarily to eliminate the spread of COVID-19, but to
avoid or space out surges – with the hope of maximizing hospital space, ventilator access, etc.

G-20:
The Group of Twenty (G20) is a collection of twenty of the world’s largest economies founded in 1999 as
a forum to discuss economic and financial stability. In 2008 G20 countries began an annual summit to
discuss a range of global issues. G20 nations represent 80% of global economic activity and 75% of
global trade.

GFC:
The 2008 Global Financial Collapse (GFC) refers to collapse of the United States housing market which
lead to the collapse of some large U.S. based financial institutions and the global economy to the brink of
collapse. There is arguably a consensus that the crisis was caused by the unregulated trade of “derivative”
stocks, and totally economic collapse was prevented through government bailouts of financial institutions.

Hegemony:
Hegemony in the global international system refers to the sense that one state has greater power than
other states. Right now, the United States is frequently referred to as the “global hegemon” – meaning
most powerful state – however, other states are often described as able to compete for the status of
hegemon (e.g. Russia or China). Hegemony can be expressed in a variety of different ways including
military power (“hard power”), economic leverage, and cultural influence (“soft power”).

Home confinement:
Refers to confinement within one’s home or other specified location rather than in prison or jail. Also
known as house arrested and is usually accompanied by electronic monitoring to verify an individual’s
location.

Liberal vs Illiberal Norms:

“Liberal” norms refer to norms that respect concepts such as human rights, privacy, free speech/press, and
individual autonomy. “Illiberal” norms by comparison are generally totalitarian or controlling of the
population – violating free speech/press, using technology and private violations to control the
population, and using modes of imprisonment and detention which are extrajudicial and violation
individual rights/autonomy.
The Affirmative leadership advantage argues – in part – that if the US (“liberal model”) fails to contain a
resurgence of COVID-19 cases, the China “illiberal model” (which arguably involved greater crackdowns
and more assertive use of government tap-down efforts) which catch-on globally.
Markets:
The Dow Jones Industrial average is a stock market index used the measure the performance of the top 30
companies listed on stock exchanges. The S&P 500 is also a stock market index but is used to measure
the performance of the top 500 companies listed on stock exchanges. Stock market indexes are –
somewhat controversially – used to measure the strength of the overall economy. Others push back at this
and argue that Stock market indexes better reflect the overall health of the “investment community” (the
sub-section of the economy that involved in investing). This tension has recently gained more attention as
COVID has hampered the stock markets indexes a bit less than many anticipated, even though (as of this
writing) the unemployment rate has increased since the onset of COVID-19.

NYSE:
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is the world’s largest stock exchange and located in New York
City. The NYSE facilitates the trading of equity shares (stocks) Monday through Friday, and is often
considered as reflecting the investment community’s future predictions on the health of the U.S. and
global economy.

PRC:
Stands for “People’s Republic of China” – the formal designation for “China”.

PLA:
The PLA is the People’s Liberation Army. It is the military of the People’s Republic of China.

Recidivism:
A fancier word for “committing crime again”. The Negative will argue that decarceration and early
release of prisoners risks “recidivism”.

ROC:
ROC refers to Taiwan. Stands for “Republic of China”.

Second Chance Act:

Refers to an Act that was reauthorized in 2018 that provides support for programs to reduce recidivism
and improve outcomes from people returning from prisons and jails to their communities through federal
grants. The program is run through the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs. The Second
Chance Act can be used to provide assistance to those who are returning to their communities after a
compassionate release.
Second wave vs second peak:
Second peak refers to the second “peak” of COVID-19 infections – i.e. when deaths and infections
increased after the easing of initial social distancing restrictions.
Second wave refers to a longer-term phenomenon when a larger number of COVID-19 infections
reemerge. This is similar to how the 1918 Influenza had three “waves” of major infections with relatively
low infection rates in between. “Waves” are often affiliated with seasons – for example some contend that
the winter will witness a new “wave” of COVID-19 cases because viruses might re-emerge in colder
months.

Suez, Suez moment:

The 1AC refers to COVID-19 as a “Suez moment” for the US in reference to the 1956 Suez Canal Crisis.
In 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser announced intent to nationalize the Suez Canal, a
strategic waterway. In response, Israel, France, and most importantly the UK attempted to invade to gain
control of the Suez Canal. The military intervention by the UK failed and was conducted against the
advice of the United States. The failed intervention served as a symbol that the UK no longer had the
global sway it once did. In describing COVID-19 as a “Suez moment” for the US, the Aff evidence is
arguing that failing to avoid the resurgence of COVID-19 pandemic in the US will demonstrate the
decline of US power, similarly to how it did for the UK in the Suez.

U.S. Marshals Service:

The enforcement agency of United States Federal Courts founded in 1789. US Marshals duties include
serving federal arrest warrants, capturing fugitives, transporting prisoners, and overseeing the witness
protection program. Unlike the Federal Bureau of investigation, the U.S. Marshals Service is not tasked
with actually solving crime, and only seeks to carrier out orders and rulings from the Federal Courts.

V, U, W and L-shaped recessions:

A “V” shaped recession refers to a recession that begins with a sharp decline and then experience a sharp
increase to pre-decline levels. On a graph, this type of recession resembles a V and would be the quickest
form of economic recovery. A “U” shaped recession refers to a recession with a sharp decline followed
by a period of stagnation then followed by a healthy economic recovery. On a graph this type of recession
resembles a U and is a slower form of recovery than a V shaped recession. A “W” shaped recession
(sometimes called a “double-dip recession”) refers to a recession that begins with a sharp economic
decline followed by a sharp rise then followed by a decline and a sharp rise back to pre-decline levels. On
a graph, this type of recession resembles a W, and would be a slowly and less stable form of recovery as
compared to a V or U-shaped recession. An “L” shaped recession refers to a recession that begins with a
sharp decline followed by slow (or even flat) recovery period. On a graph, this type of recession would
resemble an “L”. From the perspective of debating which recessions would cause the most turmoil,
experts agree that an “L” would create the most turmoil and that a “V” would create the least turmoil.
Websites
 Websites for updates on COVID-19 and Correctional Facilities:

This website tracks the # of coronavirus cases by State – and includes a statistic for
Federal prisoners as well. It is updated regularly:
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/05/01/a-state-by-state-look-at-coronavirus-in-prisons

This website provides a google-maps style visual representation of Prisons + Jails

that have COVID outbreaks:
https://covid19behindbars.com/
**1AC – Starter pack version – Starts
Here
Contention One – COVID (Top-Level Mechanics)
 Notes

“Mechanics” is just debate-lingo for:

- Read this top part – because it includes must have items like:
o proof the status quo fails
o internal links to community resurgence of COVID
o Solvency claims – like Decarceration or “Compassionate Release” can solve.
-
 Contention One

Contention One is COVID

The status quo is failing – causing COVID to spread inside and out of correctional
facilities. Expanding decarceration is the best solution.
Patton ‘20
et al; David Patton, Executive Director, Federal Defenders of New York Co-Chair, Federal Defender Legislative Committee.
From 2002 to 2008, he served as an Adjunct Professor at N.Y.U. School of Law. From 2010 to 2011, he was a Visiting Associate
Professor of Law at Stanford Law School – “Letter to Attorney General William Barr (Federal Public & Community Defenders
Legislative Committee)” – March 19th - #E&F – Modified for language that may offend
-https://www.fd.org/sites/default/files/covid19/other_resources/letter_to_ag_barr_et_al_re_covid19_3_19_20_4.pdf

Dear A ttorney G eneral Barr , Deputy Attorney Rosen, and Director Carvajal :

We write on behalf of the Federal Public and Community Defenders. At any given time, Defenders and
other appointed counsel under the Criminal Justice Act represent 80 to 90 percent of all federal
defendants because they cannot afford counsel.

The COVID-19 global pandemic has turned our nation’s jails and prisons into ticking time bombs. These jails and
prisons do not provide adequate medical care in the best of times.1 Many prisons and pretrial detention facilities are dramatically understaffed,2
and populated by individuals who are older and medically compromised.3 Today, theBureau of Prisons (BOP) confirmed that
two staff members were presumed positive for COVID-19, marking the first possible cases in the federal prison system .4
They are surely not the last. As BOP has itself acknowledged, the risks of the rapid transmission of contagion in the
tight quarters of prisons and jails present major challenges in keeping inmates and staff safe and healthy.5 This stark reality has
been widely recognized.6

Lowering the population of prisons and jails is the simplest and most effective way to disrupt the transmission
of COVID-19. Our clients and other incarcerated individuals—along with the correctional officers, attorneys, and
contractors who spend their days moving between prisons and the public—are in grave and imminent
danger.7 We urge you to use existing authority to take immediate and decisive action to both reduce the number of
people entering federal detention and release individuals who are already incarcerated. Failure to do so may
well be a death sentence for many.

It is imperative that the D epartment o f J ustice immediately take the following two steps:
1. Direct all United States Attorneys’ Offices to minimize arrests, decline to seek detention of individuals at their initial appearance in court and
consent to the release of those already detained except in cases involving a specific and substantial risk that a
person will cause bodily injury to or use violent force against the person of another; and

2. Direct BOP to utilize its existing authorities

under the First Step Act and Second Chance Act to maximize the
use of community corrections and compassionate release .
A. The Department of Justice Should Take Immediate Measures to Suspend New Arrests, Reduce Court Appearances, And Reduce Pretrial
Detention.
Numerous state and local jurisdictions have already taken smart steps (actions) to dramatically reduce the number of people entering and
remaining in detention.8

DOJ and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have taken initial— but insufficient steps (actions) in the same
direction.9 DOJ should immediately expand their efforts more broadly.

These changes will neither jeopardize public safety nor increase failure to appear rates; data proves that higher federal release
rates do not lead to more crime or flight .10 Even before this crisis, the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee lamented that
federal “release rates have steeply declined” since the passage of the Bail Reform Act, and said, “surely community safety does not justify this
trend.”11

U.S. Attorney’s offices should be directed to :

1. Decline or suspend prosecutions, except in cases involving a specific and substantial risk that a person will cause bodily injury to or use violent
force against the person of another.

2. Seekarrest warrants only in cases involving a specific and substantial risk that a person will cause
bodily injury to or use violent force against the person of another, and recall outstanding warrants in cases that do not involve such a risk;
3. Decline to seek detention of individuals at their initial appearance in court and consent to the release of those already detained absent cases
involving a specific and substantial risk that a person will cause bodily injury to or use violent force against the person of another. Failure to
adopt this policy would run afoul of the Constitution; pretrial detention under these circumstances is not purely “regulatory in nature,” but rather
“constitute[s] punishment before trial in violation of the Due Process Clause.”12

B. BOP Should Immediately Accelerate And Expand Inmates’ Transfer To Community Corrections.

We strongly urge BOP to exercise its discretion to designate inmates to community corrections under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) to
maximize the length of time prisoners eligible for community corrections participate in such programs.
Because the average time individuals spend in community corrections has been only about one third of the available time, increased
utilization of community corrections could result in a substantial difference in the prison population .13
The Second Chance Act expanded to one year the amount of time a prisoner can spend in community placement and
provided that the lesser of up to six months of that time, or ten percent of the sentence imposed , could be spent in home
confinement. 18 U.S.C. § 3624(c). The First Step Act took pains to underscore this expansion, providing in section 602:
Home confinement authority. – The authority under this subsection may be used to place a prisoner in home confinement for the shorter of 10
percent of the term of imprisonment of that prisoner or 6 months. The Bureau of Prisons shall, to the extent practicable, place prisoners with
lower risk levels and lower needs on home confinement for the maximum amount of time permitted under this paragraph. 14

BOP has directed staff to comply with this directive.15

Accelerating and expanding the useof community corrections in response to the national emergency is
consistent with statutes and rules that require individualized consideration of the length of community corrections.16 General and
specific risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic must be considered in making these individualized assessments. BOP
currently has the authority to immediately and significantly expand its use of community-based correctional facilities. Congress recognized the
value of providing community-based reentry by both doubling the time of community corrections in the Second Chance Act and by expanding
potential community corrections beyond one year for certain prisoners eligible for earned time credits in the First Step Act. Full utilization of
community corrections to reduce BOP’s population is consistent with Congress’s purpose in enacting those laws.

BOP can exercise its designation authority to address COVID-19 by directing staff to reassess, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b), whether
individuals can be immediately transferred to community corrections for the maximum available time or otherwise accelerate transfer to
community corrections. BOP should also increase use of the elderly offender pilot program for home confinement,
as modified by § 603 of the First Step Act.17 The First Step Act’s expansion
of this program reflects the lower recidivism rate
for elderly offenders and allows BOP to place vulnerable offenders over 60 years old in home confinement for a larger portion of their
sentence. See 18 U.S.C. § 3621(c)(1); 34 U.S.C. § 60541(g)(1)(C).

C. BOP Should Expand The “Extraordinary And Compelling Reasons” In Program Statement 5050.50 To
Include Vulnerability To COVID-19.
The First Step Act expanded sentencing courts’ discretion to reduce sentences based on “extraordinary
and compelling reasons” under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i). The COVID-19 pandemic unquestionably constitutes
“extraordinary and compelling reasons.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified persons over the age of 60, as well as
persons with diabetes, respiratory problems, and compromised immune systems as facing special danger from COVID19.18 BOP should
respond to this national emergency by amend ing its policy statement on compassionate release to specifically include
consideration of those individuals in prison whose health is most at risk with this pandemic . The United States Sentencing
Commission’s examples of extraordinary and compelling reasons in the commentary to the compassionate
release guideline recognize BOP’s continued authority to recommend a reduction in sentence based on
factors other than those already identified. U.S.S.G. § 1B1.13, comment n.1(D). By informally amending its compassionate
release program statement on an emergency basis,19 BOP could directly address the need for judicial consideration of reduced sentences for
those who are particularly susceptible to COVID-19, with the sentencing judge making the ultimate decision on whether to grant a reduction.

This simple yet significant policy change would make it easier for courts to remove vulnerable inmates from
prison while at the same time making prisons safer by lowering the inmate population. This change would be most effective if
BOP used the same mechanisms for publicity and assistance in contacting counsel for terminal conditions to identify and notify individuals who
are particularly vulnerable to complications from COVID-19. BOP should address compassionate release requests from these individuals on an
expedited basis with a presumption in favor of release to supervision in the community. In 2019, BOP took an average of 39 days to determine
whether to file a Reduction in Sentence motion under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) for terminally ill prisoners and 58 days for debilitated prisoners.
For individuals requesting compassionate release for non-medical reasons such as elderly age, or to serveas a caretaker to a child or spouse, the
BOP took an average of 171 days.20 That year, 41 people died waiting for action on their request.21 These delays must be cut dramatically if
vulnerable prisoners are to be protected during an outbreak.

The COVID-19 pandemic creates heightened risks for detained individuals and the greater community that
must and can be addressed immediately . We welcome any opportunity to provide you with additional information and support
for these critical and time-sensitive next steps.

Status quo decarceration is insufficient. Inaction means correctional facilities have

become central hotspots for COVID surges.
Vera Institute ‘20
The Vera Institute of Justice, founded in 1961, is an independent nonprofit national research and policy organization in the
United States. Vera describes its goal as "to tackle the most pressing injustices of our day: from the causes and consequences of
mass incarceration, racial disparities, and the loss of public trust in law enforcement, to the unmet needs of the vulnerable, the
marginalized, and those harmed by crime and violence. “We must urgently do more to address COVID-19 behind bars and avoid
mass infection and death: Guidance for Attorney General Barr, governors, sheriffs, and corrections administrators” – Vera
Institute - May 11, 2020, updated May 12, 2020 -#E&F - https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/coronavirus-guidance-
crisis-behind-bars.pdf

This country—indeed, the world—has not faced a health crisis of the urgency, magnitude, and scale of the one posed
by the novel coronavirus . As the total number of infections in the United States tops 1.3 million and the death toll
passes 80,000, two vulnerable groups remain largely ignored : people who are incarcerated and those who
work in jails, prisons, and detention centers. There is no public safety without public health in this pandemic. We urge leaders
across the country to take steps to protect our whole community, including people behind bars.

at least 10 of the 15 COVID -19 “clusters” — places that have the largest
The New York Times reports that
number of known infections in the country — are correctional facilities .1 With 2.3 million currently behind bars,
the United States is by far the most punitive and incarcerated country in the world. If our jail and prison incarceration rate were on par with the
global average, there would be no more than 360,000 people incarcerated today.2 Yet the known number of people who have been
released from jails and prisons since March is only a small fraction of the 2.3 million behind bars —despite the
looming threat of a pandemic within a pandemic in these facilities .3
The vast majority of jails, prisons, and detention centers house people in inhumane conditions that make it impossible to maintain six feet of
distance; have not provided enough masks, disinfectant, and cleaning supplies to prevent infection and spread; and lack basic medical
infrastructure to quarantine or medically isolate those who are symptomatic or who test positive.

This inactionis causing a tragic and avoidable spike in the overall COVID- 19 crisis and exacerbating the
racial and socioeconomic disparities already on stark display. Today, across the country’s correctional facilities, there are
more than 20,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 325 known deaths. These numbers are undoubtedly an undercount, given the lack of
comprehensive testing for, or tracking of, the virus. With the rate of spread increasing exponentially—especially in suburban and rural parts of
the country— without immediate intervention, the COVID -19 crisis behind bars will continue to surge .4 Prisons
and jails are not equipped to treat people who require intensive care and, if nothing is done to “flatten the curve” behind
bars , the transfer of critically ill patients to local hospitals will quickly overwhelm community capacity.
The Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) has worked with government partners across the country to respond to the pandemic’s impact on jails,
prisons, and detention centers, and is available to work with any jurisdiction that calls on us for help. We urge leaders at all levels of
federal, state, and local government to immediately address the looming COVID-19 crisis behind bars by taking the following steps:

1. Reduce the number of people behind bars . Continue to responsibly and rapidly decarcerate jails, prisons, and detention
centers for the health and safety of our communities, including those released, people who remain incarcerated, and staff who work in
correctional facilities.

2. Protect the people who remain incarcerated. Enact emergency policies, practices, and conditions to maintain the dignity and health of
incarcerated people consistent with COVID-19 best practices for social distancing and protective measures against infection and spread.

3. Respond effectively to COVID-19 outbreaks behind bars. Create highquality quarantine, medical isolation, and treatment units within facilities
without resorting to solitary confinement cells or practices.

STEP 1: Responsibly and rapidly reduce the population behind bars

Responsible and rapid decarceration must continue to be the first strategy for the health and safety of all—those who are
released, those who remain incarcerated, and correctional staff. Current crowded conditions in prisons and jails, as well as the
high turnover of both staff and incarcerated people coming in and out of a facility, make it impossible to implement social
distancing and other preventive measures. At a minimum, jails and prisons should decarcerate sufficiently so that every
person who remains incarcerated has a private cell or, for those held in dormitory settings, at least 150 square feet of
personal space at all times.

While all incarcerated people should be considered for release , priority should be given to people at
highest risk of illness and death due to COVID-19, including those who are elderly or have serious underlying
medical conditions. Decisions about release should be viewed with an eye toward race equity, given the documented disproportionate
impact of COVID-19 on Black communities, where rates of illness and fatality have been far higher than for other groups.

The curve’s flattening. Incarcerated populations are key – excluding them un-ravels
social distancing gains and causes resurgence. The impact’s 100,000 avoidable deaths.
ACLU ‘20
A Partnership Between American Civil Liberties Union Analytics and Researchers from Washington State University, University
of Pennsylvania, and University of Tennessee. The three researchers were: Dr. Nina Fefferman, Professor in the Department of
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee; Dr. Lofgren is an infectious disease epidemiologist at
Washington State University whose research focuses on the use of mathematical and computational models of disease
transmission; and Dr. Kristian Lum, Research Assistant Professor in Computer and Information Science at the University of
Pennsylvania “COVID-19 Model Finds Nearly 100,000 More Deaths Than Current Estimates, Due to Failures to Reduce Jails” –
ACLU – April - #E&F - chart omitted - https://www.aclu.org/report/flattening-curve-why-reducing-jail-populations-key-beating-
covid-19

COVID -19 MODEL FINDS NEARLY 100,000 MORE DEATHS THAN CURRENT ESTIMATES, DUE TO
FAILURES TO REDUCE JAILS

Models projecting total U.S. fatalities to be under 100,000 1 may be underestimating deaths by almost
another 100,000 if we continue to operate jails as usual, based on a new epidemiological study completed
in partnership between academic researchers and ACLU Analytics. That is, deaths could be double the current projections
due to the omission of jails from most public models. Numbers used by the Trump administration largely fail to
consider several factors that will explosively increase the loss of life unless drastic reforms are adopted
to reduce the nation’s jail populations.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world — with only 4 percent of the world’s population but 21
percent of the world’s incarcerated population2 . Models and data of infection spread based on other countries like Italy,
China, and South Korea will underestimate the loss of life in the U.S., as their incarceration rates are
substantially below U.S. levels.
The conditions in U.S. jails and prisons are substantially inferior to those of other European and Western nations, propelling the spread of
infection. Given the overcrowding and substandard conditions in
most U.S. jails and prisons, standard public health
interventions to “flatten the curve” and prevent the spread of COVID-19 are simply not feasible. Most are
unable to allow for six feet of social distancing among incarcerated people and staff, and lack the facilities that allow for the recommended hand
washing and cleaning of surfaces. Moreover, the health care available in our nation’s jails is chronically substandard, further fueling the growth
of the pandemic and increasing mortality rates among those infected while in jail.

Jails, in particular, also act as vectors for infection in their surrounding communities . Jails are revolving doors for
incarceration and face 10.7 million admissions a year3 . That’s an admission every three seconds in America. There are ~737,900 people in jail
on any given day, and ~ 66 percent of them are pretrial detainees 4 — which means they are presumed innocent and have not
been convicted of a crime. Hundreds of thousands of people who are incarcerated in jails nationwide are there because they cannot afford to post
bail. The average time an individual spends in jail is 25 days5

As a result of the constant movement between jails and the broader community, our jails
will act as vectors for the COVID-19
pandemic in our communities. They will become veritable volcanoes for the spread of the virus. The spread of COVID-19
from jails into the broader community will occur along two vectors that are ignored in typical models:

1. Churn of the jail population — individuals are arrested, sent to jail, potentially exposed to COVID-19, released on their own recognizance, post
bail, or are adjudicated not guilty and are subsequently released. Upon release, the virus will spread through their families and communities
unless the individual is quarantined.

2. Jail staff — staff come to work each day and are exposed to COVID-19, then return home and infect their families and communities. This
vector applies to jails, prisons, and detention centers. There are ~420,000 people who work in jails and prisons in the U.S.6

Unfortunately, the radical approaches adopted in broader society to reduce other high-density transmission hubs — the closure of schools, the
closure of non-essential businesses, and the enactment of stay-athome orders — have not been emulated with regard to our jails. Some states have
begun to see a reduction in their jail populations, such as Colorado, where there has been a 31 percent reduction7 , potentially saving ~1,100 lives
(25% of projected deaths in the state)8. However, all states need to do more, and most states have failed to take any steps to stem the impact of
the COVID-19 pandemic in jails and the broader community.

To assess the impact of not including jails in our actions to stop COVID-19, the ACLU teamed up with a group of researchers to build the
dynamics of a jail system into a standard epidemiological model of COVID-19, using Allegheny County, Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh) as a
reference9 . The model was then tailored and run to the specific circumstances (e.g., jail and community populations, arrest and release rates, jail
staff sizes) of the 1,242 counties in the U.S. with jail populations of at least 100 people. These counties include ~90 percent of the total U.S.
population.
In all epidemiological models — as in reality — the total death count will vary depending on policies adopted
by our government and behaviors adopted by people in our communities. What our model tells us with near certainty is that ignoring jails
in the public health measures taken to mitigate COVID-19 spread will result in the substantial undercounting of potential loss of life. For
example, if a model that doesn’t account for jails predicts that social distancing and other public health measures will keep the total number of
U.S. deaths to 101,000, our model shows that that projection undercounts deaths by 98 percent. Actual deaths, once we account for jails, could be
almost double, rising to 200,000.

The below table summarizes the potential underprojection of deaths in the United States when jails are not included in projection models:

(table omitted)

Note that the

lower the projection without accounting for jails, the bigger the underestimate. This is because
as society at large adopts better social distancing measures in places other than jails, jails increasingly become a
primary vector for infection. The takeaway is clear — social distancing measures can only be
effective if we extend them to jails as well.
While terrifying, these numbers don’t even account for prisons and immigration detention centers, whose incarcerated populations are often held
Reforms must be enacted to flatten the infection curve and curb the infection rates in
for longer periods of time13.
jails, prisons, and surrounding communities .

(Note: do not read this part verbally in the speech, but this is the end of the “mechanics” section.. and
you can now insert additional scenarios/impact modules for whey “resurgence bad”. For the first
debates at camp, the impact module will be about economic decline.)
Economy module
 Econ module

Scenario # ___ is the economy:

Consensus is that the US economy will recover, but resurgence kills it.
Thorpe ‘20
Kevin Thorpe is Cushman & Wakefield’s Chief Economist and Head of Global Research, focusing on global economic trends
and forecasts. Kevin has developed several econometric models to predict market trends, is a member of the National Association
for Business Economics (NABE), and has authored numerous studies and survey reports. Kevin is a past recipient of the NABE
Outlook award for being recognized as the nation’s most accurate economic forecaster. Kevin holds an MBA from George
Washington University -“CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: TIME TO REASSESS” - Cushman & Wakefield - 3/16/2020 - #E&F -
https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/insights/the-chief-economist/coronavirus-occupier-update-march-16

Even after a tumultuous couple of weeks, it is noteworthy that most economists still assume that economic
activity will accelerate in the second half, albeit with a more tempered rebound than previously thought. Here is a look at the latest
quarterly economic forecasts (released the week of March 9):

(chart omitted – no text removed)

Real GDP growth in the U.S. is expected to reach a nadir in Q2 2020 and begin returning to the pre-coronavirus
trajectory from there. This is based on many tenuous assumptions with the most significant being that the
infections curve will flatten rather quickly, and the virus will be largely contained by this summer . Still, the
consensus continues to call for measured optimism that healthier growth will occur in the second half
of this year, and a much stronger trajectory for 2021 as the virus fades and pent up demand is unleashed.

Avoiding COVID re-surgence is key to a quick V-shaped economic recovery.

Rodeck ‘20
Internally quoting Dr. Tenpao Lee, Professor of Economics at Niagara University. David Rodeck – Contributor to Forbes and a
financial writer specializing in investment and insurance-related pieces. Before writing full-time, David worked as a Financial
Services Representative at New York Life Insurance and passed the CFP exam. “Alphabet Soup: Understanding the Shape of a
COVID-19 Recession” – Forbes – April 19th - #E&F – Modified for language that may offend -
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/covid-19-coronavirus-recession-shape/

Thankfully, recessions do not last forever, and neither will a coronavirus recession . At some point, the
economy will reopen and start growing again, although what (shape) the recovery might (take) look like is unclear.
Let’s take a look at ( consider ) how V, U, W and L-shaped recessions compare, and how they might
apply to the COVID-19 crisis.

V-Shaped Recession: Steep Decline, Quick Recovery

The best-case scenario for the COVID crisis is a V-shaped recession. If this happens, the economy will
rebound as quickly as it has declined, with minimal long-lasting financial damage. A sharp downturn followed
by a quick rebound in growth defines the V-shaped recession.

In the early 90s, the U.S. went through a V-shaped recession . The recession lasted only eight months, from
July 1990 to March 1991, and the economy started growing again fairly quickly . It was less severe than other recent
recessions, like the oil crisis recession of 1973 to 1975, or the Great Recession.

For the COVID-19 recession to be V-shaped, we would need to set up enough coronavirus testing so that people could safely go back to work
without creating another surge in cases, and effectively treat existing cases.

In addition, the economic damage must be limited by rapid government intervention to protect jobs and businesses, plus aid for consumers. More
programs like the $1,200 COVID-19 stimulus payment will be needed to help consumers stay afloat.

Is a V-Shaped Recession Likely?

A V-shaped recession could be possible. Reports suggest that China has their COVID-19 outbreak under
control, and the Chinese economy seems to be rebounding quickly . In the U.S., the federal government has managed to
pass a stimulus package worth over $2 trillion to prop up businesses and consumers during the crisis.

Some executives are hopeful about the prospects for a V-shaped recession . Around 38% of companies
believe that the recovery will be V-shaped, with the economy rebounding by the third quarter of 2020, according to a survey from
EY.

Dr. Tenpao Lee, Professor of Economics at Niagara University , also believes that V-shaped recovery is
possible, thanks to our globally connected economy.
“Once we are in recovery mode, the recovery will be very fast as global supply chains could be reconnected instantly,” said Lee.

However, the timing of the recovery depends on how we manage the virus over the next few months.

“If
we are able to contain COVID -19 quickly, we will have a V-shaped recession. If we are not able to contain
COVID-19 in the near future, we will have a U-shaped recession,” said Lee.

U-Shaped Recession: Long Period Between Decline and Recovery

In a U-shaped recession, it takes many months, if not years, for the economy to recover. The long, flat stretch of sideways
growth comprises the bottom of the U shape. The Great Recession is a good example of a U-shared recession. The formal recession itself lasted
19 months, from December 2007 to June 2009, and even after growth resumed it took years before employment recovered to pre-crisis levels.

f COVID-19 causes a longer, U-shaped

recovery, that could mean the economy wouldn’t begin recovering until the end of 2020 or even
early 2021. There are a few reasons this could
happen. First and foremost, if it takes longer to get the surge in
coronavirus cases under control, it could delay when states and regions can begin reopening their economies.

US resurgence causes a much-worse investor crisis. That kills the US and global
economy.
Altitrade Partners ‘20
Internally quoting Eric Peters, CEO at One River Asset Management - an SEC registered investment advisor, managing capital
for a number of the industry’s most highly regarded institutions. Peters has a BS in Business Economics from Brown University.
“Altitrade Partners” is a financial blogger and the author of this piece adds: my investment experience includes a Wall Street
career spanning over 35 years. I am retired now, and spend my time as a full-time trader and investor. The author specializes in
the General Sector and covers stocks with a 69.23% success rate. - “Why Investor Complacency Could Soon Be Replaced By
Primal Fear” -Seeking Alpha - Apr. 24, 2020 – E&F – modified for language that may offend -
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4339865-why-investor-complacency-soon-be-replaced-primal-fear
We wonder the same thing, as it relates to stock market investors. Would a
sudden resurgence of the COVID-19 Pandemic be
enough to trigger a change in market psychology and force investors to take their heads out of the sand ?

Forget about fundamentals . Forget about the Fed. Forget just about everything that you think you know about
markets. Primal-like fear, should it take hold, could turn the financial world upside down and inside out.

In such a case, expect a wholesale dumping of equities to a degree never seen (witnessed) before .
Thus far , we have triggered the 7% circuit breaker on the NYSE four times. We never got to the 13% or
20% level, which would trigger additional trading halts.

Ordinary fear is nothing compared to Primal-like fear . The fear that was felt during the March
meltdown in stock prices took place against a backdrop of a BTD mentality. Frightening, nonetheless, but a far cry from
actual primal-like fear.

Take away that B uy- t he- d ip mindset and the accompanying urge to buy stocks, no matter what, and you have set the stage
for a much different kind of fear that will grab hold of investors, and may result in the most panic (alarm) seen in the stock market
since October 19, 1987 , when the Dow-Jones Industrial Average fell 22.6% in one day.

As we said earlier in this article, history often times repeats itself.

Bear markets don't end on a buy the dip mentality. They end when wide-ranging complacency turns into outright boot-shaking fear. We
are
far from seeing (observing) anything near resembling a sick-to-the-stomach, gut-wrenching anxiety (concern) that causes
panicked investors to literally puke up their stocks in a total, desperate act of capitulation. When that finally happens, the bottom
will be in; not until then.

In summary, the three major dynamics that we believe will lead to another meaningful leg down in the major U.S. stock
market averages are:

The possibility of a second wave of the Coronavirus appearing in the early autumn months of 2020,
thus causing further unanticipated business stress in the U.S. economy as a result of a Primal-fear
response by investors.
The consequences of a continuing demand-shock for crude oil around the world, resulting in many oil businesses to become insolvent.

A deterioration in China- U.S. relations, which could negatively impact the prospects for global trade between the world’s two largest economies.

By the way, for

those of you who think that you can simply ignore all of the bad economic news and the negative impact of
COVID-19 on the global economy , due to the fact that the Federal Reserve will throw as much money at this
problem that they need to rescue markets, think again.

As was pointed out by One River Asset Management Founder Eric Peters, in a recent interview :
Whether or not the central bank's decision is setting us up for an even more dramatic reversal later on no longer seems like a matter of
speculation. The
rapidity with which the market unraveled in March - erasing three years' worth of artificially
inflated gains in three weeks - is evidence of what happens when artificial supports finally give way,
leaving chaos in their wake .
Global economic decline ensures Great Power war. Trends are still reversible.
Berengaut & Kahl ‘20
Ariana Berengaut is the director of programs, partnerships, and strategic planning at the Penn Biden Center, a senior adviser to
National Security Action, and a former official at the State Department. Colin H. Kahl is co-director of Stanford University’s
Center for International Security, a strategic consultant at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, and a
former national security adviser to Vice President Joseph Biden. “AFTERSHOCKS: THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC AND
THE NEW WORLD DISORDER” – War on the Rocks - APRIL 10, 2020 - #E&F - Modified for language that may offend -
https://warontherocks.com/2020/04/aftershocks-the-coronavirus-pandemic-and-the-new-world-disorder/

Many have understandably drawn comparisons to the influenza pandemic of 1918 and 1919. That pandemic, which
began in the final months of World War I, may have infected 500 million people and killed 50 million people around the globe. As the grim
toll of COVID-19 mounts, it remains to be seen if that comparison will prove apt in terms of the human cost.
But, if we want to understand the even darker direction in which the world may be headed, leaders and policymakers
ought to pay more attention to the two decades after the influenza pandemic swept the globe. This period, often
referred to as the interwar years, was characterized by rising nationalism and xenophobia, the grinding halt of
globalization in favor of beggar-thy-neighbor policies, and the collapse of the world economy in the Great Depression.
Revolution, civil war, and political instability rocked important nations. The world’s reigning liberal hegemon — Great Britain — struggled and
other democracies buckled while rising authoritarian states sought to aggressively reshape the international order in
accordance with their interests and values. Arms races, imperial competition, and territorial aggression ensued, culminating in
World War II — the greatest calamity in modern times.
In the United States, the interwar years also saw the emergence of the “America First” movement. Hundreds of thousands rallied to the cause of
the America First Committee, pressing U.S. leaders to seek the false security of isolationism as the world burned around them. President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt pushed back, arguing that rising global interdependence meant no nation — not even one as powerful and geographically
distant as the United States — could wall itself off from growing dangers overseas. His warning proved prescient. The war eventually came to
America’s shores in the form of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Even before COVID -19, shadows of the interwar years were beginning to re-emerge. The virus, however, has brought these
dynamics into sharper relief. And the pandemic seems likely to greatly amplify them as economic and
political upheaval follows , great-power rivalry deepens , institutions meant to encourage international cooperation fail,
and American leadership falters. In this respect, as Richard Haas notes, the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftershocks it will produce seem
poised to “accelerate history,” returning the world to a much more dangerous time.

However, history is not destiny . While COVID-19 worsens or sets in motion events that may increasingly
resemble this harrowing past, we are not fated to repeat it. Humans have agency . Our leaders have
real choices. The United States remains the world’s most powerful democracy. It has a proud legacy of transformational
leaps in human progress, including advances that have eradicated infectious diseases. It is still capable of taking urgent
(efforts) steps to ensure the health, prosperity, and security of millions of Americans while also leading the world to
navigate this crisis and build something better in its aftermath. America can fight for a better future. Doing so effectively, however, requires
understanding the full scope of the challenges it is likely to face.

Great Power conflict in the context of economic decline pose an existential risk
Ord ‘20
Toby Ord is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, where his work is focused on
existential risk. Toby founded Giving What We Can, an international society whose members pledge to donate at least 10% of
their income to effective charities, and is a key figure in the effective altruism movement, which promotes using reason and
evidence to help the lives of others as much as possible. Ord holds a B.Phil., and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford - From
the book: The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity - From PART THREE: THE PATH FORWARD, chapter
6. “The Risk Landscape” – published March 2020 - available via google books.

While I've presented this analysis in terms of which risks should get the highest priority , these exact same principles
can be applied to prioritizing between different risk factors or security factors. And they can help prioritize between different ways of protecting
our potential over the long term, such as promoting norms, working within existing institutions or establishing new ones. Best of all, these
principles can be used to set priorities between these areas as well as within them, since all are measured in the common unit of total existential
risk reduction.

In the course of this book, we have considered a wide variety of approaches to reducing existential
risk. The most obvious has been direct work on a particular risk, such as nuclear war or engineered
pandemics. But there were also more indirect approaches: work on risk factors such as great-power war; or on
securitv factors such as a new international institution tasked with reducing existential risk. Perhaps one could act at an even more
indirect level. Arguably risk would be lower in a period of stable economic growth than in a period with the
turmoil caused by deep recessions . And it may be lower if citizens were better educated and better informed.
Plan
 “…but why 14 versions of the Plan ?...”

Q: “Umm… why so complicated ?...”

A: Fair point – 14 plan options can feel like a lot.

The answer is education in the camp setting > raw ease.

Some of the plan texts, below, are intentionally worse than others.

Others are designed for future versions of the Aff

And, most importantly , many of plan text options are designed for upcoming
lesson plans that discuss the different stages of the criminal justice process.

Q: “Okay, but which plan text is the default plan text for the first Practice
Debate”

A: Plan Text #2 – which reads:

Plan
The United States federal government should substantially reduce the population of criminal correctional
facilities in the United States by:

- maximizing compassionate release through greater use of home confinement sentencing

alternatives in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- limiting arrest warrants solely to offenses that pose a substantial risk of bodily injury to others.
 Plan Options – The Full Slate the Choices

------------------------------------This set of plans uses topic language ----------------------------

Plan Option 1.0

The United States federal government should enact substantial criminal justice reform in the United
States by reducing the sentences of those that do not pose a substantial risk of bodily injury to others.

***Plan Option 2.0 (default plan text for first practice debates)
The United States federal government should substantially reduce the population of criminal correctional
facilities in the United States by:

- maximizing compassionate release through greater use of home confinement sentencing

alternatives in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- limiting arrest warrants solely to offenses that pose a substantial risk of bodily injury to others.

(Do not read when introducing 1AC plan text – but supporting evidence for this plan includes the Patton ’20 evidence)

---------This set of plans does not use topic language, but gradually adds more detail---------------

Plan Option 3.0

The United States federal government should substantially reduce the population confined in criminal
correctional facilities in the United States.

(Do not read when introducing 1AC plan text – but supporting evidence for this plan includes the Patton ’20 evidence)

Plan Option 4.0

The United States federal government should substantially reduce the population confined in criminal
correctional facilities in the United States by substantially reducing the sentences of those that do not pose
a substantial risk of bodily injury others.
(Do not read when introducing 1AC plan text – but supporting evidence for this plan includes the Patton ’20 evidence)

Plan Option 5.0

The United States federal government should substantially reduce the population confined in criminal
correctional facilities in the United States by:

- substantially reducing the sentences of those that do not pose a substantial risk of bodily injury to
others.
 - no longer arresting persons for offenses that do not pose a substantial risk of bodily injury to
others.
(Do not read when introducing 1AC plan text – but supporting evidence for this plan includes the Patton ’20 evidence)

---------This set of plans introduces the concept of compassionate release---------------

Plan Option 6.0

For those that do not pose a substantial risk of bodily injury to others, The United States federal
government should maximize the use of compassionate release in the United States and allow greater use
of home confinement sentencing alternatives in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Do not read when introducing 1AC plan text – but supporting evidence for this plan includes the Patton ’20 and Vera Institute
’20 evidence)

Plan Option 7.0

The United States federal government should substantially reduce the population of criminal correctional
facilities in the United States by:

- maximizing compassionate release through greater use of home confinement sentencing

alternatives in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- no longer arresting persons for offenses that do not pose a substantial risk of bodily injury to
others.
(Do not read when introducing 1AC plan text – but supporting evidence for this plan includes the Patton ’20 and Vera Institute
’20 evidence)

------This set of plans will be part of a group discussion that gets at broad vs. narrow plans---------

Plan Option 8.0

The United States federal government should substantially reduce the population of criminal correctional
facilities in the United States by maximizing compassionate release through greater use of home
confinement sentencing alternatives for individuals:

- whose charges are misdemeanors or non-violent felonies;

- whose age or health leaves them at particular risk from COVID-19 and whose crime involves no
physical harm to another person.
(Do not read when introducing 1AC plan text – but supporting evidence for this plan includes the Galvin-Almanza ’20 evidence)
Plan Option 9.0
The United States federal government should substantially reduce the population of criminal correctional
facilities in the United States by maximizing alternatives to incarceration for individuals:

- whose charges are misdemeanors or non-violent felonies;

- whose age or health leaves them at particular risk from COVID and whose crime involves no
physical harm to another person;
- held on technical violations of probation or parole;
- held pre-trial for failure to raise the funds to make bail.
(Do not read when introducing 1AC plan text – but supporting evidence for this plan includes the Galvin-Almanza ’20 evidence)

---------This set of plans emphasizes specific Federal Actors and Federal Prison populations-----------

Plan Option 10.0

The United States Attorney General and Bureau of Prisons should substantially reduce the population of
federal prisoners that do not pose a substantial risk of bodily injury to others by declaring the COVID-19
pandemic an “extraordinary and compelling reason” for increasing the use of home confinement
sentencing alternatives.

(Do not read when introducing 1AC plan text – but supporting evidence for this plan includes the Patton ’20 evidence, Vera
Institute ’20 evidence, and the New York Times evidence)

Plan Option 11.0

The United States Supreme Court should hold that the COVID-19 pandemic constitutes an “extraordinary
and compelling reason” for the home confinement of federal prisoners that do not pose a substantial risk
of bodily injury to others.

(Do not read when introducing 1AC plan text – but supporting evidence for this plan includes the Patton ’20 and Vera Institute
’20 evidence)

Plan Option 12.0

The President of the United States should commute sentences of federal prisoners that are vulnerable to
COVID-19 and do not pose a substantial risk of bodily injury to others.
(Do not read when introducing 1AC plan text – but supporting evidence for this plan includes the Patton ’20 evidence, the James
’20 evidence and Vera Institute ’20 evidence)

---------This Plan can be used by instructors to introduce the concept of Negative State Action -----
Plan Option 13.0
The United States federal government should end the sentences of those who do not pose a substantial
risk of bodily injury to others.

Plan Option 14.0

The United States federal government should no longer arrest persons for offenses that do not pose a
substantial risk of bodily injury to others and should end the sentences of those who do not pose a
substantial risk of bodily injury to others.
Contention Two – Disparate Racial Violence
 Contention Two - Disparate Racial Violence

Contention Two is Disparate Racial Violence.

We outline two scenarios:

One – Material impacts

Our claim is not that the Aff ends all injustice, but it is a lodestar item which can
alter specific consequences that result from mass incarceration.
Chettiar ‘19
et al; Inimai Chettiar – Director of the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. The Justice
Program seeks to secure our nation’s promise of "equal justice for all" by creating a rational and fair legal system. It proposes and
works to enact data-driven policy and legal reforms aimed at ending unnecessary incarceration and closing the justice gap for
low-income Americans. She received this training at NYU Law School’s Institute for Policy Integrity, where she led legal
projects that used cost-benefit analysis to reform a variety of federal laws. Most recently, Ms. Chettiar applied these practices to
help create and coordinate the American Civil Liberties Union’s nationwide state legislative Initiative to End Overincarceration.
In 2011, she was selected by the Center for American Progress as a fellow for her groundbreaking leadership on the intersection
of race and economics - Ending Mass Incarceration: Ideas from Today's Leaders” - Brennan Center for Justice - PUBLISHED:
May 16, 2019 - #E&F -modified for language that may offend - https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/2019-
08/Report_EndingMassIncarceration_2.pdf

Locking up 2.3 million people, devastating communities, and costing $270 billion annually, the American criminal justice system is wildly out of
balance.

The sheer size of the prison population, larger than 16 states , is the single most dire fact of our failed
national effort to address crime.28 To truly transform the system , the next wave of reform must above all
aim to shrink the tumor of incarceration. We must dramatically reduce the number of people behind bars in
this country.

The burdens of mass incarceration fall disproportionately on people of color. African Americans are
incarcerated at more than five times the rate of whites. 29 And while study after study shows that African
Americans and whites use drugs at similar rates, African Americans are nearly four times as likely as
whites to be arrested for drug offenses and six times as likely to be imprisoned .30 Our justice system sets up children
of color for prison: black children are five times more likely to be incarcerated than white children.31 This is a far cry from equal justice under
the law.

Just as the 2016 election spurred a national awareness of mass incarceration, the 2020 election provides an opportunity to chart a course for
transformative reform. Contenders for the presidency should be prepared to tackle this civil rights crisis, with solutions as sweeping as it
demands.

Momentum has been slowly building for years. Since 2007, states from California to Texas have significantly overhauled their
justice systems. And just last year, Congress passed the First Step Act, a bipartisan prison and sentencing reform bill. But these modest
reforms are not nearly enough . The next wave of change should focus on a key overarching goal:
significantly reducing the incarcerated population.
Why this goal? Because of the sheer number of people — overwhelmingly people of color — whose lives are
destroyed by incarceration. African Americans make up 40 percent of the incarcerated population —
nearly one million people — while constituting only 13 percent of U.S. residents.32 And incarceration
doesn’t only affect those who are locked up; it rips apart families and communities, helping to perpetuate
America’s chronic racial inequality. Reducing the staggering number of people behind bars should be
the lodestar for reform going forward . This means reducing the vast influx of people heading in to
prisons and releasing many of those who are there already.
The Brennan Center has outlined some key solutions focused on strategically reducing the incarcerated population, starting with leadership in
Washington. Even though the overwhelming majority of prisoners are held in state systems, federal leadership can drive
national change , with Congress leading by example or using the power of the purse to drive state action.

If the federal government and every state took two simple steps (measures) — ending imprisonment for
lower-level crimes and reducing overly long sentences for other crimes — we could safely cut the nation’s
prison population by 40 percent.

Two – COVID

It will cause 100,000 deaths in correctional facilities. Impacts will skew based on
socio-economic privilege. Decarceration is vital.
Galvin-Almanza ‘20
et al; Emily Galvin-Almanza has been a public defender in both California and New York, and now works to increase access to
justice for low-income communities as executive director of Partners for Justice. Co-authored with Professor David Mills - who
is professor of the practice of law and senior lecturer at Stanford Law School. “As many as 100,000 incarcerated people in our
jails and prisons will die from the coronavirus, unless the US acts now” - Business Insider – April 2 nd - #E&F -
https://www.businessinsider.com/failure-to-release-prisoners-is-condemning-thousands-to-death-2020-4

In just a few short weeks, the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the vulnerability we share as a society. We've adopted drastic
measures in attempts to prevent a tidal wave of sickness and death. Yet as we act quickly to save our own lives, we have
shown little urgency toward changing the fate of people living inside America's prisons and jails. By failing to act, we are
essentially deciding that their death is an acceptable outcome, and that their lives are not worth protecting. Unless we act now, there's a
high probability that as many as 100,000 people who pass through our jails and prisons will die from the
virus.
By now, almost everyone is aware that the United States has among the highest rates of incarceration in the world. That our
jails and
prisons are filled with poor people, mostly of color. Many of us also know that our prisons are being used to house people
experiencing mental illness. We have not yet come up with a humane response to this reality.

COVID-19 is now becoming a threat that takes our system's inhumanity to a new and even more horrific level: We
know that the virus spreads in confined groups with frightening speed and efficiency. In a prison environment, huge numbers will die.
Essentially, we are transforming their sentence of incarceration in to a sentence to death.

There is a solution, and it's one that requires a new way of thinking.
During normal times, decision-makers in the criminal legal system would assume that the surest way to
minimize risk to an individual, or their potential risk to the community, is to keep them in a cell. But in the face of
COVID-19, we must acknowledge that the risk of death inside prison walls has become higher than the
risk of releasing most people.
The process of attempting to divine a person's "risk" to the community has always been a compelling illusion. Even the most well-developed "risk
assessment tools" rely on data culled from a system full of inherent biases, and none have proved able to accurately anticipate future behavior.
But while we'll never truly be able to predict the course of humans with free will, we are able, very concretely, to predict the course of COVID-19
through America's prisons and jails.

This frightening new reality has led officials in jurisdictions around the country to begin releasing some
people from jail, particularly those held pretrial or on low-level, nonviolent offenses. The officials behind these
decisions seem to understand that social distancing is impossible in locked facilities, and that the unhygienic conditions and lack of health care
resources put lives at serious risk.

So far, however, the vast majority of people who've gotten out are the ones who many would agree should never have been incarcerated in the
first place. Their release is a positive step, but it isn't nearly enough. The numbers are too low : In New York, for
example, officials have only released a few hundred people from Rikers Island, where over five thousand people are held in close quarters, forced
to eat in groups of four and share one toilet with twenty-eight other people. If the changes remain this small-scale, hundreds of thousands of
people could be sickened and die in custody. With the degree to which jails churn population — almost five million people passing through the
US's roughly 2,800 jails annually — the virus will spread even more rapidly between and among the incarcerated population and staffers, and,
therefore, back into the broader community.

To meaningfully reduce population density, protect the most vulnerable, and decrease the spread of COVID-19, we
must immediately
release a broader group of people: the elderly (whose recidivism rate is remarkably low), people within months
of scheduled release , people whose charges are misdemeanors or non-violent felonies, individuals whose health
leaves them at particular risk from COVID -19 and whose crime (alleged or otherwise) involves no
physical harm to another person , and those held on technical violations of probation or parole.
Advocates, policy experts, and even prison doctors across the country have agreed that it's safe to release these individuals — and indeed that
they must be released to avoid large-scale loss of life. In fact, releasing people from cramped custody into a setting where
social distancing is possible (whether at home or in emergency accommodations) protects them and the entire community from the further spread
of COVID-19.

But somehow, top officials across the country haven't recognized the urgency of this issue . Why the hesitation?
Do our leaders believe that anyone accused or convicted of a crime, no matter the nature, must still be dangerous? Do they consider the lives
of people behind bars so devoid of value that they'd prefer to see them dead than risk any possibility of future crime? Do they not
understand that an outbreak in one of these facilities will ripple outward?
After all, incarcerated people face a much higher risk of exposure to COVID-19 than they would on the outside — and behind bars, infection is
more likely to be a death sentence.

A shift to a presumption of release rather than confinement may seem extreme, but in truth, these calculations
have long been out of alignment. The vast majority of crimes — even those categorized as violent or as felonies — do not involve
harm to people. Property crimes, drug crimes, violations of probation and parole, and almost all misdemeanors are offenses that by definition do
not put lives at risk. If our leaders
fail to correct course amid the COVID-19 pandemic, they're sending a clear message that
they're fine
letting countless people die for these offenses — and fueling a greater outbreak across our country — so
long as the public is protected from an imagined risk of future crime.
Only immediate decarceration avoids the inhumane and racialized outcomes that
COVID exhibits behind bars. Delaying action means every sentence becomes a death
sentence.
Austin ‘20
et al; Roy Austin Jr. is a partner at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis, LLP and a former deputy assistant attorney general, assistant
United States attorney and trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice. “Mr. President, let vulnerable people out of federal
prisons now: Coronavirus demands a bold response” New York Daily News: Editorial Section – April 14 th - #E&F -
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-let-vulnerable-people-out-of-federal-prisons-20200414-
zk7uqy7cxjbmffz43nwzbun5qq-story.html

Thousands of Americans who live and work in our federal prisons are at grave risk from COVID -19, and their
government is not moving quickly enough to protect them. The lives of these grandparents, parents, daughters and sons
rest in the hands of President Trump and Attorney General William Barr, who through misguided half-measures are potentially
condemning them to death .
The body count has begun. The first cases of COVID-19 in federal prisons were confirmed nearly four weeks ago. The virus has spread rapidly
and at least 10 people have now died, with hundreds testing positive or showing symptoms. There are 34 confirmed infections in federal
correctional facilities in NYC, but the vast majority of staff and incarcerated people have not even been tested.

This inevitable tragedy is why we joined over 400 former DOJ officials, lawyers and federal judges — including 35 U.S. attorneys
— who wrote President Trump urging him to commute sentences of elderly , medically vulnerable , or people
near the end of their sentence, posing no serious safety risk .

This would be the best way to address dangers posed by dense, unsanitary living conditions for the 175,000 people in
federal custody. We know the crisis on the horizon; that’s why we urged the president to act now to prevent more
deaths.

By using his executive power to release individuals posing no serious safety risk, the President would be in good company. Many cities, states
and counties have dramatically reduced their incarcerated populations in response to COVID-19. California and New Jersey have safely ordered
the release of thousands, and other jurisdictions plan to dramatically cut incarcerated populations, some nearly in half. Meanwhile, leaders across
the country have committed to shrink the number of people entering the justice system with cite and release, not seeking bail unless necessary for
public safety, and not wasting scarce resources prosecuting low-level crimes. The President should be leading, not following, these efforts.

The clock is ticking , and there is no time to waste . We’ve learned from the Rikers Island outbreak
that once one person behind bars is infected, the virus spreads aggressively — at eight times the rate it does in the
community. COVID-19 safety precautions ( washing hands , clean spaces , and social distancing ) are
simply not possible in custodial settings.
This is urgent, Mr. President. People who are incarcerated are disproportionately vulnerable to COVID-19. One-third of federal inmates have pre-
existing medical conditions and roughly 10,000 are over age 60. And every day, correctional officers, health-care workers and others enter and
leave, potentially carrying COVID-19 back to their loved ones. The Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn alone holds 1,700 individuals
with over 150 people coming and going every week. The rapid spread of COVID-19 in these facilities threatens all of our communities.

We need more proactive steps than the responses in Attorney General Barr’s March 26 and April 3 memoranda. Barr suggests a complex
process for considering home confinement for a small category of individuals — to be identified through an
assessment tool many view as problematic and likely to perpetuate racial disparities. He categorically excluded
almost half of those over age 60 and delineates numerous hurdles with little guidance on who should go home and
how fast. And he fails to recognize that those who committed serious offenses at a young age change and no longer pose a safety risk when
older. This elderly population could go home safely, but instead face the threat of a death sentence.
While Barr subsequently expanded potential release to individuals with COVID -19 risk factors, he did so only
at facilities where COVID-19 is already “materially impacting operations.” By the time a facility has an
outbreak, it will be too late to save the most vulnerable individuals.
People behind bars also deserve better than lengthy lockdowns BOP announced. This misguided response will exacerbate panic and raise the risk
— seen elsewhere — of hunger strikes and riots. Incarcerated people are terrified and need access to loved ones, quality medical care, free
hygiene supplies, and open communication about what awaits them.

People in our federal prisons aren’t disposable . Leaving thousands of elderly and medically vulnerable
people behind bars fearing for their lives isn’t justice; it’s inhumane. We all lose, Mr. President, if this is our
response.

The status quo and extreme Alternatives are both immoral. Each leaves prisoners in
inhumane health conditions for the sake of an unattainable, but perfect, future. The
Aff is goldilocks. It builds towards long-term change without discounting the short-
term medical plight of incarcerated communities.

Ben-Moshe ‘11
At this time of this writing this PhD dissertation, Liat Ben-Moshe held a B.A. Tel Aviv University, 2000, as well as a Certificate
of Advanced Study in Women and Gender Studies, Syracuse University, 2005 and a Certificate of Advanced Study in Disability
Studies, Syracuse University, 2008. The author is currently an Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law, and Justice at the
University of Illinois at Chicago. She is coeditor of Disability Incarcerated – Imprisonment and Disability in the United States
and Canada. “Genealogies of Resistance to Incarceration: Abolition Politics within Deinstitutionalization and Anti-Prison
Activism in the U.S.” - DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy in Sociology Syracuse University December 2011 - #E&F – modified or language that may offend -
https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1070&context=soc_etd

In order to explicate the tenets of “doing abolition,” there is a need to conceptually separate abolition from related
forms of activism in relation to prison s and institutions, especially ongoing efforts to reform them or close them down. All these
strategies are interrelated, of course, but the nature of these connections needs to be explicated further. As there are different consequences to
employing various activist strategies, as discussed in the subsequent chapter, it is imperative to analyze the ways in which one strategy (such as
reform) an influence another (such as abolition) and in what ways does this amalgamation become a hindrance or facilitation to social change.

Norwegian sociologist Thomas Mathiesen conceptualizes abolition as an alternative in the making: “The alternative lies in the “unfinished,” in
the sketch, in what is not yet fully existing” (Mathiesen 1974: 1). Abolitiontakes place when we break with the established
order and simultaneously break new grounds. So abolition is akin to the unfinished, in that freedom is stepping into unmarked territory. The
alternative, according to Mathiesen, needs to both contradict and compete with the old system it is trying to change or
replace. The opposition though cannot be totally foreign to the present system ; otherwise no one will
adhere to the message . On the other hand, the alternative cannot be fully formed as the new world in the making is not yet here. This
dialectic connects abolition efforts to other activist strategies such as attempts to reform a system, on the
way to abolition . Even efforts to close down repressive institutions do not always result in the abolition
of the system as a whole. Below I explicate the connections between these three related strategies, abolition, reform and closure.

Closure of repressive institutions, such as mental hospitals and prisons, can be conceptualized as a necessary but not
sufficient action on the road to abolition. The most important element in institutional closure, according to Taylor (1995/6), is to
ensure that people do not end up re-incarcerated in other ways such as in group homes or other institutional placements. In this sense the
effectiveness of deinstitutionalization as a movement is in ensuring community living, not the closure of the institution, which is only a first step
in such a process.

This ideological stance (perspective) may create a dilemma of whether proponents of deinstitutionalization
should wait until there are sufficient community placements before advocating for institutional closure, or go ahead regardless
based on the principle that no one should live in an institution at any time, which is the very dilemma posed by Mathiesen
in regards to abolition in general . Taylor (1995/6) suggests that in such cases one should ask, which path would lead to the
least harm done to the fewest people. Such questioning, he believes, would lead one to realize that
institutional living is unjustifiable under any circumstances, even if community settings are imperfect at the
present time.
The mere closure of prisons and large state institutions for people labeled as mentally retarded or mentally ill does not necessarily entail a radical
change in policy, attitudes or the lived experiences of those incarcerated. Penal abolitionist Ruth Morris reflects on her own experiences within
the prison abolition movement in Canada and the United States: “…. My objection to prisons is to something much more oppressive than closed
buildings, or even locks and keys. It‟s important to think this out, because otherwise we delude ourselves about building alternatives when
actually we are creating their very spirit in the community, destroying people just as effectively as any building with locks can possibly do”
(Morris 1989: 141). In this light, closure in itself is still embedded within the same circuits of power that created such institutions, unless there is
an epistemic shift in the way community, punishment, dis/ability and segregation are conceptualized. Therefore closure of prisons and institutions
is only one step in the way to achieve a shift in perspective. Other activists within the prison abolition movement also emphasize that activism
entails much more the closing prisons. It is about creating a society free of systems of inequity, which produce hatred, violence, desperation and
suffering. In such a society the idea of caging people for wrong doings will be seen as absurd (Lee 2008).

Closure of repressive institutions should be distinguished from abolition but perhaps it is also not the same as deinstitutionalization. In the
ethnography Deinstitutionalizing Women, Johnson (1998) describes the lives of women in a locked ward within an institution for people with
developmental and intellectual disabilities. When a decision to close the institution was made, most of the women studied asked to be placed with
family or their advocates. For the most part their requests were ignored and out of 21 women, a third were moved to other institutions and the
remaining were placed in group homes. As a result, Johnson (1998) contends that although the institution finally closed, its deinstitutionalization
was a failure. This can be seen in the way the institution closed, with opposition from parents and the union who were given little information and
advance notice of the closure. In essence, Johnson claims, it was not deinstitutionalization but institutional closure. The final placement of the
women only reinforces this analysis. Johnson further claims that the women were locked into a discourse that objectified them and saw them as
needy and dependent, and until that discourse was changed any attempt for true deinstitutionalization was futile (Johnson 1998).

When a system is abolished there is a danger that other systems that fulfills the same functions would arise to fill
in the void left by the abolished system. More specifically, within the U.S. prison archipelago there is a clear
overrepresentation of poor people of color. Therefore, some penal abolitionists (Davis 2000; Gilmore 2000) position
slavery, the convict lease system and the prison industrial complex on a continuum , as sites of warehousing the
racialized underclass. Under this analysis it is clear that just “tearing down the walls” is insufficient as the state will find another
mechanism by which to construct and contain its unwanted populations (Appel 2002). Famed sociologist W.E. B Du Bois , in his
book Black Reconstruction (1935), discusses abolition not as a mere negative process , one of tearing down. It is
ultimately about creating new institutions. Du Bois was very insistent that in order to abolish slavery in modern times,
new democratic institutions have to be established and maintained . Because that did not occur, slavery found a
new home in Jim Crow, convict lease systems, second class education and mass incarceration . Thus, the
abolition of slavery was only successful in the negative aspect, but no new institutions were created to successfully incorporate black people into
the existing social order. Prisons today have thrived precisely because of the lack of such resources that Du Bois was arguing for. Prisons today
cannot be abolished until such equality ensuring mechanisms are in place (Davis 2005). Being free of chains is only the beginning.

What is the connection between abolition and reform? In Instead of Prisons (1976) the earliest published attempt to
conceptualize prison abolition in the U.S., the connection between abolition and reform is already being raised. Some of the questions this
booklet is trying to answer are whether it is possible to work for prison reform without being co-opted and
whether working towards abolition means that prisoners will be left in intolerable conditions in the
meantime. The authors believe that many reforms can be achieved in an abolitionary context. Reform and
abolition are not mutually exclusive if one remembers that the goal is to replace prison, not strengthen or improve it. A
useful tool is to imagine the long term goal of prison abolition as a chain for shorter campaigns around specific issues- like jail
diversion, restitution programs, or the move of those released to community placements (Knopp et al. 1976).
In his pioneering manuscript Politics of Abolition, Thomas Mathiesen (1974) follows Andre Gorz‟s distinction between reformist
and “ non-reformist” reforms . Reformist reforms are situated in the discursive formation of the system as is, so that any changes are
made within or against this existing framework. Non-reformist reforms imagine a different horizon that should be
realizable for the improvement of humanity, and are not limited by a discussion of what is possible at
present. Mathiesen expands this notion to state that non-reformist reforms that are effective need to be of the abolishing kind. He also creates
a typology that distinguishes between positive and negative reforms. Positive reforms are changes that improve the
system so it will act more effectively, so that the system gains strength and abolition becomes more difficult. Examples
of positive reforms in the current penal system include probation and technological monitoring systems (such as
ankle bracelets) that, although they ensure that those convicted could live outside of the prisons, further the reach of the penal regime to
populations and actions that it has not dealt with before. Another example is attempts to change the overcrowded conditions of many jails and
prisons nationwide, which often results in building more units or new jails or prisons. On the other hand, negative
reforms are changes that
abolish or remove parts of the system on which it is dependent (Mathiesen 1974). An example of negative reforms
could be to demand better health care for prisoners in current prisons and jails, to a point where the prison system
won‟t be able to afford these conditions and will have to start decarcerating inmates who require medical attention
30. Even if it makes the system look (appear) more responsive, from a p ublic r elations standpoint, such
reforms do not contribute to the growth of the system as a whole.
Longtime anti-psychiatry activist Bonnie Burstow suggests, in her keynote speech in the 2009 PsychOut conference, that anti-psychiatry as a
movement could benefit from the insights of prison abolitionists, especially as formulated by Quakers in the 1970s. Following the
recommendations of Honey Knopp et al. (1976), Burstow suggests that theshort term goals of anti-psychiatry activists, such as
reform efforts , should be kept as such, as steps (efforts) on the road that is not yet fully formulated- the unfinished road
of abolition. At any given time, the work should be aimed not at reform as one link in the long term goal of abolition, but with goals for
concrete and direct partial abolitions on the road to long term change.

Angela Y. Davis (2000a)

does not believe there is a strict line between reform and abolition . The question is
what kinds of reforms are sought and whether they will strengthen the system in the long run. For instance ,
fighting for health care for prisoners is something activists should support , as integral to abolitionist
and decarceration strategies . However, some health care initiatives are opposed by abolitionists, such as attempts to open prison
hospitals or separate clinical wards, as these would only expand the scope of incarceration in the long haul. Many prison abolition and anti-
psychiatry activists are insistent that the trend to develop mental health services within the prison only serves to criminalize women with
psychiatric and cognitive disabilities further, as quality health services of this nature are sparse in the community, while funds go to operate them
within an already oppressive system. The same critique can be stated in the case of forensic units that are constructed in institutions and
psychiatric hospitals, of course.

The case outweighs.

Disads reflect a false “negative peace”. The ballot should prioritize “positive peace”.
Doing so, even through incremental legal change, is a moral imperative that
privileges racial justice over a supposed secure “order”.
Thompson ‘17
Matt - Executive Editor of The Atlantic and Deputy Editor of TheAtlantic.com. Before joining The Atlantic in January 2015,
Thompson was director of vertical initiatives for NPR, where he led the creation of “Code Switch”, which covers race, ethnicity
and culture. The author holds an A.B. from Harvard University and was formerly a Naughton Fellow at The Poynter Institute –
“Imagining the Presence of Justice” – The Atlantic - MAY 3, 2017 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend -
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2017/05/criminal-justice-across-america-reporting-project/524985/
Over the past several decades, America has seen a startling divergence between crime and punishment. While
crime rates dropped
steadily from the dramatic peaks of the 1990s, the nation’s incarceration rates continued just as steadily to grow. And so ,
despite containing only 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States came to hold a quarter of the
world’s prisoners.

We’ve covered this divergence extensively in the print and digital pages of The Atlantic, from Ta-Nehisi Coates’s landmark story on the
rise of the carceral state and the devastation it wreaked on black families to Inimai Chettiar’s exploration of the
many causes of the decline in crime. Among the findings that emerge most clearly from this robust, sad literature is that the factors driving both
aspects of the divergence—the fall in crime, the increasing spread of punishment—are highly complex. Despite dawning awareness of the deep
social and economic costs of mass incarceration, no one-size-fits-all solution exists to change this picture. Rolling
back mass
incarceration while protecting public safety will require a legion of efforts in thousands of prosecutors’ offices, police
departments, parole boards, and legislative chambers . "What we have is not a system at all,” as Fordham University’s John Pfaff told
The Atlantic's Matt Ford, "but a patchwork of competing bureaucracies with different constituencies, different incentives, who oftentimes might
have similar political ideologies, but very different goals and very different pressures on them.”

“The Presence of Justice,” a new project from The Atlantic, is our effort to cover the evolution of criminal justice in America with a heightened
focus on the different systems and approaches developing all over the nation. In collaboration with reporters across the country, we’ll highlight
local initiatives that merit national attention, and talk with experts about where and how lessons from states and municipalities can be applied
more broadly. We’ll look at where the carceral state has spread beyond merely responding to crime, examine the time people spend behind bars
without having been convicted, and explore how cities can depend on police to collect fines and fees from their poorest residents to make up for
too little tax revenue.

The title of the project comes from Martin Luther King Jr. , who included the phrase in his famous letter
from Birmingham jail. That context is worth understanding for the challenge the letter poses to us today, as
America struggles to reconcile the need for public safety with the moral imperative of justice.

In the letter, King was responding to a group of Birmingham clergymen . They’d argued that law and order
were under threat from black citizens who insisted on doing things like sitting at restaurant counters and
kneeling in white churches, in defiance of signs telling them they couldn’t. To the clergymen, the protesters’
insistence on confrontation and their unwillingness to parley with the powers-that-be for the right to buy lunch, however “technically peaceful,"
constituted an abrogation of law and order. "When rights are consistently denied,” the clergymen wrote, "a cause should be pressed in the courts
and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets.”

The powers-that-be had sought and won a court injunction to forbid the troublemakers from kneeling and sitting and
walking, and yet the troublemakers kneeled and sat and walked. Some of them, including King, got thrown in jail. From his
cell, King wrote the famous letter that would cleave the nation’s understanding of “law and order” right in
half, arguing that the observance of an unjust law violates the moral order . "An individual who breaks a law that
conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the
conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law, ” he wrote.
He castigated "the white moderate, who is more devoted to order' than to justice; who prefers a negative
peace , which is the absence of tension , to a positive peace , which is the presence of justice."

The divergence of the past two decades could be seen (considered) as a prime example of order triumphing
while justice fails. The relatively low crime rates America has experienced over the past few years, seen against the backdrop of the
sprawling carceral state and the constant tally of traumatic and often fatal encounters with police,
constitute at best a negative peace. The challenge before us is imagining how, bit by bit , jurisdictions
across the country can achieve something positive and precious in its stead: the presence of justice.
Targeted reforms are imperative and can invert the racist baggage of the Law.
Disparate racial injustice can no longer be made secondary to security risks – and
relying on State Governments or the status quo is unacceptable.
Smith ‘14
This work was presented at Gonzaga University School of Law's 2013 annual Pursuit of Justice conference. Ahmad Smith is a
recent graduate of Mississippi College School of Law. “Saving Jamal to Save America: Presidential Authority to Decriminalize
the Future Male Majority” – Gonzaga Law Review – 49 Gonz. L. Rev. 83 – 2013 / 2014 – #E&F – available for download via:
https://gonzagalawreview.com/article/10116-saving-jamal-to-save-america-presidential-authority-to-decriminalize-the-future-
male-majority

There are countless variables that contribute to the racial inequality and, more precisely, the criminalization of
black and Hispanic men that is pervasive in America's criminal justice system. n294 As such, it is difficult to identify
a single policy or executive procedure that could lead to the rectification of these injustices. Yet, history does reveal an indication of
areas of concentration where progressive governmental interference may be beneficial to the cause: [*133] criminal policy
reform, educational equality, and economic parity. n295 Passive intervention will not suffice. Deliberate and concerted
efforts are necessary to eradicate these routine injustices that have become as much a part of the nation's
criminal justice system as the laws that govern it.
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney persistently championed a campaign centered on less governmental involvement. His focus, in lieu of the
economic downturn experienced in the eight years prior to President Obama's first term, was to introduce a plan to create jobs and improve the
economy which included reducing government spending for certain programs, leaving the states responsible for handling these matters. n296
Naturally, his strategy of less government spending for domestic problems may have helped to reduce the federal deficit. It called increased
reliance in the competencies of the states. n297

However, the problem of over-criminalizing minorities that is facing the nation is one that should not be
levied on whether or not the states are able to handle (address) it themselves or how the states will treat growing
numbers of nonwhites. Similar to a natural disaster or a threat to the nation's security , this problem is one of
extreme urgency. The possibility of the nation's majority male population being disadvantaged and disenfranchised is a
matter of concrete imperativeness that dictates federal regulation. The possible repercussions are too
dire to rely on individual states to solve this problem by local statutory governance. This method is too
untrustworthy given our states' histories of unfair criminal punishment. n298 [*134]

Guidedexecutive action is critical to ameliorate past and current racial injustice . n299 Nothing less
than a uniform system of criminal policy reform will be able to extract the decades of wrongs systemically
imposed against an entire race of people. The problem is too complex to trust that states will do what is appropriate to guaranty
equality in criminal justice to all citizens. The private prison machine creates an incentive for state legislators to pass strict criminal policies to
gain the support of the owners of these institutions who contribute financially to their administrations. n300 Pressure to improve overall public
schools performance produces an enticement for administrators to adopt zero-tolerance rules to extract those students deemed menaces, a practice
that leads to children adopting delinquency. n301 In a nation so focused on stabilizing the middle class, the impoverished go largely
unrepresented and forgotten. n302 These problems all contribute to the overall dynamic, and attention to one or all does not promise the
alleviation of the problem, but it could be a start.

President Barack Obama is promoting federal programs that directly impact some of these areas that are the sources of crime and of unfair
criminal justice policy. n303 He campaigned during his first run for president to address the problem of racial profiling in law enforcement. n304
As of yet, there have been few notable improvements in this area n305 and acknowledging that this concern is of high importance is progress
within itself. Through his administrative agenda, it implicitly sends a message to Congress of the types of laws he wants to enforce. Similarly,
more federal law enforcement reform policies should be [*135] offered, but state compliance should be mandated. States should not be
trusted to implement policies ensuring fair criminal justice practices. Local law enforcement is normally reserved for
state governments to decide, but given the magnitude of the situation, executive interference is warranted. It is indeed a perilous matter that
affects the overall condition of the nation.
VI. Conclusion

A discussion on reforming criminal justice policy to extricate discriminatory practices cannot properly be had without addressing the nation's
history on race relations. America's criminal policies and race are despairingly intertwined. America, a nation of immigrants, a boiling pot of
diversity, is seeing its creed of providing opportunity to the downtrodden come to fruition. It's once white canvas, with scattered speckles of black
and brown, is becoming more and more colorful. As the populace changes in demographics, governing policies should reflect this transformation
and provide a conduit for a seamless transition. This, however, is not the reality.

Criminal policy can be a divisive mechanism, and it has been used against people of color in the past. It is still being
employed to their detriment today. Black
men are victimized the most by America's systemic scheme of propagating high
levels of crime to incarcerate the less powerful . This pattern has fueled the mass incarceration movement,
benefiting corporate owners and those politicians who line their pockets with kickbacks as appreciation for implementing "tough" criminal
policies. Minorities, people of color, are no more than sacrificial offerings to these corporate gods.

The imminent shift in the population does not necessitate a change in the nation's power structure. The only way to guarantee an end to
discriminatory criminal policies is to mandate that laws are being implemented and enforced equally, across all racial
demographics and all classes. If the criminal justice system affected white America in the same manner that it does people of color, it would
certainly be overhauled . This is the crux of the problem . In the past, America has been content to sit vainly as minorities
were mistreated due to their lack of significance. As people of color become the majority population, their importance increases, so the nation can
no longer afford to take this indifferent position. Radical,
executive action may be the only measure that will
effectively quash the counter-productive resistance being instigated by those who refuse to concede power.
The nation is at a crossroads and it must decide if color really matters. Will America masterfully permit the coloring of the canvas to add to the
beauty, richness, and value of the work, of art or will the assorted paint render it worthless?
 **Lesson plan - 1AC & Strategic design
Note:
We will have a group convo about strategic rationales for when to replace the 1AC ACLU card (prisons +
jails are key) with this Pavlo card.
 Organizational notes

(Note: This also appears in the “Incarcerated Populations Key” section)

Q1: “Why have a separate header for the Pavlo card ?“

A1: Given how debates tend to break down, the Pavlo card is both:
o likely to be one of the most important cards in the round
o apt to be read or cross-applied in several places in a debate. It can annoying when a
frontline has a card that’s already been read. If you need it – here it is… If it’s been read,
supplement with other cards.

Q2: Why all of the different headers for similar concepts ?

A2: Because details matter in this instance. Thus:

o If a card is specific to Federal Prisons, it gets it own header.
o If a card is about BOTH prisons and jails, it appears under “Incarcerated populations
key”
o If a card is about prisons only (which tend to have people coming-and-going less often
than jails), it gets its own header.
o If a card is about jails only (which tend to have people coming-and-going more often
than prisons), it gets its own header.
o **It is also worth noting that the term “jails” is overwhelmingly likely to be referring to
correctional facilities run by Local authorities. “Prisons” can be run by the State or
Federal Government.
 ACLU card – in version 1.0 of the starter pack

The curve’s flattening. Incarcerated populations are key – excluding them un-ravels
social distancing gains and causes resurgence. The impact’s 100,000 avoidable deaths.
ACLU ‘20
A Partnership Between American Civil Liberties Union Analytics and Researchers from Washington State University, University
of Pennsylvania, and University of Tennessee. The three researchers were: Dr. Nina Fefferman, Professor in the Department of
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee; Dr. Lofgren is an infectious disease epidemiologist at
Washington State University whose research focuses on the use of mathematical and computational models of disease
transmission; and Dr. Kristian Lum, Research Assistant Professor in Computer and Information Science at the University of
Pennsylvania “COVID-19 Model Finds Nearly 100,000 More Deaths Than Current Estimates, Due to Failures to Reduce Jails” –
ACLU – April - #E&F - chart omitted - https://www.aclu.org/report/flattening-curve-why-reducing-jail-populations-key-beating-
covid-19

COVID -19 MODEL FINDS NEARLY 100,000 MORE DEATHS THAN CURRENT ESTIMATES, DUE TO
FAILURES TO REDUCE JAILS

Models projecting total U.S. fatalities to be under 100,000 1 may be underestimating deaths by almost
another 100,000 if we continue to operate jails as usual, based on a new epidemiological study completed
in partnership between academic researchers and ACLU Analytics. That is, deaths could be double the current projections
due to the omission of jails from most public models. Numbers used by the Trump administration largely fail to
consider several factors that will explosively increase the loss of life unless drastic reforms are adopted
to reduce the nation’s jail populations.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world — with only 4 percent of the world’s population but 21
percent of the world’s incarcerated population2 . Models and data of infection spread based on other countries like Italy,
China, and South Korea will underestimate the loss of life in the U.S., as their incarceration rates are
substantially below U.S. levels.
The conditions in U.S. jails and prisons are substantially inferior to those of other European and Western nations, propelling the spread of
infection. Given the overcrowding and substandard conditions in
most U.S. jails and prisons, standard public health
interventions to “flatten the curve” and prevent the spread of COVID-19 are simply not feasible. Most are
unable to allow for six feet of social distancing among incarcerated people and staff, and lack the facilities that allow for the recommended hand
washing and cleaning of surfaces. Moreover, the health care available in our nation’s jails is chronically substandard, further fueling the growth
of the pandemic and increasing mortality rates among those infected while in jail.

Jails, in particular, also act as vectors for infection in their surrounding communities . Jails are revolving doors for
incarceration and face 10.7 million admissions a year3 . That’s an admission every three seconds in America. There are ~737,900 people in jail
on any given day, and ~ 66 percent of them are pretrial detainees 4 — which means they are presumed innocent and have not
been convicted of a crime. Hundreds of thousands of people who are incarcerated in jails nationwide are there because they cannot afford to post
bail. The average time an individual spends in jail is 25 days5

As a result of the constant movement between jails and the broader community, our jails
will act as vectors for the COVID-19
pandemic in our communities. They will become veritable volcanoes for the spread of the virus. The spread of COVID-19
from jails into the broader community will occur along two vectors that are ignored in typical models:

1. Churn of the jail population — individuals are arrested, sent to jail, potentially exposed to COVID-19, released on their own recognizance, post
bail, or are adjudicated not guilty and are subsequently released. Upon release, the virus will spread through their families and communities
unless the individual is quarantined.
2. Jail staff — staff come to work each day and are exposed to COVID-19, then return home and infect their families and communities. This
vector applies to jails, prisons, and detention centers. There are ~420,000 people who work in jails and prisons in the U.S.6

Unfortunately, the radical approaches adopted in broader society to reduce other high-density transmission hubs — the closure of schools, the
closure of non-essential businesses, and the enactment of stay-athome orders — have not been emulated with regard to our jails. Some states have
begun to see a reduction in their jail populations, such as Colorado, where there has been a 31 percent reduction7 , potentially saving ~1,100 lives
(25% of projected deaths in the state)8. However, all states need to do more, and most states have failed to take any steps to stem the impact of
the COVID-19 pandemic in jails and the broader community.

To assess the impact of not including jails in our actions to stop COVID-19, the ACLU teamed up with a group of researchers to build the
dynamics of a jail system into a standard epidemiological model of COVID-19, using Allegheny County, Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh) as a
reference9 . The model was then tailored and run to the specific circumstances (e.g., jail and community populations, arrest and release rates, jail
staff sizes) of the 1,242 counties in the U.S. with jail populations of at least 100 people. These counties include ~90 percent of the total U.S.
population.

In all epidemiological models — as in reality — the total death count will vary depending on policies adopted
by our government and behaviors adopted by people in our communities. What our model tells us with near certainty is that ignoring jails
in the public health measures taken to mitigate COVID-19 spread will result in the substantial undercounting of potential loss of life. For
example, if a model that doesn’t account for jails predicts that social distancing and other public health measures will keep the total number of
U.S. deaths to 101,000, our model shows that that projection undercounts deaths by 98 percent. Actual deaths, once we account for jails, could be
almost double, rising to 200,000.

The below table summarizes the potential underprojection of deaths in the United States when jails are not included in projection models:

(table omitted)

Note that the

lower the projection without accounting for jails, the bigger the underestimate. This is because
as society at large adopts better social distancing measures in places other than jails, jails increasingly become a
primary vector for infection. The takeaway is clear — social distancing measures can only be
effective if we extend them to jails as well.
While terrifying, these numbers don’t even account for prisons and immigration detention centers, whose incarcerated populations are often held
Reforms must be enacted to flatten the infection curve and curb the infection rates in
for longer periods of time13.
jails, prisons, and surrounding communities .
 Pavlo

Federal prisoners are key to avoid COVID resurgence. Absent decarceration,

hospitals get overwhelmed and the national curve un-flattens
Pavlo ‘20
Walter Pavlo is an Adjunct Professor of Ethics and Corporate Responsibility at Endicott College, as well as a Journalist Law
School Fellow at Loyola Law School. Walter is a contributor to Forbes and New York University Law’s Program on Corporate
Compliance and Enforcement. Walter is Co-Founder of Prisonology – a consulting, training and expert testimony firm for
lawyers and defendants on the post conviction process of the federal justice system. “Federal Bureau Of Prisons Institutions Not
Showing Any Signs Of “Flattening Curve”” – Forbes - Apr 15, 2020 - #E&F -
https://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2020/04/15/federal-bureau-of-prisons-institutions-not-showing-any-signs-of-flattening-
curve/#17f48b0654dd

The Federal B ureau o f P risons is now in its “Phase 6” plan to curb the rate of contagion of COVID-19 among its
177,000 inmates housed in 122 institutions which employ over 30,000 staff and tens of thousands of
contractors . BOP’s efforts thus far have included halting social and legal visits since the middle of March, screening of inmates,
staff and contractors by taking their temperature to measure infection, mobilizing administrative staff to step into front line positions, increase
rate of hiring new corrections officers and halting staff training. The results have been tragic.

Since Phase 1, there are now 736 positive COVID-19 infections (444 inmates, 248 staff) in nearly half of the
institutions located across the country. In this crisis, BOP corrections staff have complained about lack of direction from its new
director, Michael Carvajal, and confused case managers have put hundreds of inmates in a type of isolation protocol as BOP considers whether to
release them to home confinement. From accounts I am receiving from federal prisons across the country, the inmates are growing more
frustrated.

It is believed that the BOP created profiles of inmates from its SENTRY system, the main database housing details of every inmate’s personal
and criminal history. The direction to develop those profiles was initiated by a memorandum from Attorney General William Barr on April 3.
Despite some initial action to identify those inmates, many of them are still in a state of waiting for release as the BOP determines how it will, or
if it will, release inmates to reduce the overcrowding of its prisons.

The continued
inaction of the BOP to swiftly reduce the population of inmates , particularly the elderly
and those with underlying health conditions, is an unfolding story with tragic consequences. The inability of
the BOP to take decisive action during a crisis like this demonstrates “deliberate indifference,” a standard for cruel and unusual punishment under
the 8th Amendment. William Fick, Fick & Marx, joined by the ACLU Foundation of Massachusetts, filed a class action lawsuit against FMC
Devens and theBOP on behalf of inmates at the facility located near Boston, MA, a hotbed of COVID-19 outbreaks. “Respondents have
failed to use their authority to order compassionate release ,” they wrote in their filing. The ACLU of Ohio filed their own
lawsuit against FCI Elkton and BOP where three inmates have died.

As disturbing as it is to witness this negligence inflicted on the incarcerated, it is time to recognize that the BOP’s
actions will also
undermine the national effort to “flatten the curve,” thus threatening the health and wellbeing of every
American. Jack Donson, who worked in the Bureau of Prisons for 23 years told me, “The agency has never experienced anything like this
and it is starting to show.”

The federal COVID-19 response has failed to consider the enormous demand on medical resources by
federal inmates who require hospitalization for COVID -19 complications. from the crisis within its own system. While
the BOP operates 7 medical facilities around the country, they are not equipped with ventilators, nor are they
prepared for managing a highly contagious disease . According to a source who works on the corrections
staff at the Federal Medical Center Devens (Devens, MA), “COVID-19 patients who would test positive will be
transferred to local hospitals and treated.” To date, Devens has not reported a positive COVID-19 test.
The administration’s COVID-19 policies have been based on epidemiological modeling developed by the
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington ( IHME ) to “provide
hospitals, health-care workers, policymakers, and the public with crucial information about what demands COVID -19
may place on hospital capacity and resources, so that they could begin to plan.” This has led to much of our
country sheltering in place at home, distancing ourselves from others when out in public, and, most recently, wearing
masks to cover our faces. The result of those efforts have been reflected in a “flattening curve” of infection rates.
This flattening prevents hospitals from being overcome by sick patients.
However, neither IHME, nor any other epidemiologists modeling the crisis, ever envisioned the systemic failure that
would expose 177,000 inmates housed in multiple institutional clusters, some numbering over 5,000 inmates, to a
COVID-19 outbreak. These failures are resulting from a lack of a widespread testing protocol at insitutions, the continued transfer of
inmates between institutions, the introduction of new inmates who are either arrested or self-surrender and the thousands of staff and contractors
The biggest hinderance
that go in and out of these institutions. Once infected, there are limited ways to isolate the healthy from the sick.
to preventing spread of the disease in prison are the sheer number of inmates incarcerated.
The BOP policy so far has been to explicitly refrain from testing inmates except those who have died or are willing to risk fellow inmate
retribution by revealing themselves to be symptomatic. More inmates are sick than the BOP is reporting and more inmates are not reporting that
they are sick out of fear of being identified as sick.

Nevertheless, outbreaks at federal facilities will continue in sync with outbreaks in surrounding communities at a rate
never contemplated under the modeling used by the government to decide policy . Imagine an
enclosed community with thousands of people in cramped living conditions , no ability to social distance ,
no hand sanitizers , limited cleaning supplies , limited-shared laundry facilities, all under the stress of being
cut off from family visits. It is a powerful cocktail of both physical and mental poison that will have an effect on the
lives of people for many years. It is cruel to those incarcerated and those who work among them.
Every IHME model estimates the number of people in age and health categories identified by the CDC as high risk, using datasets applicable to
the general population. However, as documented at length by the BOP itself and multiple agencies studying elderly inmate health, federal inmates
suffer from chronic health problems, much of it untreated and undocumented, at disproportionately higher rates compared to the general
for every federal facility , the burden on local healthcare resources has been under-
population. As such,
estimated in the eventuality of mass contagion within prisons.

In failing to reduce inmate populations , the BOP is depriving the country of one of these most
effective tools in avoiding the collapse of our healthcare systems. Specifically , the only way to
“flatten the curve” is to reduce the population (i.e., the number of individuals circulating in public) and reduce the rate of
transmission (i.e., the number of individuals infected by each COVID-19 positive individual).

Inmates released to home confinement typically return to their region of origin. By

removing inmates from densely populated facilities
and dispersing them across the country, the population accessing local medical resources is reduced in
favor of a more equitable distribution of this healthcare burden across multiple communities. Simply put , even if
the inmate on home confinement does become ill, he / she (they) will be treated at a facility that is not
overwhelmed by inmates from a single institution.
The proposed criteria for releasing inmates to home confinement excludes inmates who pose a risk to public
safety or have a high rate of recidivism. It begs the question of why these people are even in prison to begin
with, but we’ll save that for another time. It is beyond dispute that any potential threat to public safety posed by
releasing some inmates is far outweighed by the certain increase in fatalities caused by failure to not to.
**Additional 1AC Advantages here
Note to students
 How we intend to sequence this:

We are beginning the first practice debates with:

- The Resurgence Advantage (Economy module);

- and The Disparate Violence Advantage (Racial inequity impact)

But – to keep the debates evolving and to learn more about the topic – we have prepared additional
advantages for future waves of practice debates. The instructors plan to sequence these new advantages in
stages
If – at first – you find these advantages to be a bit confusing, know that you are likely not alone. As they
get introduced, each new item will have pre-recorded videos, lesson plans, and opportunities for student
Q & A.
We won’t make you debate something without an opportunity to have your questions addressed.

A list of advantages in this packet

- Disparate Violence Advantage (Racial inequity impact) – in the current 1AC.

- Resurgence Advantages:
o Economy module – in the current 1AC.
o Leadership Transition module (power transition, hegemony) - in the section below.
o Illiberal Norms module (global democracy impact) - in the section below.

- Advantages about why COVID in correctional facilities is bad:

o Global Spread/Taiwan module (Taiwan war impact) - in the section below.
o Health Care Collapse (Bioterror impact) – which will come out in a later wave.
Leadership + Illiberal Norms Module
 Mechanics

Trump’s continued mismanagement of COVID policy will crush US global

influence. Federal Action is key
Walt ‘20
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University. “The Death of
American Competence”– Foreign Policy -MARCH 23, 2020 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend -
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:CAMcw4NUZikJ:https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/23/death-
american-competence-reputation-coronavirus/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Washington’s reputation for expertise has been one of the greatest sources of its power . The coronavirus
pandemic may end it for good.

No matter how the federal government responded, the United States was never going to escape COVID-19
entirely. Even Singapore, whose response to the virus seems to be the gold standard thus far, has several hundred confirmed cases. Nonetheless, U.S.
President Donald Trump’s administration’s belated, self-centered, haphazard , and tone-deaf response will end up costing Americans trillions of dollars
and thousands of otherwise preventable deaths. Even if the view that the dangers may have been exaggerated due to a lack of accurate data turns out to be correct,
Trump’s entire approach to governing and the administration’s erratic response squandered public confidence and made a more measured reaction untenable.
Despite his denials, he is still responsible for where the country is today .

But that’s not the only damage the United States will suffer. Far from making “America great again,” this epic
policy failure will further tarnish the United States’ reputation as a country that knows how to do things effectively.
For over a century, the United States’ outsized influence around the world rested on three pillars. The first was the its awesome combination of
economic and military strength. The United States had the world’s largest and most sophisticated economy, the world’s best universities and
research centers, and a territory blessed with bountiful natural resources. These features eventually enabled the United States to create and
maintain military forces that none of its rivals could match. Taken together, these combined assets gave the United States the loudest voice on the
planet.

The second pillar was support from an array of allies. No country every agreed with everything Washington wanted to do, and some states
opposed almost everything the United States sought or stood for, but many countries understood that they benefited from U.S. leadership and
were usually willing to go along with it. Although the United States was almost always acting in its own self-interest, the fact that others had
similar interests made it easier to persuade them to go along.

A third pillar, however, is broad confidence in U.S. competence. When other countries recognize the United States’ strength, support its
aims and believe U.S. officials know what they are doing, they are more likely to follow the United States’
lead. If they doubt its power, its wisdom, or its ability to act effectively, U.S. global influence inevitably erodes . This
reaction is entirely understandable: If the United States’ leaders reveal themselves to be incompetent bunglers, why should
foreign powers listen (heed) to their advice? Having a reputation for competence, in short, can be a critical force
multiplier.

The glowing reputation that Americans used to enjoy was built up over many decades. It was partly a reflection of the United
States’ industrial might and world-class infrastructure: the network of highways, roads, railways, bridges, skyscrapers, dams, harbors, and
airports that used to dazzle foreign visitors upon their arrival. Victory in World War II, the creation of the Bretton Woods economic institutions,
innovative acts such as the Marshall Plan, and the successful moon landing all reinforced an image of the United States as a place where people
knew how to set ambitious goals and bring them successfully to fruition.

Even blunders such as the Vietnam War did not fully tarnish the aura of competence that surrounded the United States. Indeed, the peaceful and
made the
victorious end of the Cold War and the smashing U.S. victory in the 1990-1991 Gulf War exorcized the ghosts of Vietnam and
United States’ model of liberal democratic capitalism seem like the obvious model for others to emulate . Add
to that a continued stream of technological innovations—the personal computer, the smartphone, and all those fancy weapons—and one can
understand why people around the world still looked upon the United States as a meritocratic, accomplished, and above all, competent country.
Small wonder pundits such as Tom Friedman began to portray the United States as the only viable model for an increasingly globalized world,
telling aspiring countries that if they wanted to succeed, they had to don the “Golden Straitjacket” and become more like the United States.

Over the past 25 years, however, the United States has done a remarkable job of squandering that invaluable reputation for responsible leadership
and basic competence. The list of transgressions is long: there is former President Bill Clinton’s irresponsible dalliance with a White House
intern, former President George W. Bush’s administration’s failure to heed warnings of a terrorist attack before 9/11, the Enron and Madoff
scandals, the bungled responses to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Maria in 2017, the inability to either win or end the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq and the ill-advised interventions in Libya, Yemen, Syria, and elsewhere, the Wall Street meltdown of 2008, the Boeing 737
Max debacle, the Republican-led gridlock in Washington, and so on. Nor should we forget the long-concealed criminal misdeeds of Harvey
Weinstein (and many others) and the sordid tale of the very well-connected Jeffrey Epstein, whose conveniently timed demise in a New York jail
may prevent us from ever knowing the full extent of his—and others’—misconduct.

And all the while the United States told itself it was the greatest country in the world, with the ablest officials, the best-run businesses, the most
sophisticated financial firms, and the most virtuous leaders. Instead, former Soviet Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov’s description of life in the Soviet
Union may be a more accurate description of American life than Americans would like to admit: “[We] stole from ourselves, took and gave
bribes, lied in the reports, in newspapers, from high podiums, wallowed in our lies, hung medals on one another. And all of this—from top to
bottom and from bottom to top.”

Then came COVID -19. Trump’s handling of the crisis has been an embarrassing debacle from the start—despite repeated
warnings—but it was also utterly predictable. His long business career has shown that he was more of a showman than a leader, better at conning
people out of money and evading responsibility than at managing complex business operations. His tawdry personal life offered equally clear
warnings. Since taking office, Trump has perfected the art of the lie, while gradually purging his administration of people with genuine expertise
and relying instead on B-list hacks, sycophants, and his unqualified son-in-law. When suddenly faced with a complicated problem requiring
grown-up leadership, it was inevitable that Trump would mishandle it and then deny responsibility. It is a failure of character unparalleled in U.S.
history, and it could not have come at a worse time. The amazing thing is that anyone is even remotely surprised.

It's all reversible if resurgence is avoided. Loss of US leadership and the liberal
model aren’t set in stone.
Walt ‘20
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University. “The United States
Can Still Win the Coronavirus Pandemic” – Foreign Policy - April 3 rd - #E&F - https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/03/united-
states-can-still-win-coronavirus-pandemic-power/

If China is still concealing the true extent of the virus and it restarts economic activity prematurely, it
could suffer another punishing wave of
infections, and there are worrisome if not entirely unexpected signs of a second wave in other parts of Asia. This could also
happen in the United States, of course, which is why it is a good thing that Trump has abandoned his desire to reopen the economy and fill the pews
later this month on Easter Sunday. My point is simply that while the U.S. response thus far has been badly bungled, the

overall response may— repeat, may —look better a year from now. If that proves to be the case, then the
coronavirus won’t necessarily herald a profound shift in global influence . As the national security expert Rachel
Kleinfeld wrote on March 31, global responses to date do not vindicate authoritarianism: Some democracies have done very well in reacting to the crisis, and some
dictatorships have reacted very badly. In other words, regime type doesn’t appear to be the critical variable here.

US and Chinese governance models are being shopped to the world. Reversing US
resurgence relative to China is key. Federal Action is vital to check a shift in the
global balance of power.
Berengaut & Kahl ‘20
Ariana Berengaut is the director of programs, partnerships, and strategic planning at the Penn Biden Center, a senior adviser to
National Security Action, and a former official at the State Department. Colin H. Kahl is co-director of Stanford University’s
Center for International Security, a strategic consultant at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, and a
former national security adviser to Vice President Joseph Biden. “AFTERSHOCKS: THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC AND
THE NEW WORLD DISORDER” – War on the Rocks - APRIL 10, 2020 - #E&F - Modified for language that may offend -
https://warontherocks.com/2020/04/aftershocks-the-coronavirus-pandemic-and-the-new-world-disorder/

Important shifts
in the global balance of power were also underway before the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting
many to declare the end of America’s “unipolar moment ” and the return of great-power politics. Depending on
the metric, China’s economy has already risen to become the world’s largest, creating an associated boost in Beijing’s international confidence.
Meanwhile, Russia is in the midst of a long-term decline but has become much more assertive in recent years under Vladimir Putin. Both China
and Russia have invested significant resources in modernizing their militaries, contributing to a new arms race across multiple domains, while
seeking to carve out spheres of influence at the expense of U.S. influence and allies. Globally, Russia has played a mostly disruptive role rather
than an order-building one. China under Xi Jinping has been more ambitious. Beijing has sought to build networks of influence
via its transnational Belt and Road Initiative, promote its own vision of international institutions and norms on issues ranging from development
to Internet governance, and
hold up its model of state-led capitalism and digital authoritarianism as a means of
governance that is superior to that of the rest of the world. The Trump administration has responded to these developments
by identifying great-power competition as the top U.S. national security priority, investing billions of dollars in a new arms race, and launching a
debilitating trade war with China.

In this context, COVID-19 holds the potential to further shift the balance of material and soft power , sharpen the
competition for influence, and exacerbate tensions — especially between the United States and China.

The material balance

The United States currently has more cases — and more deaths — related to COVID-19 than any other nation on Earth. And, because the
Trump administration was so slow and haphazard in marshalling a coherent federal response , the public health and
economic consequences of the pandemic will be worse for the United States than they would have otherwise been. The costs associated with
stimulus packages — already running in the trillions — will continue to mount. Ballooning deficits and national debt, in turn, will eventually
create pressure to reduce overall federal spending, making it more difficult to make the investments in education, infrastructure, research and
development, green energy, and healthcare that are required for long-term economic competitiveness.

The pandemic could also undermine U.S. military power. During World War I, the influenza pandemic traveled with U.S. troops from camp to
camp in the United States and then with them to Europe. At the height of America’s military involvement in the war, influenza and pneumonia
sickened 20 to 40 percent of U.S. Army and Navy personnel. Today, this novel coronavirus could similarly threaten military readiness if it infects
a significant portion of the force, leads to the extended cancellation of training and military exercises, prevents deployments, or disrupts military
supply chains. COVID-19 has already put the crew of one of the U.S. Navy’s 11 aircraft carriers out of commission. However, the bigger long-
term challenge is likely to be fiscal: The same austerity imperatives that could eventually produce butter-versus-butter trade-offs will also likely
compel guns-versus-butter ones, adding to the pressure to shrink the U.S. defense budget.

Of course, China has also been badly affected. China’s economy was slowing before the pandemic, partly as a consequence of the trade war with
the United States, and the country is saddled with incredible levels of debt. Then, as COVID-19 spread outward from the city of Wuhan, it
shuttered much of the nation’s economy in February. As a result, China likely experienced an economic contraction during the first quarter of
2020, something that has not occurred there since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. But, the full extent of the damage remains unclear
because official statistics have not yet been released and may not even be reliable when available. Interestingly, while both the central and local
governments have moved to support companies and limit layoffs with hundreds of billions of dollars in loans, Beijing has thus far refrained from
enacting a massive stimulus package or providing extensive financial assistance directly to the general public. This fact may suggest that the
Chinese Communist Party sees the overall situation as manageable without taking extraordinary measures. China is now attempting to restart its
economy: Work at industrial enterprises and in construction is resuming, the large-scale lockdown of Wuhan has ended, and some are predicting
a Chinese economic recovery across the rest of the year. Nevertheless, growth rates are still likely to be far below pre-COVID-19 expectations.
Nationwide social distancing requirements will continue to threaten small businesses, hurt the service sector, and suppress domestic demand.
Moreover, trade paralysis and slumping foreign demand for Chinese exports due to the overseas spread of the virus will further drag on China’s
economy.

Whether China is able to rebound faster and more completely than the United States is uncertain — but
the answer could determine the relative material balance between the two countries for years to come.

Soft power and sharp power

The crisis is also affecting the balance of soft power between the United States and China — that is, their respective
abilities to wield influence through attraction, their alignment of other nations’ values and underlying preferences with their
own, and their sheer capacity to manufacture and deliver what the world needs. In this domain and by all rights, COVID-19 should
have put Beijing on its backfoot. Regional Communist Party officials covered up the initial outbreak and the central government hid
the virus from both its own citizens and the world. And, just as it did 18 years earlier during the SARS outbreak, Beijing was slow to share vital
information with the World Health Organization, dragged its feet on allowing technical teams from the World Health Organization to visit the
affected areas, and refused to admit a dedicated team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though natural viruses like
COVID-19 are not national creations and no one should blame the Chinese people for the pandemic, a good case can be made that the culpability
of the Chinese government for the global spread of the virus is high.

Yet, Beijing has thus far managed to avoid being put on the strategic defensive. Instead, it has exploited the
absence of U.S. leadership and pursued a multi-pronged approach to turn the crisis into a geopolitical opportunity. First,
it has capitalized on its apparent technocratic ability to contain the virus at home. Although reasons to doubt the extent of
China’s purported progress against the virus persist, Beijing has used a relentless stream of propaganda at home and abroad to create the
perception that it has mastered COVID-19 and bought the world time to more effectively respond to the pandemic.

Second, China has provided or announced medical assistance to 82 countries in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa, including masks and
other personal protective equipment, testing kits, respirators, ventilators, and doctors. China surged medical assistance to Italy even as some of its
European Union neighbors failed to respond to Rome’s early pleas for help. As E.U. chief diplomat Josep Borrell recently noted, “China is
aggressively pushing the message that, unlike the U.S., it is a responsible and reliable partner.” Thomas Wright of the Brookings Institution
contends that Beijing’s transparent efforts to flip the script may ultimately backfire in many European capitals. Already, some European countries
have recalled or rejected Chinese-made masks and testing kits based on their poor quality. But, China’s aid has been much better received in
many emerging markets and developing countries. In the months ahead, Wright argues that China’s efforts may prove particularly effective in
parts of Africa, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America where its Belt and Road Initiative already provides it an economic and political
entry point. Overall, China has managed to successfully position itself as the world’s leader and public health benefactor on this issue — a role
traditionally occupied by the United States.

A third and related prong of China’s strategy has been the use of so-called sharp power. Beijing has deftly escalated its information campaign
against the United States by having senior diplomats promote conspiracy theories that obscure its own role in the pandemic and shift blame to
Washington. China has combined public diplomacy with coordinated messaging by state-controlled media, legions of social media bots and
trolls, and offers of assistance by Chinese corporate giants to further amplify the narrative that China is both the victim of malign American
action and the world’s only savior at a time when the United States is pulling back.

China’s ability to turn COVID-19 lemons into lemonade has been greatly aided by the Trump administration’s
own acts of commission and omission. In the “competition of systems” that is so important to soft power ,
America’s democratic, federalist system has looked shambolic . As the Eurasia Group’s Mark Hannah observes, the
administration’s “litany of bad decisions makes America look (appear) like a nation unable to protect its own people,
much less meet complex global challenges.” This has only served to accentuate the perceived coherence and
competence of China’s response and governance model in comparison.

That shift risks great power strife that goes nuclear – posing an existential threat.
Gerson ‘20
Internally quoting Stephen M. Walt, who is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard
University. Dr. Joseph Gerson is Executive Director of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security and Vice-
President of the International Peace Bureau. Joseph received his Doctorate in Politics and International Security Studies from the
Union Institute and College.- “A Pandemic, the Geopolitical Struggle for Power, and the Urgency of Common Security” -
Common Dreams - Saturday, April 25, 2020 - #E&F - https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/25/pandemic-
geopolitical-struggle-power-and-urgency-common-security

Meanwhile the
geopolitical struggle for regional and world power continues under the existential threat s of
nuclear weapons and the climate emergency. It also takes place within the context of the Thucydides Trap, the tragic history
of major wars growing out of the inevitable tensions between rising and declining powers .

U.S. power and influence have been in decline since the Vietnam War, a dynamic accelerated by U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
Beijing is now seen as Washington’s “peer competitor” with growing economic, military, diplomatic and soft power influence across Asia, the
Global South, and increasingly in Europe. Trump’s America-First disregard and alienation of allies have accelerated U.S. decline.
Stephen Walt at Harvard University has written that the “coronavirus
will accelerate the shift of power and influence
from west to east.” Certainly, with failed pandemic responses in Europe and the U.S., “the power of the
western brand” has weakened. This is not to ignore that China’s early pandemic deceits and failures have cost its government the trust
of many of its people and of people in other nations.
 Illiberal Norms module

The world’s at a crossroad between the liberal US model and the illiberal Chinese
option. US responses to COVID are key to global democratic norms.
Wintour ‘20
Internally quoting Harvard international relations theorist Stephen Walt, as well as The Crisis Group thinktank. Patrick Wintour
is diplomatic editor for the Guardian - “Coronavirus: who will be winners and losers in new world order?” – The Guardian –
April 11 - #E&F - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/11/coronavirus-who-will-be-winners-and-losers-in-new-world-
order

Are state responses to the virus shifting the balance of power between China and the west?
Andrà tutto bene, the Italians have taught us to think, but in truth, will everything be better the day after? It may seem premature, in the midst of
what Emmanuel Macron has described as “a war against an invisible enemy”, to consider the political and economic consequences of a distant
peace. Few attempt a definitive review of a play after the first three scenes.

Yet world leaders, diplomats and geopolitical analysts know they are living through epoch-making times and have one
eye on the daily combat, the other on what this crisis will bequeath the world. Competing ideologies, power blocs, leaders and
systems of social cohesion are being stress-tested in the court of world opinion.
Already everyone in the global village is starting to draw lessons. In France, Macron has predicted “this period will have taught us a lot. Many
certainties and convictions will be swept away. Many things that we thought were impossible are happening. The day after when we have won, it
will not be a return to the day before, we will be stronger morally. We will draw the consequences, all the consequences.” He has promised to
start with major health investment. A Macronist group of MPs has already started a Jour d’Après website.

In Germany, the former Social Democratic party foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel has lamented that “we talked the state down for 30 years”, and
predicts the next generation will be less naive about globalisation. In Italy, the former prime minister Matteo Renzi has called for a commission
into the future. In Hong Kong, graffiti reads: “There can be no return to normal because normal was the problem in the first place.” Henry
Kissinger, the US secretary of state under Richard Nixon, says rulers must prepare now to transition to a post-coronavirus world order.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said: “The relationship between the biggest powers has never been as dysfunctional. Covid-19 is
showing dramatically, either we join [together] ... or we can be defeated.”

The discussion in global thinktanks rages, not about cooperation, but whether the Chinese or the US will emerge as
leaders of the post-coronavirus world.
In the UK, the debate has been relatively insular. The outgoing Labour leadership briefly searched for vindication in the evident rehabilitation of
the state and its workforce. The definition of public service has been extended to include the delivery driver and the humble corner shop owner.
Indeed, to be “a nation of shopkeepers”, the great Napoleonic insult, no longer looks so bad.

The obvious and widely drawn parallel has been, as so often in Britain, the second world war. In The Road to 1945, Paul Addison’s definitive
account of how the second world war helped turn Britain to the left, he quotes the diary of the journalist JL Hodson in September 1944: “No
excuses any more for unemployment and slums and underfeeding. We have shown in this war we British don’t muddle through. Using even half
the vision and energy and invention and pulling together we’ve done in this war and what is there we cannot do? We’ve virtually exploded the
argument of old fogies and Better Notters who said we cannot afford this and mustn’t do that. Our heavy taxation and rationing of food has willy
nilly achieved some levelling up of the nation.”

In the same vein, Boris Johnson has been forced to unleash the state, but the impact in Britain seems more noticeable on civil society than
politics. The famously standoffish British are no longer bowling alone. The sense of communal effort, the volunteer health workers, the unBritish
clapping on doorsteps, all add to the sense that lost social capital is being reformed. But there is not yet much discussion of a new politics.
Perhaps the nation, exhausted by Brexit, cannot cope with more introspection and upheaval.

In Europe, the US and Asia the discussion has broadened out. Public life may be at a standstill, but public debate has accelerated. Everything
is up for debate – the trade-offs between a trashed economy and public health, the relative virtues of centralised or regionalised health
systems, the exposed fragilities of globalisation, the future of the EU, populism, the inherent advantage of authoritarianism.
It is as if the
pandemic has turned into a competition for global leadership , and it will be the countries that
most effectively respond to the crisis that will gain traction. Diplomats, operating out of emptied embassies, are busy defending
their governments’ handling of the crisis, and often take deep offence to criticism. National pride, and health, are at stake. Each country looks at
their neighbour to see how quickly they are “flattening the curve”.

The Crisis Group thinktank, in assessing how the virus will permanently change international politics, suggests: “For now we can discern two
competing narratives gaining currency – one in which the lesson is that countries ought to come together to better defeat Covid-19, and one in
which the lesson is that countries need to stand apart in order to better protect themselves from it.

“Thecrisis also represents a stark test of the competing claims of liberal and illiberal states to better
manage extreme social distress. As the pandemic unfolds it will test not only the operational capacities of organisations like the WHO
and the UN but also the basic assumptions about the values and political bargains that underpin them.

Many are already claiming that the east has won this war of competing narratives. The South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han, in an
influential essay in El País, has argued the victors are the “Asian states like Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan or Singapore that have an
authoritarian mentality which comes from their cultural tradition [of] Confucianism. People are less rebellious and more obedient than in Europe.
They trust the state more. Daily life is much more organised. Above all, to confront the virus Asians are strongly committed to digital
surveillance. The epidemics in Asia are fought not only by virologists and epidemiologists, but also computer scientists and big data specialists.”

He predicts: “China will now be able to sell its digital police state as a model of success against the pandemic.
China will display the superiority of its system even more proudly.” He claims western voters, attracted to safety and community, might be
willing to sacrifice those liberties. There is little liberty in being forced to spend spring shut in your own flat.

Indeed, China is already on a victory lap of sorts, believing it has deftly repositioned itself from the culprit to the world’s saviour. A new
generation of young assertive Chinese diplomats have taken to social media to assert their country’s superiority. Michel Duclos, the former
French ambassador now at the Institut Montaigne, has accused China of “shamelessly trying to capitalise on the country’s ‘victory against the
virus’ to promote its political system. The kind of undeclared cold war that had been brewing for some time shows its true face under the harsh
light of Covid-19.”

The Harvard international relations theorist Stephen Walt thinks China may succeed. Offering a first take
to Foreign Policy magazine, he suggests: “Coronavirus will accelerate the shift of power and influence from west to east. South Korea and
Singapore have shown the best response and China has managed well in the aftermath of its initial mistakes. The
governments’
response in Europe and the US has been very sceptical and likely to weaken the power of the western brand.”

Successful US model checks multiple existential risks.

Kasparov ‘17
Garry, Chair for the Human Rights Foundation. 2013 recipient of The Morris B. Abram Human Rights Award, UN Watch's
annual human-rights prize. The organization praised him as "not only one of the world’s smartest men" but "also among its
bravest. Kasparov is a Former Central committee member of Komsomol and 1991 recipient of the Keeper of the Flame award
from the Center for Security Policy for "propagation of democracy and the respect for individual rights throughout the world".
“Democracy and Human Rights: The Case for U.S. Leadership,” Testimony before the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere,
Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women's Issues, 2/16, Modified for language
that may offend - https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/021617_Kasparov_%20Testimony.pdf

The Soviet Union was an existential threat, and this focused the attention of the world, and the American people. There existential
threat today is not found on a map, but it is very real . The forces of the past are making steady progress against the modern world
order. Terror ist movements in the Middle East, extremist parties across Europe, a paranoid tyrant in North Korea threatening
nuclear blackmail (bribery), and, at the center of the web, an aggressive KGB dictator in Russia . They all want to turn
the world back to a dark past because their survival is threatened by the values of the free world, epitomized by the
United States . And they are thriving as the U.S. has retreated. The global freedom index has declined for ten consecutive years. No one
like to talk about the United States as a global policeman, but this is what happens when there is no cop on the beat.

American leadership begins at home, right here. America cannot lead the world on democracy and human rights if there is no unity
on the meaning and importance of these things. Leadership is required to make that case clearly and powerfully. Right now, Americans are
engaged in politics at a level not seen in decades. It is an opportunity for them to rediscover that making America great begins with believing
America can be great.

The Cold War was won on American values that were shared by both parties and nearly every American. Institutions that were created by a
Democrat, Truman, were triumphant forty years later thanks to the courage of a Republican, Reagan. This bipartisan consistency created the
decades of strategic stability that is the great strength of democracies. Strong institutions that outlast politicians allow for long-range planning. In
contrast, dictators can operate only tactically, not strategically, because they are not constrained by the balance of powers, but cannot afford to
think beyond their own survival. This is why a
dictator like Putin has an advantage in chaos, the ability to move
quickly . This can only be met by strategy, by long-term goals that are based on shared values, not on polls and cable
news.

There will always be

The fear of making things worse has paralyzed [prevented] the United States from trying to make things better.
setbacks, but the U nited S tates cannot quit. The spread of democracy is the only proven remedy for nearly
every crisis that plagues the world today. War , famine , poverty , terror ism–all are generated and
exacerbated by authoritarian regimes. A policy of America First inevitably puts American security last.

American leadership is required because there is no one else , and because it is good for America. There
is no weapon or wall that is more powerful for security than America being envied, imitated, and admired
around the world . Admired not for being perfect, but for having the exceptional courage to always try to be better. Thank you.
Global Spread/Taiwan module
 Global Spread/Taiwan module

Scenario # ___ is Global Spread:

COVID in US prisons spreads beyond bars and goes global – ensures an

international resurgence.
Nguyen ‘20
Summary of and internal quotes from a New England Journal of Medicine in April 2020 that was co-authored by Dr. Matthew J.
Akiyama Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Dr. Anne C Spaulding,
Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Dr. Josiah Rich is professor of medicine and epidemiology at Brown University Linh
Nguyen is a writer for The People's Vanguard of is a community-based watchdog and news reporting organization - COVID-19
in U.S. Prisons Can Have a Global Impact; Doctors Call for Decarceration to Reduce COVID-19 Implications – Davis Vanguard
-Date: April 16, 2020 - #E&F - https://www.davisvanguard.org/2020/04/covid-19-in-u-s-prisons-can-have-a-global-impact-
doctors-call-for-decarceration-to-reduce-covid-19-implications/

“We believe that we need to prepare now, by ‘decarcerating,’ or releasing , as many people as possible,
focusing on those who are least likely to commit additional crimes, but also on the elderly and infirm ,”
doctors wrote in a paper published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.

Because of confined spaces , restricted movement and limited medical care , incarcerated populations
are more vulnerable to the rapid transmission of infectious diseases, such as HIV, hepatitis C, tuberculosis and now
coronavirus. Furthermore, incarcerated populations suffer a higher concentration of these diseases due to disparities in access to healthcare
found in groups that are disproportionately more likely to be incarcerated—racial minorities, persons without stable housing or persons suffering
from substance abuse or mental disorders.

Doctors believe that in order to control the spread of COVID-19 in correctional facilities, more proactive and comprehensive actions must be
taken. These include developing a preparedness strategy and strict implementation of that strategy.

According to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, “improved preparation is essential to minimizing the impact of this pandemic on
incarcerated persons, correctional staff, and surrounding communities.”

While intervention strategies did exist, their implementation was often hindered or ineffective due to resource limitation and policy constraints.
A new course of action must be agreed upon that addresses obstacles and solutions for overcoming those issues.
The authors of the article address three levels of preparedness to operationalize a plan for incarcerated populations.

The first level is that the virus “should be delayed as much as possible from entering correctional facilities.”

So far, to address that level, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, certain states and districts have already suspended visitation by community members,
limited visits by legal counsel and reduced facility transfers for incarcerees. In place, they are offering teleconferencing services for personal and
legal visits. By doing so, officials are limiting the transmission of the virus from outside the facility to entering within the facility.

Still, correctional officers and staff members must

travel to enter the correctional facility, which continues to pose a threat to
incarcerated people who cannot move in and out of the facility for social distancing. By
mid-March, a handful of correctional
staff members had tested positive for COVID-19. In early April, the first incarcerated person died from COVID-19.
The authors of the article fear that the same incident that occurred on board a cruise ship in Japan will also occur within correctional facilities, in
which the virus was rapidly transmitted from one passenger to nearly all passengers and crew members.

The second level is that if [the virus] is already in circulation, it should be controlled. This means that incarcerees should be given adequate
medical attention and proper preventative equipment.
One concern the authors have is that the coronavirus vaccine would not be distributed to incarcerated populations when one has been found and
produced. This was an issue in 2009 with the H1N1 pandemic, in which the failure to include correctional facilities in emergency planning efforts
was exposed.

In the spring of 2010, the vaccine for the H1N1 virus was produced in plentiful quantities in the United States, yet most small jails did not receive
the vaccine. Thus, vulnerable persons in these jails, such as pregnant and older incarcerees, did not receive the vaccine. In addition, unvaccinated
incarcerees continued to roam as health risks to their fellow unvaccinated incarcerees.

The third level is that “jails and prisons should prepare to deal with a high burden of disease.

“The better the mitigation job done by legal, public health, and correctional health partnerships, the lighter the burden correctional facilities and
their surrounding communities will bear,” wrote the authors

the best way to prepare is to reduce the prison population. This includes releasing “as
The doctors believe that
many people as possible” and urging police and courts to suspend arresting and sentencing people. This
applies to those who are least likely to commit more crimes, the elder and infirm and low-level crimes and
misdemeanors.

In addition, correctional facilities should allow for the isolation and separation of infected incarcerated persons and those who might be infected
from the general prison population, hospitalize the seriously ill, and identify recovered correctional staff and health care providers so that they
can help with custodial and care efforts during staff shortages—as they may have a level of immunity.

“Such measures will also reduce the burden on the correctional system in terms of stabilizing and transferring critically ill patients, as well as the
burden on the community health care system to which such patients will be sent,” the doctors wrote. “Each person needlessly infected in a
correctional setting who develops severe illness will be one too many.”

The doctors predict that the

actions ( or lack thereof ) of correctional facilities during this time will have an
impact globally, beyond a national , state or local scale.

“The boundaries
between communities and correctional institutions are porous ,” the doctors stated, “as are the
borders between countries in the age of mass human travel.”

If correctional facilities act appropriately right now ( as outlined above ), the curve would be projected to
“flatten” and the global impact would be reduced . Ex-incarcerees would pose less of a public health
risk upon decarceration as they travel to essential needs.

“To respond to this global crisis, we need to consider prisons and jails as reservoirs that could lead to epidemic
resurgence if the epidemic is not adequately addressed in these facilities everywhere,” the doctors argued.

Therefore, by adopting strategies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 as outlined by the doctors who wrote the article in
the New England Journal of Medicine, correctional facilities would be protecting the lives of incarcerated people,
their correctional officers and staff and the general public beyond a national , state or local context—as the authors argued that
the “interrelation of correctional-system health and public health is a reality not only in the United States but around the world.”

This specifically causes COVID resurgence in Taiwan

Rogers ‘20
Adam Rogers writes about science for Wired. Previously, Rogers was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT and a reporter
for Newsweek. “The Asian Countries That Beat Covid-19 Have to Do It Again” - Wired - Apr 6, 2020 - #E&F – Modified for
language that may offend - https://www.wired.com/story/the-asian-countries-that-beat-covid-19-have-to-do-it-again/

ON ANY DIGITAL dashboard tracking the spread of Covid-19, on

any graphic comparing country-by-country case curves or
death tolls, they were the champs . Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea—leaders there saw (predicted) what
was headed their way from China in the early days of the new coronavirus, before it became a pandemic. They
remembered what happened two decades ago with SARS: People died, economies suffered. So they locked down their immigration hardest and
soonest, deployed public health workers to follow up contacts of cases, got their hospitals shored up, and started publishing clear and consistent
information and data. They
flattened their curves before the rest of the world understood there would be curves to flatten.
But in recent weeks, those curves have taken another chilling turn. The numbers of new cases in these places are
creeping upward.
Hong Kong’s slow and steady case count started going up on March 18, and took an 84-case jump on March 28. After months of new cases
barely brushing double digits, Singapore’s count jumped by 47 on March 16, and since then the city-state has had three days with more than 70
new cases each. Taiwan’s
new-cases-in-a-day peaked at 5 in late January … and then jumped into the high
20s per day in, again, mid-March. South Korea had 86 new cases on April 3.

These new case numbers are still low , especially compared with the United States, which had 983 new cases on March
16 and 29,874 new cases on April 2 … or Italy, which (hopefully) peaked on March 21 with 6,557 new cases. What’s alarming about the
numbers of new cases in the would-be success-story locations is that they’re happening at all—that the numbers were going down,
and now they’re creeping up. From the outside, that looks (appears) like a worst-case scenario : the return of the disease after a
country eases off the measures to combat it. But that appearance is deceiving. The bad new numbers come from somewhere
else—literally. And that might have lessons for the next phase of the pandemic in the US.

The real problem is that viruses don’t know what a border is. These countries are experiencing “reimportation” of the disease ,
infections that are the result of inbound travelers from places that aren’t winning their fight against
Covid -19.
All these countries are, after all, on the same planet. In Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan, a few earlier cases from China made it
through the barrier and got into the community. That resulted, throughout February, in community infections, or “unlinked local cases.” Those
were worrying, but the overall
spread was still slow—until the pandemic went transnational, and boomeranged
back around. “There were just a small number, and then they kind of disappeared,” says Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of
Hong Kong. “But at the end of February and early March we started to get more imported cases from Europe. Hong Kong got a lot from Europe,
the US, and other parts of the world, and Taiwan got a lot from the US .”

Resurgence causes a Taiwan recession

Ellis ‘20
et al; Internally quoting Anita Hsu, an economist with Masterlink Securities Investment Advisory in Taipei and Liu Cheng-yu, an
economist at Taipei-based First Capital Management. Samson Ellis is Bloomberg Taipei Bureau Chief. “Global Coronavirus
Shutdown Tests Taiwan’s Economic Resilience” – Bloomberg - April 29, 2020 - #E&F -
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-29/global-coronavirus-shutdown-tests-taiwan-s-economic-resilience

Taiwan is one of the few places to quickly get its coronavirus outbreak under control , but it’s unclear
whether it can also avoid a recession as the global slump in demand looks set to hit the trade-dependent economy.

Swift action
by the government earlier this year to contain the disease and to provide more than $30 billion in relief measures
spared businesses and people alike. The economy is forecast to have grown 1.7% in the first quarter, much stronger
than elsewhere , but whether that continues depends on how long the contractions in trading partners like China, Japan, South Korea or the
U.S. last.

“Taiwan is obviously a major trading nation and will be hit by the global recession, but it’s better positioned than many other
places because it managed the virus outbreak properly and so didn’t need to halt its own economy ,”
according to Anita Hsu, an economist with Masterlink Securities Investment Advisory in Taipei. “Domestic
consumption has been
supported because Taiwan didn’t lock down and hasn’t had any serious job cuts .”
The signals so far are mixed, but are pointing down. Industrial output was still growing in March but both exports and retail sales shrank. In
addition, the monitoring indicator, an index of economic signals such as imports of equipment, money supply and share prices, fell into
“sluggish” territory for the first time since October last year.

However, the island 130 kilometers off the Chinese coast has largely kept the virus outbreak under control. With the number of cases worldwide
topping 3 million, Taiwan has kept its infections at 429.

Thehealth authorities in Taipei have reported no new cases of the coronavirus for the past four
days .
Economists and investors are struggling to estimate just how big the economic impact of the virus will be. The International Monetary Fund
predicted earlier this month that the Taiwanese economy will shrink 4% this year, its biggest economic contraction on record. At the other end of
the spectrum, the Taiwanese government is holding steadfast to its official forecast of growth of up to 1.8% for
the year.

“Everyone’s estimates are all over the place because everything now just depends on the outbreak ,” said Liu
Cheng-yu, an economist at Taipei-based First Capital Management. “All the variables, such as the virus’s impact on
economic activity and governments’ relief measures, are in flux right now.”
Taiwan’s regional economic peer South Korea suffered its biggest economic contraction since the global financial crisis last quarter, with GDP
falling 1.4% quarter on quarter. In a worrying signal for Taiwan, Korea’s chip exports lost momentum.

Still, Taiwan’s economy has so far withstood a testing year . It shrugged off the impact of the U.S.-China
trade war faster than its Asian peers after a surge in domestic investment by Taiwanese companies looking to ease their over-reliance on
Chinese production lines helped minimize the shock.

If it manages to come out of this crisis relatively unaffected, it will be in a strong position to outperform the
other Asian Tiger economies for a second year in a row.

Strength of Taiwan’s economy is key to continued deterrence of China. Decline

makes worst-case invasion scenarios likely.
An ’18
Internally quoting Richard Bush, former Chair of the American Institute in Taiwan – which is the mechanism through which the
United States government conducts substantive relations with Taiwan in the absence of formal diplomatic relations. Also
internally quoting Shelley Rigger, a Taiwan expert at Davidson College. Also internally RAND Corporation – a nonprofit
institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND focuses on issues that impact
people around the world including security, health, education, sustainability, growth, and development. David An is a Senior
Research Fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute, a D.C. based think tank. He holds an advanced MA and PhD international affairs
coursework at UC San Diego and Catholic University. He was formerly a political-military officer responsible for East Asia at
the U.S. State Department. Davis specifically worked with The Secretary of State's staff to identify and develop US State
Department Political-Military Bureau strategies on priority federal legislative and policy issues. “Reconstructing Taiwan’s
Military Strategy” - The National Bureau of Asian Research - NBR special report #69 - February 2018 - #E&F -
https://www.nbr.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/publications/special_report_69_an_february2018.pdf

According to Richard Bush, former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, “It is fair to say that the Republic of China
( ROC ) has been under some degree of siege” and that the “nature of that siege has changed significantly over time, both objectively
and subjectively.”2 For Bush, the most serious threat to Taiwan’s autonomy is the possibility that the People’s
Republic of China ( PRC ) will use force to achieve unification; to this end, it has sought to isolate Taiwan from the rest of
the international system.3 While Beijing is willing to grant special status for Taiwan’s government within a united China—a policy of “one
country, two systems”—it expends considerable diplomatic energy ensuring that no country or organization takes any action that would suggest
that Taiwan has sovereign status within the international system. In a report for the Strategic Asia Program published in 2016, Steven Goldstein
rhetorically asks if Taiwan is “Asia’s orphan.”4 Taiwan is thus under global siege, slowly being cut off from the international space.

Like Syracuse under Agathocles, Taiwan is trying to avoid a fight on its own turf by maximizing its forward-
defensive capabilities. On March 16, 2017, under questioning by the Legislative Yuan, Defense Minister Feng Shih-kuan verbally
confirmed for the first time that Taiwan possesses a long-range conventional missile counterstrike capability.5 Shelley Rigger notes that such
deterrence is directed at preventing the PRC from attempting to use force to compel unification on Beijing’s
terms.6 However, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) also suggests in its 2017 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) that Taiwan’s ability to
strike an adversary’s ground-based assets would be limited to attacking military installations. The “guiding principle” of the QDR is to “resist the
enemy on the other shore, attack the enemy on the sea, destroy the enemy in the littoral area, and annihilate the enemy on the beachhead,” with no
mention of civilian targets.7 Though these military programs have been under development for decades, the fact that Taiwan is now publicly
disclosing such plans indicates a shift toward a more transparent and forward-defensive approach to deter potential adversaries in multiple
domains of war—air, sea, land, and now even at a farther distance.

Taiwan faces a series of problems and questions. As noted by Bush and Rigger, its greatest
In formulating its current military strategy,
security problem remains the PRC’s improving military capabilities and stated willingness to employ
them toward the goal of “peaceful unification. ” Strengthening Taiwan’s military capabilities not only will help
defend the island but could benefit the region by giving Taiwan the ability to assist with other threats such as North Korea and the
territorial disputes in the South China Sea. However, the biggest question for Taiwan is the uncertainty regarding the U.S. security commitment.
Another question is whether Taiwan’s public recognizes the threat posed by China and will enable elected officials to respond by prioritizing
funding for military personnel and equipment, and perhaps even elevating the social status of military service members.

This NBR Special Report builds on two prior reports for the Strategic Asia Program as part of a three-year study of national power in Asia. In
“Taiwan’s Strong but Stifled Foundations of National Power,” Robert Sutter and David Gitter assessed whether Taiwan’s capabilities are
adequate to achieve its national objectives, while Steven Goldstein’s report “Taiwan: Asia’s Orphan?” analyzed the country’s strategic culture. In
the discussion that follows, I reconstruct Taiwan’s range of possible military strategies. The first section provides an assessment of the threat that
China poses to Taiwan, while the second section examines the history of its military strategy. The report then describes Taiwan’s material power
and military capabilities. The final two sections assess the implications of the current military strategy for Taiwan itself, the United States, China,
and other potential adversaries and consider four alternative strategic options.

Assessment of the Threat

In 2013, Taiwan recognized that China was developing its anti-access/area-denial capabilities, which were “increas[ing] the U.S. risk when
engaging in regional affairs, causing the credibility of its security commitment to be questioned and challenged.”8 Since then, China has
continued to modernize its military and weapons systems. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) now possesses the
capability to impose a blockade on Taiwan and conduct multidimensional operations to seize offshore islands. It has also “established a
cyberattack capability to collect its electro-magnetic parameters, monitor, cut off, and interfere with surveillance, reconnaissance, command and
control systems.”9

Judging from recent history—particularly the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1995 and 1996—a potential threat is that China will launch a long-range
missile strike against Taiwan to cause panic among its population and coerce the island into accepting China’s preferred political outcome.
Another reason to think that a missile strike is the main threat against Taiwan is that until recently the conventional wisdom was that China’s
amphibious forces were relatively undeveloped, which would constrain its options for a land invasion. However, there are limits to looking to the
past to divine the future. A
recent assessment by the U.S. Department of Defense that “the PLA continues to
make modest gains in amphibious warfare by integrating new capabilities and training consistently” provides a
rationale for Taiwan to prepare for more than merely a missile strike.10

China is developing diverse capabilities and planning for a range of scenarios regarding Taiwan. Under President Hu Jintao, the PLA had five
major military priorities relative to Taiwan: establish military readiness, conduct demonstrative exercises, impose a blockade on the Taiwan
Strait, carry out combined firepower attacks, and conduct a cross-sea landing.11 China has worked to develop amphibious invasion capabilities
and has trained for this scenario.12 Based on Taiwan’s own assessment, China’s preparations for an invasion of the island include the following
steps: preliminary engagement, electromagnetic control operations, air superiority, sea control operations, and landing.13

First, China would conduct decapitation missile strikes aimed at military installations, to include naval vessels in port, fighter aircraft in bunkers,
locations of military leaders, and possibly locations of civilian government leadership. This would “soften” the target to prepare the way to
contest the air, sea, and then land.
Next, China would attempt to disrupt various communication links between fighter aircraft and ground stations and between aircraft pilots, naval
vessels, and other key nodes of command and control. This would be a fight for the command-and-control element of the broader command,
control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) between elements of a country’s own military
forces. China could achieve this goal through precision missile strikes, successful computer network attacks, or the actions of any possible PLA
forces and saboteurs already emplaced inside Taiwan.

After much of Taiwan’s aircraft, naval vessels, missile systems, and military communications have been disrupted by the first wave of missile
strikes, the next step would be for China to achieve control of the skies. Sea and land dominance cannot occur without air dominance, given that
naval vessels and ground troops will be an easy target from the air. There is also the possibility that air superiority could end in a stalemate, in
which there is air denial for all sides as the airspace above and surrounding Taiwan becomes a no-fly zone.

Fourth, if China can either gain air superiority or create a no-fly zone such that its advancing forces are not threatened, then the next step would
be to launch naval vessels and enlist civilian maritime vessels to move into the vicinity of Taiwan to support Chinese military operations. As
mentioned above, it cannot do this so long as Taiwan maintains air superiority because naval vessels would be vulnerable to attack in the narrow
Taiwan Strait.14

Finally, once its naval vessels can safely approach Taiwan, China could launch an amphibious invasion to deliver troops to the island’s shores.
The PLA already conducts regular training for amphibious landings, including under difficult weather conditions and at night.15

Taiwan’s MND judges that China will seek to minimize the time between these stages. It predicts that “the PRC will aim for a short battle and
quick victory before foreign forces can intervene, thus establishing a political reality that will prevent further intervention.”16 As they play out in
reality, these operations may resemble one swift, seamless thrust across the strait rather than occurring in discrete stages. Among China’s
operational concepts for an amphibious assault on Taiwan, the most prominent publicly available statement is the Joint Island Landing Campaign,
which “envisions a complex operation relying on coordinated, interlocking campaigns for logistics, air, and naval support, and electronic
warfare.”17 China’s objective would be “to break through or circumvent shore defenses, establish and build a beachhead, transport personnel and
materiel to designated landing sites in the north or south of Taiwan’s western coastline, and launch attacks to seize and to occupy key targets or
the entire island.”18

Therefore, rather than consider only discrete scenarios in gradual steps, it would be more prudent for Taiwan to prepare for the possibility that
China would launch a quick and full invasion .19 Yet al though there is some logic to this worst-case
scenario, insofar as seizing and holding the island is the only way that guarantees Beijing control of Taiwan when hostilities end, RAND
researchers concluded that it is unlikely that China would undertake such a “desperate gamble” at the present
time , given that Taiwan could “possess a robust ability to defeat an invasion attempt.”20
History of Taiwan’s Military Strategy

Considering Taiwan’s relatively small size, it must utilize an asymmetrical approach to its national defense that employs asymmetric measures,
dissimilar strengths, and nonconventional means utilizing high-speed stealth vessels, shore-based mobile missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and
other unique tools.21 The primary objective of this strategy is to avoid the enemy’s strength while using suitable tactics and tools to attack its
weaknesses so that Taiwan can fight on its own terms.22 The use of asymmetric means to engage an adversary farther away from Taiwan is also
necessary because the island’s compact size allows an adversary to establish air and land dominance more easily than if Taiwan instead occupied
a large geographic landmass.

Nearly a decade ago, Taiwan’s military strategy was one of “resolute defense and credible deterrence,” designed to sustain a conflict and avoid a
quick defeat by prioritizing the island’s defense and creating advantageous conditions.23 This strategy aimed to “extend space to buy time,”
given that Taiwan cannot trade distance for time.24 The first aspect (resolute defense) means surviving the enemy’s first strike, averting
decapitation, maneuvering forces for a counterstrike, and sustaining combat power to achieve the objectives of “strategic protection and tactical
resolution.”25 Due to limitations such as having much less military equipment and personnel than China, the MND’s reports from around that
time called for asymmetry by focusing on contingency operations, force mobility, asymmetrical warfighting, and capabilities that can stop or
delay the enemy offensive.26

The second aspect (credible deterrence) requires capabilities that combine firepower, joint operations, and training to force “the enemy to
rationally calculate the costs and risks of invasions.”27 These are all asymmetric ways for a military with less equipment and personnel to hold its
ground against a major power with greater resources.

For several years, Taiwan maintained this strategy of resolute defense and credible deterrence . In 2013, however, it began
to seek the “innovative development” of its military, citing growing friction in the East and South China Seas, and tensions on the Korean
Peninsula as justifications for this strategic shift.28 As a result, it adopted the “innovative and asymmetric” concept to strengthen its warfighting
capabilities, including joint air, sea control, and ground defense capabilities.29 In addition, the
2013 QDR mentioned Article 22 of
Taiwan’s National Defense Act, which calls for the development of a self-reliant defense industry and prohibits Taiwan’s
military from importing products that can be supplied by domestic manufacturers .30 This led to a
new emphasis on indigenous development .
Taiwan’s current military strategy includes the following five goals:

• Safeguard the nation

• Cultivate a professional military

• Realize defense self-reliance

• Protect people’s well-being

• Strengthen regional stability

To achieve these goals, the 2017 military strategy continues to call for “resolute defense,” but with a new emphasis on
“multi-domain deterrence.” 31 The new emphasis combines the earlier focus on developing asymmetric capabilities with efforts to
improve joint capabilities across military services to project force in unison across the air, sea, and land domains. Multi-domain
deterrence imposes “multiple interdictions” and “joint fire strikes” to degrade enemy capabilities by essentially layering
its defense to improve protection of the island.32 Layered defense in multi-domain deterrence supports Taiwan’s
guiding principle of resisting the adversary on its shore, attacking at sea, and annihilating the enemy on its beachhead.33 To do so,
Taiwan recognizes that it must enhance information, communications, and electronic warfare capabilities and command-and-control
capabilities; secure critical information infrastructure; improve force preservation; and exploit “the natural buffer of the Taiwan Strait.”34 To
these ends, it must continue to adopt innovative and asymmetric means and develop joint capabilities .35
Taiwan’s Material Power and Military Structure

Material Power

Taiwan’s material military power is drawn from its economic power .36 The stronger Taiwan’s
economy , and the larger its GDP, the more resources the government can direct into military capabilities ,
including weapons systems and payment for personnel . In this respect, Taiwan’s economic resources are considerable.
Its GDP is ranked 23rd in the world for 2017, at $571.50 billion, which is $1.18 trillion when adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP). Spread
across a population of some 23 million people, this is equivalent to a GDP per capita of $49,800 when adjusted for PPP.37

Taiwan has a history of indigenously producing some weapons systems, especially those it has difficulty
obtaining from other states.38 Impatience with the United States’ reluctance to supply certain weapons has led Taiwan to successfully
design and manufacture indigenous weapons such as a defensive fighter aircraft and various Hsiung Feng missiles. It also plans to develop
indigenous defense submarines. The MND has established a “development strategy for defense industries” to acquire advanced technologies and
produce weapons systems and equipment indigenously.39 Though developing indigenous weapons systems involves investment risk, to not do so
would continue to foster excessive dependence on the United States for major weapons systems, which Washington can be reluctant or unwilling
to provide at times. From 2014 to 2015, the ROC Armed Forces concluded 10,088 procurement cases at a value of $6.2 billion. Among them,
9,970 cases (or 98.83%) were domestic procurements, totaling $5.3 billion, while only 118 cases (or 1.17%) were overseas procurements, worth a
total of $919 million.40 Taiwan’s National Defense Report 2015 lists specific defensive technology developments, noting that from 2014 to 2015
there were a combined 182 research programs.41 Additionally, the report mentions that there are “72 key technology R&D programs underway
across 7 categories, including stealth and nanotechnologies, helping to lay a sound foundation for key national defense technologies.”42 These
numbers demonstrate the maturation of Taiwan’s domestic defense manufacturers.43

The Air Force as the First Line of Defense

The ROC Air Force is the first line of defense against a PRC missile coercion or invasion scenario. If the island
were attacked, long-range missiles would take the fight closer to the adversary’s home. Taiwan’s air capability would make the attacker feel the
consequences of such aggression and therefore deter potential aggression in the first place.

Chinese invasion of Taiwan prompts US involvement. Nuclear exchange ensues.

Dibb ‘19
Paul Dibb is emeritus professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University. Dibb joined the Australian Intelligence
Community in 1970 as an analyst in the Directorate of Economic Intelligence of the Joint Intelligence Organisation. He was the
head of the National Assessments Staff from 1974 to 1978, the director of the Joint Intelligence Organisation from 1986 to 1988,
and the head of the Defence Strategy and Intelligence Group with the rank of Deputy Secretary in the Department of Defence
from 1988 to 1991. “Australia and the Taiwan contingency” – The Strategist - 6 Feb 2019 - #E&F – modified for language that
may offend - https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australia-and-the-taiwan-contingency/

President Xi Jinping has recently reiterated China’s threat to use military force against Taiwan. On 2 January 2019, he
warned that China would not rule out the threat of military action to reclaim Taiwan: ‘We make no promise to give up the use of military force
and reserve the option of taking all necessary means.’ Since taking office in 2012, Xi has made it clear that taking back Taiwan
would be the crowning achievement in his vision (plan) to restore China’s place as a great power .
The key question now is whether Xi will come under more pressure this year to invade Taiwan because of the
rising tensions he is facing—both domestically with declining economic performance and internationally with an
increasingly assertive America. Resorting to a serious external crisis over Taiwan would serve to divert the attention of
the Chinese people to a major issue of national pride.
There can be no doubt that China is developing the military means to attack Taiwan decisively . The US
assessment is that the People’s Liberation Army is capable of increasingly sophisticated military actions against Taiwan and is overcoming its
historical inability to project power across the Taiwan Strait, which is the natural geographic advantage of the island’s defence. Beijing’s options
include a maritime blockade, an intense air and missile campaign to degrade Taiwan’s defences, and an outright amphibious invasion to seize and
occupy key targets or the entire island.

Even so, large-scale amphibious invasion is one of the most complicated and difficult of military operations. An attempt to invade
Taiwan would ‘strain China’s armed forces and invite international intervention ’, making an amphibious invasion of Taiwan ‘a
significant political and military risk’. Beijing needs to be aware of the huge international opposition that would be generated by its occupation
of a vibrant democracy of 24 million people. However, the longer Beijing defers using military force, the stronger a unique sense of Taiwanese
identity is becoming. In that respect, time is not on Beijing’s side.

From America’s point of view, it must recognise that any military conflict with China in such proximity to the mainland will increasingly work to
Beijing’s advantage as it develops the modern, advanced capabilities to project military power. But we
tend to underestimate the
importance the US puts on the defence of Taiwan. Australians see (consider) Taiwan as more marginal than
do the Americans.
There is now a consensus across the political, security and economic communities in Washington that China is America’s major adversary. As
Vice President Mike Pence made plain in his speech to the Hudson Institute last October, China wants nothing less than to push the United States
from the Western Pacific and ‘attempt to prevent us from coming to the aid of our allies’. The days are gone of the US not standing
up to (countering) an increasingly aggressive China.
However, two of my colleagues at the ANU, Professors Hugh White and Brendan Taylor, are of the view that the game is over for Taiwan.
White argues that no American leader can dismiss the risk that a conflict over Taiwan would escalate to a
nuclear exchange ‘involving devastating strikes on US cities’, which he asserts would prevent the US
from coming to Taiwan’s defence. He also believes that strategically it’s hard to see that reunification harms US interests ‘because
possession of Taiwan by China would not make any real difference to the strategic balance between the US and China in the Western Pacific’.

Such a complacent attitude ignores the grave implications for extended nuclear deterrence for US allies such as Japan
and Australia. Abandoning Taiwan to a Chinese military takeover would threaten the balance of power in the
region by significantly undermining the trust and confidence of US allies.

Taylor holds the view that America’s ability to intervene in the Taiwan Strait is receding and is already at its limit. Any US advantage will likely
be gone in a decade, he claims, thus allowing Beijing to deny America access to the theatre, while an attempt by the US to re-engage carries the
risk of sparking ‘a war like no other’.

In the Cold War, there were the same sorts of arguments about the overwhelming ability of Soviet military
power to
occupy West Germany. Washington’s response was to develop nuclear weapons with the specific
mission to destroy the Soviet leadership. America has never resiled from contemplating the use of
nuclear weapons and, moreover, possesses unique conventional prompt global strike weapons.
(Note to students: the term “resiled” means “to abandon a position or a course of action”.)
**Aff vs. Offcase = here
 vs. Extra-Topicality
Note to students: this will be most useful when the Aff reads Pan Text #2 – which we will do in the first
practice debate.
 2AC vs. Extra-T “Arrest Warrants”

We meet --- arrest reform is policing reform

ACLU 18 --- ACLU Minnesota, Website created 2018, https://www.aclu-mn.org/en/issues/racial-
justice (BJN)
Racial justice includes criminal justice reform and policing reform, as well as eliminating inequities in housing, education, employment,
healthcare, community and economic development, and other areas. Our current strategic priority for racial justice focuses on criminal justice
reform and policing reform, but we will collaborate with other organizations that focus on other aspects of racial justice. Criminal justice reform
encompasses prosecution and sentencing reform, reductions in mass incarceration, and bail reform. Policing
reform includes
rectifying arrest practices, reducing police violence, and eliminating racial profiling. We can measure success if
we are able to change police policies; advance police training; reduce arrest, charging, incarceration, and probation disparities; increase diversion
alternatives; reduce the collateral consequences of a criminal record; and eliminate the criminalization of poverty.

Counter-Interp --- Policing is order maintenance and community service --- arrest
process meets
Steverson 08 --- Leonard A. Steverson, Ph.D., is assistant professor of sociology at South Georgia
College in Douglas, Georgia, “Policing in America”, 2008, https://books.google.com/books?
id=BZ1TsIXk-n8C&dq=%22term+policing+is%22+%22criminal+justice%22&source=gbs_navlinks_s
(BJN)
Other police scholars note that there are different functions, roles, duties, or various other terms to describe what the police do. Policing
can be seen as
having two primary functions— ordermaintenance and community service , along with a related set of duties. Order
maintenance has the associated duties of law enforcement, patrol, traffic control, and investigation;
community service has the associated duties of acting as a community resource and providing crime prevention
programs. Order maintenance refers to the function that helps promote a safe and lawful environment for the community in which the police work. While some
scholars describe a separate police function of law enforcement, it can be argued that the actual enforcement of laws, which includes the
arrest, apprehension, and prosecution of offenders, is actually a measure taken to ensure that social order is
maintained; therefore it is part of the order maintenance function. The police provide order maintenance also through patrol work, traffic control,
investigation of crimes, and other means. The community service function is often seen as secondary to order maintenance, especially to the notion
of crime fighting. However, it must be considered a major function because it comprises much of what the police actually do . Common
activities of the police include serving as a community resource and assisting victims and potential victims of
crime. The police are certainly part of a larger interdisciplinary network of providers of services to communities and can often be found working in crime pre34
Problems, Controversies, and Solutions vention education programs, child advocacy programs, mentoring underprivileged children, and a host of other activities.

Prefer our interpretation:

- neg overlimits --- narrow policing definitions force the aff into conventional
police reforms --- which lose to the state CP every time --- Defining policing as
the broader state powers is key to flex
 - precision --- our interp gives meaning to policing reform in the broader
context of CJR

Estelle 18 --- Sarah M. Estelle, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Economics in the Department of
Economics and Business at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, and director of the Markets & Morality
program. She is a research fellow at the Acton Institute., Criminal justice reform: What is it and why does
it matter?”, ACTON INSTITUTE POWERBLOG, December 20, 2018,
https://blog.acton.org/archives/105399-criminal-justice-reform-what-is-it-and-why-does-it-matter.html
(BJN)

Criminal justice reform isn’t just about conviction and sentencing , though. The criminal justice system
has an impact even before a crime is committed by policing that can deter or prevent crime. If a crime is
committed, the pipeline of justice proceeds through crime reporting, criminal investigation, prosecution
and criminal trial, the court’s decision, sentencing and then the corrections system including prison or jail,
parole, probation and other punishment.

We meet --- Policing includes prosecution activities

Conser 11 --- James A. Conser, PhD, CPP, Professor Emeritus @ Youngstown State, “Law
Enforcement in the United States”, 2011, Page 3-5,
http://samples.jbpub.com/9780763799380/99380_ch01_pass01.pdf (BJN)

LAW ENFORCEMENT AND POLICING The term policing, on the other hand, refers to a subset of law
enforcement that applies to the process of regulating the general health, safety, welfare, and morals of society as it relates to
criminal behavior. The policing function in the United States is primarily observed through the operations
of the criminal justice system in the prevention, detection, investigation, and prosecution of crime. The
personnel affiliated with agencies who are engaged in policing functions can be referred to as law
enforcement personnel; however, in the United States, police officials are a unique group of law
enforcement officials because they are armed and are authorized to use coercive and physical force , under certain
conditions, when carrying out their duties. They are non-military, armed, governmental personnel who
are granted the authority to prevent, detect, investigate, and prosecute criminal behavior and to
apprehend alleged offenders. Figure I -2 illustrates the policing agencies as a subset of the law enforcement community.

Vote on reasonability
Call 02 --- Dr. Charles T. Call is an Assistant Research Professor at the Watson Institute for
International Studies of Brown University, “Challenges in Police Reform: Promoting Effectiveness and
Accountability”, International Peace Academy, 2002, https://www.ipinst.org/wp-
content/uploads/publications/challenges_in_police.pdf (BJN)
Diverse policy and academic communities have sought to define ‘police reform’ but no single, widely shared
understanding of the concept prevails. In some ways, police reform resembles the famous story of five blind men feeling different
parts of an elephant, each man holding an entirely different perception to the others. This lack of shared concept means that
policymakers and practitioners have no unequivocal answers to several key questions such as ‘How is success
measured?’ and ‘Who are the relevant actors and counterparts?

Extra-T isn’t a voter

- Just reject the advantages stemming from arrest warrants.
- That wouldn’t skew the 2NR – Aff would have a worse advantage and lose all time we invested
in developing the arrest warrant advantage.
 1AR - “we meet”

Policing includes prosecutorial aspects

Karatay 09 --- Akin Karatay PhD Candidate, University of Southern Mississippi, “AN ASSESSMENT OF
DEMOCRATIC POLICING IN THE TURKISH NATIONAL POLICE: POLICE OFFICIALS' ATTITUDES TOWARD
RECENT POLICE REFORMS “, Abstract of a Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Studies Office of The University of
Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Aug 09,
https://aquila.usm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2092&context=dissertations (BJN)

The term police can be defined as the people who are recruited, trained, and uniformed by government and given the authority to arrest and use
deadly force (Bayley & Shearing, 1996). The
term policing can be described as a body of functions and 10 services,
ranging from law enforcement responses to crime in either the preventive or the prosecutorial aspects, to
promoting various quality-of-life aspects of the community (Forst, 1999, p. 3). Manning (2005a) defines policing in a
cross-national context. Policing can involve sacred policing (e.g., Iran), totalitarian policing (e.g., the former Soviet Union, North Korea),
continental policing (e.g., Germany, France), transnational policing (e.g., United Nations peacekeeping forces), and private or corporate policing
(e.g., privatized military industry) (Manning, 2005a). Skolnick's (1975) description of the police role is highly profound. He contends that
policing is influenced by "police milieu, danger, authority and efficiency" and that these elements generate distinctive cognitive and behavioral
patterns which can be characterized as the "working personality" (p. 42) of the police.
 1AR - Counter-Interpretation

Defining “police” is insufficient --- policing is broader --- includes agents outside of
the police
Osse 06 --- Anneke Osse, Senior Advisor at the Netherlands Police Academy, “UNDERSTANDING
POLICING A resource for human rights activists”, Amnesty International Nederland, First published in
2006, https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/HRELibrary/sec010112007eng.pdf (BJN)

The term policing is used with many different meanings in mind; most notably it is referred to as the
process of ‘ensuring compliance with the law’ in all its aspects. It should be apparent that ensuring such
compliance can never be achieved by the police alone. Policing may indeed encompass more agencies
and entities than just the police and is sometimes even taken as a social process involving civil society at
large rather than a professional duty carried out by a State agency. However, such an interpretation of the concept of
‘policing’ may create unnecessary confusion, underlined by the fact that Human Rights and the Police 43 5 ) The word first appeared
c.1530 in the English language, as a synonym for ‘policy’, that is civil administration . Up to the mid-19th century,
‘police’ in English meant both ‘civil administration’ and, borrowed from French, ‘administration of public order’. Online Etymological
Dictionary, at www.etymonline.com. 6 ) See for example; Cachet, A., 1990, Politie en sociale controle. 7 ) Das, Dilip K., 1997, “Challenges of
policing democracies: a world perspective.” p. 628. the term is not always easy to translate in other languages. We will therefore use a simple
definition and define policing as ‘what the police do to ensure compliance with the law’.

Policing inherently NOT a single organization

Wright 12 --- Alan Wright, Visiting professor at the Centere for Criminal Justice Policy and Research,
Birmingham City University “Policing: An Introduction to Concepts and Practice”, Routledge, Dec 6,
2012, https://books.google.com/books?id=e4O3AwAAQBAJ&dq=%22The+term+policing
%22&source=gbs_navlinks_s (BJN)
How, then, should we proceed? In aligning the question of the meaning of policing so strongly to the idea of practice rather than function, it is
necessary to say more about the notion of practice and to show why it is of crucial importance. Policing practice, in the sense in which we use
the term here, is concerned with the sphere of conduct . Conduct configures actions carried out by
individuals, agencies or by parts of the formal police organisation . Like the new police and its successors,
contemporary policing is beginning to be characterised by new forms of conduct. Policing is now the
output of a variety of agencies with multiple objectives and lines of accountability. We can no longer speak of
policing as though it relates to the activities of a single organisation . According to Coleman and Norris: The
police should not be equated with policing, an activity that can be performed by a number of
agencies . The role of the police is better thought of as the reproduction of order by authoritative
intervention and symbolic justice, rather than in terms of crime control. (Coleman and Norris, 2000: 145) The
correctness of the latter remains to be seen. Although it is clear that we should talk of policing in this wider sense , it is
important not simply to replace single-agency functionalism with multi-agency functionalism . For this reason,
we have to be more careful than ever about what we mean by the term 'policing'. The ambiguity and contested
nature of the concept means that the very idea of policing and its practices need to be under continual review.
 Additional Aff extension cards

Compassionate release is sentencing reform

ROBERT 20 --- AMANDA ROBERT, legal affairs writer, joined the ABA Journal staff in 2019. She
previously worked for the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and Chicago Lawyer as an assistant editor and
staff writer, “Advocacy organizations call for compassionate release of elderly, sick prisoners”, ABA
Journal, April 21st 2020, https://www.abajournal.com/web/article/advocacy-organizations-call-for-
compassionate-release-of-elderly-sick-prisoners (BJN)

In establishing compassionate release , the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 required the Bureau of Prisons to
identify prisoners who met the criteria outlined by the U.S. Sentencing Commission and file motions in court
seeking reductions in their sentences. The court would then decide whether to grant those motions.

Sentencing reform includes compassionate release

Cox 18 --- Robynn Cox, Ph.D., assistant professor at the University of Southern California’s Suzanne
Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, is currently a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of
Minneapolis’ Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute in Minneapolis, Minn, “Compassionate Release
and the Decarceration of Older Prisoners”, Aging Today, November/December 2018,
https://www.asaging.org/blog/compassionate-release-and-decarceration-older-prisoners (BJN)
Sentencing Reform and Use of Compassionate Release Recently, a number of states have begun to implement another wave of
sentencing reform to reverse the mass incarceration brought about by the first wave, initiated during the 1970s. With an
aging incarcerated population, one that disproportionately suffers from many chronic illnesses and infectious diseases, compassionate
release is a tool policymakers can use to decrease the imprisonment rate among a group of offenders with a
very low likelihood of re-offending, but a relatively high cost to incarcerate. Although precise costs are unknown, it is estimated that
incarcerating older individuals can cost anywhere from two to nine times that of younger prisoners, due to greater healthcare requirements.

We’re CJR
Patrick 19 --- Robert Patrick, reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “St. Louis prosecutor declining
more cases and issuing fewer arrest warrants as part of reform efforts”, St Louis Post Dispatch, Jan 2019,
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-prosecutor-wants-office-to-use-
alternative-sentences-for/article_915b1003-ea5f-5a45-ae88-e91257a97d09.html?mode=nowapp (BJN)
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner’s office is declining to prosecute more cases and is issuing an
increasing number of summonses instead of arrest warrants, says a report issued by her office Wednesday on her
criminal justice reform efforts. In a news conference at St. Luke Memorial Baptist Church, Gardner said she was releasing data
from her office’s partnership with the Vera Institute, a New York-based group that says it wants to improve justice systems that
“ensure fairness, promote safety and strengthen communities .”
vs. Abolition Kritik
 2AC vs. Abolition K

( ) Perm – do the Aff and all non-competitive parts of the Alternative.

( ) No link – decarceration is NOT the kind of reform that’s inconsistent with

radical demands. Our Ben-Moshe ev specifically addresses Coates’ error replication
claim and proves that nothing about the Aff stifles foundational broader change.

( ) Framework
Affs should get to weigh their plan. The 1AC proves policy is a prereq for pragmatic
change. Neg impact framing can’t zero-in on one impact or representation without
teaching us that violent tradeoffs and practical solutions should be ignored.

( ) Coates is wrong. It’s public policy – not structural determinants – that are the
root cause.
Gottschalk ‘15
Dr. Marie Gottschalk is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania who is known for her work on mass
incarceration in the United States. Gottschalk is the author of The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in
America, published in 2006, and Caught: the Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics, published in 2016. Her
research includes investigations of the origins of the carceral state in the United States and the critiques of the scope and size of
the carceral network and its intersections with race and economic inequality. he received her B.A. in history from Cornell
University, her M.P.A. from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from
Yale University. “Raze the Carceral State” – Dissent – October 1, 2015 - Fall, 2015 edition – #E&F - Obtained via the database
OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson).

We need to resist the belief that the only way to raze the carceral state is to tackle the root causes of crime—
massive unemployment, massive poverty, and high levels of social, political, and economic inequality. The U.S. penal system is the
result of policies that can be dismantled in several years even if these structural determinants of crime
persist. As a panel of experts from the National Academy of Sciences recently concluded, changes in
public policies, not rising crimes rates, were the main engines of the decades-long spike in the incarceration rate .
An overemphasis on the structural causes of crime overshadows the fact that about half of the people in state
prisons are serving time today for nonviolent offenses, many of them property or drug offenses that would
not warrant a sentence in many other countries . Many others are serving savagely long sentences for violent
offenses even though they no longer pose serious threats to public safety .

changes in penal policy , not an assault on structural problems and the root causes of crime,
Comprehensive
have been the main drivers of successful decarcerations elsewhere, including Finland in the 1960s and 70s,
Germany in the 1980s, and California under Governor Ronald Reagan. Support for reentry is an important and noble cause. But the
focus of reform needs to expand way beyond the people who are being released. Reducing the number of people who are sent to jail or prison in
the first place and slashing sentence lengths and time served for future and current prisoners must be top priorities. Criminal justice reform should
be guided by the principle that lengthy sentences should be reserved for people who continue to pose major threats to public safety.

( ) Their “criteria” link isn’t exclusive with the Aff, or their Alt fails because
releasing violent criminals won’t get mainstream buy-in.
Carrier ‘19
et al; Nicolas Carrier - Associate Professor at Carleton University and The Director of the Institute of Criminology and Criminal
Justice – From Chapter 23: “Abolitionism and Decarceration” in the book: The Handbook of Social Control - Deflem, M. (ed.), -
#E&F - Modified for language that may offend - p. 324-26

If abolitionistthought and struggles are transnational, they cannot enter mainstream political discourses and debates as
easily as can decarceration programs divorced from an abolitionist agenda . It is precisely when such a
divorce is evident that abolitionists problematize decarceration . Before turning our attention to the usual and less usual
questions forwarded to abolitionism, we wish to make more explicit abolitionist problematizations of liberal decarceration.

It should first be noted that, since the mid‐1970s (Knopp et al., 1976), decarceration
has been one of the strategies advocated
by those working toward a world without prison. Abolitionist proposals of decarceration thus pre‐date their
contemporary liberal (e.g., Smart Decarceration Initiative) and conservative (e.g., Right on Crime) versions. Decarceration has
been described as one of “four interrelated strategies” that form the “attrition model” for the abolition of the
prison “and for building a caring community” (Knopp, 1994:206). These include: (a) a moratorium strategy
aimed at “stopping the growth of the prison system by saying no to building more cages”; (b) “a decarceration
strategy to release people from jails and prisons” by expanding the use of such mechanisms as parole for prisoners; 3) “an
excarceration strategy that moves away from the notion of imprisonment” through community ‐based
sanctions such as probation for the convicted and “dispute mediation” (e.g., transformative justice) as an alternative to the penal
process; and (d) “a strategy of restraining the few” for those whose “behaviors would still present a real
threat to public and personal safety,” notably “sex offenders,” who would be temporarily restrained by the “least restrictive,
most human options…in the most restorative environment possible” (Knopp, 1994).

The project to relocate penal control in non‐prison settings through decarceration measures might have some appeal to prison abolitionists. For
them, the very idea of criminal justice – responding to “crimes” through legally authorized forms of harm – is not problematic. But decarceration
as the overarching reformist agenda remains totally disagreeable to them. They can muster more than 30 years of empirical research in the penal
field to show that diversion measures typically – although not always (McMahon, 1992) – result in net‐ widening effects (Cohen, 1985). The
introduction of conditional sentences (“house arrest”) in Canada in the 1990s is one of many documented instances (La Prairie, 1999). In Canada,
as elsewhere, a wide range of alternatives to detention come with conditions (e.g., alcohol prohibitions), and individuals found in breach of them
offend the administration of justice – a “crime” punishable by prison time (see Deshman & Myers, 2014); this is a perfect illustration of the
endogenous expansion of the “system of deviancy control” (Cohen, 1985).

While abolitionists (e.g., Aubert & Mary, 2015; Ben‐Moshe, 2013; Carlton, 2016; Mathiesen, 1974) do see value in negative or non‐reformist
reforms that improve the material conditions of the criminalized, many are also concerned about reformist reforms enhancing the legitimacy of
state punishment and/or control. Some aspects of these concerns can be illustrated by returning to the Sanders proposal to achieve decarceration
in part by diverting some criminalized persons through measures such as drug‐treatment courts. Abolitionists are not only concerned about net ‐
widening effects, they are also sickened by the association of coerced “therapy” (i.e., correction) with justice. Drug ‐treatment courts are
intrusively punitive apparatuses built upon treating “addiction” under the threat of incarceration (Hannah‐Moffat & Maurutto, 2012). They
mobilize a responsibilizing and individualizing interpretive grid, avoiding any questions of social and transformative justice. These surveillance
devices are miles away from the ethics of knowledge, proximity, and dialogue promoted by penal abolitionists, and they disable any attempts to
locate sociologically problematized situations surrounding prohibited psychoactive substances. In other words, drug‐treatment courts are
apparatuses focused on the self‐referential reality of the criminal legal system – they aim, for instance, to reduce “recidivism” – rather than being
means toward understanding and responding to the needs of persons and their communities. Thus, any “decarceration” program that utilizes drug‐
treatment courts represents a potential pathway to the prison and penal intervention.
Usual (and Less Usual) Questions Asked to Abolitionists

Prison, penal, and carceral abolitionism are built on a core set of arguments or logics, many of which make the project of decarceration, on its
own, unattractive. Attempts to shift debates beyond decarceration and toward truly abolitionist projects are typically met by head ‐scratching and a
barrage of queries. Before concluding, we consider some of the usual (and less usual) questions forwarded to abolitionists. We do this in part to
invite abolitionists to continue a set of long‐standing international dialogues, but also with the hope these will be extended to remove some blind
spots in abolitionist thought.

What about the “Dangerous Few”?

Typically, the first question raised by abolitionist agendas revolves around incapacitation . Abolitionists
generally recognize the need, in some contexts, to temporarily incapacitate some human beings. In the mid‐1980s,
abolitionists could still divert the question of “the dangerous few ” and focus on the “new kind of questions” raised by
abolitionism (Scheerer, 1986:10). Such an approach, even if still practiced, is no longer satisfactory. And abolitionists
have fallen short in facing head‐on the problem of egregious harms . The classic prison abolitionist’s answer is a
statement on minimalism, a proposal for radical decarceration: almost everybody incarcerated does not present a credible threat to others. A lot of
Sophisticated
criminological research can be used to question the ability of criminal legal apparatuses to correctly identify dangerousness.
arguments can be developed to trouble the very notion of dangerousness and/or to support the idea that the ultimate causes of
problematized situations are not reducible to a singularized wrongdoer. Yet, some forms of unspeakable (unfathomable) harm
inflicted upon individuals and groups will always threaten to give a fatal blow to “abolitionism qua abolitionism” (i.e., an
abolitionism that is not minimalism with a different name) (Carrier & Piché, 2015b:8). Norms that coalesce around the need to recognize the
value of others’ life and dignity are currently constantly violated at different scales, and not so infrequently by actors who are supposed to
embody the virtue of our current moral order. Rather than framing dangerousness as something present within “few” human beings, Saleh ‐Hanna
(2015) has suggested that abolitionists should instead see the notion of the “dangerous few” as a phantasm of punitive white supremacists. She
maintains that the dangerous are not few but many, and that these dangerous actors are frequently part of and/or protected by criminal legal
systems. She contends that opposing abolitionism with the figures of the serial killer or the mass shooter should not lead abolitionists to come up
with blueprints to manage “the dangerous few,” but instead to deconstruct it.

( ) Alt fails – three reasons:

A - Change will be slow – kills 100,000 people behind bars that can’t survive the
delay.
B- Too utopian – Ben-Moshe says no one will adhere to extreme demands.
C- Joseph card includes De-fund. Including that is net worse for broad change
Zorn ‘20
Eric Zorn is an op-ed columnist and daily blogger for the Chicago Tribune, specializing in politics.“Column: Activists’ call to
‘defund the police’ is a confusing message that could backfire” – Chicago Tribune – June 8 th - #E&F -
https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/eric-zorn/ct-column-defund-the-police-destructive-misunderstood-zorn-20200608-
bjqlkgplcrdwlomumuhzveyaq4-story.html

Column: Activists’ call to ‘defund the police’ is a confusing message that could backfire
One little ambiguous prefix threatens to undo much of the apparent progress in the area of justice over the past two weeks:

That prefix is “de-,” as used in the dangerous phrase, “Defund the police.”

The slogan is being used widely in protests sparked by the death of George Floyd May 25 in Minneapolis after an officer knelt on his neck for
nearly nine minutes. Those protests also reference numerous similar police killings and the scores of recent instances captured on video of
outrageous, gratuitous uses of police force against citizens engaged in related protests.

One of the common functions of “de-” is to signify a thorough reversal:

Defrost, for example. Decapitate. Deactivate. Declassify.

And a common meaning of “defund” is to zero out a budgetary line item, as in the frequent proposals for the federal government to defund
Planned Parenthood, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), the National Endowment for the Arts
and so on.

In that sense, “defund the police” translates to a demand to stop using tax dollars to pay for the salaries of officers and the other considerable
expenses of conventional law enforcement.

Numerous companion signs at rallies reading “abolish the police” reinforce that translation, which was underscored Saturday when the leader of a
rally in Minneapolis told Mayor Jacob Frey, “We don’t want no more police!”

When Frey responded, “I do not support the full abolition of the Police Department,” protesters hounded him away with chants of “Go home,
Jacob!” and “Shame!”

I’m sure video from that scene is already being cut into dozens of Republican campaign commercials for the fall.

Abolish the police? Completely absurd. As the bloody, destructive weekend of May 29-31 in Chicago vividly illustrated, law
enforcement officers, for all their faults, seem to be the only thing standing between civil society and total chaos.

But in numerous media explainers, activists and commentators argue that this translation misinterprets the meaning of “defund.”

Another common functions of “de-” is to signify a reduction or movement away from.

Deregulate, for example. Decentralize. Devalue.

“Defund the police” in this sense means reallocating public resources so that men and women with guns on their hips aren’t tasked with dealing
with mental health and drug crises, homelessness and other social issues.

“Defund the police” means taking a broader, smarter, less violent approach to how we advance the goal of public safety even as we insist on
better training and greater, swifter accountability for misconduct.

“Defund the police” means breaking the code of silence and piercing the veil of lies that protect bad officers. It means not allowing police unions
to provide cover for their members with special, generous disciplinary procedures in their contracts.

That all doesn’t fit neatly on a sign.

But “Reimagine the police” does. As does “Rethink the police,” “Reorganize the police” or “Revamp the police.”

Those open-ended slogans invite more creativity than “Reform the police,” a call that by now carries the whiff of decades of failure.

And those slogans aren’t easily demagogued by political opportunists bent on inspiring panic in suburbia and other strongholds of swing voters.

Much of America has been galvanized by recent events and appears more receptive than ever to the idea that police relations with the African
American community are dangerously, destructively toxic, and that incremental change isn’t going to repair the damage.

Police have been helpfully illustrating their proclivity for excessively violent overreaction by repeatedly instigating attacks on citizens while
camera phones are trained on them.

Momentum is on the side of change now. Events have laid the problem bare and the search for real solutions is on.

The use of a slogan that requires patient and nuanced clarification is a losing strategy . Painting it in huge
letters on the street near the White House is a contribution in kind to President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign.
Chanting words that make your side appear soft-headed and naive is likely to fuel skepticism and even alarm among potential
allies. It risks letting this moment slip away .

The imperative is clear: Decommission “defund.”

( ) The Aff can solve – it inverts society’s flawed ontological understanding of who
gets defined as “human”.
Heckelman ‘17
Jonah Heckelman – The Jeffrey L. Tanenbaum Essay Prize in Philosophy, Politics, and Law recognizes an outstanding paper
about law or legal institutions written by a junior or senior undergraduate student majoring in Philosophy, Politics, and Law
(PPL). Heckelman won for this paper and was an undergrad at Binghamton University when writing this piece. “The Imperative
of Decarceration” – Spring, 2017 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend - https://www.binghamton.edu/philosophy-
politics-and-law/pdfs/heckelman-tanenbaum-essay-spring2017.pdf

Below, I address this question and suggest that blacks who have never been incarcerated have even stronger grounds for complaint against the social reality of mass
imprisonment and the ways in which it has compounded the stigma of racial marginality. I aim to expose the ways in which the arrangement of the American criminal
justice system during the age of mass incarceration is a wrong of distributive justice against African Americans generally.
Differential, racebased punishment on a systematic scale is different from individual cases of prosecutorial discretion. I will show that the former is unjust because it
attaches stigmatizing stereotypes to, and imposes various harms on, not merely convicted parties and offenders, but rather
the whole social group in question. As I shall argue, the widespread propagation of these stigmatic portrayals is
unjust because they promote discriminatory and aversive group relations and inhibit the achievement of integration which is an
imperative of justice.

Let us imagine that there are two assaults, and that the district attorney (DA) only presses charges against one of the offenders. Although the victim of the unpunished offender may have a
complaint against the decision not to press charges, it does not necessarily follow that the charged individual (or the charged individual’s family, etc.) have a complaint that the offender is not
being charged. Would it not still be permissible to pursue charges against the first? Most people would likely agree with the intuitively appealing notion that criminal liability is not reducible
based upon how others are treated. In other words, at the individual level, it seems reasonable to punish someone for a crime they committed, even if someone else who committed the very same
crime goes unpunished. If one person gets off because the DA does not prosecute, and we agree with many people’s intuition that the person who committed the assault and was convicted of it
cannot complain of being penalized just because someone else was not, then what possibly could the complaint of African Americans against differential punishment be? If the resultant harms
and disadvantages that flow from the carceral experience are a consequence of the criminal wrongdoing of offenders, then why should we think that ‘bystanders’, let alone the convicted parties,
have a right to complain? As I shall argue, the striking and distinctive wrong at issue is the racebased, systematic targeting of African Americans and their unfortunate receipt of differential
treatment in all spheres of criminal justice and penal management. This constitutes a wrong because it leads to the propagation and popularization of the inaccurate and dangerous conflations of
blackness and criminality, in such a way that not only harms convicts, but also their neighbors, their communities and their whole social group. Carceral hyperinflation has engendered and
concretized stigmatic circumstances which continue to cause and perpetuate disadvantages that burden innocent blacks today.

“Imprisonment is an illegitimate timeout that confers an enduring stigma.”33 However, this official and near permanent status of criminality attaches not just to individual offenders, but to whole
social groups defined by their race. 34

“Middle class blacks often complain that they are avoided like criminals, even when they go out of their way to dress in respectable clothing.”35 This
attachment of criminality to blackness is exemplified by Western’s finding that “the labor market does not differentiate so strongly between
black non-inmates and ex-inmates.” 36 Avoidance of the sort is indicative of what Anderson refers to as default status. Regardless of how blacks act

or present themselves, they suffer expressive harms and their dignity is constantly under attack. It is reasonable to assume that the observed level of
attachment would not be possible if differential punishment was confined to the biased discretion of one
DA. Moreover, the stigmatization that flows from the DA case is radically different than that which flows from the criminal justice system’s comprehensive and
punitive targeting, over policing, disproportionate surveilling and harsh treatment of African Americans. Insofar as, the latter of the two differential responses to crime
embodies and reproduces stereotypical norms that constitute a harm to all blacks, not just those who commit crimes. As indicated by Western’s statistical analysis,
even those African Americans who have successfully exercised upward mobility and done all in their power to better their lives and make a positive contribution to
society, are nonetheless burdened by the unequal distributions and default status that flow from the unjust and preferential enforcement of those laws that are most
likely to lead to the arrest and prosecution of poor and ‘unruly’ African Americans.

On a smaller scale, like in the case of the DA, discretionary punishment serves to disadvantage the offender (and perhaps even his family and those who care about or depend on his well being).
Here, it is reasonable to hold the view that one’s actions warrant the consequences, maybe even those imposed on his loved ones. For example, if the son of an incarcerated man must suffer from
the reality of a fatherless childhood, his complaint seems to be against the individual choices his father exercised. Can we similarly characterize some of the most consequential effects of
systematic differential punishment, which are distinctive from the implications of the instance of prosecutorial discretion? Moreover, to what extent, if at all, can we rightly claim that African
Americans may have a legitimate complaint against “the practical revivification and official solidification of the centuries old association of blackness with criminality”? 37 How might the
historical and contemporary perceptions about race and crime mark additional salient differences between the two cases of preferential and discretionary punishment?

In the film The Birth of a Nation, released in 1915, a white man with black face makeup stalks and preys on an innocent white girl. Although many Americans today would openly reject the
animalized depiction of black men and would likely characterize it as inaccurate, their thought processes could still be biased by unconscious stereotypical norms that are inevitably reinforced by
the criminal justice system’s propagation of negative portrayals. As noted by Anderson, “mere common knowledge of the stereotype, can interfere” with cooperative race relations and
subsequently harm blacks and perpetuate the causes of inequality. 38 “We should not be neutral between stigmatizing and nonstigmatizing representations of innocent groups. The stigma is
objectionable in and of itself.”39 Even though individuals may very well reject overt notions of blacks as being inherently criminal, they may engage in “evaluative discrimination” by supporting
tough on crime legislation (which in practice, impacts blacks far more harshly than it does whites), and by exhibiting other subtly harmful forms of conduct. Anderson explains this tendency at
great length in chapter three of her book. Increasingly punitive trends seem to have bolstered the prevalence with which isolated whites associate blacks with crime.

The processes of stigmatization depicted in The Birth of a Nation have been reinforced and revitalized by mediatic and political elites of all stripes. Their racially distorted rhetoric heightened the
degree to which the American populous consciously and unconsciously associated crime with blacks. Elite actors (for various reasons and to serve different existing interests) have constructed a
politically charged “criminal personae, legendary or fictional characters who reinforced the linkages between blackness and crime.”40 Mass incarceration and the public discourse surrounding
and feeding it have compounded all three dimensions of stigmatized public standing noted by Anderson. High crime rates and the unsubstantiated, disproportionate, and persistent focus of anti-
crime activity on blacks, has induced fear, anxiety and stress, which impair cooperative racial relations. Carceral hyper expansion propounds the prevalence with which isolated whites associated
blacks with crime, even when they engaged in certain crimes more frequently than blacks.

Mike Males details the sad reality that “authorities, academic experts, politicians, and geriatric media reporters (the average age of news consumers is well over 50), of 2013 simply do not know
how to deal with a young black population that is not committing shootings, robberies, drug mayhem and gangsterism in mass numbers...from CNN’s Anderson Cooper to First Lady Michelle
Obama, young black men are always misrepresented as getting more violent.”41 The American inability to deal with young blacks in a way that is comparable to their white counterparts and
reflective of the rate at which they engage in illegal activities, is extremely problematic and stems from the profound difference between the respective implications of individually versus
systemically produced differential punishment.
A study found that “there was a substantially and significantly higher risk that minority youth would be apprehended and charged” for minor transgressions and infractions in schools, than “the
whites who reported committing the same kind of offenses.”42 It is important to remember that these youths had not broken the law or committed actual crimes. Instead, black children’s play is
treated punitively by the state’s penal arm. In contrast, the very same actions for whites are “dealt with more sensitively and individually at every stage of the juvenile justice process.”43
Prohibitions exist against all youths (under the age of 18) entering the army, driving, living on their own, etc. These rules presume a youthful innocence. That presumption does not extend to
young black people. Rather they are widely considered culpable enough to be punitively disadvantaged for minor transgressions in school. It is highly unlikely that those imposing these harsher
sanctions are overtly aware of their racialized dispositions, but black youth are nonetheless left to bear the consequences of stigmatized perceptions and the costs of closely associated harms. The
institutional character and force of carceral trends have fueled the stigma surrounding young black men (and even youth), and have seriously compounded marginalization by systematically
responding to the same behaviors across racial groups in a differential fashion. The magnitude and nature of these responses constitute a unique harm in that blacks are subjected to systematically
induced, life altering, stigmatic consequences and constant efforts to criminalize and target them during their daily lives.

Blacks are subjected to these biased evaluations many facets of social life. African American men and people of color
are generally more likely to be stopped and frisked by police . These policing tactics are often practiced with relative impunity and
minimal oversight. For instance, in NYC, from 2002-2011, black and Latino residents made up more than 90 percent of those stopped and frisked by police. Of those
3.2 million New Yorkers, 88 percent were found to be innocent. 44 Blacks who reside in predominantly White neighborhoods are often subjected to frequent searches.
They may find themselves face down on the ground without even the slightest clue as to why they are being interrogated and searched. They are forced to deal with
sentiments of anxiety and a halo of discomfort that surrounds them, even when their non-deviance is corroborated by an illegally performed search. Police are
supposed to ensure people’s safety. Thus, when White males walk down the street and see (witness) a black man
surrounded by officers, they will, rather rationally (and at a bare minimum, subconsciously), associate him with
criminality, thereby linking him to a threat to their wellbeing and safety. The lack of accountability in these intensively discriminatory and
systematically diffused tactics, induces unjust evaluations that harm the dignity and reputations of innocent blacks.

Carceral expansion has perpetuated the prominence of these biases all over the country, and in doing so, has increased
the commonality of discriminatory cognitive processes and the harms they tend to produce.

Mr. Harvey, an African American man from San Diego, reported that police had stopped him as a suspected gang member over 50 times, because he lived in one of the city's most violent
neighborhoods. He was told by the police that he was in a gang database, even though he was not a gang member. 45 This sort of conduct impugns the expressive harms of stigma. It may not be
intentionally racist; however, it exacerbates racial injustice. “It also undermines the prospects for smooth and positive interracial interaction that are essential to a flourishing civil society.”46 I, a
white male, having seen mostly blacks, from whom I have always been isolated, getting stopped and frisked by the police, am subsequently more likely to be plagued by fear and anxiety than I
otherwise would be. Even if the operative nature of my decision is subconscious and well intentioned, I am subsequently less likely to hire a black male when looking for a new employee.

The differential character of mass incarceration causes stigmatization by increasing the commonality,
noticeability and default status of blacks as criminal . It propagates the reputational injuries endured by all
(and often innocent) blacks. It imposes harms on blacks as a group, not just the individual offenders . The
imposition of this harm is often a result of public stigmatization not private convictions. Penal expansion has concretized the century old portrayals of blacks as
deviant and dangerous beings. Its rise has hardened unconscious, biased depictions of blacks as criminals, and of criminals as black. Innocent men are searched and
harassed at will and suffer reputational injuries as a result. Americans, particularly White Americans, are more likely to contribute to, or be complicit in the production
of the downward mobility of law-abiding Blacks. They are also more likely to justify black circumstance with the surplus of stereotypical and stigmatic ammunition
provided to them by the systematic imposition of racialized carceral differences.

To cope with the reality and consequences of these pervasive stigmatic wrongs, African American women have been forced to assume the role of “caregivers” in their communities. “In the era of
mass incarceration, women must assume new burdens of community caregivers”, a title that refers to “the constant work they are required to do to keep their family members from the long
reaches of the criminal justice system.”47 Here we can see the imposition of a burden on women who have done nothing wrong. They must bear the negative costs of carceral expansion and
shield their loved ones from the processes of criminalization and the punitive tendencies of the state.

Nicholas Peart, a young African American man from New York City, writing in a New York Times opinion piece, expressed his hope that police practices will change; that when he eventually
has children, he will not have to pass along his mother’s advice never to try to stand up for his rights when dealing with the police. Peart has been stopped and frisked in NYC plenty of times in
his life, and each time, he was cooperative and found innocent. Regardless of how tempting deviating from his mother’s advice may have been, Mr. Peart always decided against attempting to
excersice his rights. 48

Racially disproportionate responses to certain crimes have increased the ubiquity and the pervasiveness of implicit, often unconscious, cognitive processes that cause people to associate innocent
African Americans with harmful criminal stereotypes. The age of mass incarceration has promoted unjust reactions to the relentlessly injured reputation of blacks to the extent that Black
Americans with no criminal history are just as likely to get a job as those who have been convicted of a crime. Whether these discriminatory trends result from purposeful actions of individuals is
irrelevant. The salient dynamic at play is rather that of systematically criminalizing innocent blacks, regardless of an individual evaluator’s intentions. Both segregation and mass incarceration
have bolstered the prevalence of the perception of innocent blacks as threatening and fear inducing. The generation of unjustified fear and anxiety constitute expressive harms to blacks because
they are inaccurately evaluated by biased individuals whose perceptions are skewed by racially stigmatizing ideas.

Independent of the specific complaints of offenders and ex-inmates, those blacks who have never been incarcerated have grounds for complaint against the social reality of carceral expansion.
Anderson explains that in the case of innocent and stigmatized group members, “the victim’s complaint is rather that she has been inaccurately evaluated in an unfair way because her evaluator’s
judgements were distorted by racially stigmatizing ideas. This complaint, in contrast to complaints of prejudicial and statistical discrimination, does not require any imputation of discriminatory
purposes or beliefs to the actor. It merely requires the practical engagement of stigmatizing ideas.”49

This is crucially important regarding the formulation of a normative response to the reality of mass imprisonment. Regardless of our ability to impute discriminatory purpose at the individual
level, the fact that “at every stage, from arrests through sentencing, African American men were (and still are) treated more harshly than whites were for identical crimes”50, can still be
characterized as an injustice as it can be causally tied to the multitude of stigmatic and discriminatory wrongs. The social reality of mass incarceration characterized by the extreme over
representation of blacks at all stages of the carceral pipeline induces unprecedented levels of engagement with these harmful stereotypes. This is particularly evident when you look at
criminalizing black youth despite the lowest violent crime rates among them in recorded history. 51 If not for these wide spread, racially flawed - often unconscious - perceptions, innocent blacks
would be better off, and optimistic news such as the historic low of crime rates among young blacks would be more widely acknowledged.

Mass incarceration and the distinct character of racialized differential practices and the implications of this phenomenon, have served to
stimulate and harden stereotypes and subsequently bolster discriminatory tendencies in America. It undermines
blacks’ access to important material and socio economic goods and has been conducive to the continued isolation of African Americans from the social body.
Individuals who have served their sentences are permanently burdened by their criminal status and are forced to cope with major disadvantages in virtually all facets
of life. Unprecedented levels of race-based differential punishment have impaired the realization of equality of opportunity by propagating stigmatic stereotypes which
underlie unjust political distributions and social relations.

However uncontrollable, the deeply ingrained stigmatic reality of cognitive processes in the United States constitutes a harm to blacks as a group. Regardless of intent or purpose, discrimination
of all forms has worsened the current standing of blacks and can be causally tied to the amplification of enduring racial inequality in America. The strength and appropriateness of Anderson’s
normative conclusions about racial inequality, and her depiction of society at large as normatively responsible for the deepening of persistent, social, economic, and political gaps, are reinforced
by the salient differences between an isolated case of prosecutorial discretion, and a criminal justice system -- whether deliberately or not -- that is institutionally targeting a particular race for a
specific class of crimes, thereby producing and proliferating a myriad of disabling disadvantages and burdens imposed on all members of that already marginalized racial group.

The rapid growth of the criminal justice system and the state’s penal arm has not created, but has exacerbated these massive racial inequalities. But for mass
incarceration, far fewer racial inequalities would exist . Just as Anderson asserts that integration should help dismantle longstanding
injustices regarding socio economic opportunity, public recognition and democratic politics, I suggest that decarceration and an overall reduction in the

immense force of the United States penal arm should be seen (considered) as the pragmatic solution to a broken and racially

unjust system of punishment which continues to this day to inhibit “a restructuring of intergroup relations, from alienation, anxiety, awkwardness, and
hostility to relaxed, competent civil association and even intimacy; from domination and subordination to cooperation as equals.”52 Would the overall reduction of the
state’s punitive force allow for the realization of a political distribution more conducive and better suited to democratic values and racial justice? If so, we have good
reason to support the logical extension of Anderson’s position to cover and address considerations pertaining to race-based carceral inflation and its propagation of
stigma-induced inequality.
 1AR – Perm and No Link

Extend our Perm – do the Aff and all non-competitive parts of the Alternative.

The perm doesn’t split the Left – the Neg does. Insisting that it’s “abolish” or
“reform” kills the only viable solutions for justice.
Ben-Moshe ‘11
Liat Ben-Moshe - B.A. Tel Aviv University, 2000; Certificate of Advanced Study in Women and Gender Studies, Syracuse
University, 2005; Certificate of Advanced Study in Disability Studies, Syracuse University, 2008 - “Genealogies of Resistance to
Incarceration: Abolition Politics within Deinstitutionalization and Anti-Prison Activism in the U.S.” - DISSERTATION
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology Syracuse University
December 2011 - #E&F - https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1070&context=soc_etd

the most fruitful tactic is perhaps

Through examples from KROM, the Swedish penal abolition group, Mathiesen (1974) shows that
to keep the relationship between abolition and reform open . As long as this occurs, the organization has
both competing and contradicting powers in relation to the current structure. It is very telling that
opponents to such organizations try to place them as either reform or revolutionary/abolition. For Mathiesen,
the relation between reform and abolition is a political and strategic continuum, not a binary. In reality, deciding
between the two is making a choice between being regarded as irrelevant and radical, or being co-opted
and ineffective. Mathiesen exemplifies how KROM was made to look like either a radical and political organization that does not care about
the welfare of actual prisoners, or that it is irrelevant because it is not service oriented or does humanitarian work (like the red cross for example).
Some abolitionists go even further to suggest that the term “abolition” in itself is unhelpful in the struggle to create an equitable view. For
example, some suggest discarding language that limits the current movement to either abolition or prison
activism and creates “prickly coalitions” with those who are not necessarily anti-prison but ARE for promoting
human dignity, equality, and justice (Lee 2008).

We’ll house the “no link” debate here

Decarceration is the kind of reform that’s inconsistent with radical demands. Our
Ben-Moshe ev is great on this and says the Aff can be consistent Coates’ broader
appeal to social change.

COVID is a unique moment that allows the Aff to be consistent with a broader re-
imagining of the criminal justice system.
ACLU ‘20
Internally quoting Nick Hudson, policy & advocacy strategist for the ACLU of Texas - ACLU Texas – “DATA MODEL
SHOWS TEXAS COVID-19 DEATH TOLL AT 2,000 MORE PEOPLE THAN CURRENT PROJECTIONS” – April 23 rd -
#E&F - https://www.aclutx.org/en/press-releases/data-model-shows-texas-covid-19-death-toll-2000-more-people-current-
projections
COVID-19 could claim the lives of approximately 2,030 more people in Texas than current projections specify if jail populations
are not dramatically and immediately reduced, according to a new epidemiological model released today by the ACLU and
academic research partners. The total U.S. death toll could be 100,000 more people than current predictions due
to failures to reduce jail populations.
Four counties in Texas form part of the 20 largest jail systems in the country and appear in the model as seeing significant death increases. These
include Harris County, Dallas County, Bexar County, and Tarrant County. The epidemiology model estimates that if no action is taken, more than
1,100 people will die in Texas jails within the ext six months.

“As our local and state leaders get guidance on how best to handle the severity of the disease caused by novel coronavirus, it is critical that they
weigh the role that jails and prisons serve as vectors for the spread of COVID-19 in both the communities inside and outside,” said Nick Hudson,
policy & advocacy strategist for the ACLU of Texas. “The ACLU data model shows even
if communities across the United States
continue to practice social distancing and good hygiene, we will still experience much higher death rates if
substantial action is not taken to reduce jail populations. This is a moment for us to recreate our justice
system so it is fair, uses fiscal resources responsibly, and respects the rights of all those who come in contact with it.”

The ACLU model used data pulled from more than 1,200 midsize and large jail systems around the country, whose surrounding communities
account for 90 percent of the U.S. population. It found that unequivocally, keeping people out of jail saves lives — both
inside the jail and in the surrounding community.
 1AR - Feagin is wrong

Feagin is wrong – State-based change is possible and can be enduring.

Omi ‘13
et al; Michael Omi is an American sociologist. Professor Omi is best known for developing the theory of racial formation along
with Howard Winant. Omi serves on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. Howard Winant – who co-authored this
piece – is a Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “Resistance is futile?: a response to Feagin and
Elias” - Ethnic and Racial Studies - Special Issue: Symposium - Rethinking Racial Formation Theory - Volume 36, Issue 6, - p.
961-973, #E&F – available via Taylor & Francis Database.

We think that race is so profoundly a lived-in and lived-out part of both social structure and identity that it exceeds and transcends racism
thereby allowing for resistance to racism. Race, therefore, is more than ‘racism’; it is a fully fledged ‘social fact’ like sex/gender or class. From
this perspective, race shapes racism as much as racism shapes race. Racial identities (individual and group), and other raceoriented concepts as
well, are unstable. They are not uniforms; races are not teams; they are not defined solely by antagonism to one another. They vary internally and
ideologically; they overlap and mix; their positions in the social structure shift; in other words they are shaped by political conflict.

In Feagin and Elias’s account, white racist rule in the USA appears unalterable and permanent. There is
little sense that the ‘white racial frame’ evoked by systemic racism theory changes in significant ways over
historical time. They dismiss important rearrangements and reforms as merely ‘a distraction from more
ingrained structural oppressions and deep lying inequalities that continue to define US society’ (Feagin and Elias 2012,
p. 21). Feagin and Elias use a concept they call ‘surface flexibility’ to argue that white elites frame racial realities in ways that suggest
change, but are merely engineered to reinforce the underlying structure of racial oppression.
Feagin and Elias say the phrase ‘racial democracy’ is an oxymoron a word defined in the dictionary as a figure of speech that combines
contradictory terms. If
they mean the USA is a contradictory and incomplete democracy in respect to race and racism
we agree . If they mean that people of colour have no democratic rights or political power in the USA, we
issues,
disagree. The USA is a racially despotic country in many ways, but in our view it is also in many respects a racial
democracy, capable of being influenced towards more or less inclusive and redistributive economic policies, social
policies, or for that matter, imperial policies.

What is distinctive about our own epoch in the USA (post-Second World War to the present) with respect to race and racism?

Over the past decades there has been a steady drumbeat of efforts to contain and neutralize civil rights, to restrict racial democracy, and to
maintain or even increase racial inequality. Racial disparities in different institutional sites employment, health, education persist and in many
cases have increased. Indeed, the post-2008 period has seen a dramatic increase in racial inequality. The subprime home mortgage crisis, for
example, was a major racial event. Black and brown people were disproportionately affected by predatory lending practices; many lost their
homes as a result; race-based wealth disparities widened tremendously. It would be easy to conclude, as Feagin and Elias do, that white racial
dominance has been continuous and unchanging throughout US history. But such a perspective misses the dramatic twists and turns in racial
politics that have occurred since the Second World War and the civil rights era.

Feagin and Elias claim that we overly inflate the significance of the changes wrought by the civil rights
movement, and that we ‘overlook the serious reversals of racial justice and persistence of huge racial inequalities’ (Feagin and Elias 2012, p.
21) that followed in its wake. We do not. In Racial Formation we wrote about ‘racial reaction’ in a chapter of that name, and elsewhere in the
book as well. Feagin and Elias devote little attention to our arguments there; perhaps because they are in substantial agreement with us. While
we argue that the right wing was able to ‘rearticulate’ race and racism issues to roll back some of the gains of the civil
rights movement, we also believe that there are limits to what the right could achieve in the post-civil rights
political landscape.

So we agree that the present prospects for racial justice are demoralizing at best . But we do not think that
is the whole story. US racial conditions have changed over the post-Second World War period, in ways that Feagin and Elias
tend to downplay or neglect. Some of the major reforms of the 1960s have proved irreversible ; they have set powerful
democratic forces in motion. These racial (trans)formations were the results of unprecedented political mobilizations, led by the black movement,
but not confined to blacks alone. Consider the desegregation of the armed forces , as well as key civil rights movement
victories of the 1960s: the Voting Rights Act, the Immigration and Naturalization Act (Hart- Celler), as well as important court
decisions like Loving v. Virginia that declared antimiscegenation laws unconstitutional . While we have the
greatest respect for the late Derrick Bell, we do not believe that his ‘interest convergence hypothesis’ effectively explains all these developments.
How does Lyndon Johnson’s famous (and possibly apocryphal) lament upon signing the Civil Rights Act on 2 July 1964 ‘We have lost the South
for a generation’ count as ‘convergence’?

The US racial regime has been transformed in significant ways. As Antonio Gramsci argues, hegemony proceeds through the incorporation of
opposition (Gramsci 1971, p. 182). The civil rights reforms can be seen as a classic example of this process; here the US racial regime under
movement pressure was exercising its hegemony. But Gramsci insists that such reforms which he calls ‘passive revolutions’ cannot be merely
symbolic if they are to be effective: oppositions must win real gains in the process. Once again, we are in the realm of politics, not absolute rule.

So yes , we think there were important if partial victories that shifted the racial state and transformed the
significance of race in everyday life. And yes , we think that further victories can take place both on the broad
terrain of the state and on the more immediate level of social interaction: in daily interaction, in the human psyche and
across civil society . Indeed we have argued that in many ways the most important accomplishment of the anti-racist movement of the
1960s in the USA was the politicization of the social. In the USA and indeed around the globe, race-based movements demanded not only the
inclusion of racially defined ‘others’ and the democratization of structurally racist societies, but also the recognition and validation by both the
state and civil society of racially-defined experience and identity. These demands broadened and deepened democracy itself. They facilitated not
only the democratic gains made in the USA by the black movement and its allies, but also the political advances towards equality, social justice
and inclusion accomplished by other ‘new social movements’: secondwave feminism, gay liberation, and the environmentalist and anti-war
movements among others.

By no means do we think that the post-war movement upsurge was an unmitigated success. Far from it: all the new social movements were
subject to the same ‘rearticulation’ (Laclau and Mouffe 2001, p. xii) that produced the racial ideology of ‘colourblindness’ and its variants;
indeed all these movements confronted their mirror images in the mobilizations that arose from the political right to counter them. Yet even their
incorporation and containment, even their confrontations with the various ‘backlash’ phenomena of the past few decades, even the need to
develop the highly contradictory ideology of ‘colourblindness’, reveal the transformative character of the ‘politicization of the social’. While it is
not possible here to explore so extensive a subject, it is worth noting that it was the long-delayed eruption of racial subjectivity and self-
awareness into the mainstream political arena that set off this transformation, shaping both the democratic and antidemocratic social movements
that are evident in US politics today. What are the political implications of contemporary racial trends?

Feagin and Elias’s use of racial categories can be imprecise. This is not their problem alone; anyone writing about race and racism needs to frame
terms with care and precision, and we undoubtedly get fuzzy too from time to time. The absence of a careful approach leads to ‘racial lumping’
and essentialisms of various kinds. This imprecision is heightened in polemic. In the Feagin and Elias essay the term ‘whites’ at times refers to all
whites, white elites, ‘dominant white actors’ and very exceptionally, anti-racist whites, a category in which we presume they would place
themselves. Although the terms ‘black’, ‘African American’ and ‘Latino’ appear, the term ‘people of colour’ is emphasized, often in direct
substitution for black reference points.

In the USA today it is important not to frame race in a bipolar manner. The black/white paradigm made more sense in the past than it does in the
twenty-first century. The racial make-up of the nation has now changed dramatically. Since the passage of the Immigration Reform Act of 1965,
the USA has become more ‘coloured’. A ‘majorityminority’ national demographic shift is well underway. Predicted to arrive by the mid-twenty-
first century, the numerical eclipse of the white population is already in evidence locally and regionally. In California, for example, non-Hispanic
whites constitute only 39.7 per cent of the state’s population. While the decline in the white population cannot be correlated with any decline of
white racial dominance, the dawning and deepening of racial multipolarity calls into question a sometimes implicit and sometimes explicit
black/white racial framework that is evident in Feagin and Elias’s essay. Shifting racial demographics and identities also raise general questions
of race and racism in new ways that the ‘systemic racism’ approach is not prepared to explain.

Class questions and issues of panethnicizing trends, for example, call into question what we mean by race, racial identity and race consciousness.
No racially defined group is even remotely uniform; groups that we so glibly refer to as Asian American or Latino are particularly heterogeneous.
Some have achieved or exceeded socioeconomic parity with whites, while others are subject to what we might call ‘engineered poverty’ in
sweatshops, dirty and dangerous labour settings, or prisons. Tensions within panethnicized racial groups are notably present, and conflicts
between racially defined groups (‘black/ brown’ conflict, for example) are evident in both urban and rural settings. A substantial current of social
scientific analysis now argues that Asians and Latinos are the ‘new white ethnics’, able to ‘work toward whiteness’ 4 at least in part, and that the
black/white bipolarity retains its distinct and foundational qualities as the mainstay of US racism (Alba and Nee 2005; Perlmann 2005; Portes and
Rumbaut 2006; Waters, Ueda and Marrow 2007).

We question that argument in light of the massive demographic shifts taking place in the USA. Globalization, climate change and above all
neoliberalism on a global scale, all drive migration. The country’s economic capacity to absorb enormous numbers of immigrants, low-wage
workers and their families (including a new, globally based and very female, servant class) without generating the sort of established subaltern
groups we associate with the terms race and racism, may be more limited than it was when the ‘whitening’ of Europeans took place in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In other words this argument’s key precedent, the absorption of white immigrants ‘of a different color’
(Jacobson 1998), may no longer apply. Indeed, we might think of the assimilationist model itself as a general theory of immigrant incorporation
that was based on a historically specific case study one that might not hold for, or be replicated by, subsequent big waves of immigration. Feagin
and Elias’s systemic racism model, while offering numerous important insights, does not inform concrete analysis of these issues.

It is important going forward to understand how groups are

differentially racialized and relatively positioned in the US racial

hierarchy: once again racism must be seen as a shifting racial project.

This has important consequences, not only with respect to emerging patterns of inequality, but also in regard to the degree of power available to
different racial actors to define, shape or contest the existing racial landscape. Attention to such matters is largely absent in Feagin and Elias’s
account. In their view racially identified groups are located in strict reference to the dominant ‘white racial frame’, hammered into place, so to
speak. As a consequence, they fail to examine how racially subordinate groups interact and influence each others’ boundaries, conditions and
practices. Because they offer so little specific analysis of Asian American, Latino or Native American racial issues, the reader finds her/himself
once again in the land (real or imaginary, depending on your racial politics) of bipolar US racial dynamics, in which whites and blacks play the
leading roles, and other racially identified groups as well as those ambiguously identified, such as Middle Eastern and South Asian Americans
(MEASA) play at best supporting roles, and are sometimes cast as extras or left out of the picture entirely.

We still want to acknowledge that blacks have been catching hell and have borne the brunt of the racist reaction
of the past several decades. For example, we agree with Feagin and Elias’s critique of the reactionary politics of
incarceration in the USA. The ‘new Jim Crow’ ( Alexander 2012 ) or even the ‘new slavery’ that the
present system practises is something that was just in its beginning stages when we were writing Racial Formation. It is now
recognized as a national and indeed global scandal. How is it to be understood? Of course there are substantial debates on
this topic, notably about the nature of the ‘prison-industrial complex’ (Davis 2003, p. 3) and the social and cultural effects of mass incarceration
along racial lines. But beyond Feagin and Elias’s denunciation of the ferocious white racism that is operating here, deeper
political implications are worth considering . As Alexander (2012), Mauer (2006), Manza and Uggen (2008) and movement
groups like Critical Resistance and the Ella Baker Center argue, the upsurge over recent decades in incarceration rates for black (and brown) men
expresses the fear-based, law-and-order appeals that have shaped US racial politics since the rise of Nixonland (Perlstein 2008) and the ‘Southern
strategy’. Perhaps even more central, racial repression aims at restricting the increasing impact of voters of colour in a demographically shifting
electorate.

There is a lot more to say about this, but for the present two key points stand out: first, it is not an area where Feagin and Elias and we have any
sharp disagreement, and second, for
all the horrors and injustices that the ‘new Jim Crow’ represents, incarceration,
profiling and similar practices remain political issues. These practices and policies are not ineluctable and
unalterable dimensions of the US racial regime . There have been previous waves of reform in these areas.
They can be transformed again by mass mobilization, electoral shifts and so on. In other words, resistance is
not futile.
 1AR - “Non-violent offender” link wrong

Extend our double-bind for their “non-violent offender” link.

Most abolitionists allow a violent offender exception. If they don’t, they Alt goes
nowhere with the public. Here’s more proof:
Carrier ‘15
et al; Nicolas Carrier - Associate Professor at Carleton University and The Director of the Institute of Criminology and Criminal
Justice – “Blind Spots of Abolitionist Thought in Academia” – Abolitionnisme – Abolitionism - VOL. XII | 2015 - #E&F -
https://journals.openedition.org/champpenal/9162

Perhaps the dirtiest words within abolitionist activist networks, nearly invisible within contemporary abolitionist academic
communications, the ‘dangerous few’ constitute a spectral force haunting abolitionist thought, whose
presence inexorably materializes itself as soon as abolitionist discourses navigate towards the programmatic and enter
the public arena (Ben-Moshe, 2013). Most, if not all , cultural configurations have their compendiums of ‘monsters’ (see
Foucault, 1974a [1999]), a set of constantly updated names and faces associated with acts so revoltingly egregious that they seem
to defy the very possibility of language.

Academic communications on abolitionism can certainly rely efficiently on a massive literature to trouble any faith in the ability
of criminal legal systems to adequately and accurately construct dangerousness. They can also mobilize a massive academic
literature problematizing the colonization of juridical and ‘correctional’ decisions by the logics of precaution and risk. Yet, this strategy
does not seem to even convince many abolitionists of the possibility, nor the desirability, of abolishing the
incapacitation of the ‘dangerous few’. Indeed, it is not uncommon to find in academic abolitionist
communications the assertion that incapacitation would still be used in the eventuality of the abolition of
prisons, perhaps with the caveat that incapacitation would operate through modalities of confinement that cannot be associated with our
contemporary inhumane way of warehousing criminalized bodies. For instance:
 1AR – Delay bad – kills people

Extend our Delay solvency deficit.

The Alt is too slow – killing 100,000 prisoners – no impact claim from the neg should
ignore unethical opportunity costs of delay.

Even small delays kills thousands.

ACLU ‘20
A Partnership Between American Civil Liberties Union Analytics and Researchers from Washington State University, University
of Pennsylvania, and University of Tennessee “COVID-19 Model Finds Nearly 100,000 More Deaths Than Current Estimates,
Due to Failures to Reduce Jails” – ACLU – April - #E&F - chart omitted - https://www.aclu.org/report/flattening-curve-why-
reducing-jail-populations-key-beating-covid-19

Taking these actions will directly result in lives saved in jails and in their surrounding communities.
• If we take action to reduce arrests by 50 percent, we can save 12,000 lives in jails, and 47,000 lives in the surrounding communities14.

• If we stop arrests for anything but the five percent of crimes defined as most serious by the FBI15 — including murder, rape, and aggravated
assault — and are able to double the rate of release for those already detained, we can save 23,000 lives in jails, and 76,000 lives
in communities16.

Every day that goes by without action means more people will die . Delaying action for a week could
mean a difference of 5,000-18,000 lives.17
In the top 20 jail systems by jail population, we can expect over 5,300 people to die in jails in the next six months if we take no action.
Additionally, over 13,300 more people may die than currently projected in those communities once we account for the impact of jails18.

The breakdown by county:

(chart omitted)

Because we have tailored our model to each county’s unique conditions, the death counts and impacts vary by jurisdiction. In places where the
jail population is high relative to the county’s overall population — as well as in those where people churn through jails more rapidly — jails will
have a larger impact on the spread of COVID-19. In counties where the community implemented social distancing measures earlier, jails also end
up being a bigger contributor to the total death count. Conversely, for communities where social distancing measures were adopted late — or
What holds
those which maintained other high-density hubs for the spread of infection — jails will be a smaller share of a larger problem.
true across all counties in the United States is that jails will be the cause of many additional, avoidable deaths.

Perm is best – vote to immediately decarcerate. That’s not inconsistent with

foundational change.
New York Times ‘20
Editorial Board. “No One Deserves to Die of Covid-19 in Jail” - The New York Times - International Edition - #E&F - April 29, 2020 – modified
for language that may offend - available via Lexis Daabase.
No one deserves to die of Covid-19 in prison or jail. But more than 100 inmates already have, and thousands more could if prisons
and elected officials do not take steps to protect the incarcerated now. A report from the American Civil Liberties Union predicted that an
explosion of cases in jails could cause the total death count in the United States to double.
Two weeks ago, Cook County Jail in Chicago was the nation's top hot spot for coronavirus cases, according to The Times. More than 230 inmates
and 115 staff members had tested positive, even as the majority of inmates had not been tested. This week, the Marion Correctional Institution in
Ohio became the largest reported source of virus infections. There, 2,011 inmates, about 80 percent of the prison's population, have tested
positive. In addition, 154 members of the 350-person staff tested positive. In total, at least 2,400 inmates in Ohio's prison system have tested
positive. Ten have died in Ohio's Pickaway Correctional Institution, which houses minimum- and medium-security inmates.

Infection hot spots appearing in prisons is not a fait accompli. The spread of the virus can be curbed if
prisons send home eligible inmates. (persons). The federal government and 49 states already recognize some
form of compassionate release for the elderly and very ill. If ever there were a time to show compassion to
vulnerable, nonviolent inmates, it is now. Parole boards in states with indeterminate sentencing also have the power to assess the list of
inmates set to be paroled in the next six months and to consider releasing many of them as soon as possible.

Some states have already taken action to free inmates. Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington this week commuted the sentences of 293 inmates whose
release was set to come within 60 days. In Washington, another 600 inmates are reportedly being considered for a "rapid re-entry program" that
would allow freed inmates to re-enter the community with electronic monitoring. Governors across the country should evaluate ways to use their
clemency powers to save lives.

Releasing these prisoners during this crisis is not just an act of mercy to protect prisoners' health, and the health of the prison
staff. Fewer sick inmates means less strain on the already burdened prison hospital system. The system was ill equipped
to provide proper care to the elderly and sick even before this crisis. A 2016 report from the Department of Justice found that 17 percent of
medical positions in prison hospitals were unfilled, and that 12 Bureau of Prisons facilities were so understaffed that they were at "crisis level."
Releasing high-risk inmates will free up limited resources within the prison health care system to better
treat those who remain.
A 2016 study from the Brennan Center for Justice found that there was no compelling public safety reason to
incarcerate 39 percent of the inmates in state and federal prisons, about 576,000 people . Elderly
Americans are especially unlikely to commit further crimes once released . The United States Sentencing
Commission found in 2017 that offenders over the age of 65 had just a 13.4 percent chance of being rearrested in
an eight-year period after release, compared to a 67.6 percent chance for those under age 21. The report concluded that
"recidivism measured by rearrest, reconviction, and reincarceration declined as age increased." There are more than
10,000 people over the age of 61 in federal prison . Many elderly inmates have been in prison for decades after receiving
long sentences in the tough-on-crime 1990s. Many would be good candidates for compassionate release now.

If prisons are unwilling to release some inmates outright, they could send eligible people into home confinement, at least for
the duration of this crisis. Attorney General William Barr has the authority under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic
Security Act to expand the authority of the Bureau of Prisons to send people into home confinement. He has
already ordered the Bureau of Prisons to make more inmates at federal facilities eligible for home
confinement, prioritizing those at federal facilities with outbreaks of the coronavirus in Louisiana, Connecticut and Ohio. State and local
prisons should follow suit.

State officials should also work together to limit the number of new inmates entering prisons during this crisis. Prosecutors can turn their focus
away from low-level crimes. The police can issue citations for nonviolent crimes instead of arresting people. Governors can issue moratoriums on
cash bail, ensuring that people do not get placed in overcrowded facilities just because they cannot afford to pay. That is a bad policy in normal
times, and possibly a fatal one during this crisis.

When the pandemic has passed, there will be an opportunity for broader criminal justice reforms . But
in the very short term, while inmates and staff members are dying, prisons need to release people immediately.
 1AR – Alt Fails – includes Defund

Extend that the Alt fails – it includes de-funding the police.

That will never catch-on – or, if it does, it’ll have to be watered-down – meaning the
Alt is no different than the perm.
Gira Grant ‘20
Melissa Gira Grant is a staff writer at The New Republic - “The Rush to Redefine “Defund the Police”” - The New Republic –
June 9th - #E&F – modified for language that may offend - https://newrepublic.com/article/158104/rush-redefine-defund-police

Demands to defund the police have their roots in prison abolition , a political and social vision (blueprint) of a
world without systems of criminal punishment . The broader public, including many in the media and
elected officials , lacks the history and context— or political will —to hear (consider) this demand that way. As
the call has rapidly spread to wider audiences , it has mutated , offering complex opportunities: both for new, uneasy
political coalitions to advance the demand to defund and redistribute and a countervailing reactionary effort to suppress, distort,
and strip the demand of its radical intention. In the latter case, this willful misinterpretation spans strategic
conservative panic and liberal attempts to pacify. But the meaning of “defund the police” is clear when
returned to the politics from which it was developed: As it concerns the police, abolitionism asks us to defund, disarm, and abolish. A
call to defund can’t be isolated from the larger question of, What are the police for? “Instead of asking whether anyone
should be locked up or go free,” abolitionist and scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore asks, “why don’t we think about why we solve problems by
repeating the kind of behavior that brought us the problem in the first place?”

As the momentum behind the demand grows, policymakers struggle to accept it at face value. When asked on
Tuesday on Good Morning America about Trump’s claims that Democrats want to defund the police, Democratic Senator Kamala Harris
responded reassuringly, “It’s just creating fear where none is necessary. ” As on her appearance Monday on The View, she
declined to state, when asked directly whether she supports defunding the police. When asked about Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s plans for
the Los Angeles Police Department budget—redirecting the $250 million intended to increase its budget to other city programs and cutting
another $150 million of its overall $2 billion budget—she said she “applauds what he has done.” But when
asked if Joe Biden had the
right idea in not wanting to defund the police and instead “to condition federal money on reforms ,” she
answered, “Joe Biden believes that we need to reform the system, and I couldn’t agree with him more.” Her
remarks keep Harris in the running for Biden’s vice presidential pick ; they are also, from an actually making
policy standpoint, incoherent. They unnecessarily fog up what “defunding the police” clearly means on its face.
 1AR – Aff shifts ontology

Note: the McLeod card – below – is also in the 2AC frontline to the “decarceartion dodge” turn

Extends that the Aff can solve their ontology arguments

Decarceration creates culture shifting – ending practices that form the flawed, but
pervasively-held, understandings of black criminality.

More proof that the Aff can changes police practice and re-frame dominant
understandings of criminality.
McLeod ‘12
Allegra M. McLeod - Associate Professor, Georgetown University Law Center. J.D., Yale Law School, 2006; Ph.D., -
“Decarceration Courts: Possibilities and Perils of a Shifting Criminal Law” - THE GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL - Vol.
100, p. 1587-1674 - #E&F - https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2285&context=facpub

In response to the concern raised by Spinak—that the structural problems at issue emanate from police
practices, legislatures, prosecutorial prerogatives , and the desolation of poor urban and rural
neighborhoods and so cannot be resolved by court innovation—a decarceration model directs attention to
reframing understandings of crime and punishment in ways that promise to shift police practices and
prosecutorial prerogatives, as explored earlier in Part III. A decarceration model does not purport to use the court directly to resolve
the broader problems but, in reframing and publicizing a conception of drug dependency, mental illness, and other matters as
structural and social challenges, a decarceration model: (a) makes available other ways of conceiving and managing
these concerns and (b) actively enlists police and prosecutors in the courts’ work, thereby influencing those
agencies’ perspectives and conduct. Empirical documentation of the courts’ progress may ultimately provide the basis for
legislative change, as described earlier in Part III. A decarceration model, thus, promises to effect change in policing ,
prosecution, and to do so through legislation rather than assuming that a legalist court -based strategy on its own will
effect desired change. Finally, in galvanizing resources for blighted social service sectors and neighborhoods, a
decarceration model may begin to address ( invariably only partially ) some of the broader structural
deficits to which therapeutic, judicial monitoring, or order maintenance models are less attuned due to the almost
exclusive focus of these approaches on the presumed pathologies of individuals .
 1AR vs. Root Cause

Neg root cause claims are too sweeping and wrong.

Swanson ‘5
Jacinda Swanson is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Western. Michigan University – Theory, Culture & Society August 2005 vol. 22
no. 4 87-118 – DOI: 10.1177/0263276405054992 –The online version of this article can be found – http://tcs.sagepub.com/content/22/4/87

It is thus misleading to suggest that social relations are ever solely economic, political or cultural, or that
the causes of and remedies for unjust social arrangements are singular (see also Butler, 1997c: 273, 276; Young,
1997: 154–6; Sayer, 1999). Although Fraser insists on the thorough imbrication of culture and economics, her emphasis on the
two categories of redistribution and recognition and on root causes undermines the more complex
understanding she articulates elsewhere.6 Moreover, despite her commitment to perspectival dualism – and thus her rejection of
substantive dualism and economism – in several instances Fraser describes the economy and capitalism in economically reductionist and
determinist terms (2003: 53, 58, 214–18). For instance, although she correctly insists that capitalism and culture interact, she often appears to
conceptualize capitalism and other economic activities as in themselves fundamentally economic practices that function independently of political
and cultural processes, and, related, appears to conceive economic behavior/phenomena as devoid of values. To cite just a few examples, Fraser
provides the following conceptualizations: ‘In this marketized zone, interaction is not directly regulated by patterns of cultural value. It is
governed, rather by the functional interlacing of strategic imperatives, as individuals act to maximize self-interest’ (2003: 58); ‘system
integration, in which interaction is coordinated by the functional interlacing of the unintended consequences of a myriad of individual strategies’;
and ‘a quasi-objective, anonymous, impersonal market order that follows a logic of its own. This market order is culturally embedded, to be sure.

the concept of overdetermination

But it is not directly governed by cultural schemas of evaluation’ (2003: 214). As
shows, ‘economic’ practices themselves depend on specific (cultural) knowledges, values and discourses, as
well as specific (political) rules and regulations (and vice versa). Values are therefore not confined to the cultural status order.7 In addition to
discourses and knowledges, values, for example, constitute ideas and behavior related to business enterprise success and purposes, rational
considerations and calculations, individual self-interest, appropriate and desirable objects of economic production and exchange, etc. (Amariglio
and Ruccio, 1994; Watkins, 1998). The theoretical perspective I am advocating here thus urges both the multiplication of analytical categories
and concrete empirical investigations of the numerous conditions of existence (located throughout society) of any unjust practice (see also Smith,
2001: 121). It consequently suggests that overcoming
any given form of oppression most likely will require
transforming a wide range of cultural, economic and political practices.
 1AR vs. Warming Impacts

Warming won’t cause the worst impacts - mitigation and adaptation solve
Mendelsohn ‘9
(Robert O. Mendelsohn 9, the Edwin Weyerhaeuser Davis Professor, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale
University, June 2009, “Climate Change and Economic Growth,” online:
http://www.growthcommission.org/storage/cgdev/documents/gcwp060web.pdf)

These statements are largely alarmist and misleading . Although climate change is a serious problem that deserves
attention, society’s immediate behavior has an extremely low probability of leading to catastrophic
consequences. The science and economics of climate change is quite clear that emissions over the next few
decades will lead to only mild consequences. The severe impacts predicted by alarmists require a century (or
two in the case of Stern 2006) of no mitigation. Many of the predicted impacts assume there will be no or little
adaptation . The net economic impacts from climate change over the next 50 years will be small regardless. Most of the more
severe impacts will take more than a century or even a millennium to unfold and many of these
“ potential” impacts will never occur because people will adapt. It is not at all apparent that
immediate and dramatic policies need to be developed to thwart long‐range climate risks . What is
needed are long‐run balanced responses.

No impact to warming
Hart ‘15
Michael Hart, Simon Reisman Chair at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa,
Former Fulbright-Woodrow Wilson Center Visiting Research, Former Scholar-in-Residence in the School of International
Service and Senior Fellow in the Center for North American Studies at American University in Washington, a former official in
Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, where he Specialized in trade policy and trade negotiations,
MA from the University of Toronto, “Hubris: The Troubling Science, Economics, and Politics of Climate Change”, p. 242-246

As already noted, the IPCC scenarios themselves are wildly alarmist , not only on the basic science but also on the underlying
economic assumptions , which in turn drive the alarmist impacts. The result cannot withstand critical analysis . Economists Ian
Castles and David Henderson, for example, show the extent to which the analysis is driven by the desire to reach predetermined outcomes.50 Other economists have
similarly wondered what purpose was served by pursuing such unrealistic scenarios. It is hard to credit the defense put forward by Mike Hulme, one of the creators of
the scenarios, that the IPCC is not engaged in forecasting the future but in creating “plausible” story lines of what might happen under various scenarios.51 Each

scare scenario is based on linear projections without any reference to technological developments or
adaptation . If, on a similar linear basis, our Victorian ancestors in the UK, worried about rapid urbanization and population growth in London, had made
similar projections, they would have pointed to the looming crisis arising from reliance on horse-drawn carriages and omnibuses; they would have concluded that by
the middle of the 20th century, London would be knee-deep in horse manure, and all of the southern counties would be required to grow the oats and hay to feed and
Why should the rest of humanity not be able to do
bed the required number of horses. Technology progressed and London adapted.

likewise in the face of a trivial rise in temperature over the course of more than a century ? The work on
physical impacts is equally over the top . All the scenarios assume only negative impacts , ignore the
reality of adaptation , and attribute any and all things bad to global warming. Assuming the GHG theory
to be correct means that its impact would be most evident at night and during the winter in reducing atmospheric
heat loss to outer space.52 It would have greater impact in increasing minimum temperatures than in increasing maximum temperatures. Secondary studies,

however, generallyignore this facet of the hypothesis. The IPCC believes that a warmer world will harm human health
due, for example, to increased disease, malnutrition, heat-waves, floods, storms, and cardiovascular incidents .
As already noted there is no basis for the claim about severe-weather-related threats or malnutrition . The
claim about heat-related deaths gained a boost during the summer of 2003 because of the tragedy of some 15,000 alleged heat-related deaths in France as elderly
people stayed behind in city apartments without air conditioning while their children enjoyed the heat at the sea shore during the August vacation. Epidemiological
studies of so-called "excess" deaths resulting from heat waves are abused to get the desired results. Similar studies of the impact of cold spells show that they are far
more lethal than heat waves and that it is much easier to adapt to heat than to cold.53 More fundamentally, this, like most of the alarmist literature, ignores the basics
of the AGW hypothesis: the world will not see an exponential increase in summer, daytime heat (and thus more heat waves), but a decrease in night-time and winter
cooling, particularly at higher latitudes and altitudes. Based on the AGW hypothesis, Canada, China, Korea, Northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa,
Chile, and Argentina will see warmer winters and warmer nights. There are clear benefits to such a development, even if there may also be problems, but the AGW
industry tends to ignore the positive aspects of their alarmist scenarios. The feared spread
of malaria, a much repeated claim, is largely unrelated
to climate. Malaria’s worst recorded outbreak was in Siberia long before there was any discussion of
AGW . Similarly, the building of the Rideau Canal in Ottawa in the 1820s was severely hampered by outbreaks of malaria due to the proximity of mosquito-
infested wetlands in the area. Malaria remains widespread in tropical countries today in part because of the UN’s lengthy embargo on the use of DDT, the legacy of an
earlier alarmist disaster. Temperature is but one factor, and a minor one at that, in the multiple factors that affect the rise or decline in the presence of disease-
spreading mosquitoes. Wealthier western countries have pursued public health strategies that have reduced the incidence of the dis- ease in their countries.
Entomologist Paul Reiter, widely recognized as the leading specialist on malaria vectors and a contributor to some of the early work of the IPCC, was aghast to learn
how his careful and systematic analysis of the potential impacts had been twisted in ways that he could not endorse. In a recent paper, he concludes: “Simplistic
reasoning on the future prevalence of malaria is ill-founded; malaria is not limited by climate in most temperate regions, nor in the tropics, and in nearly all cases,
’new' malaria at high altitudes is well below the maximum altitudinal limits for transmission. Future changes in climate may alter the prevalence and incidence of the
disease, but obsessive emphasis on ’global warming' as a dominant parameter is indefensible; the principal determinants are linked to ecological and societal change,
Catastrophic species loss similarly has little foundation in past experience .55 Even if
politics and economics.”54

the GHG hypothesis were to be correct, its impact would be slow , providing significant scope and
opportunity for adaptation , including by flora and fauna. One of the more irresponsible claims was made by a group of UK
modelers who fed wildly improbable scenarios and data into their computers and produced the much-touted
claim of massive species loss by the end of the century. There are literally thousands of websites devoted to
spreading alarm about species loss and biodiversity. Global warming is but one of many claimed human
threats to the planet’s biodiversity . The claims, fortunately, are largely hype, based on computer models and the estimate by
Harvard naturalist Edward O. Wilson that 27,000 to 100,000 species are lost annually - a figure he advanced purely hypothetically but which has become one of the
most persistent of environmental urban myths. The fact is that scientists have no idea of the extent of the world's flora and
fauna , with estimates ranging from five million to 100 million species, and that there are no reliable data about the rate of loss . By
some estimates, 95 per cent of the species that ever existed have been lost over the eons, most before humans became major
players in altering their environment. A much more credible estimate of recent species loss comes from a surprising source, the UN Environmental Program. It reports
that known species loss is slowing reaching its lowest level in 500 years in the last three decades of the 20th century, with some
20 reported extinctions despite increasing pressure on the biosphere from growing human population and industrialization.57 The alarmist community has also
introduced the scientifically unknown concept of "locally extinct,” often meaning little more than that aspecies of plant or animal has
responded to adverse conditions by moving to more hospitable circumstances , e.g., birds or butterflies becoming more
numerous north of their range and disappearing at its extreme southern extent. Idso et al. conclude: “Many species have shown the ability to

adapt rapidly to changes in climate . Claims that global warming threatens large numbers of species with
extinction typically rest on a false definition of extinction (the loss of a particular population rather than en- tire species) and speculation
rather than real-world evidence . The world’s species have proven very resilient , having survived past
natural climate cycles that involved much greater warming and higher C02 concentrations than exist
today or are likely to exist in the coming centuries?“
vs. Elections Disad
 Note

For more than just the 2AC frontline, please turn to the Election DIsad File (separate document). It has a
large Aff section.
 2AC vs. Elections - Decarceration Aff

1) Trump will win --- economic rebound

LIZZA & LIPPMAN 20 --- RYAN LIZZA, Chief Washington Correspondent for POLITICO, and
DANIEL LIPPMAN, Reporter covering the White House and Washington for POLITICO, “The general
election scenario that Democrats are dreading”, 5/26/20, Politico,
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/26/2020-election-democrats-281470 (BJN)
In early April, Jason Furman, a top economist in the Obama administration and now a professor at Harvard, was speaking via
Zoom to a large bipartisan group of top officials from both parties. The economy had just been shut down, unemployment was spiking and some
policymakers were predicting an era worse than the Great Depression. The economic carnage seemed likely to doom President Donald Trump’s
chances at reelection. Furman, tapped to give the opening presentation, looked into his screen of poorly lit boxes of frightened wonks and made
a startling claim. “ We are about to see the best economic data we’ve seen in the history of this
country ,” he said. The former Cabinet secretaries and Federal Reserve chairs in the Zoom boxes were confused, though some of the
Republicans may have been newly relieved and some of the Democrats suddenly concerned. “Everyone looked puzzled and thought I had
misspoken,” Furman said in an interview. Instead of forecasting a prolonged Depression-level economic catastrophe, Furman laid out a detailed
case for why the months preceding the November election could offer Trump the chance to brag — truthfully — about the most explosive
monthly employment numbers and gross domestic product growth ever. Since the Zoom call, Furmanhas been making the same case
to anyone who will listen, especially the close-knit network of Democratic wonks who have traversed the Clinton and Obama
administrations together, including top members of the Biden campaign. Furman’s counterintuitive pitch has caused some
Democrats, especially Obama alumni, around Washington to panic. “This is my big worry,” said a former Obama
White House official who is still close to the former president. Asked about the level of concern among top party officials, he
said, “ It’s high — high, high, high, high.” And top policy officials on the Biden campaign are preparing
for a fall economic debate that might look very different than the one predicted at the start of the pandemic in March.
“They are very much aware of this,” said an informal adviser. Furman’s case begins with the premise that the 2020 pandemic-triggered economic
collapse is categorically different than the Great Depression or the Great Recession, which both had slow, grinding recoveries. Instead, he
believes, the way to think about the current economic drop-off, at least in the first two phases, is more like what happens to a thriving economy
during and after a natural disaster: a quick and steep decline in economic activity followed by a quick and steep rebound. The Covid-19 recession
started with a sudden shuttering of many businesses, a nationwide decline in consumption and massive increase in unemployment. But starting
around April 15, when economic reopening started to spread but the overall numbers still looked grim, Furman noticed some data that pointed to
Consumption
the kind of recovery that economists often see after a hurricane or industrywide catastrophe like the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
and hiring started to tick up “in gross terms, not in net terms,” Furman said, describing the phenomenon
as a “partial rebound.” The bounce back “can be very very fast , because people go back to their original
job, they get called back from furlough, you put the lights back on in your business. Given how many people were furloughed and how many
businesses were closed you can get a big jump out of that. It will look like a V.” Furman’s argument is not that different from the one
made by White House economic advisers and Trump, who have predicted an explosive third quarter, and senior adviser Jared Kushner, who said
in late April that "the hope is that by July the country's really rocking again." White House officials were thrilled to hear that some of their views
have been endorsed by prominent Democrats. “I totally agree,” Larry Kudlow, head of the White House National Economic Council, replied in a
text message when asked about Furman’s analysis. “Q3 may be the single best GDP quarter since regular data. 2nd half super big growth,
transitioning to 4% or more in 2021.” He called Furman, whom he said he knows well, “usually a straight shooter. Hats off to him.” “I have been
saying that on TV as well,” said Kevin Hassett, a top Trump economic adviser, who pointed to a Congressional Budget Office analysis predicting
a 21.5 percent annualized growth rate in the third quarter. “If CBO is correct we will see the strongest quarter in history after the weakest in Q2.”
Peter Navarro, a Trump trade and manufacturing adviser who's a Harvard-educated economist, called the high unemployment America is
currently facing "manufactured unemployment, which is to say that Americans are out of work not because of any underlying economic
weaknesses but to save American lives. It is this observation that gives us the best chance and hope for a relatively rapid recovery as the economy
reopens." (Asked about his new fans in the White House, Furman responded, “They get the rebound part, but they don’t get the partial part.”) A
rebound won’t mean that Trump has solved many underlying problems. Since the crisis started, many employers have gone bankrupt. Others
have used the pandemic to downsize. Consumption and travel will likely remain lower. Millions of people in industries like hospitality and
tourism will need to find new jobs in new industries. The scenario would be a major long-term problem for any president. But before that reality
sets in, Trump could be poised to benefit from the dramatic numbers produced during the partial rebound
phase that is likely to coincide with the four months before November. That realization has many
Democrats spooked. “In absolute terms, the economy will look historically terrible come November,” said Kenneth Baer, a Democratic
strategist who worked in a senior role at the Office of Management and Budget under Obama. “But relative to the depths of April, it will be on an
upswing — 12 percent unemployment, for example, is better than 20, but historically terrible. On Election Day, we Democrats need voters to ask
themselves, ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’ Republicans need voters to ask themselves, ‘Are you better off than you were four
months ago?’” One progressive Democratic operative pointed out that recent polling, taken during the nadir of the crisis, shows Joe Biden is
struggling to best Trump on who is more trusted to handle the economy. “Trump beats Biden on the economy even right now!” he said. “This is
going to be extremely difficult no matter what. It’s existential that we figure it out. In any of these economic scenarios Democrats are going to
have to win the argument that our public health and economy are much worse off because of Donald Trump’s failure of leadership.” The former
Obama White House official said, “Even
today when we are at over 20 million unemployed Trump gets high marks on the
economy, so I can’t imagine what it looks like when things go in the other direction. I don’t think this
is a challenge for the Biden campaign. This is the challenge for the Biden campaign. If they can’t figure this out
they should all just go home .” The Biden campaign seems to recognize the challenge. “The way that Biden talks about the economy
is not just tied to the Covid crisis, it’s also about the things that Donald Trump has done to undermine working people since the day he took
office,” said Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager. “But secondly, it’s also highly likely that under any economic circumstances
in the fall, Trump is likely going to be the first modern president to preside over net job loss.” Between now and Election Day, there will be five
monthly jobs reports, which are released on the first Friday of every month. The June report, covering May, is likely to show another increase in
unemployment. But after that, Furman predicts, if reopening continues apace, the next four reports could be blockbusters. “You could easily have
1 to 2 million jobs created a month in those four reports before November,” he said. He added, “And then toward
the end of October,
we will get GDP growth for the third quarter, at an annualized rate, and it could be double-digit positive economic
growth. So these will be the best jobs and growth numbers ever.”

2) Reforms now thump

Diamond 20 --- Jeremy Diamond et al, White House Correspondent for CNN, “Trump eyes police
reforms while ignoring systemic racism” CNN Politics, June 9, 2020,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/politics/donald-trump-george-floyd-joe-biden-address/index.html?
utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_latest+%28RSS
%3A+CNN+-+Most+Recent%29 (BJN)
While the White House works to assess what kinds of policies Trump could support and publicly back,
Democrats on Capitol Hill have already charged forward with a package of legislative action, swift action
that will be the backdrop to whatever action Trump ultimately proposes . Senate Republicans have also formed
a task force to work on policing reform legislation. The group is led by Sen. Tim Scott, the chamber's only black Republican,
and includes GOP Sens. John Cornyn, Lindsey Graham, Shelley Moore Capito and Ben Sasse. After a Senate Republican lunch on Tuesday
during which Scott laid out some of his proposals -- including an anti-lynching provision, funding for police body cameras and a review of "no
knock" warrants -- the South Carolina Republican said he was working on a "separate track" from the White House. Later, Trump's chief of
staff Mark Meadows traveled to Capitol Hill along with Kushner and Smith to discuss potential police reform legislation in
Scott's office. "We're hopeful that we can address the issue in a real way ," Meadows told reporters as he departed
the Capitol. "We're letting stakeholders establish the priorities and hopefully we can be responsive with real legislation or action, we want to let
our actions speak louder than our words."

3) Voters don’t care

Farivar 19 --- Masood Farivar, covers the Justice Department and the FBI for Voice of America.,
“How Trump Gained the Upper Hand on Criminal Justice Issues in 2020 Campaign” VOA, Nov 19 th
2019, https://www.voanews.com/usa/how-trump-gained-upper-hand-criminal-justice-issues-2020-
campaign (BJN)
To be sure, criminal justice reform is not among the most pressing concerns for voters who care more
about issues such as health care, immigration and jobs, according to polling.

4) No predictions and too soon

Elving 20 --- Ron Elving, Senior Editor and Correspondent, Washington Desk, “Trump Will Win
Again. No Way He'll Win. Be Wary Of 2020 Election Predictions”, NPR, Jan 1 st 2020,
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/01/792760468/trump-will-win-again-no-way-hell-win-be-wary-of-2020-
election-predictions (BJN)

Don't put too much stock in all those New Year's predictions you're hearing and seeing about American politics in 2020. Anyone
saying they know what will happen is probably just trying to get our attention. And probably succeeding. We've all fallen
for headlines and clickbait proclaiming foreknowledge of events. We do it for sports, the stock market and just about any
other outcome that cannot be foreseen. That goes for elections — especially for elections — and particularly in a
high-stakes, pivotal cycle such as we are in now. "He's going to win again," solemn voices say, referring to President Trump and the re-election bid he formally
launched shortly after his inauguration in 2017. "There's no way he can win again," say others, with much the same tone of finality and certitude. Both

conclusions come from the same place. No matter how many rational arguments or pieces of evidence are deployed
to justify it, these are statements straight from the gut. Fact is, no one knows or can know what will happen

to Trump in 2020 — or to his challengers. No one knows what else will happen in 2020 that will affect and perhaps
determine the November outcome. Things large and small will intervene , things that cannot be foreseen or
assessed until they intervene. Striving to mesmerize "eyeballs" The presidential race is not the only one we see through a glass darkly. We do not know whether Republicans or
Democrats will win the majority in either chamber of Congress. We can run the numbers and calculate probabilities based on polls and past experience. But we are left saying both chambers will
most likely retain their current majorities, possibly with narrower margins. Such a ho-hum, belt-and-suspenders prediction is not going to mesmerize all those "eyeballs" that all media now
pursue and perseverate on. Nothing has the allure of a confident — even if unreliable — prediction about the presidency. The more confident the prediction, the more arresting the assertion, the

Take the most obvious example: 2016. As the

more it demands our attention. But attention is one thing; credence should be another. 2016 surprises

corks were popping on New Year's Eve four years ago, few could have foreseen how that year in politics would
unfold. Think back. Hillary Clinton was seen as unassailable in the Democratic primaries and a strong prospect to be the nation's first female president. She had dominated the early
Democratic debates and polling. She had weathered multiple hearings in Congress set up by Republicans who blamed her for American deaths in Libya (where attackers assaulted a U.S.
Consulate and killed the American ambassador in 2012). Bernie Sanders, an independent socialist in the Senate, was not a Democrat but was the only threat to Clinton in the primaries. A huge
Republican field was steadily devouring itself. Onetime presumptive nominee Jeb Bush was fading, and the rising candidates were Sen. Ted Cruz, a hardcore conservative from Texas, and
Donald Trump, a self-defining businessman and TV personality from Manhattan. Trump was still regarded as a novelty act by many, despite his lead in many polls. He had survived, and even

thrived, through innumerable statements widely regarded as fatal errors. Few foresaw the surge for Sanders in Iowa (a virtual tie) and New Hampshire (a
landslide win) or in later portentous primaries such as Michigan and Wisconsin. The party unity Clinton was supposed to enjoy proved illusory. The coalition that twice elected Barack Obama

would weaken in nearly all its elements. Clinton would lose the vote among white women. Meanwhile, Trump would prosper through
unimaginable controversies and rally to his side even those who had savaged him as untruthful and unqualified — including Cruz and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina. The actual events of the election year were not just improbable but impossible to foresee , as were

the remarkable reactions of many of the voters themselves. The recent unpredictables It is easy to dismiss 2016 as an outlier — even as

outlandish. But past presidential cycles may well look more predictable in hindsight than they were in real time. In hindsight,
whatever happened can come to seem inevitable. (After all, somebody winds up winning and making some prediction seem prescient.) For example, few look back on

2012 as a highly suspenseful cycle . But eight years ago, it was far from clear that Obama would win a
second term. In mid-December 2011, his approval in the Gallup Poll was just 42%, 3 points lower than the latest
Trump reading in the Gallup this month. Back then, on the Republican side, half a dozen contenders topped the polls for at least a week or two late in 2011 and it took months to
winnow the field. The nomination fell to Mitt Romney, who ran a creditable race and had a plausible scenario for winning through October. On election night, his staff was so confident that they
did not even prepare a concession speech in case he lost. Four years before that, needless to say, the 2008 cycle did not begin with great certainty for the eventual winner. Then-Sen. Obama was
making a move in the polls and getting noticed. But he had yet to win the Iowa caucuses. After a long intraparty battle, he wound up with about as many votes in the nominating events as rival
Hillary Clinton, but with an edge in delegates. On the Republican side, the hot ticket in late 2007 was still a former mayor of New York named Rudy Giuliani. His candidacy would soon crash
without ever getting truly airborne, and the nod went to Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who shocked the party by picking a largely unknown running mate in Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. Even so,
McCain might have won if a Wall Street meltdown had not kicked off what became known as the Great Recession. Needless to say, none of these developments had been glimpsed in the waning
days before that election year began. Some incumbents proved resilient But surprising outcomes are scarcely a recent development. The Gallup organization has been tracking presidential
popularity since the 1940s, and its findings are fascinating when one focuses on the transition into each presidential election year. Some incumbents end the preelection year spiking or falling, but
most are found chugging along in the mid-range. There are relatively few clues as to what awaits. Thus you have Harry Truman at the end of 1947 beginning a slide that would take him down to
36% approval by spring of his reelection year. No wonder so few thought he had a chance, even before a split over civil rights at the Democratic National Convention spawned a third-party
challenge and seemed to seal Truman's fate. Yet he won. You also have the example of Richard Nixon, who in December 1971 faced his reelection year stuck at 50% approval in the Gallup —
but wound up with nearly 60% of the popular vote in 1972 (carrying every state but Massachusetts). As that landslide piled up on election night it was hard to believe the Democratic nomination
had been deemed so desirable by so many hopefuls when the primaries began. It's hard to remember now, but Ronald Reagan also looked vulnerable in his third year in office, falling as low as
35% in early 1983 in a lingering recession. By December, things were better and Reagan had climbed all the way back to 54%. Still, the Democratic nomination in 1984 was a prize sought by
many and contested all the way to the convention. (It went to former Vice President Walter Mondale of Minnesota, who in November carried that state and that state alone.) When polls may
mislead The presidential fortunes of Jimmy Carter were particularly difficult to read. He had fallen as low as 29% approval in the Gallup in the summer of 1979 before rocketing back to 54% in
the rally-round-the-flag days after the seizing of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. At first, the hostages taken there seemed to bolster support for the incumbent, helping him dismiss the intraparty
challenge of Sen. Edward Kennedy in 1980. But in the longer run, the crisis undermined his presidency, his polling collapsed in 1980, and he lost badly to challenger Reagan. The classic case of
a president whose polling may have created a false sense of security was provided by George H.W. Bush. Bush went to a vertiginous 89% approval rating in the Gallup in February/March 1991
after U.S. troops achieved victory in the Persian Gulf War. But a recession set in later that year and Bush fell all the way to 52% by December. That number alone may not have been ominous,
had it not been for the long descent. Bush kept falling, even after the recession ended, all the way down to 29% in August. Although he recovered in the fall, he lost the presidency to Bill Clinton
that November. His son, George W. Bush, was president in September 2001 and riding at 51% approval in the Gallup when terrorists struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The next
Gallup pegged him at 90% approval, but like his father, he saw this soaring score fall back to earth — or more specifically to 50% — late in his third year in office. He stayed in that midrange,

The only consistent lesson So electoral history gives us a variety

never falling or rising more than 3 points, right through 2004 and a narrow re-election that November.

Presidents can appear formidable and still falter. They can wobble along seeming comparatively weak and yet reassert
of looks.

themselves. They can muddle through as so many do, getting thumbs up from half the electorate or less. Yet from that plateau they may rise like Nixon or
plummet like Carter and the first President Bush. Much has to do with how the world behaves during a presidential year. Much, too, depends on the opposition party, its nominee and its
unity. Then there are the prospective pitfalls of third parties or independent candidates — especially those who can self-finance. Even an underfunded distraction such as Ralph Nader in 2000 can

at this point, no one should rest easy, but no one should despair . It is
make a difference in a state, which can make the difference in the Electoral College. So

best not to bet the ranch at any stage of the game, and surely not one year out. The one thing we can safely say is that there's
nothing that can be safely said . History, our one best guide, directs us to keep an open mind and await further
developments .

5) Turn --- Plan alienates Trump base

ABC June 10th --- ABC News Radio, “As Trump struggles to respond to crises, internal polling
instills fear in advisers: Sources”, June 10th 2020, https://www.weisradio.com/as-trump-struggles-to-
respond-to-crises-internal-polling-instills-fear-in-advisers-sources/ (BJN)
But a growing chorus of Republican advisers outside and inside the White House also believe Kushner is alienating the
president’s voter base because he is too moderate a force. Fox News host Tucker Carlson said last week that “no one
has more contempt” for Trump’s voters than Kushner, taking him to task over his support of a program
to “ let more criminals out of prison and back onto the street.” Carlson was talking about the First Step Act, a
largely bipartisan criminal justice reform bill that sought to reverse some of the excesses of the drug war, mostly by
granting relief to longtime convicts with nonviolent drug offenses. White House sources and outside advisers have
echoed that sentiment . One White House source told ABC News Kushner “ assumes our base is going to
go along with anything we say” and accused him of intentionally driving the president in the wrong
direction.

6) Only a risk of a turn --- no swing voters

FREEDLANDER 20 --- DAVID FREEDLANDER, writes about politics and culture for Politico,
“An Unsettling New Theory: There Is No Swing Voter”, Politico, Feb 6 th 2020,
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/02/06/rachel-bitecofer-profile-election-forecasting-new-
theory-108944 (BJN)
What if everything you think you know about politics is wrong? What if there aren’t really American swing
voters— or not enough, anyway , to pick the next president? What if it doesn’t matter much who the
Democratic nominee is? What if there is no such thing as “the center ,” and the party in power can govern however it wants for
two years, because the results of that first midterm are going to be bad regardless? What if the Democrats' big 41-seat midterm victory in 2018 didn’t

happen because candidates focused on health care and kitchen-table issues, but simply because they were running against the
party in the White House ? What if the outcome in 2020 is pretty much foreordained , too? To the political scientist Rachel
Bitecofer, all of that is almost certainly true, and that has made her one of the most intriguing new figures in political forecasting this year. Bitecofer, a 42-year-
old professor at Christopher Newport University in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, was little known in the extremely
online, extremely male-dominated world of political forecasting until November 2018. That’s when she nailed almost to the number the nature and size of the
Democrats’ win in the House, even as other forecasters went wobbly in the race’s final days. Not only that, but she put out her forecast back in July, and then stuck by
it while polling shifted throughout the summer and fall. And today her model tells her the Democrats are a near lock for the
presidency in 2020, and are likely to gain House seats and have a decent shot at retaking the Senate . If she’s
right, we are now in a post-economy, post-incumbency, post record-while-in-office era of politics. Her analysis, as Bitecofer puts it with characteristic immodesty,
amounts to nothing less than “flipping giant paradigms of electoral theory upside down.” Bitecofer’s theory, when you boil it down, is that

modern American elections are rarely shaped by voters changing their minds, but rather by shifts in who
decides to vote in the first place. To her critics, she’s an extreme apostle of the old saw that “turnout explains everything,” taking a long victory lap after
getting lucky one time. She sees things slightly differently: That the last few elections show that American politics really has
changed, and other experts have been slow to process what it means. If she’s right, it wouldn’t just blow up the conventional wisdom;
it would mean that much of the lucrative cottage industry of political experts—the consultants and pollsters and (ahem) the reporters—is superfluous, an army of bit
players with little influence over the outcome. Actually, worse than superfluous: That whole industry of experts is generally wrong. The classic view is
that the pool of American voters is basically fixed: About 55 percent of eligible voters are likely to go to the polls, and the winner
is determined by the 15 percent or so of “swing voters” who flit between the parties. So a general election campaign amounts to a long
effort to pull those voters in to your side. Bitecofer has a nickname for this view. She calls it, with disdain, the “Chuck Todd theory of American politics”: “The
idea that there is this informed, engaged American population that is watching these political events and
watching their elected leaders and assessing their behavior and making a judgment.” “And it is just not true .” Election forecasting has
existed at least as long as there have been elections. In the 15th century, there were betting odds on who would emerge the winner of the next papal conclave. By the
end of the 19th century, newspapers were asking readers to cut out makeshift ballots and mail them to the newsroom in order to get a preview of the election outcome.
In recent years polling has grown more sophisticated, as has poll analysis: Pity the poor rube these days who cites a mere poll instead of a “polling average.”
Alongside the enthusiasm for polls has grown a serious academic interest in predicting elections. Unlike polling, academic forecasters tend to use the state of the
world on Election Day to determine who is going to win. An improving GDP? It means an X-point advantage for the incumbent. Two (or more) terms in power for a
single party, and that’s an electoral drag. In 2016, the pollsters had the race largely wrong, but the academic forecasters got it mostly right, even though many ended
up doubting their formulas after they spat out a likely victory for Trump, since such an outcome seemed impossible. But even
the more academic
forecasts, like the polling models, are based on longstanding assumptions about why and how candidates win
elections. And sometimes an event occurs that blows up those assumptions. In Bitecofer’s experience,
that event wasn’t Trump; it was the Tea Party. She was still a graduate student in 2010 when a wave of conservative
populism returned the Republicans to power in the House. According to any conventional theory of politics, that wave made no sense. Two
years prior the GOP had run the economy into the ground; under a Democratic president and a fully Democratic Congress, the
economy had stopped its slide and begun to recover. How could the Democrats lose 63 seats in a brutal
shellacking two years after totally routing the Republicans? The prevailing analysis was that Democrats had overreached on
policy: After Obamacare, the stimulus, the bank and auto bailouts, the center just revolted. But when Americans picked a president
in 2012, they didn’t seem so appalled; Obama won again. The 2014 midterms confounded the polls; the generic ballot heading into
Election Day had the two parties basically tied in the national generic ballot, but when the votes came in, the Republicans added seats to their House majority and
routed the Democrats in the Senate, picking up nine seats. For
most election forecasters, these results meant more data, and
they went back and tweaked their models. For Bitecofer, at the beginning of her career, they became the foundation
of her thinking. She was something of an outsider from the start; she had grown up a Navy brat, mostly in the D.C. area, and spent her youth following the
Grateful Dead and Widespread Panic, reading The New York Times in the parking lot between shows. She was living in Eugene, Oregon, a single mom at a dead-end
administrative job at a Republican polling firm, when she heard Rachel Maddow on Air America mention her doctorate in political science. “I was like, ‘Wait, you
can study politics?’” she says. She enrolled in community college, then the University of Oregon, then on to the University of Georgia for a Ph.D., and was soon hired
by Christopher Newport University to work in its public-policy division. (She has since been hired away by the Niskanen Center, a centrist think tank based in
Washington, D.C., while maintaining her academic post.) In 2016, the election that truly embarrassed the experts, Bitecofer was teaching in her new job and
didn’t put together a forecast. She doesn’t pretend she saw it coming: She says she was as surprised Trump won as anyone else, but what struck her in examining the
results, and what she saw as getting lost in the postelection commentary, was exactly how many people voted third party—for the Greens, the Libertarians or Evan
Clinton had run an entire
McMullin, a former CIA operative who was running on behalf of the “Never Trump” wing of the Republican Party. Hillary
campaign built around classic assumptions: She was trying to pick off Republicans and Republican-
leaning independents appalled by Trump. So she chose a bland white man, Tim Kaine, as a running mate; it also
explained her policy-lite messaging and her ads. But in the end, almost all of those voters stuck with
the GOP . The voters who voted third party should have been Democratic voters —they were disproportionately young,
diverse and college educated—but they
were turned off by the divisive Democratic primary, and the Clinton camp
made no effort to activate them in the general election. As she delved further into the data on 2016, Bitecofer noticed
something else. As much as the media had harped on the narrative that a majority of white women had
voted for Trump, the election also signaled the first time that a majority of college-educated white men
had voted for the Democratic Party. There was a long-term-realignment happening in America, and 2016
had accelerated it. Part of Bitecofer’s job involved polling Virginia, and she saw a Democratic counterwave building there in 2017. She noted to
Democrats in the state that they should spend resources in areas that had traditionally been off limits. Had they done so, Bitecofer says, they could have flipped the
Legislature that year. (Instead it flipped in 2019.) When 2018 rolled around, she saw what was coming: “College educated white men, and especially
college educated white women,” she said, “were going to be on fucking fire.” It didn’t matter who was running; it mattered who was
voting . From there, the model followed. She put out her forecast for the general election when there were
still candidates battling it out in primaries. Bitecofer’s view of the electorate is driven, in part, by a new
way to think about why Americans vote the way they do. She counts as an intellectual mentor Alan Abramowitz, a professor of political science
at Emory University who popularized the concept of “negative partisanship,” the idea that voters are more motivated to defeat the other

side than by any particular policy goals. In a piece explaining his work in POLITICO Magazine, Abramowitz wrote: “Over the past
few decades, American politics has become like a bitter sports rivalry , in which the parties hang
together mainly out of sheer hatred of the other team , rather than a shared sense of purpose. Republicans might not love
the president, but they absolutely loathe his Democratic adversaries. And it’s also true of Democrats, who
might be consumed by their internal feuds over foreign policy and the proper role of government were it not for Trump.” Bitecofer took this insight
and mapped it across the country. As she sees it, it isn’t quite right to refer to a Democratic or Republican
“base.” Rather, there are Democratic and Republican coalitions , the first made of people of color, college-educated whites and people
in metropolitan areas; the second, mostly noncollege whites, with a smattering of religious-minded voters, financiers and people in business, largely in rural and
exurban counties. “In
the polarized era, the outcome isn’t really about the candidates. What matters is what
percentage of the electorate is Republican and Republican leaners, and what percentage is Democratic
and Democratic leaners, and how they get activated ,” she said. Accordingly, she believed that whom the Democrats
nominated didn’t matter much, and while the rest of the country focused on the districts where Hillary
Clinton defeated Trump, she thought those were already mostly in the bag, and so focused instead on the
20 or so districts where Trump performed worse than Mitt Romney had in 2012. Those were places with latent
Democratic possibility, and had the national party recognized it earlier, they could have flipped even
more seats. Since she was new on the forecasting scene, having sat out the 2016 election, Bitecofer took to Twitter, where she had a mere 600-odd followers,
and started flogging her analysis relentlessly. “I decided I’d market it on Twitter by being kind of like this clunky annoying little sister on all the big threads. I would
jump on Nate Cohn and Nate Silver threads to promote the forecast. And it was just when the generic ballot was starting to narrow and all the other analysts were
saying, ‘Oh the Democrats are going to screw this up. They are overreaching. They are going to get 23 seats if they are lucky.’ And I just came out swinging.” And
while other forecasters picked a range, Bitecofer
picked a number—42, only one more than the actual number of
seats Democrats ended up winning in the House. (As other forecasters saw the Democrats’ chances
dropping, she revised it upward in the race’s waning days, saying in the final week that the Democrats would net 45 seats.) The forecast, and the
relentless Twitter-hyping, brought her recognition. The woman who decided to get a degree in political science because she heard Rachel Maddow on the radio was
suddenly on Rachel Maddow’s network. In the MSNBC Green Room before a guest appearance on “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,” she wrote on the
chalkboard: “Rachel’s Bucket List: Make it to MSNBC Green Room.” Bitecofer’s approach to getting noticed did not endear her to many people in the insular world
of elections forecasting, where a certain modesty and an ethos of letting the work speak for itself prevails. “She has taken a Krassenstein Brothers approach at getting
attention for her forecasts,” says the election forecaster Dave Wasserman, House editor of the Cook Political Report, referring to the pair of anti-Trump bros who
gained over a million Twitter followers between them, mostly by being some of the first people to reply to Trump tweets and by stirring up #Resistance memes. “In
my view that is unfair to the many thoughtful forecasters who don’t relentlessly self-promote.” He
questions her central idea—that elections
are won by turnout , and by people entering and exiting the electorate rather than by switching sides —
as one that simply ignores many basic observations about how politics works.

7) No trump credit --- three reasons;

a) his image is baked in
Scott June 3rd 2020 --- Eugene Scott Reporter covering identity politics for The Fix, “After years of
offending, Trump gets defensive about his legacy regarding black Americans”, Wash Post, June 3 rd 2020,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/03/after-years-offending-trump-becomes-defensive-
about-his-legacy-regarding-black-americans/ (BJN)

More than 80 percent of black Americans believe Trump is racist , according to the most recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll. And the
poll revealed that most don’t attribute to him the credit that he takes on issues of significance to many black
voters. Many black voters know that the black unemployment rate began declining most significantly under Obama
before shooting back up during the current economic downturn. And criminal justice reform had been one of the few bipartisan issues

for years prior to Trump signing the legislation. And some black Americans believe that Trump’s refusal to apologize , including as

recently as last year, for calling for the death penalty of the Central Park Five, a group of black and Latino teenagers wrongly accused
of raping and assaulting a white woman in 1989 — along with his currently calling for the jailing of some demonstrators

protesting police violence — is a better indicator of his commitment to criminal justice reform. Trump’s
vision of a “great” America is rooted in nostalgia and often romanticizes the America of the past as a better time. But for black Americans who enjoyed fewer rights
decades ago, looking at the past as a time of greatness is offensive, if not frightening. The president is clearly worried about the future and how Americans who come
after him will view his handling of America’s racial tensions. For a man who was consumed with controlling his brand while in the real estate industry, Trump is
having a difficult time controlling this narrative.

b) Trump won’t TAKE credit

Diamond 20 --- Jeremy Diamond et al, White House Correspondent for CNN, “Trump eyes police
reforms while ignoring systemic racism” CNN Politics, June 9, 2020,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/politics/donald-trump-george-floyd-joe-biden-address/index.html?
utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_latest+%28RSS
%3A+CNN+-+Most+Recent%29 (BJN)
Some inside the White House also believe Trump should hear from members of the black community to better
understand the issues and to help generate ideas for how to move forward before speaking to the country. Trump, however, has
insisted that a focus on " law and order" plays better politically and has downplayed the role that racism plays in
violent police incidents. His approach seemed to gain new life over the weekend after some activists and
Democrats called for the defunding, and in some cases the dismantling, of police departments , an approach
Trump swiftly condemned and pinned on Biden. Aides said they viewed the liberal defunding push as way to extend
the "law and order" messaging even as riots subside and questions turn toward police reform.

8) No impact;

a) they haven’t isolated a terminal --- we get new defense when they do

b) No retrenchment
MACDONALD & PARENT 19 --- PAUL K. MACDONALD is Associate Professor of Political
Science at Wellesley College. JOSEPH M. PARENT is Associate Professor of Political Science at the
University of Notre Dame., “Trump Didn’t Shrink U.S. Military Commitments Abroad—He Expanded
Them”, December 3, 2019, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-12-03/trump-didnt-shrink-us-
military-commitments-abroad-he-expanded-them (BJN)
U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to extract the U nited States from costly foreign conflicts, bring U.S.
troops home, and shrug off burdensome overseas commitments. “Great nations do not fight endless wars,” Trump declared in his 2019 State of the Union
address. “We’re bringing our troops back home,” he boasted during a cabinet meeting in October. “I got elected on bringing our soldiers back home.” But after

nearly three years in office, Trump’s promised retrenchment has yet to materialize . The president hasn’t
meaningfully altered the U.S. global military footprint he inherited from President Barack Obama. Nor has he shifted the
costly burden of defending U.S. allies. To the contrary , he loaded even greater military responsibilities on
the United States while either ramping up or maintaining U.S. involvement in the conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere. On practically every other issue,
Trump departed radically from the path of his predecessor. But when it came to troop deployments and other overseas defense commitments, he largely preserved the
chessboard he inherited—promises to the contrary be damned. BY THE NUMBERS The clearest measure of Trump’s retrenchment efforts, or lack thereof, is foreign
troop deployments. In the final months of Obama’s presidency, approximately 198,000 active duty U.S. military personnel were deployed overseas, according to the
Pentagon’s Defense Manpower Data Center. By comparison, the most recent figure for the Trump administration is 174,000 active duty troops. But even that
difference reflects an accounting trick. Beginning in December 2017, the Defense Department started excluding troops deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria from
its official reports, citing a vague need to “protect our forces.” When the estimated troop levels for those three countries are added back in, the current total is around
194,000—roughly equivalent to the number Trump inherited. The main reason Trump has failed to reduce overseas troop levels is that
every time he announces a drawdown he reverses himself . Consider Afghanistan. Prior to his election, Trump
repeatedly called the war in Afghanistan a “terrible mistake” and declared that it was “time to come home!” But
once in office, Trump increased the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan by around 50 percent. The Pentagon has since
withdrawn some troops, but roughly 12,500 troops remain in Afghanistan, up from about 8,500 when Trump took office. A similar story played out in
northern Syria, from which Trump ordered the abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops in December 2018. “We have won against ISIS,” he claimed in a video
released on Twitter. “Our boys, our young women, our men—they’re all coming back.” But after military officials and members of Congress pushed back and several
administration officials resigned, Trump shifted gears and agreed to keep about half of the roughly 2,000 troops deployed to northern Syria in place. In October, the
president announced that he would withdraw the remaining 1,000 troops, paving the way for a Turkish invasion of northern Syria and an assault on the United States’
Kurdish allies. But once again, Pentagon officials prevailed on the president to leave close to 90 percent of the troops behind to guard nearby oil fields. The remainder
will be redeployed in the region instead of coming home. One place where Trump has successfully pressed for troop reductions is Africa. The Pentagon announced the
phased withdrawal of hundreds of U.S. troops from that continent beginning in 2018. But the U.S. military footprint in Africa was relatively small to begin with, at
roughly 7,200 troops, and because counterterrorism operations remain active in West Africa, military commanders have recommended slashing the proposed
reductions by half. Moreover, Trump
has stumbled into new military commitments in the Middle East and Europe. In response
to rising tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, he authorized the deployment of some 14,000 additional troops
to the Persian Gulf, including around 3,500 to protect Saudi oil facilities. Trump also agreed to expand the U.S. military
presence in Poland with an additional 1,000 troops, and his administration is in talks to build a permanent military base there in the future. In short,
Trump’s vacillations have led to cosmetic redeployments and chronic confusion about U.S. priorities— but not to a
meaningful reduction in troop levels. THEIR FAIR SHARE As a candidate, Trump promised to reduce the fiscal burden of U.S. foreign
policy, in particular by demanding that ungrateful allies pay more for American security assistance. He claimed that the United States had been “disrespected, mocked,
and ripped off for many, many years by people that were smarter, shrewder, tougher.” (He cited Japan and South Korea specifically.) And as president, he used his
first NATO summit to complain about how “many of these [European] nations owe massive amounts of money from past years.” Yet Trump
has had
limited success pressing NATO countries to live up to a 2014 pledge to spend two percent of GDP on
defense within a decade. When he took office, just four of the 29 NATO members (Britain, the United States, Estonia, and Greece) met the threshold.
Four more countries (Poland, Romania, Latvia, and Lithuania) have hit the target since then, but mainly because their spending was already trending in that direction.
At the same time, British defense spending actually fell and is expected to flat-line at around 2.1 percent. French defense spending is slated to
rise from 1.8 percent of GDP to two percent, but not until 2025. Germany won’t hit the two percent target until 2031. Even on the
flattering but unrealistic assumption that these modest shifts are a response to Trump, together they will amount to no more than a $38 billion increase by the end of
2019, from $261 billion in non-U.S. NATO spending in 2016 to an estimated $299 billion this year. Crucial American
allies outside of Europe
have also resisted Trump’s appeals for burden sharing. Japanese and Australian military expenditures
hover around one percent and two percent of GDP, respectively—roughly the same as in the pre-Trump era. South Korea did significantly increase its
defense spending in 2018, when tensions flared on the Korean Peninsula. But as a percentage of GDP, South Korean defense spending has hardly shifted during
Trump’s tenure. Saudi Arabia’s defense spending has decreased dramatically i n recent years, from $87.2 billion in 2015 to $67.5
billion last year, and there is no evidence that Saudi reimbursements to the United States have increased during Trump’s presidency. With U.S. allies reluctant to chip
in for defense, the Trump administration has been forced to foot most of the bill. Over the last three years, the United States has
boosted defense spending by more than $139 billion, from $611 billion in 2016 to a near-record $750 billion in 2019. And that was after Trump called the military
NO END IN
budget “crazy” in 2018. By almost any measure, the president has left the United States more financially overstretched than when he took office.

SIGHT Trump’s self-professed dealmaking prowess was supposed to free the United States from costly
foreign entanglements. Despite his claims to know more “than the generals do,” however, Trump has yet to end any U.S.
war—and his actions have squandered U.S. leverage in Afghanistan and Syria. After ripping up the Iran nuclear deal, he failed to replace it with anything, much less
anything better. In early November, Iran announced that it would begin to enrich fissile material beyond the caps it agreed to in the agreement. The president’s
controversial courting of Russian President Vladimir Putin proved similarly ineffective: arms control stalled and U.S.-Russian relations remained frosty, pushing
Russia and China closer together. Whatever one thinks of Trump’s outreach to North Korea, he has no durable concession or deal to show for it. In fact, North Korea
has tested more missiles on Trump’s watch than on Obama’s. In short, the master dealmaker has come up empty again and again: not only has Trump failed to end the
United States’ “forever wars” but his botched diplomatic efforts in Iran and North Korea have arguably made yet another war more likely. Trump
has been
quick to blame these setbacks on “the deep state.” The president is committed to retrenchment , according
to this narrative, but his advisers and bureaucrats are blocking him. Yet the president has had no trouble
forcing out legions of advisers who didn’t perform as desired. Trump’s preferences may be unstable, but
he appears to get what he wants from his employees . A related defense trotted out by supporters of the president is that elected
officials such as Senator Mitch McConnell have stymied Trump’s retrenchment efforts. But apart from the Syrian retreat, which was a dispute over a small number of
troops, Republicans have given the president sufficient support to pursue his foreign policy goals.
vs. Fear of Crime Disad
 2AC vs. Fear of Crime

No goldilocks solution now – status quo’s only released 20,000 people.

Speri ‘20
Alice Speri writes about justice, immigration, and civil rights for The Intercept. “AS CORONAVIRUS SPREADS BEHIND
BARS, PRISONS RELEASE VERY FEW PEOPLE” – The Intercept - May 14 2020 - #E&F -
https://theintercept.com/2020/05/14/prison-release-coronavirus/

THE CORONAVIRUS IS spreading like wildfire through U.S. prisons. As of last week, more than 300 people had died of
the virus in state and federal facilities. More
than 20,000 had tested positive — a major undercount , given the lack
of large-scale testing. Yet despite repeated warnings from public health experts that the only way to slow
the spread of the virus behind bars is to release people in significant numbers , the U.S. prison
population has remained largely unchanged in the middle of the pandemic.

While state governors and the B ureau o f P risons, which runs federal facilities , have responded to mounting public
pressure by authorizing the release of select groups of incarcerated people, restrictive criteria and bureaucratic
hurdles have meant that those releases, where they have actually happened, have made no significant dent in what
continues to be a sprawling mass incarceration apparatus.

Overall, the U.S. prison population has dropped by only 1.6 percent in the first three months of this year, a new
report released Thursday by the Vera Institute of Justice shows. That’s a population reduction of about 20,000 people
nationwide, in a system that incarcerates nearly 1.3 million . The report, which aggregates data from 44
states and the Bureau of Prisons, notes that as of the end of March, “ none had moved with the urgency required to
meet the recommendations of public health officials to reduce incarceration.”

Not unique – gun sales to skyrocketing now.

LA Times ‘20
THE TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD - “Editorial: New reports confirm what should be obvious: Smart gun laws save lives” -
JUNE 15, 2020 - #E&F - https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-06-15/reports-gun-laws-2nd-amendment-firearms-suicide-
homicide

Now for the most troubling part. Since the start of the pandemic, Americans are buying more guns . The FBI says
it conducted a record 3.7 million background checks for would-be gun buyers, a loose proxy for firearm sales, in
March as lockdown orders spread across the nation. In April the checks dropped to 2.9 million but rebounded to 3.1 million in May.
The monthly average for 2019 — itself a record year for background checks — was 2.4 million. So even as we get
fresh studies connecting possession of firearms with increased risk of gun violence, accidental shootings (usually by children) and suicides, we
are adding more firearms to the nation’s already numbingly large privately owned arsenal of some 300 million
guns (no reliable count is available) owned by about a third of the population.
No link – COVID means public won’t over-react to the plan.
C.L.S. ‘20
Columbia Legal Services (CLS) represents communities facing poverty and oppression, and uses every legal tool available on
their behalf. CLS has a special responsibility to serve people whose access to free legal services is restricted, due to
institutionalization or immigration status. “COVID‐19 Prison Lawsuit FAQs” – CLS - April 7, 2020 - #E&F -
https://columbialegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/20-0406-COVID-Prison-Lawsuit-FAQs.pdf

What will the public reaction be to releasing people and which people can we release without raising serious
public backlash?
This is an unprecedented global public health emergency that no one alive has ever confronted. We are all living
entirely differently than we did just several weeks ago . The public understands that extraordinary
circumstances require extraordinary decisions . Leaders who show resolve, conviction and good judgment will be trusted
that they made the right call in difficult times. Other states, like California , Colorado and Maine have
already begun releasing people from their state prisons. Washington should follow their lead. Releasing people who are
most at risk from COVID-19 and getting them into stable community-based situations will protect everyone.
Failing to release individuals and failing to take appropriate steps (efforts) to stop COVID-19 in prisons will
cause significant harm not just to those in custody, but to the surrounding communities and hospitals as well.

Fear of crime doesn’t boost gun sales – only a factor after mass shootings.
Hill ‘19
et al; Terrence D. Hill. Associate Professor, School of Sociology, The University of Arizona. “Gun ownership and fear” - SSM -
Population Health Volume 8, August 2019 - #E&F - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352827319302010

Our analyses offered minimal evidence to support the symptom perspective and our first hypothesis. For the most part,
phobias and fears were unrelated to gun ownership . We tested whether the odds of being a gun owner
varied according to two phobia indices and two victimization indices. Only one of the indices (the phobia count) was
(inversely) associated with gun ownership. We then tested 15 associations between individual phobias/fears and gun ownership. Approximately
80% of these associations were null, and only 20% were statistically significant at conventional levels. The only evidence
that gun ownership is an expression of fear was observed in the context of mass shootings. Although the weight
of these findings call into question the idea that people own guns because they are afraid, we do not dismiss the symptom perspective entirely.

Gun sales don’t increase deaths

Bowes ‘13
Internally quoting Thomas R. Baker - Assistant Professor, L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Virginia
Commonwealth University. Mark Bowes is a Richmond Times-Dispatch Journalist - “Gun-related homicides and injuries down
as firearm sales soar: Analysis shows deaths have decreased in Virginia despite a surge in business” - Richmond Times-Dispatch
- Jan 27, 2013 - #E&F - https://www.richmond.com/news/local/central-virginia/gun-related-homicides-and-injuries-down-as-
firearm-sales-soar/article_f573c648-2e22-5534-a2a8-56fa0fef0fdb.html
What’s more, “ the
increased availability of guns does not seem to correlate with an increase in the
proportion of suicides and homicides by gun ,” said Virginia Commonwealth University professor
Thomas R. Baker , who in an analysis compared state vital records data on homicides and suicides with Virginia
gun dealer sales estimates obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“It’s
actually quite surprising and the opposite of what I would have hypothesized ,” Baker said. “I would have
thought that aggregate increases in gun sales would directly correlate to aggregate increases in the
proportion of suicides and homicides by gun. But that doesn’t seem to be the case .”

Disad doesn’t turn case

- We get durable fiat – if we didn’t, Affs would always lose because we read
inherency ev. Debate is about “should” questions, not “would questions.

- reforms like the Aff build gain inertia and become hard for politicians to roll-
back.

Goldstein ‘19
Rebecca - Assistant Professor of Law (Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program), University of California, Berkeley School of
Law - “The Politics of Decarceration” – Review of: Prisoners of Politics: Breaking the Cycle of Mass Incarceration BY
RACHEL ELISE BARKOW.– Yale Law Journal – 2019 - #E&F -
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/GoldsteinBookReview_hqhti3ok.pdf

Prisoners of Politics rightly acknowledges that the elections of progressive prosecutors represent evidence that “with enough financial support to
get out their message, challengers [in prosecutorial elections] have been able to win on progressive agendas.” 118 But the book argues that, in
general, “[t]he most straightforward way for a politician to demonstrate [their commitment to public safety] is to advocate for longer sentences
for criminal conduct.”119 Time
will tell whether Krasner and like-minded prosecutors nationwide will be able to
successfully ratchet down the levels of incarceration in their jurisdictions—and, if so, whether they will be able to win
reelection. It seems highly plausible, though , that this new wave of prosecutors marks a new and powerful electoral
means of pursuing criminal-justice reform.
Besides prosecutorial elections, progressive criminal-justice reform can be advanced through elections for a wider range of offices.120 Many of
the same groups that campaigned for Krasner in Philadelphia subsequently organized around an election to fill seven seats on the Philadelphia
Court of Common Pleas and the Philadelphia Municipal Court.121 One of the organizers for that campaign gained experience on the successful
campaign to elect the self-described democratic socialist and prison abolitionist Franklin Bynum as a judge in Harris County, Texas.122 In the
same cycle in which Bynum was elected, the 2018 midterms, all fifty-eight other contested judicial elections in Harris County were won by
Democrats who replaced Republicans. Nineteen of these candidates were Black women who campaigned together on a platform of criminal-
justice reform.123

Similar dynamics have taken hold in some mayoral and city council elections. In Chicago, the Black Lives Matter-led protests of a Chicago
police officer’s shooting of Laquan McDonald and the city government’s handling of the shooting’s aftermath led directly to former Mayor Rahm
Emanuel’s decision not to seek reelection.124 Activist groups built on that victory by supporting pro-police reform candidates in Chicago
aldermanic elections in 2019.125

The ballot-initiative process, too, has produced major victories for criminaljustice reform. The
2018 elections alone provide several
examples. In Florida, voters passed two constitutional amendments: one to restore voting rights to convicted
felons, and another to allow future sentencing reforms to apply retroactively.126 In Louisiana, voters decided
that only unanimous juries may convict defendants of felonies ( raising the threshold from ten votes out of
twelve ).127 In Washington, voters overwhelmingly passed an initiative to lower the standard for conviction in police use-of-force cases from
malice to reasonableness.128 In Michigan , voters legalized marijuana possession.129

Each of these examples illustrates the power of pro-reform interest groups . Krasner’s campaign, for example, was supported
by an interest group called Coalition for a Just District Attorney, which included supporters “from the city’s African-American, Latino and
L.G.B.T.Q. communities and represented the Philadelphia populations most affected by the criminal-justice system: immigrant families,
incarcerated teenagers, sex workers and victims of violent crimes.”130 These Philadelphians “joined forces with the young Bernie Sanders
ground troops of Reclaim Philadelphia and the local chapter of the ACLU and the racial-justice group Color of Change” to help elect Krasner.131
Similar interest groups and political coalitions have fueled the other pro-reform elections in cities and states nationwide. These
groups will
position themselves for future successes as they rack up electoral victories, grow their grassroots bases, share best
practices, raise funds, and assemble coalitions of sympathetic elected officials.

Recent electoral victories show that well-organized and well-financed groups can successfully enact criminal-justice reforms through the electoral
process. When the public mobilizes on criminal-justice reform, the election of district attorneys, judges, and local political officials who support
reform follows. And, as proreform interest groups become stronger and gain further victories, the
same politicians who today fear
appearing “soft on crime” might come instead to fear appearing overly harsh on crime. A mobilized public can
similarly pass ballot initiatives to make the system less punitive. To be sure, civic engagement by a punitive public will lead to punitive
outcomes. But recent events show that reform-minded constituencies can be successful in the political arena as well.

Conclusion
Prisoners of Politics deftly describes the ills that America’s system of mass incarceration has produced: many crimes are defined too broadly and
pull in a wide net of low-level offenders; incarceration is criminogenic, and there is no evidence to suggest that longer sentences improve
individuals’ likelihood of successful reintegration into society; there are shockingly few opportunities for education or treatment in prison and
jail; there are too few opportunities to review the efficacy of a continued prison sentence during an individual’s prison term; and criminal
conviction seriously jeopardizes future prospects for economic success. The book characterizes the disease causing all these symptoms as a
flourishing of “penal populism” through a political system that elects many criminal-justice policymakers—district attorneys, judges, and state
legislators—by popular vote. The cure, the book argues, is to transfer many of these decision-making powers to expert agencies, with decisions
reviewable by courts, and to thereby insulate criminal-justice policymaking from “penal populism.”

In this Review, I have argued that there is greater hope for criminal-justice reform through electoral politics than Prisoners of Politics suggests.
Decarceration has already begun, with declining prison populations nationwide. Reform may be slow: it took four decades to create
our present system of mass incarceration, and it may take decades to undo it. But, as this Review has shown, the trend lines are
positive. Both the Democratic Party and significant parts of the Republican Party have embraced (endorsed)
reform. Popular campaigns for reform have already achieved remarkable success passing pro-reform state ballot initiatives and electing
reform-minded prosecutors and judges. The American public is far from uniformly punitive, and there are signs that it will likely become less
punitive in the future, so long as crime rates do not unexpectedly spike. To be sure, electoral politics
bears considerable blame for
our system of mass incarceration. But it is possible that electoral politics could help undo that system in the
years to come.
 Optional 2AC - impact turn – DGU

More Gun sales would deter violence – causing a net increase in lives saved.
Kleck ‘18
Gary Kleck is the David J. Bordua professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida State University. “What Do CDC’s
Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses?”- June 11, 2018 - #E&F -https://www.hoplofobia.info/wp-
content/uploads/2014/05/2018-What-Do-CDC%E2%80%99s-Surveys-Say-About-the-Frequency-of-Defensive-Gun-Uses.pdf

The debate over gun control in the U. S. heavily revolves around the issue of the costs and benefits . The principle costs
are death, injuries, and property loss due to criminal, suicidal, or accidental uses of firearms. The benefits include
recreation-related uses of guns, but the most serious and consequential benefits are arguably deaths, injuries, and property loss
prevented by defensive use of guns, or deterred by the potential for such use. The magnitude of these benefits are
partly a function of how often guns are used for self-protection. Thus, the frequency of defensive gun use ( DGU ) is an
important part of the American gun control debate.

At least 21 national surveys have asked large probability samples of the U.S. adult population whether they had
used guns defensively, including 16 private-sponsored surveys up through 2000, surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC), and a few private surveys conducted after 2000 ( Kleck 2001b ; Roper Center 2018). As will be discussed later, the
private surveys generally yielded annual estimates of the number of DGU s by adults against other persons in the 1-3
million range , the estimates varying greatly at least partly because they addressed different subsets of the universe of DGUs or pertained to
different time periods with differing crime rates (Kleck 2001b).

(*Note: “DGU” = “Defensive Gun Use”)

 A-to “Goldilocks, Double-Bind”

Both parts of their goldilocks argument are wrong:

Status quo is NOT sufficient - Speri says 20,000 only people were released. 1.6
million people are still in.

And, significant decarceration can happen without releasing violent offenders –

here’s proof the Aff can cut by 50% without linking to the disad.
Pendergrass ‘19
Taylor Pendergrass, Senior Campaign Strategist, ACLU Campaign for Smart Justice – “We Can Cut Mass Incarceration by 50
Percent” – ACLU - JULY 12, 2019 - #E&F - https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/mass-incarceration/we-can-cut-mass-
incarceration-50-percent

The ACLU just shared a “Presidential Roadmap for Ending Mass Incarceration” with all the presidential candidates. The Roadmap
contains dozens of different policy reforms that would each slash the number of people locked up at every
point in the process, and combined would reduce the overall incarcerated population by far more than 50 percent.

The Roadmap includes reforms addressing the front end of the criminal legal system, like policing and
prosecutors , all the way to changes to parole and re-entry at the very back end , and everything in-between. The
Roadmap also allows every presidential candidate to put together their own plan that would reach the 50 percent goal .

Reforms in just these four areas would reduce incarceration by half:

Ending the War on Drugs by decriminalizing all drug possession

Bail reform that reduces the number of people we lock up before trial , often simply because they are too poor to
afford cash bail;

Shortening extraordinarily excessive sentencing practices and abolishing rigid “mandatory minimums” and “three strikes”
laws;

Granting clemency to people trapped in prison who are elderly, sick, or have already served more than
enough time for their offense;

And their solvency arg doesn’t assume our advantages – even if the Aff fails short of
their Author’s standard for “mass decarceration” we’d still get enough people our
to avoid COVID resurgence.
 1AR – Handgun sales are up now

Extend that Gun Sales are skyrocketing no due to COVID. Here’s more proof that
they’re at record levels.
Smith ‘20
Internally quoting Timothy Lytton, a law professor at Georgia State University Kyle Smith is National Review’s critic-at-large.
National Review – “Americans Just Bought Five Million More Guns” June 2, 2020 - #E&F -
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/american-gun-sales-at-near-record-levels/

More than 1.7

million firearms were sold in the U.S. last month, up 80 percent compared to last May . That
follows a 71 percent surge in April to just under 1.8 million sold, and just under two million guns were sold in March.
Some perspective: The all-time record, following the Sandy Hook massacre and President Obama’s address vowing to make a major push
for more gun control, was two million guns sold in January 2013. This chart shows a general trend upward for years. In September
2001, gun sales were only about 750,000, and that was a month when sales surged.

So we’re looking at just a hair under record gun sales for each of the last three months , totaling about 5.5
million firearms sold in 90 days. Presumably June gun sales will also be robust.

Industry expert Timothy Lytton, a law professor at Georgia State University , told the New York Times:
“People are nervous that there’s a certain amount of civil disorder that might come if huge numbers of people are
sick and a huge number of institutions are not operating normally. They may have an anxiety (concerns) about
protecting themselves if the organs of state are starting to erode.”
 1AR - Disad does not turn case

Extend that the disad doesn’t turn case

We get durable fiat – if we didn’t, Affs would always lose because we read inherency
ev.

Reforms will stick because the quarantine started to change public attitudes
towards incarceration.
Giorgis ‘20
HANNAH GIORGIS is a staff writer at The Atlantic, “Quarantine Could Change How Americans Think of Incarceration” – The
Atlantic - APRIL 28, 2020 - #E&F – https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/04/quarantine-could-change-how-
americans-think-incarceration/610831/

But although the oppressiveness of quarantine and the dangers of incarceration during a pandemic aren’t the same,
they’re more related than many might think. The media have widely covered the devastating effects of COVID-
19 in jails and prisons, as well as the risks that an outbreak among inmates poses to the surrounding communities. When taken alongside

Americans’ experiences with nationwide forced isolation, these facts could change how the public thinks of
carceral punishment. Because the coronavirus’s lethality is unprecedented, so, too, are the social-distancing and
lockdown measures that are forcing many Americans to experience prolonged confinement for the first time.
Following several years of slow, sometimes bipartisan, attempts to reform the criminal-justice system and its reliance on mass
incarceration, these powerful new realities could challenge entrenched beliefs about the efficacy—and ethics—of
sending people “away.”
 1AR – fear not key to gun purcahses

Extend that fear of crime doesn’t lead to gun sales.

More proof that fear only boost sales after events like mass shooting – which are
way different than the plan.
Hill ‘19
et al; Terrence D. Hill. Associate Professor, School of Sociology, The University of Arizona. “Gun ownership and fear” - SSM -
Population Health Volume 8, August 2019 - #E&F - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352827319302010

For the most part, gun ownership does not vary according to specific phobias or fears in Table 4. There are three
exceptions to this general pattern. The odds of owning a gun are 40% lower for people who report being afraid of animals (bugs, snakes, dogs, or
any other animal/insect) and 49% lower for people who are afraid of being mugged. Contrary
to the nature of the other
statistically significant associations, we observe that the odds of gun ownership are 46% higher for people
who are afraid of being victimized by a random/mass shooting . Taken together, the results presented in Table 3, Table
4 show little support for the symptom perspective . In fact, gun ownership does not appear to vary much
according to fear. Two of the three statistically significant associations indicate that people who are more
afraid are less likely to own a gun. The only evidence that gun ownership is an expression of fear is observed in the context of mass
shootings.
 1AR – Guns Sales Deter violence

Extend that Gun sales deter crime and cause a net decrease in deaths.

Kleck cites 21 studies – and says that guns prevent 1-3 million violent acts per year.
That outweighs the Neg’s impact.

Here’s more proof that these Defensive Gun Use states likely underestimate the
deterrence effect.
Kleck ‘18
Gary Kleck is the David J. Bordua professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida State University. “What Do CDC’s
Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses?”- June 11, 2018 - #E&F -https://www.hoplofobia.info/wp-
content/uploads/2014/05/2018-What-Do-CDC%E2%80%99s-Surveys-Say-About-the-Frequency-of-Defensive-Gun-Uses.pdf

To summarize, for a person who had experienced a typical DGU to be willing to report it to a surveyor, she or he
(they) must be willing to report (1) a crime they committed (unlawful carrying), (2) possession of a gun, and
(3) a crime victimization experience. Research consistently indicates that false negative responses are common in surveys
asking about these topics, while false positives are rare. Therefore, as best we can tell at this point, the net effect of response
errors in surveys asking about DGU is likely to be the underestimation of DGU prevalence.

(*Note: “DGU” = “Defensive Gun Use”)

Kleck proves guns sales save millions of live – external studies back this up.
Stallone ‘18
Internally quoting studies by Gary Kleck, who is the David J. Bordua professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida
State University. Dane Stallone is a TCR News Intern – “Self-Defense Study Challenges Gun Control Advocates” - The Crime
Report - July 23, 2018 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend - https://thecrimereport.org/2018/07/23/defensive-gun-
use-debate-in-the-us-rages-on/

Gary Kleck, a professor of criminology at Florida State University who is a controversial figure for gun control advocates, recently
published a paper examining three surveys in the 1990s conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), entitled, “What Do CDC Surveys Say About the Frequency Of Defensive Gun Uses?”

The paper looks at (reviews) a large portion of the literature on defensive gun use ( DGU) in the US. It focuses
on data from three annual surveys in 1996, 1997 and 1998, produced by the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
(BRFSS), which by Kleck’s calculations, show an average of 1,138,534 instances of DGUs per year.

This number is far higher than the number commonly cited from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which
reports annual estimates of roughly 60,000 instances of DGU.
Kleck writes, “ CDC’s survey data confirm previous high estimates of DGU prevalence, disconfirm estimates derived
from the National Crime Victimization Survey, and indicate that defensive uses of guns by crime victims are far more common than offensive
uses by criminals.”

The 1996 survey asked people in six states (AK, KY, LA, MD, NH, WV), the 1997 survey asked people in seven states (CO, HA, MS, NH, NJ,
ND, OH), and the 1998 survey asked people in four states (LA, MT, NJ, PA).

There is a high degree of variance among the nearly two-dozen studies compared in the paper. For example, another study shown in Kleck’s
paper by the
CDC in 1994 found an implied annual estimate of three million DGUs, half a million more than
Kleck himself and a colleague, Marc Gertz, found in a survey study they did in 1993.
 1AR - DGU indicts are wrong

Anti-deterrence authors are wrong – they’re not qualified and ignore important
statistics.
Kleck ‘15
Gary Kleck is the David J. Bordua professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida State University. “Defensive gun use
is not a myth: why my critics still have it wrong” – Politico -February 17, 2015 - #E&F -
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/defensive-gun-ownership-gary-kleck-response-115082.

It’s deja vu all over again. In a recent Politico Magazine article, Evan DeFilippis
and Devin Hughes resuscitate criticisms of a
survey on d efensive g un u se that I conducted with my colleague Marc Gertz way back in 1993— the National Self-
Defense Survey (NSDS). The authors repeat, item for item, speculative criticisms floated by a man named David
Hemenway in 1997 and repeated endlessly since. The conclusion these critics drew is that our survey
grossly overestimated the frequency of d efensive g un u se ( DGU ), a situation in which a crime victim uses a
gun to threaten or attack the offender in self-defense . But what DeFilippis and Hughes carefully withheld from readers is the
fact that I and my colleague have refuted every one of Hemenway’s dubious claims , and those by other critics of
the NSDS, first in 1997, and again, even more extensively, in 1998 and 2001. Skeptical readers can check for themselves if we failed to refute
them—the 1998 version is publicly available here. More seriously motivated readers could acquire a copy of Armed, a 2001 book by Don Kates
and me, and read chapter six.

If DeFilippis and Hughes could refute any of our rebuttals, that would be news worth attending to. They do not,
however, identify any problems with our refutations, such as errors in our logic, or superior evidence that contradicts any of our
rebuttals. Instead, they just pretend they are not aware of the rebuttals , even though our first systematic
dismantling of Hemenway’s speculations was published in the exact same issue of the journal that
published Hemenway's 1997 critique, on the pages immediately following the Hemenway article.

The authors, a couple of Oklahoma investment counselors with no graduate degrees , do not claim to have
had any training in survey research methods . Like Hemenway (who is also untrained in survey methods),
they believe that it’s perfectly plausible that surveys generate enormous over-estimates of crime-related
experiences, as if this were the most commonplace thing in the world. The reality that survey experts are familiar with, however, is that
surveys of the general public simply do not overestimate crime-related experiences.

Critics wrong. Deterrence is underestimate deterrence. False negatives are

underestimated.
Kleck ‘15
Gary Kleck is the David J. Bordua professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida State University. “Defensive gun use
is not a myth: why my critics still have it wrong” – Politico -February 17, 2015 - #E&F -
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/defensive-gun-ownership-gary-kleck-response-115082.
So what does research on the flaws in surveys of crime-related behaviors tell us? It consistently indicates that survey
respondents underreport (1) crime victimization experiences, (2) gun ownership and (3) their own illegal behavior. While it is true that a
few respondents overstate their crime-related experiences, they are greatly outnumbered by those who
understate them, i.e. those who falsely deny having the experience when in fact they did. In sum, research tells us that surveys
underestimate the frequency of crime victimizations, gun possession and self-reported illegal behavior. Yet DeFilippis and Hughes
somehow manage to conclude that d efensive g un u ses—incidents that always involve the first two of those elements, and usually
the third as well—are overestimated in surveys.

Like Hemenway, DeFilippis and Hughes fail to understand the most fundamental logical issue regarding whether
surveys under or overestimate the frequency of defensive gun use. The point at issue is not whether there are “false positive”
responses, i.e. respondents saying “yes, they used their gun defensively” when the correct answer
was “no.” No one has ever disputed that there are some false positives in these surveys. But this by itself can tell
us nothing about whether DGU estimates are too high or too low overall. Even if false positives were numerous,
false negatives (when a respondent falsely denies a DGU that actually occurred ) could be (and, according to
extensive research, are ) even more common . In that case, survey estimates of DGU frequency would be too low, not the enormous
overestimate that DeFilippis and Hughes believe in. Since neither of those authors nor Hemenway —nor any other critics for that
matter—have ever made the slightest effort to estimate the number of false negatives, they cannot possibly know
whether false positives outnumber false negatives and therefore have no logical foundation whatsoever for their claims that
erroneous responses to DGU questions result in an overestimate of DGU frequency.

Critics cherry-pick data and are politically biased.

Kleck ‘15
Gary Kleck is the David J. Bordua professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida State University. “Defensive gun use
is not a myth: why my critics still have it wrong” – Politico -February 17, 2015 - #E&F -
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/defensive-gun-ownership-gary-kleck-response-115082.

The authors’ discussion of possible flaws in survey estimates of DGU frequency is conspicuously one-
sided, addressing only supposed flaws that could make the estimates too high— but none that could make
the estimates too low. As mentioned above, they say nothing about the well-documented failure of many survey respondents to report
criminal victimization, gun ownership or their own crimes. Likewise, they do not mention that our estimates did not include any DGUs by
adolescent crime victims, even though adolescents are more likely to be crime victims than adults, and just as likely to carry guns, albeit illegally.

To summarize, notwithstanding
DeFilippis and Hughes’ one-sided cherry-picking of the research evidence,
surveys do not overestimate the number of DGUs (or anything else crime-related), and at least 18 national surveys have
consistently confirmed that DGUs are very common, probably more common than criminal uses of guns.

As to DeFilippis and Hughes’ motives for working so long and hard to get the DGU estimate down, I believe the most
likely explanation is that they hope that total gun prohibition will one day be politically achievable, and
they recognize that high numbers of DGUs each year would present an enormous obstacle to persuading
Americans that disarming noncriminals would be without serious costs. No one who supported only moderate controls but
who opposed total prohibition would care about high estimates of DGUs by noncriminals, since they
would be unaffected by moderate controls that do not disarm noncriminals, such as background checks.
vs. Federalism Disad
 2AC vs. Federalism

( ) Not unique - federal involvement in criminal justice reforms has existed for
decades
Gardner and Miller ‘18
Trevor G Gardner, Associate Professor of Law, Washington University St. Louis, Lisa L. Miller is an
Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, May 2018 “Criminal Justice” Center for
the Study of Federalism http://encyclopedia.federalism.org/index.php/Criminal_Justice
Several developments in the twentieth century contributed to the enactment of new federal crime statutes
and a corresponding expansion of federal criminal jurisdiction. The invention of the automobile, for example, resulted in
the National Motor Vehicle Act in 1919 (also known as the Dyer Act), which prohibited the transport of stolen cars across state lines. Moral
crusades in the early twentieth century led to the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment (also known as the
Prohibition Amendment), which outlawed the production and sale of alcohol, as well as the Mann Act, which targeted
inter-state prostitution rings feared to enable “white slavery.” The increased complexity of American
crime over the course of the twentieth century together with national moral crusades led to expansion of
the federal government role in criminal administration. In the latter half of the twentieth century, the line
between the federal and sub-federal roles in criminal administration began to blur after Congress made
gun and drug possession, carjacking, and fraud federal offenses. The federal criminal code now
overlaps substantially with that of the states.

( ) Trump’s violating federalism outside the realm of criminal justice now

Somin ‘20
Ilya Somin, Ilya Somin is Professor of Law at George Mason University. His research focuses on
constitutional law, property law, and the study of popular political participation and its implications for
constitutional democracy, 5-20-2020, "Trump's Threat to Withhold Federal Funds from States that
Expand Voting By Mail Highlights Growing Menace to Federalism and Separation of Powers," Reason,
https://reason.com/2020/05/20/trumps-threat-to-withhold-federal-funds-from-states-that-expand-voting-
by-mail-highlights-growing-menace-to-federalism-and-separation-of-powers/
Earlier today, President Trump threatened to withhold federal grants from the states of Michigan and Nevada if
they proceed with plans to expand vote-by-mail options in order to make it safer to vote in the midst of
the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. It isn't clear what specific funds Trump has in mind, or even whether he has any meaningful plan
to make good on the threat at all. Still, the danger that the White House can use the threat of withholding grants to
bully the states should be taken seriously. If the president is able to impose his own new conditions on
federal grants to states and localities, it would be a serious threat to both federalism and separation of
powers. The vast expansion of federal spending and state dependence thereon during the
coronavirus crisis has made this an even more serious danger than before. To my knowledge, there are no
federal grants to Michigan, Nevada, or other states that Congress has conditioned on forbidding or severely restricting voting by mail. The extent
of mail voting is one of of many aspects of election administration that the Constitution largely leaves to state governments. In my view,
expanding vote by mail makes excellent sense at a time when in-person voting could risk spreading a deadly disease, particularly among elderly
voters and poll workers, who are especially vulnerable to the coronavirus. Empirical evidence undercuts claims that postal voting is particularly
prone to fraud, or that it necessarily advantages one party over the other. In this 2014 post, I criticized claims that allowing early voting by mail
exacerbates the problem of political ignorance. But whether expanding mail voting is a good idea or not, the president has no authority
to use federal grants to pressure states on the issue . The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the
power to allocate federal spending, including imposing conditions on state and local government grant
recipients. Supreme Court precedent also imposes constraints on those conditions to protect state
autonomy, most notably that any conditions "unambiguously" stated in the text of the law "so that the States can knowingly decide whether
or not to accept those funds," not added later by the president or by creative judicial interpretation of vague statutes. If the president can
get around such restrictions and impose his own new conditions on federal grants to state governments, he
could use that power to bully states and localities on a wide range of issues. Conservatives who might be happy to
see Trump wield that authority should ask how they would feel when Joe Biden (or some other future Democratic president) does the same thing.
The same tools Trump uses to pressure blue and purple states can easily be turned against red states. Either way, centrally enforced
homogeneity will undermine the variation in state policy that is crucial to coexistence in a diverse
and deeply divided nation. Those tempted to dismiss Trump's threat as mere bluster should recall this is far from the first time the
administration has tried to bully states and localities by usurping the spending power. In a long series of "sanctuary city" cases, Trump has
repeatedly tried to use that tactic to force state and local governments to cooperate with his immigration
agenda. Nearly all court decisions on the issue (with one notable exception) have so far rejected the administration's tactics on the ground that
Trump cannot impose spending conditions that were not authorized by Congress. Many of the sanctuary city cases involved administration efforts
to withhold relatively modest-size federal law enforcement grants. But the threat to federalism and separation of powers goes far beyond that
specific case. The same tactics used by the administration in sanctuary cities cases, can also be used to coerce states and localities by threatening
to withhold far more significant federal grants. Congress, of course, also sometimes adopts ill-advised grant conditions. But the need to build up
majorities in two houses representing a range of diverse interests makes it harder to enact sweeping new conditions, and provides some protection
The vast
for the autonomy of politically diverse states. The president can act more aggressively and faces fewer such constraints.
expansion of federal spending during the ongoing coronavirus crisis exacerbates the danger posed by
executive usurpation in this sphere. Thanks to that expansion and the catastrophic decline in states' own
tax revenue, state and local governments are now more dependent on federal aid than at any time
in living memory. In that state of affairs, a president empowered to attach his own new conditions to federal
grants will have more opportunity to abuse that authority than ever. Ideally, we should limit the danger by taking steps
to ensure a quick recovery, while also carefully limiting proposed bailouts of states to those that are genuinely needed to deal with the emergency.
But we must reckon with the possibility that the crisis will continue for a long time, and that massive expansions of federal spending will
continue along with it. If that happens, growing state dependency on federal grants will almost unavoidably have serious negative effects. For
example, it will diminish state incentives to compete for residents who "vote with their feet," since one of the main incentives for such
competition is the desire for new tax revenue—which will be less pressing the more states can instead get money from Washington. As long as
the crisis continues, we
cannot prevent all such problems, or even come close to it. But vigilant enforcement
constitutional constraints on presidential attempts to usurp the spending power can forestall at least one
threat to federalism and separation of powers.

( ) Federalism is Resilient – no single area is key

Young ‘3
(Ernest, Professor of Law – University of Texas, Texas Law Review, May, Lexis)
One of the privileges of being a junior faculty member is that senior colleagues often feel obligated to read one's rough drafts. On many
occasions when I have written about federalism - from a stance considerably more sympathetic to the States than Judge Noonan's - my

colleagues have responded with the following comment: " Relax . The States retain vast reserves of autonomy and
authority over any number of important areas. It will be a long time, if ever , before the national
government can expand its authority far enough to really endanger the federal balance . Don't make it
sound like you think the sky is falling”.
( ) hyper-partisanship already exists– there are deep divides between the GOP and
Dem bases. State action on COVID isn’t resolving this – bipartisanship hasn’t
reversed during the pandemic.

( ) US decline will not cause transition wars or great power conflicts.

Fettweis ‘17
Dr. Christopher J. Fettweis, Associate Professor of Political Science at Tulane University, PhD in Government and Politics from
the University of Maryland, “Unipolarity, Hegemony, and the New Peace”, Security Studies, Vol. 26, No. 3, p. 434-442
[language modified]

During the 19 90s , the U nited S tates cut back on defense by about 25 percent, spending $100 billion less in real
terms in 1998 that it did in 1990.68 To those believers in the neoconservative version of hegemonic stability, this irresponsible “peace dividend”
endangered both national and global security. “No serious analyst of American military capabilities doubts that the defense budget has been cut
much too far to meet America’s responsibilities to itself and to world peace,” argued Kristol and Kagan at the time.69 The world grew
dramatically more peaceful while the United States cut its forces, however , and stayed just as peaceful
while spending rebounded after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The
incidence and magnitude of global conflict declined while
the military budget was cut under President Clinton, in other words, and kept declining (though more slowly, since levels
were already low) as the Bush administration ramped it back up. Overall US military spending has varied during the period of the New Peace
from a low in constant dollars of less than $400 billion to a high of more than $700 billion, but war does not seem to have noticed. The
same
nonrelationship exists between other potential proxy measurements for hegemony and conflict: there
does not seem to be much connection between warfare and fluctuations in US GDP , alliance
commitments , and forward military presence . There was very little fighting in Europe when there
were 300,000 US troops stationed there, for example, and that has not changed as the number of
Americans dwindled by 90 percent. Overall, there does not seem to be much correlation between US
actions and systemic stability. Nothing the United States actually does seems to matter to the New Peace.
It is possible that absolute military spending might not be as important to explain the phenomenon as relative. Although Washington cut back on
spending during the 1990s, its relative advantage never wavered. The United States has accounted for between 35 and 41 percent of global
military spending every year since the collapse of the Soviet Union.70 The perception of relative US power might be the decisive factor in
decisions made in other capitals. One cannot rule out the possibility that it is the perception of US power—and its willingness to use it—that
keeps the peace. In other words, perhaps it is the grand strategy of the United States, rather than its absolute capability, that is decisive in
maintaining stability. It is that to which we now turn.

Conflict and US Grand Strategy

The perception of US power, and the strength of its hegemony, is to some degree a function of grand strategy. If indeed US strategic choices are
responsible for the New Peace, then variation in those choices ought to have consequences for the level of international conflict. A
restrained
United States is much less likely to play the role of sheriff than one following a more activist approach.
Were the unipole to follow such a path, hegemonic-stability theorists warn, disaster would follow . Former
National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski spoke for many when he warned that “outright chaos” could be expected to
follow a loss of hegemony, including a string of quite specific issues, including new or renewed attempts to build regional empires (by China,
Turkey, Russia, and Brazil) and the collapse of the US relationship with Mexico, as emboldened nationalists south of the border reassert 150-
year-old territorial claims. Overall, without US dominance, today’s relatively peaceful world would turn “violent and bloodthirsty.”71 Niall
Ferguson foresees a post-hegemonic “Dark Age” in which “plunderers and pirates” target the big coastal cities like New York and
Rotterdam, terrorists attack cruise liners and aircraft carriers alike, and the “wretchedly poor citizens” of Latin America are unable to resist the
Protestantism brought to them by US evangelicals. Following the multiple (regional, fortunately) nuclear wars and plagues, the few
remaining airlines would be forced to suspend service to all but the very richest cities.72 These are somewhat extreme versions of a

central assumption of all hegemonic-stability theorists: a restrained United States would be accompanied
by utter disaster. The “present danger” of which Kristol, Kagan, and their fellow travelers warn is that the United States “will shrink its
responsibilities and—in a fit of absentmindedness, or parsimony, or indifference— allow the international order that it created and sustains to
collapse.”73 Liberals fear restraint as well, and also warn that a militarized version of primacy would be counterproductive in the long run.
Although they believe that the rule-based order established by United States is more durable than the relatively fragile order discussed by the
neoconservatives, liberals argue that Washington can undermine its creation over time through thoughtless unilateral actions that violate those
rules. Many predicted that the invasion of Iraq and its general contempt for international institutions and law would call the legitimacy of the
order into question. G. John Ikenberry worried that Bush’s “geostrategic wrecking ball” would lead to a more hostile, divided, and dangerous
world.74 Thus while all hegemonicstability theorists expect a rise of chaos during a restrained presidency, liberals also have grave concerns
regarding primacy.

Overall, if either version is correct and global stability is provided by US hegemony, then maintaining that stability
through a grand strategy based on either primacy (to neoconservatives) or “deep engagement” (to liberals) is clearly a wise
choice.75 If, however, US actions are only tangentially related to the outbreak of the New Peace , or if any of the
other proposed explanations are decisive, then the U nited S tates can retrench without fear of negative
consequences . The grand strategy of the United States is therefore crucial to beliefs in hegemonic stability. Although few observers would
agree on the details, most would probably acknowledge that post-Cold War grand strategies of American presidents have differed in some
important ways. The four administrations are reasonable representations of the four ideal types outlined by Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross
in 1996.76 Under George H. W. Bush, the United States followed the path of “selective engagement,” which is sometimes referred to as
“balance-of-power realism”; Bill Clinton’s grand strategy looks a great deal like what Posen and Ross call “cooperative security,” and others call
“liberal internationalism”; George W. Bush, especially in his first term, forged a strategy that was as close to “primacy” as any president is likely
to get; and Barack Obama, despite some early flirtation with liberalism, has followed
a restrained realist path, which Posen
and Ross label “neo-isolationism” but its proponents refer to as “strategic restraint.”77 In no case did the various
anticipated disorders materialize. As Table 2 demonstrates, armed conflict levels fell steadily, irrespective of
the grand strategic path Washington chose.

Neither the primacy of George W. Bush nor the restraint of Barack Obama had much effect on the level of global
violence. Despite continued warnings (and the high-profile mess in Syria), the world has not experienced an
increase in violence while the United States chose uninvolvement. If the grand strategy of the United
States is responsible for the New Peace, it is leaving no trace in the evidence. Perhaps we should not expect a
correlation to show up in this kind of analysis. While US behavior might have varied in the margins during this period, nether its relative
advantage over its nearest rivals nor its commitments waivered in any important way. However, it is surely worth noting that if
trends
opposite to those discussed in the previous two sections had unfolded, if other states had reacted differently to fluctuations in
either US military spending or grand strategy, then surely hegemonic stability theorists would argue that their
expectations had been fulfilled. Many liberals were on the lookout for chaos while George W. Bush was in the White House, just as
neoconservatives have been quick to identify apparent worldwide catastrophe under President Obama.78 If increases in violence would have been
evidence for the wisdom of hegemonic strategies, then logical consistency demands that the lack thereof should at least pose
a problem.

As it stands, the
only evidence we have regarding the relationship between US power and international
stability suggests that the two are unrelated . The rest of the world appears quite capable and willing to
operate effectively without the presence of a global policeman. Those who think otherwise have precious
little empirical support upon which to build their case. Hegemonic stability is a belief, in other words, rather than an
established fact, and as such deserves a different kind of examination.

( ) Leadership is resilient – US has too big of a lead in hard power.

Nye ‘20
Joseph S. Nye Jr. is a university distinguished service professor at Harvard University = “No, the Coronavirus Will Not Change
the Global Order” – Foreign Policy - APRIL 16, 2020 - #E&F - https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?
q=cache:yVzrVrwIKJUJ:https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/16/coronavirus-pandemic-china-united-states-power-competition/
+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
In soft power, China starts from a weak position. Despite major efforts since former President Hu Jintao announced the
objective of increasing the country’s soft power at the 17th National Congress in 2007, Beijing has created its own obstacles by
exacerbating territorial disputes with neighboring countries and by its insistence on repressive party control, which prevents
the full talents of society from being unleashed in the way that happens in democracies. It is not surprising that global public opinion
polls and rankings such as the Soft Power 30 rank China low in soft power. The top 20 spots in the index are held by
democracies.

In hard power, too, the balance favoring the United States will not be changed by the pandemic. Both the U.S. and
Chinese economies have been hit hard, as have those of the United States’ European and East Asian allies. Before the crisis, China’s economy
had grown to two-thirds the size of the United States’ (measured at exchange rates), but China entered the crisis with a slowing growth rate and
declining exports. Beijing
has also been investing heavily in military power , but remains far behind the United
States and may slow down its military investments in a more adverse budgetary climate . Among other things that
the crisis has exposed is China’s need for major expenditures on its inadequate health care system.
 1AR – Federal encroachments in Crim Justice Now

Extend that there are Federal encroachments in the realm of criminal justice
already. They’ve been around for decades.

Here’s more ev - Federal encroachments through the First Step Act and other
reforms.
Grawert and Neu 19 Ames Grawert, Senior Counsel, John L. Neu Justice Counsel, Justice, and Tim
Lau is a staff writer with the Brennan Center’s editorial team, January 4, 2019 “How the FIRST STEP
Act Became Law — and What Happens Next” Brennan Center for Justice,
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-first-step-act-became-law-and-what-
happens-next
Criminal justice reform starts with sentencing reform The
FIRST STEP Act is consequential because it includes
provisions for meaningful sentencing reform, which would reduce the number and amount of people in
prison and is part of the starting point of any serious legislation for criminal justice reform .
Sentencing laws played a central role in the rise of mass incarceration in recent decades . The federal prison
population, in particular, has risen by more than 700 percent since 1980, and federal prison spending has increased by nearly 600 percent. That
growth has disproportionally affected African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos. Federal mandatory minimum sentences
were a catalyst for the recent surge of unnecessarily harsh prison sentences. More than two-thirds of
federal prisoners serving a life sentence or a virtual life sentence have been convicted of non-violent
crimes. But research continues to show that long prison sentences are often ineffective. One Brennan Center study found that overly harsh
sentences have done little to reduce crime. In fact, in some cases, longer prison stays can actually increase the likelihood of people returning to
criminal activity. These sentences disproportionately impact people of color and low-income communities. How the FIRST STEP Act tackles our
outdated sentencing laws The
FIRST STEP Act shortens mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug
offenses. It also eases a federal “three strikes” rule — which currently imposes a life sentence for three or
more convictions — and issues a 25-year sentence instead. Most consequentially, it expands the “drug safety-valve,” which
would give judges more discretion to deviate from mandatory minimums when sentencing for nonviolent drug offenses. In an overdue change,
the bill also makes the Fair Sentencing Act retroactive. Passed in 2010, the Fair Sentencing Act has
helped reduce the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses — a disparity that has
hurt racial minorities. The FIRST STEP Act will now apply the Fair Sentencing Act to 3,000 people who
were convicted of crack offenses before the law went into effect. Beyond sentencing reform , the FIRST STEP
Act includes provisions that will improve conditions for current prisoners and address several laws
that increased racial disparities in the federal prison system. The bill will require federal prisons to
offer programs to reduce recidivism; ban the shackling of pregnant women; and expand the cap on “good
time credit” — or small sentence reductions based on good behavior — from around 47 to 54 days per
year. That “good time” amendment will benefit as many 85 percent of federal prisoners. The FIRST
STEP Act changes the conversation on mass incarceration The FIRST STEP Act is a critical win in
the fight to reduce mass incarceration. While the bill is hardly a panacea, it’s the largest step the federal
government has taken to reduce the number of people in federal custody. (The federal government remains the
nation’s leading incarcerator, and more people are under the custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons than any single state system.) The
FIRST STEP Act’s overwhelming passage demonstrates that the bipartisan movement to reduce mass
incarceration remains strong. And the bill, which retains major parts of SRCA’s sentencing reform
provisions, is now known as “Trump’s criminal justice bill.” This means that conservatives seeking to
curry favor with the president can openly follow his example or push for even bolder reforms . Finally,
this dynamic creates a unique opening for Democrats vying for the White House in 2020 to offer even
better solutions to end mass incarceration.
 1AR – Federalism violations now – outside of Crim Justice

Extend that there are Federalism violations now – these fall outside of real of
Criminal Justice, but still prove the disad not unique.

More proof that federalism’s violated all the time

Salter ‘20 Alexander W. Salter, Assistant Professor of Economics in the Rawls College of Business
and the Comparative Economics Research Fellow with the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech
University, 5-13-2020, "How the Fed’s COVID-19 Response Undermines Federalism," American
Institute for Economic Reform, https://www.aier.org/article/how-the-feds-covid-19-response-undermines-
federalism/
The Federal Reserve’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been deeply troubling. Currently totaling
$2.3 trillion, the Fed’s interventions include direct lending to large corporations, as well as small- to
medium-sized businesses. It is an unprecedented expansion in the kinds of assets the Fed puts on its
balance sheet . The central bank is directly allocating resources, which is beyond the rightful limits of
monetary policy. The Fed’s recent actions represent an unnecessary growth of power that significantly
expands its presence in credit markets. These actions also increase the risk that the Fed will lose its political independence. Since
the Fed is engaging in de facto fiscal policy, Congress could try to strong-arm it into pursuing political goals that cannot be achieved through the
budgeting process.Of particular concern, the Fed’s expanded scope apparently includes propping up
borrowing by state and municipal governments. Through its Municipal Liquidity Facility (MLF), state and local
governments can borrow from the Fed, which has committed to buying up to $500 billion in investment-grade notes. The Treasury will
backstop the MLF for up to $35 billion in losses. The Fed is also supporting municipal debt (munis)
through secondary channels. It has expanded the eligible collateral for loans through the Money Market
Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (MMLF) to include munis, and the collateral acceptable through the
Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF) to include commercial paper backed by munis . These
measures are concerning because they undermine federalism . In a federal system such as ours, decision-making
authority is not solely vested in the national government. Instead, state and local governments have significant spheres of autonomy, including
decisions about financing and providing public outputs. However, federalism
only works if the “higher” levels of
government do not attempt to impinge on the decision-making process of the “lower” governments. The
Fed’s interventions into state and local debt markets threatens the efficacy and independence of these
lower, more local governments. Here’s a prudent rule for behavior suggested by fiscal federalism: the
jurisdiction that gets the benefits of public output should bear the costs of producing it. For example,
policing and emergency response services are public outputs that are not pure private goods . Insofar as
they create benefits that accrue to the public at large, collective action through politics may help us
provide for these goods better than private action through markets alone. But if a given town benefits
from these services, then the town’s residences should pay for it. A city government can tax citizens directly to finance
police and emergency response services. In doing so, it is more likely to behave prudently. Taxing the beneficiaries preserves the link between
cost and choice. Citizens can evaluate the worth of the police and emergency response services and decide whether continuing the services is
worth the cost. If, instead, citizens can compel others to bear the cost, then they may demand the output even when it is not worthwhile. Why not,
if someone else is helping to pick up the tab? Apart from electoral competition (city council and state legislature elections), efficiency in the
provision of local public outputs is driven by two kinds of competition. The first kind is known as Tiebout competition, named after the
economist who first discussed it. The idea is that different localities can pick different mixes of tax schedules and public output offerings, and
citizens can choose which jurisdiction to live in, based on their preferences. People who want lots of public output and are willing to pay higher
taxes can live in California or New York; those who want less public output in exchange for lower taxes can live in Texas or North Dakota. The
second is called pseudo-Tiebout competition, and is frequently referred to as “voting with your feet.” This is about the discovery process
concerning the right mix of taxes and outputs, as well as the feedback mechanism that makes this knowledge known. To make a complicated
story as simple as possible, localities that are inefficient—that is, where taxes are too high to justify the quantity and quality of public services
provided—will slowly lose citizens to more efficient localities, as people leave the former to live in the latter. This will eventually mean falling
tax revenue for the inefficient locality, which will have to adjust its behavior to stop emigration. Of
course, these processes only
work if the local and state governments have real budget constraints. When budget constraints bind, there
is a tight link between cost and choice. If a governing body can secure a source of funding from resources
outside its jurisdiction, however, it loses the incentive to budget prudently. And, more broadly, the
information regarding efficiency in public services provision becomes scrambled. Unfortunately,
Washington has been undermining fiscal federalism for years . It grants nearly $700 billion per year in
aid to states and local governments for “education, highways, housing, transit, and other activities .” This
might seem like a good deal. But it enables states and municipal governments to grant their citizens
benefits that are paid for by third party non-beneficiaries. It is a recipe for expensive, low quality public
output, which is often what we observe. The Fed’s backstopping of state and local borrowing should alarm us for precisely the
same reason. Remember, the Fed has a monopoly on the creation of base money , the economy’s most liquid
asset. When the Fed provides cheap funding to state and local governments and supports their borrowing
on secondary markets, it reduces the incentive for state and local governments to budget wisely for public
outputs. From the perspective of a local government, it doesn’t matter whether the money is coming from
the Treasury or Fed. It’s “money for nothin’”—or close to it. And it doesn’t matter that state and local
governments still have to pay interest on the loans, either. If they weren’t getting a better-than-prime-
market deal from the Fed, they would be borrowing from someone else. When the Fed or Treasury
provides cheap credit to state and local governments, it reduces the independence of state and local
governments from federal authorities. What happens when lower-level governments come to
depend on that funding? As they say, “he who pays the piper, calls the tune,” Politicians in
Washington will have much more say in how state and local governments are run . Instead of
genuine centers of independent decision-making, lower-level governments become mere
administrative bureaucracies for higher-level governments.
 1AR - Federalism is Resilient

Extend that Federalism is Resilient – no single area is key.

Here’s more proof that precedents don’t really exist – federalism lacks firm rules of
the road.
Kinnaird ’20
Dr. Brian A. Kinnaird, chair, department of criminal justice, Bethany College, “Who's Really in Charge
of the Police?” June 4 2020, Psychology Today, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-hero-in-
you/202006/whos-really-in-charge-the-police
In the U.S., we have a democratic republic with a system of federalism that divides
power and laws between federal, state,
and local governments. It’s a vertical layer that behaves with a top-down, hierarchical, and chain-of-
command approach. It seems clear cut and theoretically distinct but it is not. It’s often a shared,
overarching, and overreaching process often without legitimate boundaries and appropriate
accountability. By its very nature, our collective governments all have a spoon in the chili in regard to
creating laws, policies, and ordinances, executing and judging those directives, oversight and fiscal
management — all with the hopes of yielding a return on the investment . Add in human nature and you can imagine
where this can go.

One Federal violation won’t spillover – many safeguards check.

Bednar ‘20
Jenna Bednar, professor of political science at the University of Michigan, member of the external faculty
at the Santa Fe Institute and author of “The Robust Federation: Principles of Design” April 17 2020, "Of
course Trump’s authority isn’t ‘total.’ Here are 3 myths about how federalism works," Washington Post, -
4/17 - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/17/course-trumps-authority-isnt-total-here-are-
3-myths-about-how-federalism-works/
Instead of coordinating a national pandemic response, the federal government has compounded the collective action problem, as shown by Jared
The founders pointedly included
Kushner’s striking assertion that the national stockpile is “ours” and not a resource for the states.
safeguards to prevent national government overreach or shirking; those include the judiciary,
separation of powers, state representation in federal decisions, intergovernmental councils, the
people themselves and states’ ability to push back . Another safeguard emerged later: the party
system . In a robust federal system, these reinforce one another, a kind of fail-safe system intentionally
full of redundancies. The founders worked to design an institutional immune system so that no single
person or faction could disrupt the government. They hoped that federalism might sustain democracy. What might threaten this
robustness would be what the Federalist Papers called a “lack of diverse interests”: If the judiciary, the branches of federal government and the
internal workings of political parties were all aligned in their thinking or had a culture of obedience, and if the public were apathetic or ill-
informed, then the safeguards may simultaneously fail. Where Trump has faced limits to his attempts to expand powers,
he has attempted to skirt them: purging internal oversight by firing inspectors general and on Wednesday,
making the extraordinary threat to adjourn Congress so he can make recess appointments. Will the pandemic
serve as a catalyst, making it even easier for the president to accumulate power, or awaken the slumbering safeguards? The governors’
decisive responses to the pandemic may suggest that the safeguards can again constrain the federal
government.
 1AR - US leadership decline won’t cause war

Extend that US decline will not cause transition wars or great power conflicts.

Prefer our Fettweis evidence – it’s highly qualified and runs all the ways that US
decline could cause tension. From less US spending to fewer troops abroad, the
declining US posture did not create instability.

Here’s more proof that US hegemonic decline would not cause war.
Fettweis ‘11
Christopher Fettweis, Department of Political Science, Tulane University, 9/26/11, Free Riding or Restraint? Examining
European Grand Strategy, Comparative Strategy, 30:316–332, EBSCO

there is no evidence to support a direct relationship between the relative level of U.S. activism
It is perhaps worth noting that

and international stability . In fact, the limited data we do have suggest the opposite may be true. During
the 1990s, the United States cut back on its defense spending fairly substantially. By 1998, the United States was
spending $100 billion less on defense in real terms than it had in 1990 .51 To internationalists, defense hawks and believers in
hegemonic stability, this irresponsible “peace dividend” endangered both national and global security. “No serious analyst of American military capabilities,” argued Kristol and Kagan,

if the pacific trends were not

“doubts that the defense budget has been cut much too far to meet America’s responsibilities to itself and to world peace.”52 On the other hand,

based upon U.S. hegemony but a strengthening norm against interstate war, one would not have
expected an increase in global instability and violence. The verdict from the past two decades is fairly plain: The
world grew more peaceful while the United States cut its forces. No state seemed to believe that its security
was endangered by a less-capable United States military, or at least none took any action that would suggest such
a belief. No militaries were enhanced to address power vacuums, no security dilemmas drove
insecurity or arms races , and no regional balancing occurred once the stabilizing presence of the
U.S. military was diminished. The rest of the world acted as if the threat of international war was not a pressing concern, despite the reduction in U.S. capabilities.
Most of all, the United States and its allies were no less safe. The incidence and magnitude of global conflict declined while the

United States cut its military spending under President Clinton, and kept declining as the Bush Administration ramped the spending back up. No complex
statistical analysis should be necessary to reach the conclusion that the two are unrelated. Military spending figures by themselves are insufficient to disprove a connection between overall
U.S. actions and international stability. Once again, one could presumably argue that spending is not the only or even the best indication of hegemony, and that it is instead U.S. foreign
political and security commitments that maintain stability. Since neither was significantly altered during this period, instability should not have been expected. Alternately, advocates of
hegemonic stability could believe that relative rather than absolute spending is decisive in bringing peace. Although the United States cut back on its spending during the 1990s, its relative
advantage never wavered. However, even if it is true that either U.S. commitments or relative spending account for global pacific trends, then at the very least stability can evidently be
maintained at drastically lower levels of both. In other words, even if one can be allowed to argue in the alternative for a moment and suppose that there is in fact a level of engagement
below which the United States cannot drop without increasing international disorder, a rational grand strategist would still recommend cutting back on engagement and spending until that
level is determined. Grand strategic decisions are never final; continual adjustments can and must be made as time goes on. Basic logic suggests that the United States ought to spend the
minimum amount of its blood and treasure while seeking the maximum return on its investment. And if the current era of stability is as stable as many believe it to be, no increase in
conflict would ever occur irrespective of U.S. spending, which would save untold trillions for an increasingly debt-ridden nation. It is also perhaps worth noting that if opposite trends had
unfolded, if other states had reacted to news of cuts in U.S. defense spending with more aggressive or insecure behavior, then internationalists would surely argue that their expectations had

. If increases in conflict would have been interpreted as proof of the wisdom of internationalist
been fulfilled

strategies, then logical consistency demands that the lack thereof should at least pose a problem. As it stands, the
only evidence we have regarding the likely systemic reaction to a more restrained United States
suggests that the current peaceful trends are unrelated to U.S. military spending . Evidently the rest of the
world can operate quite effectively without the presence of a global policeman. Those who think
otherwise base their view on faith alone.
 1AR - “US has too big of a lead in hard power”

Extend that the leadership is resilient because has too big of a lead in hard power.
Our Nye ev accounts for China’s military spending and says it still falls far short.

Here’s more proof that US lead is simply too great.

Preble 16
Christopher Preble, VP for Defense and FoPo Studies @ Cato, William Ruger, VP for Research and Policy @ Charles Koch
Institute, War on the Rocks, “NO MORE OF THE SAME: THE PROBLEM WITH PRIMACY”, August 31, 2016,
http://warontherocks.com/2016/08/no-more-of-the-same-the-problem-with-primacy/

An alternative approach to global affairs would concentrate on vital U.S. national interests and maintain the tools necessary to defend them. It
would also reject the need for global hegemony.
The idea that we can only be safe once the world is remade in our
image is riddled with logical fallacies . Moreover, an interests-driven foreign policy would take seriously the consequences of our
actions abroad and here at home — on our soldiers, our fiscal health, and our principles.

Instead of asking, whenever a distant crisis breaks, “What is the United States going to do?” we should ask, first, “How does this affect vital U.S.
national interests?” and, second, “In light of recent developments, what can the United States do, while remaining prosperous and relatively
safe, and what must others do to protect themselves?”

This might seem like common sense, but it runs counter to the foreign policy thinking among American elites. They argue that America’s
dominant position in the international system is good not only for America but also for the world. A large, expensive, and globally deployed
military is designed to smother potential peer competitors and stop prospective threats before they materialize. Primacy also requires a globe-
girdling array of allies and the active spread of liberal values. It even means “resisting, and where possible, undermining, rising dictators and
hostile ideologies” through frequent military interventions, as primacists Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol have argued. They are comfortable going
to war even “when we cannot prove that a narrowly construed ‘vital interest’ of the United States is at stake.”

Primacists hold that it would simply be too dangerous to allow allied countries to defend themselves or independently assert their interests;
therefore, the United States must do it for them. Though such a strategy encourages free riding, primacists are more worried by the prospect
that allies’ self-defense efforts might fail, necessitating more costly U.S. intervention later and under less favorable circumstances. U.S. security
guarantees, the primacists say, tamp down the natural inclination of states to want to provide security for themselves, thus preventing allies
from engaging in arms build-ups that might unsettle their neighbors, perhaps even unleashing regional arms races.

Unfortunately — but predictably given what theory and history teach us — primacy has been neither easy to
implement nor cheap to sustain. When the U.S. military is called upon to fight wars across the globe, the human toll is
considerable. Since 9/11 and through 2014, nearly 7,000 U.S. troops have been killed, 52,000 have been wounded in action, and close to a
million veterans have registered disability claims.

The fiscal burdens of primacy are severe as well. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost the United States trillions of dollars, some
of which we will be paying for many decades in the form of additional debt servicing and veteran care. And primacy guarantees more fighting in
the future — and the bills that come with it.

Of course, we ought to have a strong defense. But, under primacy, the U.S. military is expected both to stop threats from materializing and to
stomp out any fires it fails to prevent. That expectation requires us to maintain the world’s largest and most active military.
Notwithstanding the false claims that the Budget Control Act is responsible for “gutting national
defense”, or the widespread belief that the U.S. military has been hollowed out and needs to be rebuilt ,
the U.S. military is the preeminent fighting force in the world. No state can match U.S. global power-
projection capabilities. And U.S. military spending remains near historic highs. In inflation-adjusted dollars,
military spending — both war and non-war — averaged $612 billion per year during President George W. Bush’s two terms in office. Under
President Barack Obama, it has averaged $675 billion. The United States will have spent nearly $500 billion more on the military in the Obama
years than during the Bush years.
The U nited S tates spends at least as much on its military as the next eight countries worldwide and nearly
three times more than China and Russia combined . Although not all of that money is spent wisely, it still buys
incomparable capabilities . No sensible American should wish to trade places with any other country on
earth. The U.S. military is second to none, and our massive economy is a solid foundation for generating
military power when it is needed..

In the current strategic environment, the U nited S tates could easily spend less and still safeguard
America’s vital interests. It could do so through smarter spending, eliminating wasteful gold-plated programs such as the F-35, and
demanding greater burden-sharing from allies. At present, U.S. security guarantees to wealthy allies cause them to underprovide for their own
defense, meaning they have less capacity to help us deal with common security challenges.

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen warned that debts and deficits represent threats to not just our fiscal health but
our national security as well. Although military spending is not the primary driver of the nation’s massive and unprecedented fiscal imbalance,
primacy’s high costs undermine our economic security.

Such expenditures might still be justified if they were instrumental in keeping Americans safe. But, in fact, primacy is based on a
number of faulty premises , including: (a) that the U nited S tates is subjected to more urgent and prevalent
threats than ever before; (b) that U.S. security guarantees reassure nervous allies and thus contribute to global
peace and stability; and (c) that a large and active U.S. military is essential to the health of the international economy.

Primacists hold that the United States cannot adopt a wait-and-see attitude with respect to distant trouble spots. They believe that the security
of all states are bound together and that threats to others are actually threats to the United States. Primacists
believe that
instability and crises abroad will adversely affect American interests if they are allowed to fester . “The
alternative to Pax Americana—the only alternative—is global disorder,” writes the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens, with emphasis. Because
any problem, in any part of the world, could eventually threaten U.S. security or U.S. interests, primacy aims to stop all problems before they
occur.

This assumption is based on a very selective reading of world history, grossly exaggerates the U nited
S tates’ ability to control outcomes, and underplays its costs . It also miscasts the nature of the threats
that are facing us.

Technology has not evaporated the seas, allowing large land armies to march across the ocean floor.
Meanwhile, potential challengers like China face more urgent problems that will diminish their desire and

ability to project power outside of their neighborhood. They can cause trouble in the S outh C hina S ea, but
that does not mean they can or will in the South Pacific or the Caribbean . China’s economic troubles
and rising popular unrest , for example, could constrain Chinese military spending increases and focus
Beijing’s attention at home . Causing problems abroad would threaten critical trading relations that are essential to the health of the
Chinese economy.

Primacists argue that we cannot rely on oceans to halt nuclear missiles that fly over them or cyberattacks in the virtual realm. And terrorists
could infiltrate by land, sea, or air, or they could be grown right here at home. But our own nuclear weapons provide a
powerful deterrent against state actors with return addresses, and a massive, forward-deployed military is not the best tool for dealing
with terrorists and hackers. The hard part is finding them and stopping them before they act. That is a job for the intelligence and law
enforcement communities, respectively. And small-footprint military units like special operations forces can help as needed.
 1AR vs. Governance/Democracy Module

Democracy doesn’t cause peace – best statistics go Neg

Mousseau, 12 (Michael – Professor IR Koç University, “The Democratic Peace Unraveled: It’s the
Economy” International Studies Quarterly, p 1-12)

Model 2 presents new knowledge by adding the control for economic type. To capture the dyadic expectation of peace among contract-intensive nations, the variable Contract- intensive
EconomyL (CIEL) indicates the value of impersonal contracts in force per capita of the state with the lower level of CIE in the dyad; a high value of this measure indicates both states have
contract-intensive economies. As can be seen, the coefficient for CIEL ()0.80) is negative and highly significant. This corroborates that impersonal economy is a highly robust force for peace.
The coefficient for DemocracyL is now at zero. There are no other differences between Models 1 and 2, whose samples are identical, and no prior study corroborating the democratic peace has

considered contractintensive economy. Therefore, the standard econometric inference to be drawn from Model 2 is the nontrivial result that all prior reports of
democracy as a force for peace are probably spurious, since this result is predicted and fully
accounted for by economic norms theory. CIEL and DemocracyL correlate only in the moderate range
of 0.47 (Pearson’s r), so the insignificance of democracy is not likely to be a statistical artifact of
multicollinearity. This is corroborated by the variance inflation factor for DemocracyL in Model 2 of 1.85, which is well below the usual rule-of-thumb indicator of
multicollinearity of 10 or more. Nor should readers assume most democratic dyads have both states with impersonal economies: While almost all nations with contract-intensive economies (as
indicated with the binary measure for CIE) are democratic (Polity2 > 6) (Singapore is the only long-term exception), more than half—55%—of all democratic nation-years have contract-poor
economies. At the dyadic level in this sample, this translates to 80% of democratic dyads (all dyads where DemocracyBinary6 = 1) that have at least one state with a contract-poor economy. In

not only does Model 2 show no evidence of causation from democracy to peace (as reported in
other words,

Mousseau 2009), but it also illustrates that this absence of democratic peace includes the vast majority—80%—
of democratic dyad-years over the sample period. Nor is it likely that the causal arrow is reversed—with
democracy being the ultimate cause of contract-intensive economy and peace. This is because correlations
among independent variables are not calculated in the results of multivariate regressions: Coefficients
show only the effect of each variable after the potential effects of the others are kept constant at their mean
levels. If it was democracy that caused both impersonal economy and peace, then there would be some
variance in DemocracyL remaining, after its partial correlation with CIEL is excluded, that links it directly with peace. The
positive direction of the coefficient for DemocracyL informs us that no such direct effect exists (Blalock
1979:473–474). Model 3 tests for the effect of DemocracyL if a control is added for mixed-polity dyads, as suggested by Russett (2010:201). As discussed above, to avoid problems of
mathematical endogeneity, I adopt the solution used by Mousseau, Orsun and Ungerer (2013) and measure regime difference as proposed by Werner (2000), drawing on the subcomponents of
the Polity2 regime measure. As can be seen, the coefficient for Political Distance (1.00) is positive and significant, corroborating that regime mixed dyads do indeed have more militarized
conflict than others. Yet, the inclusion of this term has no effect on the results that concern us here: CIEL ()0.85) is now even more robust, and the coefficient for DemocracyL (0.03) is above
zero.7 Model 4 replaces the continuous democracy measure with the standard binary one (Polity2 > 6), as suggested by Russett (2010:201), citing Bayer and Bernhard (2010). As can be
observed, the coefficient for CIEL ()0.83) remains negative and highly significant, while DemocracyBinary6 (0.63) is in the positive (wrong) direction. As discussed above, analyses of fatal
dispute onsets with the far stricter binary measure for democracy (Polity = 10), put forward by Dafoe (2011) in response to Mousseau (2009), yields perfect prediction (as does the prior binary
measure Both States CIE), causing quasi-complete separation and inconclusive results. Therefore, Model 5 reports the results with DemocracyBinary10 in analyses of all militarized conflicts, not
just fatal ones. As can be seen, the coefficient for DemocracyBinary10 ()0.41), while negative, is not significant. Model 6 reports the results in analyses of fatal disputes with DemocracyL

the coefficient for

squared (after adding 10), which implies that the likelihood of conflict decreases more quickly toward the high values of DemocracyL. As can be seen ,

DemocracyL 2 is at zero, further corroborating that even very high levels of democracy do not appear to
cause peace in analyses of fatal disputes, once consideration is given to contractintensive economy. Models
3, 4, and 6, which include Political Distance, were repeated (but unreported to save space) with analyses of all militarized interstate disputes, with
the democracy coefficients close to zero in every case. Therefore, the conclusions reached by Mousseau (2009) are corroborated even with the
most stringent measures of democracy, consideration of institutional distance, and across all specifications: The democratic peace
appears spurious , with contract-intensive economy being the more likely explanation for both
democracy and the democratic peace.
 1AR vs. Climate Module

Federalism fails for climate change

Plumer 19
Brad Plumer is a climate reporter specializing in policy and technology efforts to cut carbon dioxide
emissions. He has also covered international climate talks and the changing energy landscape in the
United States for The New York Times, June 21, 2019, “Blue States Roll Out Aggressive Climate
Strategies. Red States Keep to the Sidelines.” New York Times,
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/climate/states-climate-change.html
But since then, as global warming became more politically divisive during the Obama era and conservative and
libertarian groups stepped up their attacks on state renewable energy laws, the era of climate bipartisanship has faded.
“ We’ve seen this huge partisan polarization around climate change over the last decade, and that’s
definitely reflected in state policies ,” said Leah Stokes, an assistant professor of political science at the University of California,
Santa Barbara. The divide deepened in 2017 after President Trump announced that he would withdraw the
country from the Paris climate agreement. To date, a growing number of governors — including 21 Democrats as well as
Republicans in Maryland, Massachusetts and Vermont — have vowed to counter that decision by pursuing their own climate policies at the state
Just because a blue state adopts an ambitious new climate
level and upholding the Paris accord on their own.
policy is no guarantee that it will actually follow through. New York, for instance, is already falling a
few percentage points short of an earlier requirement to get 30 percent of its electricity from renewables
by 2015. The state’s newest bill would ramp that target up to 70 percent by 2030. On the flip side, a number of
Republican states have been making major strides in adding renewable energy even without stringent mandates to do so. Places like Texas, Iowa
and North Dakota have added extensive wind power in recent years, largely thanks to falling turbine prices and favorable geography. And many
red states have managed to cut their own emissions over the past decade largely through market forces, as cheaper and cleaner natural gas, wind
and solar power have pushed dirtier coal plants in places like Ohio, Alabama and Georgia into retirement. In states like Indiana and Idaho, local
utilities are announcing plans to shut down their coal plants and shift to renewable energy purely because it’s cheaper and makes economic sense
to do so. In one notable case, Republicans in South Carolina moved last month to open the state’s grid to more solar power — not explicitly for
climate reasons, but because they said it would save consumers money. Still, most
experts agree that completely decarbonizing
the nation’s energy system, which scientists say is a necessary step for averting the worst effects of
climate change, will require major new policies such as carbon pricing or new regulations that go well
beyond what market forces can deliver. “ Ultimately, if you want to tackle climate change,” said Dr.
Stokes, “you can’t just win in the liberal states.”

No warming impact
Lehr 19 – Jay Lehr, Ph.D. in Groundwater Hydrology from the University of Arizona, and Tom Harris,
Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition, “Global Warming Myth Debunked:
Humans Have Minimal Impact on Atmosphere’s Carbon Dioxide and Climate”, Western Journal, 2-14,
https://www.westernjournal.com/global-warming-myth-debunked-humans-minimal-impact-atmospheres-
carbon-dioxide-climate/ [language modified]
Global warming activists argue carbon-dioxide emissions are destroying the planet, but the climate impacts
of carbon dioxide are minimal, at worst . Activists would also have you believe fossil-fuel emissions have driven carbon-dioxide
concentrations to their highest levels in history. The Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency went so far as to classify carbon dioxide as a
toxic pollutant, and it established a radical goal of closing all of America’s coal-fired power plants. Claims
of unprecedented carbon-
dioxide levels ignore most of Earth’s 4.6-billion-year history. Relative to Earth’s entire record, carbon-
dioxide levels are at historically low levels; they only appear high when compared to the dangerously
low levels of carbon dioxide that occurred in Earth’s very recent history. The geologic record reveals
carbon dioxide has almost always been in Earths’ atmosphere in much greater concentrations than it is
today. For example, 600 million years ago, when history’s greatest birth of new animal species occurred ,
atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations exceeded 6,500 parts per million (ppm) — an amount that’s 17 times
greater than it is today. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is currently only 410 parts per million. That means only 0.04 percent of our
atmosphere is carbon dioxide (compared to 0.03 percent one century ago). Only one molecule in 2,500 is carbon dioxide. Such levels certainly do
not pose a health risk, as carbon-dioxide levels in our naval submarines, which stay submerged for months at a time, contain an average carbon-
dioxide concentration of 5,000 ppm. The geologic record is important because it reveals relationships between carbon-dioxide levels, climate, and
life on Earth. Over
billions of years, the geologic record shows there is no long-term correlation between
atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels and Earth’s climate. There are periods in Earth’s history when carbon
dioxide concentrations were many times higher than they are today, yet temperatures were identical to,
or even colder than, modern times. The claim that fossil-fuel emissions control atmospheric carbon-
dioxide concentrations is also invalid , as atmospheric concentrations have gone up and down in the
geological record, even without human influence. The absurdity of climate alarmism claims gets even stranger when you
consider there are 7.5 billion people on our planet who, together, exhale 2.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year, which is almost 10 percent
of total fossil-fuel emissions every year. However, we are but a single species. Combined, people and all domesticated animals contribute 10
billion tons. Further, 9
percent of carbon-dioxide emissions from all living things arise not from animals, but
from anaerobic bacteria and fungi. These organisms metabolize dead plant and animal matter in soil via decay processes that recycle
carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. The grand total produced by all living things is estimated to be 440 billion tons per year, or 13 times the
amount of carbon dioxide currently being produced by fossil-fuel emissions. Fossil-fuel emissions are less than 10 percent of
biological emissions. Are you laughing yet? Every apocalyptic pronouncement you hear or read is [totally
wrong] nothing short of insanity. Their primary goal is not to save plants, humans, or animals, but rather to use climate “dangers” as a
justification for centralizing power in the hands of a select few.
 vs. States Cplan
Note: There are even more Aff answers in the States Cplan core.
 2AC vs. States cplan

Perm – do both

Reject 50 state fiat.

- Not real world - States rarely in unison. Skews education and Aff literature.
- Kills topic education – forces Affs to focus solely on federal prisons, but most criminal justice
occurs on the State-level.
- Not reciprocal – we get one actor, so should they.
- Counter-interp – they can fiat one actor, including a single State.

Solvency deficit – Federal prisons. Can’t solve resurgence without including them.
Pavlo ‘20
Walter Pavlo is an Adjunct Professor of Ethics and Corporate Responsibility at Endicott College, as well as a Journalist Law
School Fellow at Loyola Law School. Walter is a contributor to Forbes and New York University Law’s Program on Corporate
Compliance and Enforcement. Walter is Co-Founder of Prisonology – a consulting, training and expert testimony firm for
lawyers and defendants on the post conviction process of the federal justice system. “Federal Bureau Of Prisons Institutions Not
Showing Any Signs Of “Flattening Curve”” – Forbes - Apr 15, 2020 - #E&F -
https://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2020/04/15/federal-bureau-of-prisons-institutions-not-showing-any-signs-of-flattening-
curve/#17f48b0654dd

The Federal B ureau o f P risons is now in its “Phase 6” plan to curb the rate of contagion of COVID-19 among its
177,000 inmates housed in 122 institutions which employ over 30,000 staff and tens of thousands of
contractors . BOP’s efforts thus far have included halting social and legal visits since the middle of March, screening of inmates,
staff and contractors by taking their temperature to measure infection, mobilizing administrative staff to step into front line positions, increase
rate of hiring new corrections officers and halting staff training. The results have been tragic.

Since Phase 1, there are now 736 positive COVID-19 infections (444 inmates, 248 staff) in nearly half of the
institutions located across the country. In this crisis, BOP corrections staff have complained about lack of direction from its new
director, Michael Carvajal, and confused case managers have put hundreds of inmates in a type of isolation protocol as BOP considers whether to
release them to home confinement. From accounts I am receiving from federal prisons across the country, the inmates are growing more
frustrated.

It is believed that the BOP created profiles of inmates from its SENTRY system, the main database housing details of every inmate’s personal
and criminal history. The direction to develop those profiles was initiated by a memorandum from Attorney General William Barr on April 3.
Despite some initial action to identify those inmates, many of them are still in a state of waiting for release as the BOP determines how it will, or
if it will, release inmates to reduce the overcrowding of its prisons.

The continued
inaction of the BOP to swiftly reduce the population of inmates , particularly the elderly
and those with underlying health conditions, is an unfolding story with tragic consequences. The inability of
the BOP to take decisive action during a crisis like this demonstrates “deliberate indifference,” a standard for cruel and unusual punishment under
the 8th Amendment. William Fick, Fick & Marx, joined by the ACLU Foundation of Massachusetts, filed a class action lawsuit against FMC
Devens and theBOP on behalf of inmates at the facility located near Boston, MA, a hotbed of COVID-19 outbreaks. “Respondents have
failed to use their authority to order compassionate release ,” they wrote in their filing. The ACLU of Ohio filed their own
lawsuit against FCI Elkton and BOP where three inmates have died.
As disturbing as it is to witness this negligence inflicted on the incarcerated, it is time to recognize that the BOP’s
actions will also
undermine the national effort to “flatten the curve,” thus threatening the health and wellbeing of every
American. Jack Donson, who worked in the Bureau of Prisons for 23 years told me, “The agency has never experienced anything like this
and it is starting to show.”

The federal COVID-19 response has failed to consider the enormous demand on medical resources by
federal inmates who require hospitalization for COVID -19 complications. from the crisis within its own system. While
the BOP operates 7 medical facilities around the country, they are not equipped with ventilators, nor are they
prepared for managing a highly contagious disease . According to a source who works on the corrections
staff at the Federal Medical Center Devens (Devens, MA), “COVID-19 patients who would test positive will be
transferred to local hospitals and treated.” To date, Devens has not reported a positive COVID-19 test.

The administration’s COVID-19 policies have been based on epidemiological modeling developed by the
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington ( IHME ) to “provide
hospitals, health-care workers, policymakers, and the public with crucial information about what demands COVID -19
may place on hospital capacity and resources, so that they could begin to plan.” This has led to much of our
country sheltering in place at home, distancing ourselves from others when out in public, and, most recently, wearing
masks to cover our faces. The result of those efforts have been reflected in a “flattening curve” of infection rates.
This flattening prevents hospitals from being overcome by sick patients.
However, neither IHME, nor any other epidemiologists modeling the crisis, ever envisioned the systemic failure that
would expose 177,000 inmates housed in multiple institutional clusters, some numbering over 5,000 inmates, to a
COVID-19 outbreak. These failures are resulting from a lack of a widespread testing protocol at insitutions, the continued transfer of
inmates between institutions, the introduction of new inmates who are either arrested or self-surrender and the thousands of staff and contractors
The biggest hinderance
that go in and out of these institutions. Once infected, there are limited ways to isolate the healthy from the sick.
to preventing spread of the disease in prison are the sheer number of inmates incarcerated.
The BOP policy so far has been to explicitly refrain from testing inmates except those who have died or are willing to risk fellow inmate
retribution by revealing themselves to be symptomatic. More inmates are sick than the BOP is reporting and more inmates are not reporting that
they are sick out of fear of being identified as sick.

Nevertheless, outbreaks at federal facilities will continue in sync with outbreaks in surrounding communities at a rate
never contemplated under the modeling used by the government to decide policy . Imagine an
enclosed community with thousands of people in cramped living conditions , no ability to social distance ,
no hand sanitizers , limited cleaning supplies , limited-shared laundry facilities, all under the stress of being
cut off from family visits. It is a powerful cocktail of both physical and mental poison that will have an effect on the
lives of people for many years. It is cruel to those incarcerated and those who work among them.
Every IHME model estimates the number of people in age and health categories identified by the CDC as high risk, using datasets applicable to
the general population. However, as documented at length by the BOP itself and multiple agencies studying elderly inmate health, federal inmates
suffer from chronic health problems, much of it untreated and undocumented, at disproportionately higher rates compared to the general
for every federal facility , the burden on local healthcare resources has been under-
population. As such,
estimated in the eventuality of mass contagion within prisons.

In failing to reduce inmate populations , the BOP is depriving the country of one of these most
effective tools in avoiding the collapse of our healthcare systems. Specifically , the only way to
“flatten the curve” is to reduce the population (i.e., the number of individuals circulating in public) and reduce the rate of
transmission (i.e., the number of individuals infected by each COVID-19 positive individual).
Inmates released to home confinement typically return to their region of origin. By
removing inmates from densely populated facilities
and dispersing them across the country, the population accessing local medical resources is reduced in
favor of a more equitable distribution of this healthcare burden across multiple communities. Simply put , even if
the inmate on home confinement does become ill, he / she (they) will be treated at a facility that is not
overwhelmed by inmates from a single institution.
The proposed criteria for releasing inmates to home confinement excludes inmates who pose a risk to public
safety or have a high rate of recidivism. It begs the question of why these people are even in prison to begin
with, but we’ll save that for another time. It is beyond dispute that any potential threat to public safety posed by
releasing some inmates is far outweighed by the certain increase in fatalities caused by failure to not to.

( ) Solvency deficit – Racial inequities.

Cplan doesn’t touch Federal prisons – which house over 200,000 people. Racail
disparities persist there and in all parts of the criminal justice system.

(note: Insert appropriate Solvency deficits for the next pages)

 2AC Solv Deficit – jurisdictional confusion

Solvency deficit – jurisdictional confusion means Neg can’t solve fast spreading
COVID
Duff-Brown ‘20
Internally quoting Michelle Mello – a a professor of medicine and a professor of law at Stanford. Beth Duff-Brown is the
Communications Manager at The Center for Health Policy and the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, which are
jointly administered centers at Stanford University that offer educational programs and conduct research on critical issues of
health policy and health care delivery. Previously, she was the editorial director at the Center for International Security and
Cooperation for three years before joining the health policy and research centers at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International
Studies and the School of Medicine – “Federalism Meets the COVID-19 Pandemic: Thinking Globally, Acting Locally” Stanford
Health Policy - April 2, 2020 - #E&F - https://healthpolicy.fsi.stanford.edu/news/federalism-meets-covid-19-pandemic-thinking-
globally-acting-locally

The responseto the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed major weaknesses in the federalist system of public
health governance, which divides powers among the federal, state and local governments, argues SHP’s Michelle
Mello in this New England Journal of Medicine commentary.

The coronavirus, she writes, “is exactly the type of infectious disease for which federal public health powers and
emergencies were conceived: it is highly transmissible, crosses borders efficiently, and threatens our national
infrastructure and economy.”

“Strong, decisive national action is therefore imperative,” writes Mello, a professor of medicine and a professor of law, and
Rebecca L. Haffajee, a policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. “ Yet the federal response has been alarmingly slow to
develop, fostering confusion about the nature of the virus and necessary steps to address it.”

The authors warn this “ lack of interjurisdictional coordination has and will cost lives .”
 2AC Solv Deficit - Leadership + Illiberal Norms

Solvency Deficit for Leadership and Illiberal Norms.

Federal action key - Must have Trump sequence before the States in order to
preserve US leadership vis-à-vis China.
Bennhold ‘20
Katrin Bennhold is The New York Times's Berlin bureau chief. She has an MSc in Economics from the London School of
Economics and was a Nieman fellow at Harvard University in 2012/2013. “‘Sadness’ and Disbelief From a World Missing
American Leadership” – NYT - April 23, 2020 - - #E&F – modified for language that may offend -
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/world/europe/coronavirus-american-exceptionalism.html

The pandemic sweeping the globe has done more than take lives and livelihoods from New Delhi to New York. It is shaking
fundamental assumptions about American exceptionalism — the special role the United States played for decades
after World War II as the reach of its values and power made it a global leader and example to the world .

Today it is leading in a different way: More than 840,000 Americans have been diagnosed with Covid-19 and at least 46,784 have died from it,
more than anywhere else in the world.

As the calamity unfolds, President Trump

and state governors are not only arguing over what to do, but also over
who has the authority to do it. Mr. Trump has fomented protests against the safety measures urged by scientific advisers,
misrepresented facts about the virus and the government response nearly daily, and this week used the virus to cut off the issuing of green cards
to people seeking to emigrate to the United States.

“America has not done badly, it has done exceptionally badly,” said Dominique Moïsi, a political scientist and senior adviser at the Paris-based
Institut Montaigne.

The pandemic has exposed the strengths and weaknesses of just about every society, Mr. Moïsi noted. It has demonstrated the
strength of, and suppression of information by, an authoritarian Chinese state as it imposed a lockdown in the city of
Wuhan. It has shown the value of Germany’s deep well of public trust and collective spirit, even as it has underscored the country’s
reluctance to step up forcefully and lead Europe.

And in
the U nited S tates, it has exposed two great weaknesses that, in the eyes of (from the perspective of) many
Europeans, have compounded one another: the erratic leadership of Mr. Trump , who has devalued expertise and often
refused to follow the advice of his scientific advisers, and the absence of a robust public health care system and social safety net.

“America prepared for the wrong kind of war,” Mr. Moïsi said. “It prepared for a new 9/11, but instead a virus came.”

“ It raises the question: Has America become the wrong kind of power with the wrong kind of priorities?” he
asked.

Ever since Mr. Trump moved into the White House and turned America First into his administration’s guiding mantra, Europeans have had to get
used to the president’s casual willingness to risk decades-old alliances and rip up international agreements. Early on, he called NATO “obsolete”
and withdrew U.S. support from the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal.

But this is perhaps the first global crisis in more than a century where no one is even looking (turning) to the United States for leadership.

In Berlin, Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, has said as much.

China took “very authoritarian measures, while in the U.S., the virus was played down for a long time,” Mr. Maas recently told
Der Spiegel magazine.

“These are two extremes, neither of which can be a model for Europe,” Mr. Maas said.
America once told a story of hope, and not just to Americans. West Germans like Mr. Maas, who grew up on the front line of the
Cold War, knew that story by heart, and like many others in the world, believed it.

But nearly three decades later, America’s story is in trouble.

The country that defeated fascism in Europe 75 years ago next month, and defended democracy on the continent in the decades
that followed, is doing a worse job of protecting its own citizens than many autocracies and democracies.

There is a special irony: Germany

and South Korea, both products of enlightened postwar American leadership, have become
potent examples of best practices in the coronavirus crisis.

But critics
now see (consider) America failing not only to lead the world’s response, but letting down its own
people as well.

“There is not only no global leadership, there is no national and no federal leadership in the U nited S tates,” said
Ricardo Hausmann, director of the Growth Lab at Harvard’s Center for International Development. “In some sense this is the failure of leadership
of the U.S. in the U.S.”

Of course, some countries in Europe have also been overwhelmed by the virus, with the number of dead from Covid-19 much higher as a
percentage of the population in Italy, Spain and France than in the United States. But they were struck sooner and had less time to prepare and
react.

The contrast between how the United States and Germany responded to the virus is particularly striking.
While Chancellor Angela Merkel has been criticized for not taking a forceful enough leadership role in Europe, Germany is being praised for a
near-textbook response to the pandemic, at least by Western standards. That is thanks to a robust public health care system, but also a strategy of
mass testing and trusted and effective political leadership.

Ms. Merkel has done what Mr. Trump has not . She has been clear and honest about the risks with voters and swift in her
response. She has rallied
all 16 state governors behind her . A trained physicist, she has followed scientific advice and learned
from best practice elsewhere.

Not long ago, Ms. Merkel was considered a spent force, having announced that this would be her last term. Now her approval ratings are at 80
percent.

“She has the mind of a scientist and the heart of a pastor’s daughter,” Mr. Garton Ash said.

Mr. Trump, in a hurry to restart the economy in an election year, has appointed a panel of business executives to chart a course out of the
lockdown.

Ms. Merkel, like everyone, would like to find a way out, too, but this week she warned Germans to remain cautious. She is listening to the advice
of a multidisciplinary panel of 26 academics from Germany’s national academy of science. The panel includes not just medical experts and
economists but also behavioral psychologists, education experts, sociologists, philosophers and constitutional experts.

“ You need a holistic approach to this crisis ,” said Gerald Haug, the academy’s president, who chairs the German panel. “Our
politicians get that.”

States Cplan doesn’t solve the liberal model – Federal inaction solidifies a new
decentralized model that’s actually more authoritarian.
Kreitner ‘20
Richard Kreitner is a contributing writer at The Nation magazine. His work on politics, history, and literature has also appeared
in Slate, The Baffler, and The Boston Globe “When Confronting the Coronavirus, Federalism Is Part of the Problem” – The
Nation - April 1, 2020 - #E&F - modified for language that may offend - https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/federalism-
coronavirus-problem-government/
In the absence of national leadership, states and cities have stepped up *(enhanced efforts) to take charge of the
coronavirus crisis and its unfathomable economic fallout. San Francisco early on took steps (efforts) to mitigate spread
among the city’s highly vulnerable homeless population. New York state has enacted a 90-day moratorium on evictions .
Cities like Seattle and Columbus are issuing emergency vouchers to help people buy food. It has largely been up to
mayors and governors to decide how seriously to take the threat and how strenuously to respond. Even some Republicans, like Ohio
Governor Mike DeWine , have won praise for their decisive actions. “This has been mostly a state and local
effort,” one county health official explained to Politico. “The federal government has been sort of behind the times .”
Indeed, Washington has essentially abandoned the states to their own devices.

Conservatives have cheered this as a triumph of federalism , proof that the founders’ model of splitting
responsibility between the states and the central government still works. The coming weeks will reveal the
shortcomings of such an approach. Far from encouraging competition and thwarting authoritarianism , the
ambiguous division of powers has effectively fractured the country . In the United States, Polly Price of Emory
University explained, immediate responsibility for handling the pandemic rests not with the federal government but with “2,684 state, local, and
tribal public-health departments.” The Centers for Disease Control only offers nonbinding guidance for these smaller agencies. Though states and
cities can take important steps to limit contagion, this patchwork of competing jurisdictions and overlapping authorities is too creaky and
cumbersome for this crisis.

Conservative celebrations of federalism have also served to obscure the fact that their authors’ own preference for candidates who seek to weaken
the national government has undoubtedly had a hand in enfeebling the federal response and making the actions of states and cities necessary.
Some say that if the federal government is ineffective, it’s good to have power in the hands of the states—but
the federal government is ineffective precisely because the ideology pushed by the right for at least 50 years has
made it that way. During one of his terrifying news conferences last week, President Trump expressed his reluctance to invoke the Defense
Production Act to force companies to manufacture ventilators, personal protective equipment, and other necessities. Trump said he didn’t want to
use it because “governors are supposed to be doing a lot of this work.” Such reliance on state action is about to get us into big trouble.

It is hard to imagine anything ever going fully back to normal, and that includes our current fluid division of powers between the federal and state
governments. In the near term, states and cities have to continue to step up to fight both the virus and the economic disruption that has already
begun. But when the emergency is over, it will be necessary to take a hard look at the naive assumptions that prevented this country from
mounting a timely and effective response. A political system that can be brought to its knees by a virus emanating from an obscure city in the
Chinese hinterland—and with two months’ notice to prepare—is perhaps not a system worth preserving.

At the very least, we should be raising difficult, long-postponed questions about how well the present constitutional system is fitted to the
exigencies of contemporary life. Our inexcusably delayed response to the virus is not simply a failure of the Trump administration. The encounter
with Covid-19 is a perfect case study in America’s deep-seated dysfunction. The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson described the pandemic’s effects in
the United States thus far as “a kind of grotesque caricature of American federalism.” We continue to worship the founders as far-seeing, even
divinely inspired, political philosophers and constitutional craftsmen. But because the document they bequeathed to posterity nearly two and a
half centuries ago is never clear, on almost any subject, about which powers and responsibilities belong to the states and which to the federal
government, American politics ever since has been one extended debate—occasionally tipping over into violent struggle—over just what they
actually meant.

The United States wouldn’t be alone in seizing on the coronavirus outbreak as an invitation to reconsider long-
accepted assumptions about the value of decentralized government . Switzerland is a much looser confederacy than the
United States. But “ in the face of a global pandemic ,” one Swiss paper argued, “federalism is definitely an
outdated remedy.” A similar debate has begun in Germany over the country’s commitment to the principle of subsidiarity—the idea that
decisions should be made as close to the local level as possible.

Some have tried, as the Harvard scholar Archon Fung recently did in Politico, to put a positive spin on the wholesale
abdication of leadership by the federal government. “Just as the trauma of fighting World War II laid the foundations for
a stronger American government and national solidarity,” Fung wrote, “the coronavirus crisis might sow the seeds of a
new civic federalism, in which states and localities become centers of justice, solidarity and far-sighted democratic
problem-solving.” Another way of putting this would be that America’s postwar solidarity—such as it was
—has definitively come to an end and the “stronger American government” it supported will soon be a thing of the
past. If the worst-case scenarios come true, it may not be a “new civic federalism” that takes the place of our
discredited mid-century mythologies, but something darker , more anarchic, less democratic — and far from
progressive.
 2AC - Solvency Deficit for Health Care collapse Adv

Solvency Deficit - Health Care collapse Federal Prisons uniquely likely to send
COVID-patients to nearby hospitals.
Neff ‘20
et al; Internally quoting Dr. Homer Venters, Dr. Homer Venters, who is a physician, epidemiologist and the former Chief
Medical Officer of the NYC Correctional Health Services. He completed his residency in Social Internal Medicine at Montefiore
Medical Center and Masters of Public Health Research from NYU. Dr. Venters is a Clinical Associate Professor at the NYU
College of Global Public Health. Joseph Neff is an investigative reporter who worked at The Associated Press. He was a Pulitzer
finalist and has won awards including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the MOLLY National Journalism Prize, and
others. He was a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University. “Infected, incarcerated — and coming to an ICU?” – Pekin Daily
Times- 04.21.2020 - #E&F - https://www.pekintimes.com/news/20200421/infected-incarcerated-mdash-and-coming-to-icu

The U.S. Constitution requires prison systems to provide medical care for the people they incarcerate , the
Supreme Court has said. And so states and the federal government hire doctors and nurses, or contract with
healthcare companies, to treat sick prisoners.
But coronavirus outbreaks behind bars have exposed a weakness of this system. Prisons do not have the
ventilators some COVID-19 victims need, The Marshall Project’s reporting found. In fact, most prison agencies don’t have hospitals
at all. For emergency care, they rely on the same local medical centers that treat their workers and neighbors.

The Marshall Project asked every state prison system how many ventilators it had at the ready. Of the 24 states that responded, only Texas said it
had any. The state is unusual in that it has a hospital dedicated to its massive network of prisons.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice hospital is on the campus of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and has access to its
equipment, according to Kurt Koopmann, a spokesman for the university hospital. As of Monday, 12 Texas prisoners had been hospitalized there
with COVID-19, and two had been placed on ventilators, he said.

But even in Texas, prisoners who face emergency health problems usually go to community hospitals near their lockups. They are transferred to
Galveston only after they are stabilized, according to a 2018 report on prison hospital care by researchers at the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Of the 23 other states that responded to our survey, 19 said they had no ventilators; the rest did not answer the question.

State prisons do not run acute-care hospitals able to handle serious medical problems, Dr. Robert Greifinger, the former chief medical officer for
the New York State prison system, wrote in an email to The Marshall Project. “Patients from all state prisons who need acute hospitals should
(note: should) be sent out to licensed community acute hospitals.”

A 2016 nationwide survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that only seven state prison systems had a hospital-level
inpatient facility.

But experts say most

“prison hospitals” are really infirmaries or clinics . They’re not what most Americans would
consider hospitals, in part because they cannot implement basic infection control , said Dr. Homer
Venters, the former chief medical officer of the New York City jail system.
Infection control depends on every employee: doctors, nurses, cafeteria staff, janitors and maintenance workers. In prison hospitals, this includes
the staff who guard and escort prisoners as well as prisoners assigned to janitorial work, Venters said, noting that he has never encountered an
American prison or jail that trains correctional officers as part of an infection control team.

Some prison medical units have been shown to have serious failings. In Georgia’s Augusta State Prison Hospital, newspapers have reported, a
prisoner starved to death in a facility plagued by mold, leaking ceilings and hallways lined with garbage. California medical units are crammed
and cluttered.

Oversight of prison medical care is spotty. Only the Texas prison hospital is accredited by the Joint Commission, the nonprofit group that
certifies that hospitals meet national standards and thus qualify for federal healthcare payment programs like Medicaid.
The National Commission on Correctional Health Care does accredit prison healthcare facilities, though a spokesman for the group wouldn’t say
which ones. In any case, their accreditation is toothless because losing it has no consequences, said Jody Rich, a professor of medicine and
epidemiology at Brown University.

Courts have sometimes provided oversight in response to prisoner lawsuits that paint troubling pictures of systemic neglect and unnecessary
suffering.

Federal prisons with many coronavirus cases have been sending the sick to regular hospitals in nearby
cities. Joseph Mayle, the staff-union representative at the facility in Elkton, Ohio, south of Youngstown, said Tuesday that 34 prisoners have
been sent to local hospitals. Half are on ventilators.
 1AR - Perm

Extend our perm – do both. It’s the best option.

(optional – based on the advantages you are extending)

Only the perm solves US leadership vis-à-vis China – counterplan’s too

decentralized for successful model.
Hannah ‘20
Mark Hannah. PhD, is a senior fellow at the Eurasia Group Foundation. Hannah is an affiliate of the Global Freedom of
Expression initiative at Columbia University. He teaches at New York University and previously taught at The New School and
Queens College. “Will America’s Coronavirus Response Inspire Countries to Follow China’s Model?” – The National Interest -
March 24, 2020 - #E&F - https://nationalinterest.org/feature/will-america%E2%80%99s-coronavirus-response-inspire-countries-
follow-china%E2%80%99s-model-136712

How could this be when the Chinese government badly bungled the initial reaction to COVID-19? Contrary to
rosy portrayals in its propaganda, officials covered up the outbreak in Wuhan for weeks. But after instituting draconian lockdowns
and intensifying already-intrusive surveillance measures, China appears to have mostly contained the virus . It reported
no new local infections on Thursday for the first time since the outbreak began.

China now looks to capitalize on its position to challenge America’s status as the default leader on issues
of international concern. Its diplomats have been coordinating the fight against the virus through regional organizations like the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the “17 + 1” group of central and eastern European countries.

An annual survey by my organization, the Eurasia Group Foundation (EGF), fielded in the weeks leading up to the pandemic, found broad
support for America’s continued global leadership. Nearly 80 percent of respondents across nine diverse countries believed that, compared with
China, having the United States “as the world’s leading power” would be better for their country.

But this preference is fueled more by pragmatism and self-interest than many in Washington might presume. Of a list of rationales for picking the
United States over China, the two most frequent responses were, respectively, that the United States is a trustworthy economic partner, and that
their country has a history of working closely with the United States. Less frequently selected reasons were related to democracy, freedom, and
human rights. The least popular option was that the United States “sets a good example for national development for my country.”

World opinion could swiftly shift if the United States appears incompetent, and President Donald Trump’s
response to COVID-19 continues to fail to inspire confidence in American leadership . The president
initially downplayed the virus ’s risks, called it a “hoax,” compared it to the seasonal flu, and resisted calls to declare a state of emergency when
they would have undermined his earlier statements. His administration eliminated the nation’s pandemic response team, failed to scale up testing,
and enacted an ineffective travel ban that has turned airports into fertile ground for the virus to spread.

This litany of bad

decisions makes America look (appear) like a nation unable to protect its own people, much less
meet complex global challenges. It’s little wonder, then, that a survey by a leading PR firm found Americans less confident in their
country’s preparedness for the viral outbreak than Canadians, Germans, Brits, South Koreans, and even Italians. An informal Twitter poll by
EGF’s board president, Ian Bremmer, pointedly asked, “who is doing the best job responding to the coronavirus crisis?” The roughly thirty-four
thousand respondents chose China over the United States by a nearly 4-to-1 margin.
Chinese officials and state media claim a strong, centralized authoritarian government is better at reacting to crises
than democracy, which must contend with individual freedoms, competing interests, and checks and balances on power. This is usually
wrong. Officials in autocracies won’t acknowledge problems for fear of making the national leadership look bad, whereas in democracies,
information flows freely and officials can act without fear of retribution.

With the world watching, America must restore confidence in its democratic model where, at least in
theory, policy and public action are informed by rational debate and reasoned judgment rather than top-down peer
pressure or bottom-up performances of loyalty. If America doesn’t meet this challenge , then it may discover
next year that the world prefers that a different country serves as a global leader; it may discover that China is
cutting into its lead. In the meantime, as people’s lives and livelihoods are at stake, Americans must hope that competent leaders will
support and protect the country and democracy.
 1AR vs. “Federal Follow-on”

Federal follow-on is empirically false – some States have already decarcerated and
Barr’s done little. Follow-on also takes too long – COVID requires immediate
action.

(Note: this Austin ev appears in some versions of the 1AC, but is highlighted differently here)

Austin ‘20
et al; Roy Austin Jr. is a partner at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis, LLP and a former deputy assistant attorney general, assistant
United States attorney and trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice. “Mr. President, let vulnerable people out of federal
prisons now: Coronavirus demands a bold response” New York Daily News: Editorial Section – April 14 th - #E&F -
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-let-vulnerable-people-out-of-federal-prisons-20200414-
zk7uqy7cxjbmffz43nwzbun5qq-story.html

This would be the best way to address dangers posed by dense, unsanitary living conditions for the 175,000 people in
federal custody. We know the crisis on the horizon; that’s why we urged the president to act now to prevent
more deaths.

By using his executive power to release individuals posing no serious safety risk, the President would be in good company. Many cities,
states and counties have dramatically reduced their incarcerated populations in response to COVID-19.
California and New Jersey have safely ordered the release of thousands, and other jurisdictions plan to dramatically cut
incarcerated populations, some nearly in half. Meanwhile, leaders across the country have committed to shrink the number of people entering the
justice system with cite and release, not seeking bail unless necessary for public safety, and not wasting scarce resources prosecuting low-level
crimes. The President should be leading, not following, these efforts.

The clock is ticking , and there is no time to waste . We’ve learned from the Rikers Island outbreak
that once one person behind bars is infected, the virus spreads aggressively — at eight times the rate it does in the
community. COVID-19 safety precautions ( washing hands , clean spaces , and social distancing ) are
simply not possible in custodial settings.

This is urgent, Mr. President. People who are incarcerated are disproportionately vulnerable to COVID-19.
One-third of federal inmates have pre-existing medical conditions and roughly 10,000 are over age 60. And
every day, correctional officers, health-care workers and others enter and leave, potentially carrying COVID-19
back to their loved ones. The Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn alone holds 1,700 individuals with over 150 people coming and going
every week. The rapid spread of COVID-19 in these facilities threatens all of our communities.

We need more proactive steps (efforts) than the responses in Attorney General Barr’s March 26 and April 3 memoranda.
Barr suggests a complex process for considering home confinement for a small category of individuals — to be
identified through an assessment tool many view as problematic and likely to perpetuate racial disparities. He
categorically excluded almost half of those over age 60 and delineates numerous hurdles with little guidance on
who should go home and how fast. And he fails to recognize that those who committed serious offenses at a young age change and
no longer pose a safety risk when older. This elderly population could go home safely, but instead face the threat of a death sentence.
While Barr subsequently expanded potential release to individuals with COVID-19 risk factors, he did so only
at facilities where COVID-19 is already “materially impacting operations.” By the time a facility has an
outbreak, it will be too late to save the most vulnerable individuals.

( ) Follow-on links to the net benefit – vote aff on both presumption and dealy.

( ) Fed won’t follow-on – history goes Aff

Hopwood ‘20
Shon Hopwood is an associate professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center – “DON’T LOOK TO THE DOJ TO
KEEP FEDERAL PRISONS AND THEIR SURROUNDING COMMUNITIES SAFE DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC”
– The Appeal - Apr 08, 2020 - #E&F - https://theappeal.org/federal-prisons-coronavirus-covid-19-doj/

Yet the danger presented by COVID-19 to those who live and work in the federal prison system is clear. Prisons
are high-density areas where social distancing is nearly impossible; the conditions are often unsanitary; the medical treatment is subpar in the best
of times; and a large segment of people in prison are vulnerable because of age or health.

And the dangersposed by COVID-19 will not be limited to prisoners . Staff and vendors will bring the virus
into federal prisons and it will spread quickly. Federal prisons are often located in rural communities. When staff and vendors
leave federal prisons in Lisbon, Ohio, or Butner, North Carolina, they will carry the virus with them to the surrounding communities that are least
equipped to handle an outbreak.

For these reasons, the United Nations and a number of experts are urging large-scale releases. Other countries are following this
advice and temporarily releasing large numbers of particularly vulnerable prisoners.

But the DOJ often operates contrary to expertise. Although experts

of all political stripes have demonstrated that the
criminal justice system can be reformed in ways that protect liberty and improve public safety, the DOJ continues to
enforce and advocate for policies that maintain or extend mass incarceration.
I recently reviewed the DOJ and the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys’ records of lobbying on criminal justice reform proposals. I
found that theyroutinely oppose modest criminal justice reforms, even when those reforms will increase public
safety . Much of the opposition revolves around the self-interested claim that reforms will make their job of
prosecuting and incarcerating people more difficult —as if that’s the only goal of the criminal justice system. Worse still, the
DOJ has undermined presidential policies favoring reform when they intrude on the department’s own policy prerogatives. When President
Given the DOJ’s
Trump publicly supported the First Step Act, the DOJ and some federal prosecutors continued to lobby against the bill.
history of opposing any reduction in the federal prison population , it is wishful to think the
department will release enough people to adequately protect those in federal prison and the surrounding
communities.

Follow-on never-happens when the Feds are otherwise-disintersted.

Stanford and Carrillo ‘20
Matthew J. Stanford is an attorney and Senior Research Fellow at the California Constitution Center at
Berkeley Law, where he earned his J.D. in 2017. With contributions from David A. Carrillo, executive
director of the California Constitution Center at Berkeley Law. 4-17-2020, "The pandemic exposes the
need to fix the federalism debate," SCOCAblog, THE CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION CENTER AND
THE HASTINGS LAW JOURNAL, http://scocablog.com/the-pandemic-exposes-the-need-to-fix-the-
federalism-debate/

Federalism is a shield, not a sword: it is a doctrine for states to prevent federal action, not to compel
federal acts . Because it checks federal overreach, not dormancy , federalism is ill-suited to spurring a
self-constrained federal government into action. Hence the calls by some critics for exasperated governors to get together and “raise
hell.”[20] Because that’s their only recourse. The past initially appears instructive. During World War II, a particularly popular example at the moment, the federal
government acted aggressively not only in shifting much of the domestic economy to war armament production, but also in addressing economic disincentives that
kept pharmaceutical companies from producing the penicillin that could have prevented tens of thousands of American soldiers from succumbing to infected, but
otherwise nonfatal war wounds.[21] Meanwhile, state governments enlisted hotels, parks, and private clubs for use as lodging for deploying and returning soldiers, as
makeshift hospitals, and shamefully, even as internment camps for Japanese Americans.[22] These and other examples[23] show how federal and state governments
can and have successfully worked well in tandem to confront a crisis. Yet they say nothing about what federalism requires of each level of government. Appeals
to prior instances of governmental symbiosis, though politically poignant, offer scant instruction about the
duties owed by federal and state governments. No constitutional imperative compelled President Roosevelt to conscript American
manufacturers, or the states to reoutfit hospitality and recreational infrastructure. These examples merely point to an ideal, an example

of what perhaps could be if present leaders adopted a similar approach today. The tendency to invoke
federalism as a measure of governmental performance , on the other hand, overstates its influence.
 1AR - Solv deficit – Resurgence

Extend that the cplan excludes Federal prisoners – which are key to keeping the
national curve flat.

The solvency deficit is big – curve can’t flatten if the cplan excludes the 100 Federal
Prisons already deemed health hazards.
Buble ‘20
Internally quoting Dr. Homer Venters, Dr. Homer Venters, who is a physician, epidemiologist and the former Chief Medical
Officer of the NYC Correctional Health Services. He completed his residency in Social Internal Medicine at Montefiore Medical
Center and Masters of Public Health Research from NYU. Dr. Venters is a Clinical Associate Professor at the NYU College of
Global Public Health. Courtney Buble is a staff correspondent who covers federal management. Prior to joining Government
Executive, she worked for NBC News. “Federal Prisons Pose ‘Imminent Danger’ in Spreading COVID-19, Union Says” –
Government Executive - APRIL 6, 2020 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend -
https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2020/04/federal-prisons-pose-imminent-danger-spreading-covid-19-union-says/164390/

Federal prisons are “proliferating the spread” of coronavirus, according to a March 31 complaint prison workers have filed
with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The union complaint, obtained by Government Executive, cites “imminent danger”
conditions at facilities nationwide.

The Council of Prison Locals C-33, a division of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the Federal B ureau o f P risons
is “proliferating the spread of a known and deadly contagion both within our prison system and to our surrounding
communities ,” and its “actions and inactions are expected to result in death and severe health complications and/or possible life-long
disabilities.”

The union alleges BOP has violated national regulations that require employers to provide a hazard-free work environment as well as Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention and BOP guidance on mitigating the spread of the coronavirus. It cited “imminent danger,” which OHSA defines
as a situation “such that a danger exists which could reasonably be expected to cause death or serious physical harm immediately or before the
imminence of such danger can be eliminated through the enforcement procedures.”

The union listed 100 of 122 facilities nationwide with alleged safety or health hazards.
The complaint alleges that BOP has:

Directed staff members to return to work within 48 hours of being in close proximity to those with coronavirus and/or show symptoms of having
the virus;

Authorized the movement of inmates with suspended or confirmed coronavirus cases to areas nationwide that didn’t have any known infections;

Failed to mitigate the spread of coronavirus in facilities by using air filters or improving ventilation in other ways;

Failed to maintain social distancing guidelines for inmates and staff; and

Although BOP has fit tested staff for masks, it “failed to provide the proper N-95 masks to staff who are transporting and have custodial control
over hospitalized inmates testing positive for the virus.”

At the time the complaint was submitted, 28 inmates and 24 staff had confirmed coronavirus cases. As of Monday afternoon (six days later), there
were 138 inmates and 59 staff members with confirmed cases, according to the BOP’s online tracker. There have been eight inmate deaths so far:
Five at a low security facility in Oakdale, Louisiana, and three at a low security facility in Lisbon, Ohio, the agency reported.

When asked about the OSHA complaint, BOP Spokesperson Justice Long reiterated the agency’s commitment to protecting all personnel and
mitigating the spread of disease. “The BOP has recently responded to several inquiries from OSHA concerning COVID-19,” Long said.
“Working with OSHA and the union are two important opportunities the BOP has to evaluate its efforts to keep staff safe and mitigate risks
associated with COVID-19.”
Since January, BOP has issued guidance and modified operations in response to the coronavirus. Those steps include: launching an online
screening tool; allowing telework where possible, although that’s not possible for the majority of staff; suspending social and other visits with
few exceptions; limiting inmate transfers; and screening inmates before they are transferred.

On April 1, BOP implemented what union officials called a “modified lockdown” to limit inmate movement within the facilities. Officials
planned to re-evaluate the situation by April 15 and decide whether or not to continue with the modified operations.

Two days later, on April 3, Attorney General William Barr authorized emergency authority under the $2 trillion CARES Act to increase home
confinements for inmates with “COVID-19 risk factors, as described by the CDC.” BOP said it had increased home confinement by over 40%
since March, but is looking to do more as the outbreak spreads. It is starting with the inmates at the facilities with the highest numbers of
confirmed cases and deaths, according to a press release.

On Monday, BOP management sent a memo, which Government Executive obtained from a union official, to all chief executive officers on the
use of face masks for inmates and staff, “BOP is working aggressively to issue face coverings,” it stated. The memo outlines how and to whom
to distribute surgical masks until the agency receives shipments of cloth masks.

Despite the bureau’s efforts, many federal prison employees, lawmakers, union officials and advocates still say the
agency is not doing enough to protect staff and inmates.
Government Executive has spoken with many prison employees over the last few weeks who’ve disclosed concerns about the lack of personal
protective equipment, their inability to implement social distancing and the risk of exposure while on the job.

In response to the face mask memo, Joe Rojas, the southeast regional vice president at the Council of Prison Locals, said “the fact the agency still
doesn’t allow staff to bring their own mask for their protection, in my opinion, proves [the] agency doesn’t care about staff” and could
risk “endangering other staff, inmates, families and community.”
Charles D’Apice, a South Carolina correctional officer and vice president of his local union chapter, said last month a staff member at his facility
expressed worries that he did not know if the inmates he was dealing with had been tested for coronavirus. Then “one of our management
officials turns to him and says ‘this is what you signed up for’ and walks out without giving him any [personal protective equipment],” D’Apice
said. “It put lot of angst on these staff members,”

In November, the Justice Department’s inspector general reported that “managing a safe, secure and humane prison system” was a top
management challenge for department officials in fiscal 2019. “Staffing prisons with qualified healthcare workers” and “deteriorating facilities
and equipment” were among the problem areas highlighted by the IG.

Prison facilities “are almost perfectly designed and run in a way to promote the spread of this virus throughout these
institutions,” Dr. Homer Venters , president of the nonprofit Community Oriented Correctional Health Services, told ABC News
on Sunday. “The danger here is that we're not only really going to see (witness) the explosion of cases among people
who are detained and the people who work there, this is going to drive the entire epidemic curve for this nation
up , just when we're trying to flatten it .”

Excluding federal prisons ensures community spread.

Merkley ‘20
Press Release from the Office of US Senator Jeff Merkley – US Senator (Dem) from the State of Oregon - “MERKLEY,
COLLEAGUES PRESS BUREAU OF PRISONS AND PRIVATE PRISON CONTRACTORS FOR CORONAVIRUS
PREPARATION PLANS” – March 10th - #E&F - https://www.merkley.senate.gov/news/press-releases/merkley-colleagues-
press-bureau-of-prisons-and-private-prison-contractors_for-coronavirus-preparation-plans-2020

Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, along with 14 of hisSenate colleagues, today pressed the U.S. Bureau of Prisons ( BOP ) and
the three largest private prison operators—GEO Group (GEO), CoreCivic, and Management and Training Corporation (MTC)— about
whether they have sufficient policies and procedures in place to prepare for and manage a potential spread of the novel
coronavirus in federal prisons.
“Given the spread of the virus in the U.S.—and the particular vulnerability of the prison population and correctional staff—it is critical that [you]
have a plan to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus to incarcerated individuals and correctional staff, along with their families and
loved ones, and provide treatment to incarcerated individuals and staff who become infected,” the senators wrote.

Over 175,000 individuals are incarcerated in federal prisons and jails, with over 17,500 of those in the custody of private
prison contractors, such as GEO, CoreCivic, and MTC. For the thousands of incarcerated people living in close proximity to one another,
as well as their family, friends, and the correctional staff that move in and out of federal prisons every day , a
thorough safety plan is critical. According to public health experts, incarcerated individuals “are at special risk of infection,” and “may also be
less able to participate in proactive measures to keep themselves safe.” As a result, the uncontained spread
of coronavirus in federal
prisons and jails endangers the federal prison population, correctional staff, and the general public.
 1AR – Solv Deficit - Leadership/Illberal Norms

Extend our solvency deficit for the Leadership and Illiberal Norms module.

Bennhold says the US can’t be an example to the world unless it’s like Germany –
where the central government sequenced action prior to the States.

Federalism can’t excuse delay or inaction by D.C. – that kills Federal accountability
and the US model.
Pleitgen ‘20
Internally quoting Jan Techau, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. Frederik Pleitgen is a Senior International
Correspondent based in CNN's London bureau. Pleitgen studied North American Studies at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-
University in Bonn and at Free University Berlin, where he submitted his master's thesis on traditions in American journalism.
He also spent one year studying at the School of Journalism at New York University and in 2004 received a fellowship for the
Institute for Cultural Diplomacy in San Fernando Valley/USA. Pleitgen was also awarded with the 2005 Arthur F. Burns
Fellowship, which he spent at the International Centre for Journalists in Atlanta, Georgia. CNN – “What Trump could learn from
Angela Merkel about dealing with coronavirus” – CNN - Updated 1:59 PM ET, Thu April 16, 2020 - #E&F – modified for
language that may offend - https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/16/europe/merkel-trump-germany-federalism-analysis-intl/index.html

But as
Trump chafes at the constitutional order in the US, another similarly decentralized country more than 4,000 miles
away is getting a markedly different lesson in leadership. " Federalism
is not there so people can push away
responsibility, " German Chancellor Angela Merkel said early on in the pandemic. "It is there so that everyone takes
responsibility in their area."
To be sure, Germans have questioned whether their system, which devolves significant responsibilities to state and local levels, was best-suited to
dealing with a fast-moving, international crisis like the coronavirus pandemic. Many asked whether Merkel, 15 years in office and dealing with a
mystery health issue that gave her bouts of the shivers at public events, was capable of leading the charge. Was she "amtsmuede" -- weary of
office?

But, so far at least, the German system has held its own, and Merkel has maintained her grip -- in typically understated fashion. In particular, her
measured addresses to the nation have contrasted sharply with Trump's raucous daily briefings, which have roiled stock markets and alarmed
health experts.

"How many loved ones will we lose, how high will the price be," asked Merkel, in one of her most emotional addresses, on March 18. In an
appeal for everyone to work together, she added: "It is in our own hands to influence the outcome of this crisis. I am convinced that we will
manage to act responsibly to save lives."

Unified approach

Merkel's words helped unify Germany behind the government's response. The governor of the powerful state of Baden-
Wuerttemburg, Winfried Kretschmann of the Green Party, which is a rival of Merkel's conservative CDU, drew a scathing comparison between
Germany and the US: "We can see (notice) in
the United States that some governors are taking matters into their own
hands when there is someone at the helm who at first denied all of these threats. Something like that is
completely out of the question here, that is why we are well equipped for this crisis."

It is too early to make final assessments, but Germany's

response is looked upon (regarded) with envy around the world .
While the country has a large number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, the death toll remains remarkably low and the
health system remains robust.
After a meeting with state leaders Wednesday, Merkel announced that the country was ready to start carefully scaling back its lockdown. Many
shops will be allowed to reopen next week, and schools will gradually reopen beginning early next month, though other restrictions will remain in
place.

"She's a diplomatic leader," says Jan Techau, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, noting her ability to generate consensus among the
country's strong state governors. "She can actually take a step back, become almost invisible and become the power-broker in the system. This
has been her approach for the last 15 years, and it is especially useful in these kinds of moments when you have a crisis where you have to bring
these people together where so much is at stake."

Federalism is as entrenched in Germany as it is in the United States. The chancellor in Berlin cannot force the
governors of the nation's 16 states to enforce social distancing measures, temporarily close restaurants and cafes, or shut down schools and
universities. But they have gone along with, and helped shape, the common approach which Merkel said would constantly be re-evaluated to
ensure people's freedoms are not unnecessarily impeded.

"We know that our policies can only be effective if we closely coordinated them between federal government
and the states," Merkel said in the early stages of the response to the pandemic. The success of Germany's approach to combating
coronavirus would not have materialized if politicians on both state and federal levels had not set aside their differences.

Just like the United States, Germany is in the run up to a landmark election. In 2021, possibly even earlier, the country will elect Merkel's
successor. Germany's health minister and two of the most powerful state governors are viewed as favorites to win the job. But all of them have
agreed to focus on the coronavirus crisis and halt any sort of political showboating.

The head of Germany's largest state, North Rhine-Westphalia, Armin Laschet, says Germany's strong and unified reaction to the pandemic and
the barrage of measures adopted across the country show that "federalism is capable of acting."

Merkel has been rewarded for the Germany's strong and efficient response. Her approval ratings have increased dramatically and she is currently
the most popular politician in the country. But Merkel hasn't been bragging. Techau, of the German Marshall Fund, believes success in a
decentralized, federal system comes down to exactly that: Less talk, more leadership.

"There must be somebody who is the national face of the crisis response . That's what a chancellor that's what a
president are there for. And you have to play that role. And you best play it by acknowledging that you are not the master,
who's in charge of everything, but who, you know, needs to personify the unified responds with the country."

Accountability is key – Trump must act or China’s model wins out.

Shi ‘20
Shi Tan is a reporter with the Global Times - “Nobody accountable in US despite rising virus deaths” – Global Times – April 16 th
- #E&F – Modified for language that may offend - https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1185859.shtml

"Federalism" has been a trending topic in the US, as President Donald Trump and some state governors were
involved in a public spat over each other's authority amid the pandemic. Such debates not only do no good to the coun-try's
handling with the deadly virus, but have exposed a critical problem in this great power - the absence of accountability
mechanism.

The anti-pandemic fight is a war without the smoke of gunpowder. It even de-mands more close coordination within a country
from the top down and col-laboration between authorities at all levels than in wartime. The accountability system, in this process,
is the key. It can to the greatest extent ensure that officials are doing practical things in their suitable positions and so guarantee that the safety
of the people is truly protected.

In the US, although technically there are some administrative oversight and accountability mechanisms, they have performed practically no
function dur-ing the outbreak.
First, the US might have paid so much attention to defining the "responsibility" of China and others that it left no time to spare for investigating
its own officials. The depressing situation in the US, where more than 640,000 have been infected and around 30,000 killed, is inseparable from
the inaction and incompetence of government officials. But has anyone been held accountable since the outbreak?

In China, throughout the epidemic, hundreds of officials at different levels have been punished. For example, solely in Kunming, capital of
Southwest China's Yunnan Province, 342 have been held accountable for malpractice and misconduct as of March 17. And just on Wednesday,
officials in Harbin, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, were criticized for failing to contain the virus spread following recent clusters of
infections.

If some US officials were working in China, they would certainly be removed from office. The US, however, has focused only on the buss-
packing game with other countries and even international organizations, but neglected its own officials' mistakes.

Second, decentralization has hampered the implementation of the administrative accountability system in the US.

In China, the central and local authorities have always worked as a whole in dealing with the epidemic.
In late January, after the central government in-spection team reviewed treatment and prevention procedures in Huanggang, Hubei Province, the
city's health commission head, was removed for negli-gence on epidemic treatment capabilities.

In the US, however, while millions of lives are threatened by the virulent dis-ease, the country is still witnessing endless
disputes instead of full coopera-tion between the federal and state governments . How could people expect
officials to be held responsible s in such a country?

Third, the cumbersome procedures for investigating accountability may have also served as a negative factor. The impeachment trial of Trump
was, in fact, a manifestation of the US' administrative accountability mechanism, and it took more than four months to conclude.

In China, as early as on February 5, more than 100 officials throughout China have been punished. But in the US, if there is indeed someone that
is to be held accountable for his/her improper handling of the outbreak, the epidemic situation would perhaps have already been irremediable by
then.

Through the two countries' dealing with the outbreak, differences between the two governing systems are
plainly visible .(noticeable). And the reason why the US failed to bring the situation under control can also
be seen (noticed). It is hoped that the US can enable the accountability mechanisms to come into play and
focus truly on its people's lives.

All levels of government need to be perceived as acting.

Walt ‘20
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University. “ The United
States Can Still Win the Coronavirus Pandemic ” – Foreign Policy - April 3 - #E&F – Modified for language that
rd

may offend - https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/03/united-states-can-still-win-coronavirus-pandemic-power/

I’m no exception. I’ve already offered a quick “realist” interpretation of what is happening and suggested the crisis was likely to
reinforce nationalism, strengthen the state, accelerate a shift in influence toward Asia, reduce confidence in U.S.
leadership and competence, and encourage a partial retreat from hyperglobalization. In a Foreign Policy symposium last month, I
suggested the end result would be a world “that is less open, less prosperous, and less free” than the world of today.
I stand by (stick with) those forecasts, but I have also spent some time over the last several days considering whether some of
my expectations might not be borne out. In particular , I’ve wondered if my initial forecast of a shift in
influence from West to East is going to be as profound as I thought. Despite all the mistakes the Trump
administration has made and continues to make—missteps and misjudgments that will cause thousands of otherwise preventable deaths and
billions of dollars of economic damage that could have been avoided—it’s still possible that the flexibility, inventiveness, and
adaptability of American society, combined with smart initiatives at all levels of government , will enable the United
States to get through the worst phase of the crisis and recover fairly quickly. Don’t get me wrong: The situation is grim and is going to
get worse, but the
question is how matters will look (appear) a year or two from now. Needless to say, I’ll be delighted
if the country turns out to be more competent and resilient than I thought.
vs. Reforms cplan
 2AC vs. Reforms cplan

( ) Perm – do both

( ) Solvency deficit – disparate racial impact.

The counterplan must decarcerate in order to solve the inequity advantage.

( ) Even highly effective reforms fail – killing 100,000 additional people.

DeBenedetto ‘20
Internally quoting Udi Ofer of the ACLU’s Justice Division. Paul DeBenedetto is Houston Public Media’s senior web producer, writing and
editing stories for HoustonPublicMedia.org. Before joining the station, Paul worked as a web producer for the Houston Chronicle, and his work
has appeared online and in print for the Chronicle, the New York Times, DNAinfo New York, and other outlets. Paul moved from New York to
Houston in 2014 to cover Texas courts for Law360. He’s an alumnus of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, now known as the Craig
Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. “Report: Jail Populations Could Add 2,000 More COVID-19 Deaths In Texas, 100,000 More
In U.S.” – Houston Public Media - APRIL 23, 2020 - #E&F - https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2020/04/23/367894/report-jail-
populations-could-add-2000-more-covid-19-deaths-in-texas-100000-more-in-u-s/

The rate of incarceration in the U nited S tates has become the country’s “Achilles heel,” according to Udi Ofer of
the ACLU’s Justice Division.

“We expected it to be bad, but this

is even worse than we thought, and it really should be a wake-up call to everyone,”
Ofer said. “The United States has a unique challenge that other nations are not facing, and that is the fact that we are the
biggest incarcerator in the world.”
As of Thursday afternoon, there were 7,380 people jailed in Harris County. Many of those people are in jail on low-level offenses, while others
are jailed because they can’t afford bail, regardless of whether they pose a threat to public safely, activists argue.

“If
someone is already going to come home in a week, a month, six months, in a year,” Ofer said. “Bring them back
home today. It just doesn’t
make sense to expose that individual to this, you know, potential death sentence .
And it doesn’t make any sense for the broader community as well, because there is no separation with this
pandemic between what’s happening in jails and the broader community .”

The ACLU worked with researchers from Washington State University , University of Pennsylvania ,
and University of Tennessee on the epidemiological models, tailored to jail and community populations, arrest and release
rates, jail staff sizes, and other factors in the 1,242 counties with the largest jail populations in the U.S.

The models showed the total death count differed depending on policies in place. But the models suggested that even
highly effective
social distancing practices could lead to about 99,000 additional deaths without a reduction in jail
populations.
Those deaths would not be confined to the jail population, according to the report. Due to the daily churn of people coming in and out of jail, and
the number of staff members forced to work in confined spaces, the virus would likely spread out into the community at higher
rates than expected, it says.
The report underscores the fears of people like Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, who has for weeks called for a reduction in the county’s jail
population. Gonzalez on Tuesday called the jail a “city within a city,” and said that the close quarters make it impossible to practice social
distancing — one of the key points made in the ACLU report.
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo last month announced an executive order to try to make those reductions. But a court order directed judges to
disregard that order, saying Hidalgo had no authority to issue such an order.

Gov. Greg Abbott also issued an executive order, banning certain people from release, citing public safety. The Texas
Supreme Court upheld that order Thursday.

But without changing those policies , Ofer said an additional loss of life is almost guaranteed.

“Anyone who thinks that what happens in jail remains in jail , they’re just absolutely wrong,” he said. “We
need to see dramatic jail reduction, because otherwise we are never going to be able to contain this
pandemic in the way that’s required.”

( ) No link to recidivism – Plan is tailored to low-risk offenders.

New York Times ‘20
Editorial Board. “No One Deserves to Die of Covid-19 in Jail” - The New York Times - International Edition - #E&F - April 29, 2020 – available
via Lexis Daabase.

Infection hot spots appearing in prisons is not a fait accompli. The spread of the virus can be curbed if
prisons send home eligible inmates. The federal government and 49 states already recognize some form of
compassionate release for the elderly and very ill. If ever there were a time to show compassion to vulnerable,
nonviolent inmates, it is now. Parole boards in states with indeterminate sentencing also have the power to assess the list of inmates set to be
paroled in the next six months and to consider releasing many of them as soon as possible.

Some states have already taken action to free inmates. Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington this week commuted the sentences of 293 inmates whose
release was set to come within 60 days. In Washington, another 600 inmates are reportedly being considered for a "rapid re-entry program" that
would allow freed inmates to re-enter the community with electronic monitoring. Governors across the country should evaluate ways to use their
clemency powers to save lives.

Releasing these prisoners during this crisis is not just an act of mercy to protect prisoners' health, and the health of the prison
staff. Fewer sick inmates means less strain on the already burdened prison hospital system. The system was ill equipped
to provide proper care to the elderly and sick even before this crisis. A 2016 report from the Department of Justice found that 17 percent of
medical positions in prison hospitals were unfilled, and that 12 Bureau of Prisons facilities were so understaffed that they were at "crisis level."
Releasing high-risk inmates will free up limited resources within the prison health care system to better
treat those who remain.
A 2016 study from the Brennan Center for Justice found that there was no compelling public safety reason to
incarcerate 39 percent of the inmates in state and federal prisons, about 576,000 people . Elderly
Americans are especially unlikely to commit further crimes once released . The United States Sentencing
Commission found in 2017 that offenders over the age of 65 had just a 13.4 percent chance of being rearrested in
an eight-year period after release, compared to a 67.6 percent chance for those under age 21. The report concluded that
"recidivism measured by rearrest, reconviction, and reincarceration declined as age increased." There are more than
10,000 people over the age of 61 in federal prison . Many elderly inmates have been in prison for decades after receiving
long sentences in the tough-on-crime 1990s. Many would be good candidates for compassionate release now.

If prisons are unwilling to release some inmates outright, they

could send eligible people into home confinement, at least for
the duration of this crisis. Attorney General William Barr
has the authority under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic
Security Act to expand the authority of the Bureau of Prisons to send people into home confinement. He has
already ordered the Bureau of Prisons to make more inmates at federal facilities eligible for home
confinement, prioritizing those at federal facilities with outbreaks of the coronavirus in Louisiana, Connecticut and Ohio. State and local
prisons should follow suit.

( ) Conditionality is a voter
It creates time and strategy skews. Limiting the neg options would create a more
educational debate.
 1AR – Reforms won’t solve COVID

Extend that even highly effective reforms fail – killing 100,000 additional people.

Reforms cplan inevitably fails – killing incarcerated populations and spreading to

community.
Wagner ‘20
et al; Peter Wagner – J.D. and Executive Director at Prison Policy Initiative – “How prepared are state prison systems for a viral
pandemic ?” - Prison Policy Initiative - April 10, 2020 - #E&F - https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/04/10/prepared/

Given the number of large number of staff required to run a facility and the apparent ease with which
asymptomatic people can infect others, no combination of security restrictions — such as suspending
family visitation, checking the temperature of incoming staff, or confining the entire population to their cells —
can keep out the virus that causes COVID-19 for long. And once the virus enters a facility, the density and lack of
sanitation will allow it to spread quickly to all incarcerated people and staff, and will accelerate the
spread to the surrounding community.

Only removal solves and outbreak.

Balsamo ‘20
Internally quoting David Patton, executive director and chief attorney at the Federal Defenders of New York - Michael Balsamo,
Lead Justice Dept. & federal law enforcement reporter for The Associated Press - “Federal prisons struggle to combat growing
COVID-19 fears” - Associated Press Mar 27, 2020 - #E&F - https://www.businessinsider.com/federal-prisons-struggle-to-
combat-growing-covid-19-fears-2020-3

There are approximately 146,000 inmates at the 122 federal correctional facilities across the U.S .,
including about 10,000 over the age of 60. New inmates coming into the federal prison system are screened for
COVID-19 risk factors, have their temperature taken and are being quarantined for 14 days.
But inmates nationwide contacted by the AP raised a similar issue: There are no signs or documents listing the symptoms of COVID-19, and
there’s been little communication about what they should do if they experience flu-like symptoms.

Some exhibiting flu-like symptoms were not tested or quarantined at several facilities, including at the FCI Yazoo City in
Mississippi and at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, according to inmates and advocates. There have been confirmed
COVID-19 cases at both.

Joseph Plany, locked up at a federal prison camp in Beaumont, Texas, said one inmate sought treatment for respiratory symptoms and was turned
away at the medical unit and sent back to his dorm.

“They're not telling us anything,” he said in an interview with the AP. “They just they're not equipped to handle it.”

Congressional leaders
and prison advocates are pressing the Justice Department to ahead of a potential
outbreak , arguing that the public health guidance to stay 6 feet (1.83 meters) away from other people is
nearly impossible behind bars.
“ There is no adequate possible plan , certainly not without greatly decreasing the population in these
institutions, ” said David Patton, executive director and chief attorney at the Federal Defenders of New York. “ There is simply not
enough space in there .”

Reforms Cplan fails – COVID will inevitably go beyond bars and into surrounding
communities.
Rich ‘20
et al; Dr. Josiah Rich is Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Brown University and also a practicing Infectious Disease
Specialist at the Rhode Island Department of Corrections. “We must release prisoners to lessen the spread of coronavirus” –
Washington Post - March 17, 2020 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend -
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/17/we-must-release-prisoners-lessen-spread-coronavirus/

Unless government officials act now , the novel coronavirus will spread rapidly in our jails and prisons,
endangering not only prisoners and corrections workers but the general public as well. As the country
prepares for further spread of the pandemic, authorities should take immediate steps (measures) to limit the risk
posed by mass confinement, including releasing those detained on bail, along with elderly prisoners who
pose little danger to the public.
Early on in this pandemic, we learned that, as with other closed spaces such as cruise ships and nursing homes, the covid-19 coronavirus spread
rapidly in Chinese correctional facilities. Now the United States, which leads the world when it comes to incarceration,
faces that same challenge.

It is essential to understand that, despite being physically secure, jails and prisons are not isolated from the
community. People continuously enter and leave, including multiple shifts of corrections staff; newly arrested,
charged and sentenced individuals; attorneys; and visitors. Even if this flow is limited to the extent possible,
correctional facilities remain densely populated and poorly designed to prevent the inevitable rapid and
widespread dissemination of this virus .
At the same time, jails and prisons house individuals at higher risk than in other settings, such as schools and restaurants, that have been closed to
mitigate contamination. Although corrections
facilities cannot be closed, they must be included in any plan aimed at
slowing the surge in infections and protecting public safety.
Reassessing security and public health risks and acting immediately will save the lives of not only those
incarcerated but also correctional staff and their families and the community at large . There are several steps that
authorities should implement as quickly as possible.

They must screen incoming individuals to prevent and delay infected individuals from entering facilities. They
must rapidly identify cases
and isolate exposed groups to limit the spread, as well as quickly transfer seriously ill patients to appropriate facilities.

But that won’t be enough . Authorities should release those who do not pose an immediate danger to
public safety, while also reducing arrests and delaying sentencings. These moves carry inherent political risks, but they are for the
greater good of the public at large. The abrupt onset of severe covid-19 infections among incarcerated individuals
will require mass transfers to local hospitals for intensive medical and ventilator care — highly expensive interventions that may
soon be in very short supply. Each severely ill patient coming from corrections who occupies an ICU bed will mean others
may die for inability to obtain care.
Our ability to release people rapidly will vary by type of facility and jurisdiction. Those
being held in jails simply due to their
inability to afford bail, or for minor infractions or violations, can generally be released promptly by the judiciary or
even the local sheriff. Some jurisdictions are already discussing such mitigation efforts.

Already sentenced individuals pose a greater challenge — one compounded by the punitive policies of the past few decades (mandatory
minimum sentences, three strikes and life without parole) that have led to a large, aging incarcerated population especially vulnerable to severe
disease. Additionally, half of all incarcerated people suffer from at least one chronic illness, which means even more will be at risk of a poor
prognosis if they become infected.

Those eligible for parole can and should be released . Provisions for “compassionate release/parole” exist in
every state; however, that process is typically slow, underutilized and very limited. Fortunately, the people at highest risk for severe
complications of covid-19 who are incarcerated (the aging and chronically ill), are, on average, the least likely to commit a new crime or need to
be re-incarcerated. In some states, governors have the ability to commute sentences or pardon individuals, as does the
president in the federal system.

Reforms Cplan fails to solve COVD – must decarcerate.

Rich ‘20
et al; Josiah Rich is professor of medicine and epidemiology at Brown University - “Flattening the Curve for Incarcerated
Populations — Covid-19 in Jails and Prisons” – New England Journal of Medicine - April 2, 2020 - #E&F -
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2005687

B ureau o f P risons and certain states and municipalities have opted to suspend visitation by
To date, the Federal
community members, limit visits by legal representatives, and reduce facility transfers for incarcerated persons. To reduce
social isolation and maintain a degree of connectedness for incarcerated people, some correctional systems are providing teleconferencing
services for personal and legal visits. Irrespective of these interventions , infected persons — including staff members
— will continue to enter correctional settings. By March 14, some U.S. correctional staff members had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2,
and the first Covid-19 diagnosis in a detained person was announced on March 16. A recent SARS-CoV-2 outbreak among cruise-ship
passengers and crew in Yokohama, Japan, provides a warning about what could soon happen in correctional settings.4

To operationalize a response for incarcerated populations, three levels of preparedness need to be addressed: the virus should be delayed as much
as possible from entering correctional settings; if it is already in circulation, it should be controlled; and jails and prisons should prepare to deal
with a high burden of disease. The better the mitigation job done by legal, public health, and correctional health partnerships, the lighter the
burden correctional facilities and their surrounding communities will bear. We have learned from other epidemics, such as the 1918 influenza
pandemic, that nonpharmaceutical interventions are effective, but they have the greatest impact when implemented early.5

Therefore, we believe that we

need to prepare now, by “decarcerating,” or releasing , as many people as possible,
focusing on those who are least likely to commit additional crimes, but also on the elderly and infirm; urging
police and courts to immediately suspend arresting and sentencing people, as much as possible, for low-level crimes and misdemeanors; isolating
and separating incarcerated persons who are infected and those who are under investigation for possible infection from the general prison
population; hospitalizing those who are seriously ill; and identifying correctional staff and health care providers who became infected early and
have recovered, who can help with custodial and care efforts once they have been cleared, since they may have some degree of immunity and
severe staff shortages are likely.

All these interventions will help to flatten the curve of Covid-19 cases among incarcerated populations and limit the impact of transmission both
inside correctional facilities and in the community after incarcerated people are released. Such measures will also reduce the burden on the
correctional system in terms of stabilizing and transferring critically ill patients, as well as the burden on the community health care system to
which such patients will be sent. Each person needlessly infected in a correctional setting who develops severe illness will be one too many.

Beyond federal, state, and local action, we need to consider the impact of correctional facilities in the global context. The boundaries between
communities and correctional institutions are porous, as are the borders between countries in the age of mass human travel. Despite security at
nearly every nation’s border, Covid-19 has appeared in practically all countries. We can’t expect to find sturdier barriers between correctional
institutions and their surrounding communities in any affected country. Thus far, we have witnessed a spectrum of epidemic responses from
various countries when it comes to correctional institutions. Iran, for example, orchestrated the controlled release of more than 70,000 prisoners,
which may help “bend the curve” of the Iranian epidemic. Conversely, failure to calm incarcerated populations in Italy led to widespread rioting
in Italian prisons. Reports have also emerged of incarceration of exposed persons for violating quarantine, a practice that will exacerbate the very
problem we are trying to mitigate. To respond to this global crisis, we
need to consider prisons and jails as reservoirs that
could lead to epidemic resurgence if the epidemic is not adequately addressed in these facilities everywhere.
As with general epidemic preparedness, the Covid-19 pandemic will teach us valuable lessons for preparedness in correctional settings. It will
also invariably highlight the injustice and inequality in the United States that are magnified in the criminal justice system. As U.S. criminal
justice reform continues to unfold, emerging communicable diseases and our ability to combat them need to be taken into account. To promote
public health, we believe that efforts to decarcerate, which are already under way in some jurisdictions, need to be scaled up; and
associated reductions of incarcerated populations should be sustained. The
interrelation of correctional-system health and
public health is a reality not only in the United States but around the world.
 1AR vs. Recidivism Disad

Extend that there’s no link to the recidivism disad.

Recidivism is *not* guaranteed – Neg ev is based on bad predictions and ignores that
the Aff releases people with a low-risk of recidivism.
Galvin-Almanza ‘20
et al; Emily Galvin-Almanza has been a public defender in both California and New York, and now works to increase access to
justice for low-income communities as executive director of Partners for Justice. Co-authored with Professor David Mills - who
is professor of the practice of law and senior lecturer at Stanford Law School. “As many as 100,000 incarcerated people in our
jails and prisons will die from the coronavirus, unless the US acts now” - Business Insider – April 2 nd - #E&F -
https://www.businessinsider.com/failure-to-release-prisoners-is-condemning-thousands-to-death-2020-4

COVID-19 is now becoming a threat that takes our system's inhumanity to a new and even more horrific level: We
know that the virus spreads in confined groups with frightening speed and efficiency. In a prison environment, huge numbers will die.
Essentially, we are transforming their sentence of incarceration into a sentence to death.
There is a solution, and it's one that requires a new way of thinking.

During normal times, decision-makers in the criminal legal system would assume that the
surest way to minimize risk to an
individual, or their potential risk to the community, is
to keep them in a cell. But in the face of COVID-19, we must
acknowledge that the risk of death inside prison walls has become higher than the risk of releasing most
people.
The process of attempting to divine a person's "risk" to the community has always been a compelling illusion.
Even the most well-developed "risk assessment tools" rely on data culled from a system full of inherent biases,
and none have proved able to accurately anticipate future behavior . But while we'll never truly be able
to predict the course of humans with free will, we are able, very concretely, to predict the course of COVID- 19
through America's prisons and jails.

This frightening new reality has led officials in jurisdictions around the country to begin releasing some people from jail,
particularly those held pretrial or on low-level, nonviolent offenses. The officials behind these decisions seem to understand that social
distancing is impossible in locked facilities, and that the unhygienic conditions and lack of health care resources put lives at serious risk.

So far, however, the vast majority of people who've gotten out are the ones who many would agree should never have been incarcerated in the
first place. Their release is a positive step, but it isn't nearly enough. The numbers are too low : In New York, for
example, officials have only released a few hundred people from Rikers Island, where over five thousand people are held in close quarters, forced
to eat in groups of four and share one toilet with twenty-eight other people. If the changes remain this small-scale, hundreds of thousands of
people could be sickened and die in custody. With the degree to which jails churn population — almost five million people passing through the
US's roughly 2,800 jails annually — the virus will spread even more rapidly between and among the incarcerated population and staffers, and,
therefore, back into the broader community.

To meaningfully reduce population density, protect the most vulnerable, and decrease the spread of COVID-19, we
must immediately
release a broader group of people: the elderly ( whose recidivism rate is remarkably low ), people within
months of scheduled release , people whose charges are misdemeanors or non-violent felonies,
individuals whose health leaves them at particular risk from COVID -19 and whose crime (alleged or otherwise)
involves no physical harm to another person , and those held on technical violations of probation or
parole.
Advocates, policy experts, and even prison doctors across the country have agreed that it's safe to release these individuals — and indeed that
they must be released to avoid large-scale loss of life. In fact, releasing people from cramped custody into a setting where social distancing is
possible (whether at home or in emergency accommodations) protects them and the entire community from the further spread of COVID-19.

But somehow, top officials across the country haven't recognized the urgency of this issue. Why the hesitation? Do our leaders believe that
anyone accused or convicted of a crime, no matter the nature, must still be dangerous? Do they consider the lives of people behind bars so devoid
of value that they'd prefer to see them dead than risk any possibility of future crime? Do they not understand that an outbreak in one
of these facilities will ripple outward?
After all, incarcerated people face a much higher risk of exposure to COVID-19 than they would on the outside — and behind bars, infection is
more likely to be a death sentence.

A shift to a presumption of release rather than confinement may seem extreme, but in truth, these calculations
have long been out of alignment. The vast majority of crimes — even those categorized as violent or as felonies — do not involve
harm to people. Property crimes, drug crimes, violations of probation and parole, and almost all misdemeanors are offenses that by definition do
not put lives at risk. If our leaders
fail to correct course amid the COVID-19 pandemic, they're sending a clear message that
they're fine
letting countless people die for these offenses — and fueling a greater outbreak across our country — so
long as the public is protected from an imagined risk of future crime.
** AFF CASE BACKLINES START
HERE
**COVID/Mechanics – Aff Backlines
2AC Impact Overview
 2AC Impact Overview – COVID deaths

We have a COVID impact that doesn’t hinge on resurgence.

Our _________________ ev (ACLU ev and-or Galvin-Almanza ev – depending on which advantages you ran)
says the Aff solves 100,000 avoidable COVD deaths.

That outweighs the disad:

One - prefer high probability events.

Bergmann ‘20
et al; Max Bergmann is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. From 2011 to 2017, he served in the U.S.
Department of State in a number of different positions, including as a member of the secretary of state’s policy planning staff,
where he focused on political-military affairs and nonproliferation; special assistant to the undersecretary for arms control and
international security;; and senior adviser to the assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs. Bergmann received his
master’s degree from the London School of Economics in comparative politics and his bachelor’s degree from Bates College.
“The US Should Be Leading the Global Response to the Coronavirus Crisis” – Center for American Progress -March 26, 2020 -
#E&F - https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2020/03/26/482274/us-leading-global-response-coronavirus-
crisis/

For decades, the intelligence community, political scientists, futurists, philanthropists, and security analysts across
the field have warned that a pandemic was one of the top threats to global security . However, America and
the world have been too narrowly focused on traditional security threats , and the consequences of that constricted view are
playing out now.

During the Cold War, there were massive efforts to plan for the low-probability , high-impact threat of nuclear
war—everything from scenarios for continuity of government to strategic responses. Today, the world faces a number of possible
high-impact threats , from global pandemics to climate change to food security. These can be addressed and
mitigated to prevent them from spiraling into unmanageable crises, but that will require a robust global effort. The current crisis should
serve as a wake-up call for the world to get a better handle on these issues. With the right leadership, the U nited S tates
can play an indispensable role in developing the international infrastructure for addressing these emerging challenges, and it
should.

Two - Security impacts have been structurally prioritized for too long.
Berengaut & Kahl ‘20
Ariana Berengaut is the director of programs, partnerships, and strategic planning at the Penn Biden Center, a senior adviser to
National Security Action, and a former official at the State Department. Colin H. Kahl is co-director of Stanford University’s
Center for International Security, a strategic consultant at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, and a
former national security adviser to Vice President Joseph Biden. “ AFTERSHOCKS: THE CORONAVIRUS
PANDEMIC AND THE NEW WORLD DISORDER ” – War on the The Rocks - APRIL 10, 2020 - #E&F -
https://warontherocks.com/2020/04/aftershocks-the-coronavirus-pandemic-and-the-new-world-disorder/
Since the end of the Cold War, analysts have debated the priority that U.S. security calculations should
give to transnational challenges. But, with the exception of America’s “forever wars” against terror ism since
9/11, other defuse transnational threats like climate change and pandemic disease have too often been treated as
second- or third-tier priorities. To say the least, the current crisis presents overwhelming evidence that that
mentality should change. The 9/11 era may now be over, but other transnational threats are no longer hypothetical —
they are here and demonstrably greater than any we have faced in our lifetimes.

(optional)

COVID outweighs nuclear war – more likely and less abstract of an impact.
Tackett ‘20
Internally quoting Jon Meacham, The Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Endowed Chair in American Presidency at Vanderbilt
University. Meacham is a contributing editor to Time magazine and a former Editor-in-Chief of Newsweek. He won the 2009
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. Michael Tackett writes
for the Associated Press - “Of America and sacrifice: Is the country ready to step up?” – ABC News, AP release - Wednesday,
March 25th 2020 - #E&F - https://abc3340.com/news/nation-world/of-america-and-sacrifice-is-the-country-ready-to-step-up

Now, with the coronavirus , it's as though a natural disaster has taken place in multiple places at once.
Millions of people will likely lose their jobs. Businesses will shutter. Schools have closed. Thousands will die. Leaders are
ordering citizens into isolation to stop the virus' march.

Suddenly, in the course of a few weeks, John F. Kennedy’s “ask what you can do for your country” injunction has come to life. Will Americans
step up?

“This is a new moment,” said Jon Meacham , a historian and author of “The Soul of America.”
“Prolonged sacrifice isn’t something we’ve been asked to do, really, since World War II," Meacham said. "There was a kind of perpetual
vigilance in the Cold War — what President Kennedy called ‘the long twilight struggle’ — but living
with the fear of nuclear war is
quite abstract compared to living with the fear of a virus and of a possible economic depression .”
A-to indicts on the ACLU model
 A-to indicts on the ACLU model

Model imperfections don’t amount to much – incarcerated populations are still

hugely important to COVID spread.
Flagg ‘20
Referencing the ACLU model about jails that was done in concert with UPenn, Wash State and the Univ of Tennessee. Internally
quoting Lucia Tian, chief analytics officer for the ACLU, who took part in the research project. Anna Flagg is The Marshall
Project’s senior data reporter - “Jails Are Coronavirus Hotbeds. How Many People Should Be Released To Slow The Spread?” –
538.com – June 3rd - #E&F - https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/jails-are-coronavirus-hotbeds-how-many-people-should-be-
released-to-slow-the-spread/

But while the model’s creators acknowledge that the model’s estimates won’t align precisely with reality ,
it can still tell us something about the dynamics of disease spread.

“There’s no doubt the impact will be very, very large,” said Lucia Tian, chief analytics officer for the ACLU, who took
part in the research.

In the team’s simulations, the more jail populations are reduced, the more it flattens the curve inside jails and
out. Dramatic cuts in jail populations — for instance by stopping 95 percent of arrests and doubling release rates, which the authors
calculate would reduce the detainee population by more than 85 percent — are forecasted to be most effective in
preventing deaths .

By demonstrating the relative effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of several policies, Tian hopes the
model can aid leaders and
policymakers as they attempt to minimize the damage. She explained with a classic adage of statistics: “ All
models are wrong, but some are useful .”

If anything, the model’s predictions underestimate the death toll.

Branigin ‘20
Internally quoting a Report conducted via a Partnership Between American Civil Liberties Union Analytics and researchers from
Washington State University, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Tennessee. Anne Branigin, Staff writer, The Root.
“New COVID-19 Model Predicts Failure to Reduce Jails Will Lead to Nearly 100,000 More Coronavirus Deaths” – The Root –
April 22, 2020 - #E&F - https://www.theroot.com/new-covid-19-model-predicts-failure-to-reduce-jails-wil-1843005082

Since the coronavirus became a global pandemic, predictive models have been an important—and hotly debated—tool to help understand the
spread of the virus and anticipate potential needs. According to the estimates coming out of the White House’s models, slightly
more than 100,000 people will die from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. It’s a staggering but, unfortunately, not
altogether unthinkable number: more than 45,000 people have died in the U.S. so far, and COVID cases have yet to peak in many states.

According to a new report from the ACLU, it’s also a gross undercount .

According to an epidemiological model released on Wednesday, a collaboration between the ACLU and a team
of academic researchers across the country shows that the number of COVID-related deaths will increase
twofold if measures are not taken to adequately reduce jail populations. Even if social distancing is strictly
followed in every other area of American life , running jails as per usual would potentially cause an
additional 100,000 people, both in and outside of jails , to lose their lives.
“Numbers used by the Trump administration largely fail to consider several factors that will explosively increase the loss of life unless drastic
reforms are adopted to reduce the nation’s jail populations,” the ACLU writes in its report.

How could there be such a blind spot with our previous projections? As the ACLU explains, the models
the U.S. uses are based on
ones that have tracked cases in countries that experienced coronavirus outbreaks before we did. But those
countries did not have to account for a mass incarceration problem. And with jails and prison facilities now functioning as
transmission hubs for the virus, this is a huge oversight for the U.S.

The prevailing epidemiological models largely fail to take into account our incarceration rates and the complete absence of social distancing in
our jails—which is why we had to build our own model,” Lucia Tian, chief analytics officer for the ACLU, said in a press release. “While we
always knew that jails would have an impact on loss of life in this pandemic, the model shows us just how large that impact may be—that even
under our best-case scenarios, we could be looking at 100,000 more deaths. We can’t save our community while ignoring our jails.”

To build the ACLU model, researchers pulled data from more than 1,200 county jail systems to create predictions impacting 90 percent of the
U.S. population. They also accounted for average daily arrests and releases in individual counties, as well as regional spreads of COVID-19 thus
far.

The newanalysis highlights the unique challenges the U.S. faces as it combats the novel coronavirus,
undergoing radical changes in nearly every part of society except for its incarceration system.

Prefer ACLU methodology – conventional models ignore key prison-specific

variables.
Branigin ‘20
Internally quoting a Report conducted via a Partnership Between American Civil Liberties Union Analytics and researchers from
Washington State University, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Tennessee. Anne Branigin, Staff writer, The Root.
“New COVID-19 Model Predicts Failure to Reduce Jails Will Lead to Nearly 100,000 More Coronavirus Deaths” – The Root –
April 22, 2020 - #E&F - https://www.theroot.com/new-covid-19-model-predicts-failure-to-reduce-jails-wil-1843005082

How could there be such a blind spot with our previous projections? As the ACLU explains, the models
the U.S. uses are based on
ones that have tracked cases in countries that experienced coronavirus outbreaks before we did. But those
countries did not have to account for a mass incarceration problem. And with jails and prison facilities now functioning as
transmission hubs for the virus, this is a huge oversight for the U.S.

“The prevailingepidemiological models largely fail to take into account our incarceration rates and the
complete absence of social distancing in our jails—which is why we had to build our own model,” Lucia
Tian, chief analytics officer for the ACLU, said in a press release. “While we always knew that jails would have an impact on
loss of life in this pandemic, the model shows us just how large that impact may be—that even under our best-case scenarios, we could be
looking at 100,000 more deaths. We can’t save our community while ignoring our jails.”

To build the ACLU model, researchers pulled data from more than 1,200 county jail systems to create
predictions impacting 90 percent of the U.S. population. They also accounted for average daily arrests
and releases in individual counties, as well as regional spreads of COVID -19 thus far.

Aff methodology is sound

ACLU ‘20
A Partnership Between American Civil Liberties Union Analytics and Researchers from Washington State University, University
of Pennsylvania, and University of Tennessee “COVID-19 Model Finds Nearly 100,000 More Deaths Than Current Estimates,
Due to Failures to Reduce Jails” – ACLU – April - #E&F - chart omitted - https://www.aclu.org/report/flattening-curve-why-
reducing-jail-populations-key-beating-covid-19

To paint a national picture of the impact of jails on the spread of COVID-19, we built upon the
epidemiological model in “The Epidemiological Implications of Incarceration Dynamics in Jails for Community, Corrections Officer,
and Incarcerated Population Risks from COVID-19”21 and constructed individually-tailored runs of the model for the 1,242 jurisdictions in the
United States with jail populations of at least 100 people. We
then aggregated across counties for the national infection
and mortality numbers in jails and in their communities. The county-level model:
The county-level model is a classic SEIR compartmental model tailored to the characteristics of COVID -19 (accounting for
disease characteristics such as the transmissibility, the duration of infection, and the length of the pre-symptomatic
period). These are a standard class of models used by epidemiologists worldwide to study the spread of
disease, and can be tailored to model movement between areas. The inclusion of a jail system in this model allows for:
• A realistic representation of jails as hubs with high contact and transmission rates (no social distancing, poor sanitation, high at-risk population)

• Movement of people between jails and the community (due to arrests, releases, and the daily activity of jail staff)

Tailoring to individual jurisdictions & scenarios:

Jail systems vary substantially across the United States, so it is important to tailor the model to the specifics of each jurisdiction. The model
allowed for differences in:

• Jail and county population

• Average daily arrests and releases

• Path of COVID-19 spread thus far

To measure the overall impact of jails on COVID-19 infection and death rates, we ran and compared scenarios with jails rapidly emptied to those
with jails operating business-as-usual, assuming the rest of the community was sheltering in place. To understand the impact of our policy
recommendations, we ran the model under the following scenarios for each county:

• 10 percent reduction in arrest rates

• 50 percent reduction in arrest rates (representing the majority of minor crimes)

• 95 percent reduction in arrest rates (all but violent crimes) and a 2x acceleration of releases

In order to
construct a reasonable apples-to-apples comparison of the results of our model to popularly cited
projections, we adjusted the effectiveness of social distancing in the model so as to yield three calibration
levels with “no-jail” projections of 101,000 deaths, 230,000 deaths, and 989,000 deaths.
A-to “Incarcerated populations not key”
 Organizational notes

Q1: “Why have a separate header for the Pavlo card ?“

A1: Given how debates tend to break down, the Pavlo card is both:
o likely to be one of the most important cards in the round
o apt to be read or cross-applied in several places in a debate. It can annoying when a
frontline has a card that’s already been read. If you need it – here it is… If it’s been read,
supplement with other cards.

Q2: Why all of the different headers for similar concepts ?

A2: Because details matter in this instance. Thus:

o If a card is specific to Federal Prisons, it gets it own header.
o If a card is about BOTH prisons and jails, it appears under “Incarcerated populations
key”
o If a card is about prisons only (which tend to have people coming-and-going less often
than jails), it gets its own header.
o If a card is about jails only (which tend to have people coming-and-going more often
than prisons), it gets its own header.
o **It is also worth noting that the term “jails” is overwhelmingly likely to be referring to
correctional facilities run by Local authorities. “Prisons” can be run by the State or
Federal Government.
 The Pavlo card

***Note: this card also appears in the 2AC v States Cplan… as well as some versions of the 1AC.

Federal prisons are key. Curve is flattening now - resurgence will reverse that if
Federal prisons are left out.
Pavlo ‘20
Walter Pavlo is an Adjunct Professor of Ethics and Corporate Responsibility at Endicott College, as well as a Journalist Law
School Fellow at Loyola Law School. Walter is a contributor to Forbes and New York University Law’s Program on Corporate
Compliance and Enforcement. Walter is Co-Founder of Prisonology – a consulting, training and expert testimony firm for
lawyers and defendants on the post conviction process of the federal justice system. “Federal Bureau Of Prisons Institutions Not
Showing Any Signs Of “Flattening Curve”” – Forbes - Apr 15, 2020 - #E&F -
https://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2020/04/15/federal-bureau-of-prisons-institutions-not-showing-any-signs-of-flattening-
curve/#17f48b0654dd

The Federal B ureau o f P risons is now in its “Phase 6” plan to curb the rate of contagion of COVID-19 among its
177,000 inmates housed in 122 institutions which employ over 30,000 staff and tens of thousands of
contractors . BOP’s efforts thus far have included halting social and legal visits since the middle of March, screening of inmates,
staff and contractors by taking their temperature to measure infection, mobilizing administrative staff to step into front line positions, increase
rate of hiring new corrections officers and halting staff training. The results have been tragic.

Since Phase 1, there are now 736 positive COVID-19 infections (444 inmates, 248 staff) in nearly half of the
institutions located across the country. In this crisis, BOP corrections staff have complained about lack of direction from its new
director, Michael Carvajal, and confused case managers have put hundreds of inmates in a type of isolation protocol as BOP considers whether to
release them to home confinement. From accounts I am receiving from federal prisons across the country, the inmates are growing more
frustrated.

It is believed that the BOP created profiles of inmates from its SENTRY system, the main database housing details of every inmate’s personal
and criminal history. The direction to develop those profiles was initiated by a memorandum from Attorney General William Barr on April 3.
Despite some initial action to identify those inmates, many of them are still in a state of waiting for release as the BOP determines how it will, or
if it will, release inmates to reduce the overcrowding of its prisons.

The continued
inaction of the BOP to swiftly reduce the population of inmates , particularly the elderly
and those with underlying health conditions, is an unfolding story with tragic consequences. The inability of
the BOP to take decisive action during a crisis like this demonstrates “deliberate indifference,” a standard for cruel and unusual punishment under
the 8th Amendment. William Fick, Fick & Marx, joined by the ACLU Foundation of Massachusetts, filed a class action lawsuit against FMC
Devens and theBOP on behalf of inmates at the facility located near Boston, MA, a hotbed of COVID-19 outbreaks. “Respondents have
failed to use their authority to order compassionate release ,” they wrote in their filing. The ACLU of Ohio filed their own
lawsuit against FCI Elkton and BOP where three inmates have died.

As disturbing as it is to witness this negligence inflicted on the incarcerated, it is time to recognize that the BOP’s
actions will also
undermine the national effort to “flatten the curve,” thus threatening the health and wellbeing of every
American. Jack Donson, who worked in the Bureau of Prisons for 23 years told me, “The agency has never experienced anything like this
and it is starting to show.”

The federal COVID-19 response has failed to consider the enormous demand on medical resources by
federal inmates who require hospitalization for COVID -19 complications. from the crisis within its own system. While
the BOP operates 7 medical facilities around the country, they are not equipped with ventilators, nor are they
prepared for managing a highly contagious disease . According to a source who works on the corrections
staff at the Federal Medical Center Devens (Devens, MA), “COVID-19 patients who would test positive will be
transferred to local hospitals and treated.” To date, Devens has not reported a positive COVID-19 test.

The administration’s COVID-19 policies have been based on epidemiological modeling developed by the
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington ( IHME ) to “provide
hospitals, health-care workers, policymakers, and the public with crucial information about what demands COVID -19
may place on hospital capacity and resources, so that they could begin to plan.” This has led to much of our
country sheltering in place at home, distancing ourselves from others when out in public, and, most recently, wearing
masks to cover our faces. The result of those efforts have been reflected in a “flattening curve” of infection rates.
This flattening prevents hospitals from being overcome by sick patients.
However, neither IHME, nor any other epidemiologists modeling the crisis, ever envisioned the systemic failure that
would expose 177,000 inmates housed in multiple institutional clusters, some numbering over 5,000 inmates, to a
COVID-19 outbreak. These failures are resulting from a lack of a widespread testing protocol at insitutions, the continued transfer of
inmates between institutions, the introduction of new inmates who are either arrested or self-surrender and the thousands of staff and contractors
The biggest hinderance
that go in and out of these institutions. Once infected, there are limited ways to isolate the healthy from the sick.
to preventing spread of the disease in prison are the sheer number of inmates incarcerated.
The BOP policy so far has been to explicitly refrain from testing inmates except those who have died or are willing to risk fellow inmate
retribution by revealing themselves to be symptomatic. More inmates are sick than the BOP is reporting and more inmates are not reporting that
they are sick out of fear of being identified as sick.

Nevertheless, outbreaks at federal facilities will continue in sync with outbreaks in surrounding communities at a rate
never contemplated under the modeling used by the government to decide policy . Imagine an
enclosed community with thousands of people in cramped living conditions , no ability to social distance ,
no hand sanitizers , limited cleaning supplies , limited-shared laundry facilities, all under the stress of being
cut off from family visits. It is a powerful cocktail of both physical and mental poison that will have an effect on the
lives of people for many years. It is cruel to those incarcerated and those who work among them.
Every IHME model estimates the number of people in age and health categories identified by the CDC as high risk, using datasets applicable to
the general population. However, as documented at length by the BOP itself and multiple agencies studying elderly inmate health, federal inmates
suffer from chronic health problems, much of it untreated and undocumented, at disproportionately higher rates compared to the general
for every federal facility , the burden on local healthcare resources has been under-
population. As such,
estimated in the eventuality of mass contagion within prisons.

In failing to reduce inmate populations , the BOP is depriving the country of one of these most
effective tools in avoiding the collapse of our healthcare systems. Specifically , the only way to
“flatten the curve” is to reduce the population (i.e., the number of individuals circulating in public) and reduce the rate of
transmission (i.e., the number of individuals infected by each COVID-19 positive individual).

Inmates released to home confinement typically return to their region of origin. By

removing inmates from densely populated facilities
and dispersing them across the country, the population accessing local medical resources is reduced in
favor of a more equitable distribution of this healthcare burden across multiple communities. Simply put , even if
the inmate on home confinement does become ill, he / she (they) will be treated at a facility that is not
overwhelmed by inmates from a single institution.
The proposed criteria for releasing inmates to home confinement excludes inmates who pose a risk to public
safety or have a high rate of recidivism. It begs the question of why these people are even in prison to begin
with, but we’ll save that for another time. It is beyond dispute that any potential threat to public safety posed by
releasing some inmates is far outweighed by the certain increase in fatalities caused by failure to not to.
 2AC Frontline vs. “Incarcerated Population not key”

***Note: this frontline assumes the Pavlo card – from previous header – has been read by the Aff.

Our Pavlo card has three warrants:

One – Uniqueness goes Aff.
Of course there are some COVID cases. But, on balance, the curve’s flattening now -
so Neg alt causes aren’t overwhelming hospital capacity. But…

Two – only Aff models account for a future Federal Prisons cases.
That surge is coming and un-flattens the curve.

Three – Patient dispersal

Federal prisons are unique – one person spreads to many. All become patients in
one local hospital.
Decarceration solves – checks crowding and - if illnesses - happen, patients aren’t all
in one location.

Incarcerated populations are the key to avoiding resurgence. Excluding them

unravels currently-flattening curves.
Flagg ‘20
Internally quoting a partnership between the American Civil Liberties Union Analytics and Researchers from Washington State
University, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Tennessee. The three primary researchers were: Dr. Nina Fefferman,
Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee; Dr. Lofgren is an infectious
disease epidemiologist at Washington State University whose research focuses on the use of mathematical and computational
models of disease transmission; and Dr. Kristian Lum, Research Assistant Professor in Computer and Information Science at the
University of Pennsylvania. Anna Flagg is The Marshall Project’s senior data reporter - “Jails Are Coronavirus Hotbeds. How
Many People Should Be Released To Slow The Spread?” – 538.com – June 3 rd - #E&F -
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/jails-are-coronavirus-hotbeds-how-many-people-should-be-released-to-slow-the-spread/

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, epidemiologists warned that jails and prisons would be breeding
grounds for infectious disease, thanks to their densely packed populations and uncertain access to
hygiene products and medical care .

And, sure
enough, the four biggest known clusters of outbreaks in the U.S. on June 3 were all linked to
correctional facilities, according to a tracking project by The New York Times.
But while experts are unsurprised by the outbreaks in correctional facilities, it’s less obvious what should be done about it. Computer simulations
suggest that reducing the jailed population could help control the spread of the virus inside and outside the jails. And officials have been doing
that — but they’re wrestling with where to draw the line. Over the last week, police across the country have arrested at least 9,300 people
protesting the police killing of George Floyd, prompting more urgent questions about law enforcement’s handling of the crisis.

To try to understand just how big a role jails could play in spreading COVID-19 in the U.S., a team of
researchers built a statistical model of how the virus moves in and around jails, simulating the spread from early April
onward. Several epidemiologists we spoke to said the model, developed by researchers at Washington State University ,
the University of Pennsylvania , the American Civil Liberties Union , Tusculum University and the
University of Tennessee, is the first they’ve seen that considers the effects of jails on the disease’s spread ,
which leading models of the virus have ignored. The study suggests common estimates are vastly undercounting the
toll of COVID-19 because they fail to account for the flow of people into and out of jails; thousands could die inside
facilities, and many more could die in the communities surrounding jails.

if social distancing measures outside jails succeed in controlling the virus,

Perhaps counterintuitively, the model found that
jails would become a primary vector of spread , leading to large numbers of preventable infections, hospitalizations and
deaths. An otherwise effective virus response would thus be undone by ignoring jails.

Alt causes irrel. It’s not about the total cases - it’s about the timing of surges and
dispersing the patients.
Andrew ‘20
Internally quoting Dr. Gabe Kelen, director of the department of emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Scottie
Andrew, Scottie Andrew Digital News reporter at CNN- “WHAT WE MEAN BY A 'SECOND PEAK' OF CORONAVIRUS” -
CNN - Posted: May 28, 2020 - #E&F – Available at: https://www.wthitv.com/content/national/570805962.html

But in
both a second peak scenario and one in which we "flatten the curve," the same number of people
could be infected. It's the timing that counts.

A second peak would mean that many more people are infected with coronavirus at the same time , and during flu
season, which would overburden health care systems.

And when hospitals and health care workers are overwhelmed, there's a higher likelihood for preventable deaths,
said Dr. Gabe Kelen, director of the department of emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins
University.

"The only real reason to try and dampen these peaks are to prevent preventable deaths, so that the health care system
can take care of everyone who needs it and give them the best possible chance at a healthy outcome ," Kelen, who
specializes in emerging infections, told CNN.

That's why so much has been made about flattening the curve . The steadier the rate of infection, the
more manageable it is to treat the sick.

*** Aff can supplement this frontline by adding addition cards from the headers below
 A-to “Federal Prisons not key”

***Note: these cards also appear in the 1AR v States Cplan.

Federal prisons key - curve can’t flatten if the status quo fails to act in 100 Federal
Prisons that are already deemed health hazards.
Buble ‘20
Internally quoting Dr. Homer Venters, Dr. Homer Venters, who is a physician, epidemiologist and the former Chief Medical
Officer of the NYC Correctional Health Services. He completed his residency in Social Internal Medicine at Montefiore Medical
Center and Masters of Public Health Research from NYU. Dr. Venters is a Clinical Associate Professor at the NYU College of
Global Public Health. Courtney Buble is a staff correspondent who covers federal management. Prior to joining Government
Executive, she worked for NBC News. “Federal Prisons Pose ‘Imminent Danger’ in Spreading COVID-19, Union Says” –
Government Executive - APRIL 6, 2020 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend -
https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2020/04/federal-prisons-pose-imminent-danger-spreading-covid-19-union-says/164390/

Federal prisons are “proliferating the spread” of coronavirus, according to a March 31 complaint prison workers have filed
with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The union complaint, obtained by Government Executive, cites “imminent danger”
conditions at facilities nationwide.

The Council of Prison Locals C-33, a division of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the Federal B ureau o f P risons
is “proliferating the spread of a known and deadly contagion both within our prison system and to our surrounding
communities ,” and its “actions and inactions are expected to result in death and severe health complications and/or possible life-long
disabilities.”

The union alleges BOP has violated national regulations that require employers to provide a hazard-free work environment as well as Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention and BOP guidance on mitigating the spread of the coronavirus. It cited “imminent danger,” which OHSA defines
as a situation “such that a danger exists which could reasonably be expected to cause death or serious physical harm immediately or before the
imminence of such danger can be eliminated through the enforcement procedures.”

The union listed 100 of 122 facilities nationwide with alleged safety or health hazards.
The complaint alleges that BOP has:

Directed staff members to return to work within 48 hours of being in close proximity to those with coronavirus and/or show symptoms of having
the virus;

Authorized the movement of inmates with suspended or confirmed coronavirus cases to areas nationwide that didn’t have any known infections;

Failed to mitigate the spread of coronavirus in facilities by using air filters or improving ventilation in other ways;

Failed to maintain social distancing guidelines for inmates and staff; and

Although BOP has fit tested staff for masks, it “failed to provide the proper N-95 masks to staff who are transporting and have custodial control
over hospitalized inmates testing positive for the virus.”

At the time the complaint was submitted, 28 inmates and 24 staff had confirmed coronavirus cases. As of Monday afternoon (six days later), there
were 138 inmates and 59 staff members with confirmed cases, according to the BOP’s online tracker. There have been eight inmate deaths so far:
Five at a low security facility in Oakdale, Louisiana, and three at a low security facility in Lisbon, Ohio, the agency reported.

When asked about the OSHA complaint, BOP Spokesperson Justice Long reiterated the agency’s commitment to protecting all personnel and
mitigating the spread of disease. “The BOP has recently responded to several inquiries from OSHA concerning COVID-19,” Long said.
“Working with OSHA and the union are two important opportunities the BOP has to evaluate its efforts to keep staff safe and mitigate risks
associated with COVID-19.”
Since January, BOP has issued guidance and modified operations in response to the coronavirus. Those steps include: launching an online
screening tool; allowing telework where possible, although that’s not possible for the majority of staff; suspending social and other visits with
few exceptions; limiting inmate transfers; and screening inmates before they are transferred.

On April 1, BOP implemented what union officials called a “modified lockdown” to limit inmate movement within the facilities. Officials
planned to re-evaluate the situation by April 15 and decide whether or not to continue with the modified operations.

Two days later, on April 3, Attorney General William Barr authorized emergency authority under the $2 trillion CARES Act to increase home
confinements for inmates with “COVID-19 risk factors, as described by the CDC.” BOP said it had increased home confinement by over 40%
since March, but is looking to do more as the outbreak spreads. It is starting with the inmates at the facilities with the highest numbers of
confirmed cases and deaths, according to a press release.

On Monday, BOP management sent a memo, which Government Executive obtained from a union official, to all chief executive officers on the
use of face masks for inmates and staff, “BOP is working aggressively to issue face coverings,” it stated. The memo outlines how and to whom
to distribute surgical masks until the agency receives shipments of cloth masks.

Despite the bureau’s efforts, many federal prison employees, lawmakers, union officials and advocates still say the
agency is not doing enough to protect staff and inmates.
Government Executive has spoken with many prison employees over the last few weeks who’ve disclosed concerns about the lack of personal
protective equipment, their inability to implement social distancing and the risk of exposure while on the job.

In response to the face mask memo, Joe Rojas, the southeast regional vice president at the Council of Prison Locals, said “the fact the agency still
doesn’t allow staff to bring their own mask for their protection, in my opinion, proves [the] agency doesn’t care about staff” and could
risk “endangering other staff, inmates, families and community.”
Charles D’Apice, a South Carolina correctional officer and vice president of his local union chapter, said last month a staff member at his facility
expressed worries that he did not know if the inmates he was dealing with had been tested for coronavirus. Then “one of our management
officials turns to him and says ‘this is what you signed up for’ and walks out without giving him any [personal protective equipment],” D’Apice
said. “It put lot of angst on these staff members,”

In November, the Justice Department’s inspector general reported that “managing a safe, secure and humane prison system” was a top
management challenge for department officials in fiscal 2019. “Staffing prisons with qualified healthcare workers” and “deteriorating facilities
and equipment” were among the problem areas highlighted by the IG.

Prison facilities “are almost perfectly designed and run in a way to promote the spread of this virus throughout these
institutions,” Dr. Homer Venters , president of the nonprofit Community Oriented Correctional Health Services, told ABC News
on Sunday. “The danger here is that we're not only really going to see (witness) the explosion of cases among people
who are detained and the people who work there, this is going to drive the entire epidemic curve for this nation
up , just when we're trying to flatten it .”

Excluding federal prisons ensures community spread.

Merkley ‘20
Press Release from the Office of US Senator Jeff Merkley – US Senator (Dem) from the State of Oregon - “MERKLEY,
COLLEAGUES PRESS BUREAU OF PRISONS AND PRIVATE PRISON CONTRACTORS FOR CORONAVIRUS
PREPARATION PLANS” – March 10th - #E&F - https://www.merkley.senate.gov/news/press-releases/merkley-colleagues-
press-bureau-of-prisons-and-private-prison-contractors_for-coronavirus-preparation-plans-2020

Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, along with 14 of hisSenate colleagues, today pressed the U.S. Bureau of Prisons ( BOP ) and
the three largest private prison operators—GEO Group (GEO), CoreCivic, and Management and Training Corporation (MTC)— about
whether they have sufficient policies and procedures in place to prepare for and manage a potential spread of the novel
coronavirus in federal prisons.
“Given the spread of the virus in the U.S.—and the particular vulnerability of the prison population and correctional staff—it is critical that [you]
have a plan to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus to incarcerated individuals and correctional staff, along with their families and
loved ones, and provide treatment to incarcerated individuals and staff who become infected,” the senators wrote.

Over 175,000 individuals are incarcerated in federal prisons and jails, with over 17,500 of those in the custody of private
prison contractors, such as GEO, CoreCivic, and MTC. For the thousands of incarcerated people living in close proximity to one another,
as well as their family, friends, and the correctional staff that move in and out of federal prisons every day , a
thorough safety plan is critical. According to public health experts, incarcerated individuals “are at special risk of infection,” and “may also be
less able to participate in proactive measures to keep themselves safe.” As a result, the uncontained spread
of coronavirus in federal
prisons and jails endangers the federal prison population, correctional staff, and the general public.
 Incarcerated populations key

Incarcerated populations are key to flat curves - when strict policies are in place
everywhere else, excluding corrections makes it the #1 hotspot.
Branigin ‘20
Internally quoting a Report conducted via a Partnership Between American Civil Liberties Union Analytics and researchers from
Washington State University, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Tennessee. Anne Branigin, Staff writer, The Root.
“New COVID-19 Model Predicts Failure to Reduce Jails Will Lead to Nearly 100,000 More Coronavirus Deaths” – The Root –
April 22, 2020 - #E&F - https://www.theroot.com/new-covid-19-model-predicts-failure-to-reduce-jails-wil-1843005082

To
This rare moment of agreement underscores the current severity of the pandemic in our nation’s jails, and what’s at stake if nothing changes.
put it plainly : it is impossible to contain the spread that is currently happening in American jails; not if they
keep operating as they have been.
The ACLU points out how this negligence of our jail population is out of line with the radical approaches federal,
state, and local officials have taken to reduce the spread of the virus. In many areas, schools have closed for the rest of the
year and non-essential businesses remain shuttered ; at least seven states have even required their residents to
wear masks if they go out in public. But civil rights organization notes “the vast majority of states” have not applied this kind of
aggressive and necessary approach to their jails.

Interestingly, the impact jail outbreaks can have on the population at large only increases when the rest
of society practices stringent social distancing measures. This is because jails would effectively replace
restaurants, public transportation, and workplaces as a primary hub for the virus .

“The takeaway is clear,” the ACLU writes, “social distancing measures can only be effective if we extend them to
jails as well.”
This is a problem that has a clear solution: a strategic, coordinated effort to reduce jail populations and thus,
reduce the spread of the virus. The new ACLU model contains useful projections for how many lives can be saved if this happens.
According to its data, reducing arrests by 50 percent nationwide would save the lives of 12,000 people currently living in jails, and 47,000
additional people living outside of them.

If arrests are stopped for all but the most serious crimes (including murder, rape, and
And more aggressive action begets even more lives saved.
aggravated assault), and jail releases are doubled, nearly 100,000 more lives can be saved ( 23,000 in jail , and
76,000 from surrounding communities ).

Incarcerated populations are key to solve COVID spread

Lopez ‘20
Internally quoting John Pfaff, a criminal justice expert at Fordham University. German Lopez - Senior Correspondent that has
written for Vox since it launched in 2014, with a focus on criminal justice and public health – “Why US jails and prisons became
coronavirus epicenters” – Vox - Apr 22, 2020 - #E&F - https://www.vox.com/2020/4/22/21228146/coronavirus-pandemic-jails-
prisons-epicenters
America’s jails and prisons have become epicenters in the coronavirus pandemic .
At Illinois’s Cook County Jail (which serves Chicago), some inmates refused to eat noncommissary food to protest conditions they claimed
enabled the spread of the coronavirus. The New York Times found earlier this month that the Cook County Jail outbreak, which has sickened
nearly 400 detainees and almost 200 correctional officers, made it “the nation’s largest-known source of coronavirus infections.”

In Rikers Island in New York City, the jail’s top doctor called the coronavirus outbreak there — one of the largest in the country, with hundreds
sick — a “public health disaster unfolding before our eyes.” As of April 20, the confirmed infection rate in New York City jails was more than 9
percent, compared to less than 2 percent in New York City more broadly, according to the Legal Aid Society.

In Michigan’s Parnall Correctional Facility, 10 percent of prisoners and 21 percent of staff tested positive for the coronavirus as of April 15,
according to the Detroit Free Press. When controlling for population, that makes the outbreak there even worse than Cook County’s or Rikers
Island’s.

In Ohio, more than one in five of the state’s confirmed cases are in the prison system, the Columbus Dispatch reported. The Marion Correctional
Institution, where 73 percent of inmates tested positive for the virus, makes up a majority of those cases.

The federal prison system hasn’t been spared either , with several deaths and and at least 100 inmates and staff members
infected just in FCC Oakdale in Louisiana.

Jails and prisons are ideal environments for an infectious disease to spread. They are, by design, often packed
as much as possible, thus limiting the possibility of social distancing. They also severely limit access to hygiene products — the
sheriff in Cook County had to proactively let inmates use sanitizer, which is normally prohibited due to its alcohol content, and soap and water
can be hard to get. Even among staff, personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks remains difficult to access.

The outbreaks are concerning not just because of the impact they can have on inmates, staff members, and their families, but also because the
events can spill over beyond the correctional facilities . Millions of inmates go in and out of prisons, and
particularly jails, each year, returning to their communities. Staff members go home at the end of their shifts. Inmates’
family members can visit — although that’s become much harder, if not impossible, due to the pandemic.

And ifthere’s an outbreak in a jail or prison, it can strain nearby health care systems as inmates and staff are
sent to local hospitals and clinics that are better equipped to treat Covid-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, than
correctional facilities.

So to get the coronavirus pandemic under control , experts say , the nation will need to get outbreaks in
jails and prisons under control, too. This means releasing more vulnerable and less dangerous inmates early, as
some jails and prisons have been doing. It means making sure inmates and staff have better access to hygiene products and PPE. It means a
change in how jails and prisons fundamentally operate — allowing more room for social distancing and quarantining, or otherwise isolating
inmates and staff when necessary.

Jails and prisons create a coronavirus threat to whole communities

Many countries are facing new challenges in their jails and prisons due to the coronavirus pandemic. But the US is
unique , because mass incarceration has led to millions of people being incarcerated across thousands of jails,
prisons, and other correctional facilities in the country — any of which could become hotbeds for disease.

The US locks up about 2.3 million people on any given day — the highest prison and jail population of any country in the
world. With an incarceration rate of 655 per 100,000 people, the US incarcerates people at nearly twice the rate of
Russia , more than five times that of China , more than six times that of Canada and France, nearly nine times that
of Germany , and almost 17 times that of Japan .
“We can learn what works in terms of mitigation from other countries who have seen spikes in coronavirus already, but none of those countries
have the level of incarceration that we have in the United States,” Tyler Winkelman, a doctor and researcher at the University of Minnesota
focused on health care and criminal justice, told me.
It’s not just the number of people in jail and prison, but the number going in and out of them, too. Jails in the US
alone admit upwards of 5 million unique people each year, releasing many of those same people back to the community within days or weeks.
There are also visitors and correctional staff who interact — sometimes in very limited spaces — with inmates. Any of these people can bring the
virus in and take it out.

“Jails pull together people from many neighborhoods, put them all together in cramped, unsanitary conditions, and then very quickly release them
back to the same communities,” John Pfaff, a criminal justice expert at Fordham University, told me. “They’re a very powerful
centralizing and diffusing vector of disease . That alone should grab people’s attention.”

No other country faces a risk quite like this. Even the states that incarcerate the least number of people in
the US still lock up far more people than the vast majority of other countries: In 2018, the Prison Policy Initiative estimated
that the incarceration rate of Massachusetts, the least carceral state , was more than double that of England
and Wales, and nearly triple that of South Korea.

So a prison outbreak would present a potentially deadly risk to a relatively massive population, which, on top of
everything else, disproportionately suffers from chronic illnesses and other health conditions that could exacerbate Covid-19.

Corrections are key hotspots – 8 of the 10 largest outbreaks in the nation.

E.J.I. ‘20
Equal Justice Initiative is a private, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides legal representation to people who have been
illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in state jails and prisons. EJI was founded in 1989 by Bryan Stevenson, a
widely acclaimed public interest lawyer and bestselling author of Just Mercy. EJI challenges the death penalty and excessive
punishment and provides re-entry assistance to formerly incarcerated people. “Covid-19’s Impact on People in Prison” – EJI –
May 11th- #E&F - https://eji.org/news/covid-19s-impact-on-people-in-prison/

People who are incarcerated are at great risk of sickness and death as a result of the Covid -19 pandemic and more
must be done to release people who are imprisoned and are not a threat to public safety or are elderly or infirm. The inability to
quarantine or practice social distancing, together with overcrowding, imperils the lives of many people incarcerated in jails and prisons.

Nationwide, the known infection rate for Covid-19 in jails and prisons is about 2½ times higher than in the general
population. More than 35,800 incarcerated people and staff have coronavirus infections and 345 have died.

Eight of the 10 largest outbreaks in the country have been at correctional facilities , including two
Ohio prisons—Marion Correctional Institution, with 2,439 cases, and Pickaway Correctional Institution, with 1,789 cases. Widespread
testing at a federal prison in Lompoc, California, revealed another large cluster of 792 cases this weekend. Nearly
70% of people incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution Lompoc tested positive.
 Prisons are key

Prisons are key – can’t solve COVID without addressing a second wave in prisons.
Garcia ‘20
Internally quoting Kevin Ring, president of FAMM, a criminal justice reform advocacy group. Sandra E. Garcia, reporter NYT -
“U.S. Prison Population Remained Stable as Pandemic Grew” – New York Times – May 18, 2020 - #E&F – available via lexis
database.

The inabilityto maintain social distance and a lack of hygiene products increase the risk that prisons and jails
will be hit hard by a second wave of the virus , said Kevin Ring, the president of FAMM, a nonprofit group that opposes
mandatory minimum sentences.

“Some prisons have been lucky to get soap or hand sanitizer,” Mr. Ring said. “In other areas of life, government
actors have taken extraordinary measures ,” such as mandating the closing of nonessential businesses.

It is not possible to eliminate the coronavirus without making prisons part of the solution , Mr. Ring said.
A corrections officer who becomes infected at work could spread the virus in the community, he said.

“ Prison health is public health ,” Mr. Ring said.

Prisons are key – they’re hotspots that also cause community spread.
Harris ‘20
Holly Harris is the executive director of Justice Action Network, a national organization focused on bipartisan criminal justice
reform solutions. “Blame the Justice Dept for Andrea Circle Bear’s death” – NYT – May 3, 2020 - #E&F - available via the leis
database

It is well known that prisons are significant hot spots for the spread of the coronavirus, due in large part to America’s
incarceration crisis. Our country has just 5 percent of the world’s population, but holds 20 percent of its prisoners. We pack people into
jails and prisons like sardines, often four to a cell and hundreds to a unit.

When disease enters a prison, it spreads like fire through a dry barn, infecting people in and around the
facility, including correctional officers and surrounding communities. Look to the Marion Correctional Institution in Ohio: Nearly
80 percent of prisoners there, almost 2,000 people, have tested positive for the coronavirus, along with more than 160 corrections officers and
staff members. Five prisoners and one corrections officer have died. Public health
authorities report at least 112 cases of
“ community spread,” including 66 cases in the surrounding area that are directly linked to the prison outbreak.

Prisons key to solve COVID – both inside and behind bars

WEPHREN ‘20
WEPHREN is “Worldwide Prison Health Research & Engagement Network. WEPHREN is funded by Public Health England,
which hosts the UK Collaborating Centre for Health in Prisons Programme led by the WHO Europe Regional Office. It is the
only Health in Prisons Programme run by the WHO – “COVID-19 in prisons and places of detention” – Match 16 th -
https://wephren.tghn.org/articles/covid-19-prisons-and-places-detention/

Prisons are key settings for communicable diseases due to higher prevalence of risk factors for infection and actual
infection, as well as environmental factors in prison such as unavoidable close contact, over-crowding, poor ventilation and limited
access to healthcare services, compared to community settings.
Infections can be transmitted between prisoners, staff and visitors ; between prisons through transfers and staff cross-
deployment; and to and from the community . As such , prisons and other custodial settings are an integral
part of the public health response to COVID -19.

COVID cases are starting to flatten – but a spike from prisons could reverse the
curve.
Li ‘20
et al; Weihua Li is a data fellow at The Marshall Project. She uses data analysis to tell stories about the criminal justice system.
She studied journalism and comparative politics at Boston University and graduated from Columbia University with a master's
degree in data journalism. “Tracking the Spread of Coronavirus in Prisons” - The Marshall Project - 04.24.2020- #E&F -
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/04/24/tracking-the-spread-of-coronavirus-in-prisons

We now can see, through data collected by The Marshall Project, that thousands
of prisoners have caught the illness, and the
number of cases has grown more than threefold in the last week alone . Thousands more workers, correctional officers
and medical staff have been sickened. And more than 140 people—most of them incarcerated—have died thus far.

For the past month, The Marshall Project has collected data from prison systems in all 50 states and the federal Bureau of Prisons to track how
the virus has spread and how prisoners and corrections workers are succumbing to it.

By Wednesday of this week, at least 9,437 people in prison had tested positive for the illness. The
number of new cases among
prisoners is more than doubling each week, showing that the curve used to measure when the virus is
under control is still soaring in prisons even as some parts of the country are starting to flatten the
curve through social distancing.
As startling as these figures are, they are almost certainly an undercount. While most prison systems are releasing
information about the number of positive tests and prisoner deaths in their facilities, far less is known about how many people are being tested.
Sixteen prison systems are not releasing information about how many prisoners they are testing, including the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which
has seen several major outbreaks of coronavirus in its institutions. Of the rest, only eight systems had tested more than 400 of the people in their
custody by this week.

In many communities there have been efforts to bail people out of local jails—or to avoid arrests or bail decisions that would land people in jail in
the first place. Similarly, several states have announced plans to release people early from prisons, where people are sentenced for more serious
crimes for years or even a lifetime. But little is known about how many people have actually returned to life outside as a result of the policies
prompted by the pandemic. Of those who have been released, we don’t know whether they’ve been tested before they left prison.

Indeed, much of the remarkable growth in coronavirus cases in the last several weeks is due to a small
handful of states— Ohio, Tennessee, Arkansas, Michigan, North Carolina among them—that have begun
aggressively testing nearly everyone at prisons where people have become sick. This new spate of testing would suggest that
coronavirus has been circulating in prisons in much greater numbers than known in past weeks, and that in the
many states where tests have not been prevalent , far more people may be carrying it than are being
reported.
 Jails are key

Jails are key to nationwide COVID spread and hospital collapse. Decarcerating is
key.
Kauffman ‘20
Kelsey Kauffman is the founder and emeritus director of the higher education program at the Indiana Women’s Prison. She
worked as a correctional officer at the Connecticut Prison for Women in the early 1970s and is the author of “Prison Officers and
Their World” (Harvard University Press) and other studies of prisons. “WHY JAILS ARE KEY TO ‘FLATTENING THE
CURVE’ OF CORONAVIRUS” – The Appeal - Mar 13, 2020 - #E&F - https://theappeal.org/jails-coronavirus-covid-19-
pandemic-flattening-curve/?fbclid=IwAR1K9cf0ardpNwIfxtzjLlegqusQ4l_ZpY1MEuagMfcnqsttzMi5aGlKnCQ

Local jails
are notorious amplifiers of infectious diseases. If we don’t move quickly to reduce their
population, it may undermine our ability to control the new coronavirus, nationally and locally.
This piece is a commentary, part of The Appeal’s collection of opinion and analysis on important issues and actors in the criminal legal system.

“Flatteningthe curve” so that the infection rate for COVID-19 stays below the healthcare system capacity is
now critical to controlling the pandemic in the United States.
For individuals, that means cleaning your hands frequently and limiting social interactions. For governments and institutions, however,
“flattening the curve” requires focusing on densely populated places whose inhabitants cannot isolate themselves. That is why the CDC has
warned Americans not to go on cruise ships and why colleges across the nation are sending their students home even though few of those students
are at risk of dying from COVID-19.

So far, however, we
are ignoring what are probably the most important institutions that will undermine efforts to
flatten the curve in every community: jails.
Jails are notorious incubators and amplifiers of infectious diseases. On any day, more than 600,000 people—roughly 75 percent of whom have
not been convicted of a crime—are being held in one of our nation’s 3,000 local jails, most in congregate confinement, often in overcrowded
conditions and with poor sanitation. What will happen when a new and poorly understood infectious disease makes its way inside a jail? It
will
likely spread like wildfire, not just among the people who live in the jail, but also among those who work there.
COVID-19 is also likely to be deadlier inside jails, where a greater share of the population has “underlying health conditions” than
on the outside, including 7 percent with diabetes, 20 percent with asthma, 10 percent with heart-related problems, 7 percent with kidney
problems, and 26 percent with high blood pressure. And because disease can spread quickly in crowded jails, they’re
likely to produce
large numbers of patients at once, overwhelming not just each jail’s primitive healthcare system but also
hospitals to which the very sick and dying will be transferred.
So why should free people care that COVID-19 will spread faster and be more lethal inside jails than out? For those lacking in humanitarian
impulses, the reason is that jails (unlike prisons) are revolving doors.

While fewer than one million people are in jail today, 10.6 million will cycle through them this year. Indeed, many people are there for only a few
days—just long enough to catch the virus and take it home with them, if not to your neighborhood, then perhaps in line behind you at the
supermarket or within six feet on public transit.

We can’t eliminate this problem, but we can greatly lessen it by drastically reducing the number of people in
jail during this crisis. Courts have the power to do this by (1) releasing anyone who does not present a greater danger to themselves or others
than they would if they were infected, and (2) by radically decreasing the number of people being sent there who don’t require immediate
confinement. Each jurisdiction would need to develop its own criteria. Two
easy ways to immediately reduce the number of people
confined would be to release everyone who has fewer than 90 days left to serve , and most people who are in jail
because they are too poor to make bail. Meanwhile, probation and parole offices can stop sending people to jail for “technical
violations” such as failing to pay a fine, loss of employment, or a missed curfew, as opposed to commission of a new crime.

Incarcerated populations key – excluding them ensures resurgence.

Branigin ‘20
Internally quoting a Report conducted via a Partnership Between American Civil Liberties Union Analytics and researchers from
Washington State University, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Tennessee. Anne Branigin, Staff writer, The Root.
“New COVID-19 Model Predicts Failure to Reduce Jails Will Lead to Nearly 100,000 More Coronavirus Deaths” – The Root –
April 22, 2020 - #E&F - https://www.theroot.com/new-covid-19-model-predicts-failure-to-reduce-jails-wil-1843005082

To
This rare moment of agreement underscores the current severity of the pandemic in our nation’s jails, and what’s at stake if nothing changes.
put it plainly : it is impossible to contain the spread that is currently happening in American jails; not if they
keep operating as they have been.
The ACLU points out how this negligence of our jail population is out of line with the radical approaches federal,
state, and local officials have taken to reduce the spread of the virus. In many areas, schools have closed for the rest of the
year and non-essential businesses remain shuttered ; at least seven states have even required their residents to
wear masks if they go out in public. But civil rights organization notes “the vast majority of states” have not applied this kind of
aggressive and necessary approach to their jails.

Interestingly, the impact jail outbreaks can have on the population at large only increases when the rest
of society practices stringent social distancing measures. This is because jails would effectively replace
restaurants, public transportation, and workplaces as a primary hub for the virus .

“The takeaway is clear,” the ACLU writes, “social distancing measures can only be effective if we extend them to
jails as well.”
This is a problem that has a clear solution: a strategic, coordinated effort to reduce jail populations and thus,
reduce the spread of the virus. The new ACLU model contains useful projections for how many lives can be saved if this happens.
According to its data, reducing arrests by 50 percent nationwide would save the lives of 12,000 people currently living in jails, and 47,000
additional people living outside of them.

If arrests are stopped for all but the most serious crimes (including murder, rape, and
And more aggressive action begets even more lives saved.
aggravated assault), and jail
releases are doubled, nearly 100,000 more lives can be saved ( 23,000 in jail , and
76,000 from surrounding communities ).
A-to “Alt Causes, National v. State Curves”
 National Curve is flat, but reversible

Curve is flattening – but still reversible. Prefer best studies and nationwide
uniqueness.
Bacon ‘20
Internally quoting Ogbonnaya Omenka, public health expert and assistant professor at Butler University and Dr. Marjorie
Jenkins, dean of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville John Bacon has been writing for USA TODAY
for more than three decades. – “US coronavirus curve may be flattening, but estimated death toll keeps rising. What does this
mean?” - USA TODAY- May 13th - #E&F - https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/05/13/coronavirus-positive-
trends-shouldnt-dismissed-experts-say/3115194001/

The national curve finally appears to be flattening – for now.

The Johns Hopkins dashboard, which has become the statistical bible for data on the coronavirus outbreak, shows
the rise of confirmed cases and daily deaths in the U.S. may be slowing, even as the national death total approaches 100,000.
Worldometer statistics, run by the data company Dadax, hint at steady declines.

And the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, a leading model , released
projections this week that show a steady decline for daily deaths – falling to 100 or less by early August.
The positive trends, however, come against another grim estimate released this week: The institute estimates a total death toll of 147,000 by
August, or more than 60,000 additional U.S. deaths.

As sometimes seemingly conflicting numbers roll out each week, it can be confusing for ordinary Americans to digest
just where the U.S. stands in its battle against the deadly virus, experts acknowledge. But the encouraging data and trends
shouldn't be wholly dismissed, they say.

Dr. Marjorie Jenkins, dean of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville , warns
that projections have fluctuated greatly in the months since the outbreak began sweeping the nation. But she says the data provides
promising reflections of nationwide mitigation efforts.
"Data is vital to informed decision-making," she said, adding that federal, state and local leaders trying to navigate the outbreak "continue to face
unprecedented challenges."

Ogbonnaya Omenka, public health expert and assistant professor at Butler University, says the data
points to a decline in new cases and mortality rates. However, the IHME estimates are hinged on "existing
determinants" that can change at any time, he said.

Despite Federal failure, national curve is starting to flatten. That could reverse if
localized hotspots flare.
Cunningham ‘20
Paige Winfield Cunningham National reporter focused on health-care policy, Author of The Health 202 at The Washington Post -
“The Health 202: The summer fight against the coronavirus will be a local one” – Washington Post: Power Post - June 1 st - #E&F
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-health-202/2020/06/01/the-health-202-the-summer-fight-against-
the-coronavirus-will-be-a-local-one/5ed1753188e0fa32f822de79/

Despite the country's bungled response to the pandemic, coronavirus cases and deaths nationally are
trending downward as Americans emerge from months of widespread lockdowns. Major U.S. cities with the
biggest outbreaks — New York , Detroit , New Orleans — are flattening and even lowering their curves. The
nation’s testing capacity has dramatically improved, and a larger share of cases are being caught.

Yet as the virus continues flaring in some rural and suburban areas, tamping
it down will be a county-by-county project, dependent on
the ability
of local health officials to spot new cases and contain them. While life could look close to normal in some
communities, others will have to stay vigilant with social distancing procedures to ensure these mini-flares don’t
become regional or statewide outbreaks .
“There isn’t going to be one curve. There are going to be many curves,” Marynia Kolak, a health and spatial data science researcher at the
University of Chicago, told me.

It’s the local — not national or statewide — curves of new cases and deaths that have epidemiologists most
worried now.
 A-to “States are Re-opening too soon”

State-by-State indicts wrong – early re-opening didn’t cause a spike and the national
curve is flattening.
Cunningham ‘20
Paige Winfield Cunningham National reporter focused on health-care policy, Author of The Health 202 at The Washington Post -
“The Health 202: The summer fight against the coronavirus will be a local one” – Washington Post: Power Post - June 1 st - #E&F
– modified for language that may offend - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-health-
202/2020/06/01/the-health-202-the-summer-fight-against-the-coronavirus-will-be-a-local-one/5ed1753188e0fa32f822de79/

The national curve looks (seems) more promising.

And the states that opened earliest aren't seeing (witnessing) massive spikes in cases despite dire
predictions.

Governors who started reopening first were widely criticized, as some epidemiologists predicted large
increases in cases and fatalities. But in most of these states — many in the southeast — the overall
number of daily new cases is either relatively flat or even diminishing slightly.

Re-opening doesn’t make re-surge inevitable. Regardless of some States, the curve is
– on balance – flattening.
Dawid ‘20
Irvin Dawid - MA in Urban & Regional planning and served six years on the Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s
Advisory Council from 2002-2008 - “Second Wave or Second Peak?” – Planetizen - May 27, 2020 - #E&F -
https://www.planetizen.com/news/2020/05/109438-second-wave-or-second-peak

Back to the aforementioned research described by The Washington Post that is

based on a model developed by PolicyLab at
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia that shows projected COVID-19 cases across nearly 400 U.S. counties for the next
four weeks based on current social distancing practices.

"The model...updated Wednesday with new data, suggests that most communities in the United States should be
able to avoid a second spike in the near term if residents are careful to maintain social distancing even as
businesses open up and restrictions are eased ," write Achenbach, Weiner, Brulliard and Stanley-Becker. [Italics added].

Georgia and Florida examples go Aff – each ha s flattening curve.

Cunningham ‘20
Paige Winfield Cunningham National reporter focused on health-care policy, Author of The Health 202 at The Washington Post -
“The Health 202: The summer fight against the coronavirus will be a local one” – Washington Post: Power Post - June 1 st - #E&F
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-health-202/2020/06/01/the-health-202-the-summer-fight-against-
the-coronavirus-will-be-a-local-one/5ed1753188e0fa32f822de79/
In Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp (R) moved to reopen some businesses in late April, about 625 new cases are
being confirmed daily, according to 91-DIVOC, a visualization project created by University of Illinois professor Wade Fagen-
Ulmschneider using coronavirus case numbers from Johns Hopkins University. That’s down slightly from one month ago,
when closer to 700 new cases were being confirmed every day.

Daily confirmed cases are also trending downward in Colorado, where Gov. Jared Polis (D) was the most aggressive blue-state governor in
reopening. The state is finding about 300 new cases per day, compared with about 550 new cases per day one month ago.

It’s a similar story in Florida, where the curve of new cases has remained flat for weeks . Gov. Ron DeSantis (R)
recently blasted reporters for waxing “poetically for weeks and weeks about how Florida was going to be just like New York.”
 A-to “Alt Cause – Meat Sector”

Meat alt cause wrong. Plants either adjusted or closed - ending the risk.
Cleeland ‘20
Internally quoting Andrew Lorenz - a former U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspector and now president of Wisconsin-
based We R Food Safety! - Nancy Cleeland - journalist who has covered labor and immigration for the Los Angeles Times and
the U.S.-Mexico border for the San Diego Union-Tribune. She was the lead writer on a series that won a Pulitzer Prize. “Safety in
a Tough Spot: How to Prevent Coronavirus Spread in a Crowded Meat-Packing Plant” – SHRM - April 21, 2020 - #E&F -
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/safety-in-a-tough-spot-how-to-prevent-coronavirus-
spread-in-a-crowded-meat-packing-plant-.aspx

Several major meat-packing plants have closed temporarily because of workers' coronavirus illnesses and fears,
raising questions about whether the modern processing line—crowded and fast-moving—can continue cranking out product
during a highly contagious pandemic.
That's where safety consultant Andrew Lorenz comes in. A former U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspector and now president of
Wisconsin-based We R Food Safety!, Lorenz
has helped meat producers large and small adapt their operations to
protect workers from the coronavirus . The solution, he said, often depends on creative thinking and the
collaboration of leaders throughout the organization, including HR.

" You hear a lot of doom and gloom ," he said, but "if people put on their thinking caps, they'll be able to get through
this." Adaptations almost inevitably slow production and thus lower profits, he said. But the alternative could be much
worse. "Once you get [COVID-19] into the facility, you pretty much have to shut it down."

Create Small Teams and Keep Them Separated

A key strategy for containing the virus is to break up the workforce into as many separate and discreet teams as
possible, limiting their exposure to other teams while working and on break. When one member of a team gets sick, the
entire team quarantines.
Lorenz cited one client, a producer of beef jerky and other ready-to-eat snacks that runs three shifts and employs nearly 1,000 workers.
As the threat of COVID-19 became clear, the manufacturer took several dramatic steps:

Split each of the three shifts into two teams. The A team works for four hours, then a clean-up crew sanitizes the workspace before
the B team enters to work for another four hours. Each four-hour shift is followed by extensive sanitizing. This means half as many workers as
usual are on the floor at any given time. Workers are paid for full eight-hour shifts.

Installed a health trailer at

the entrance through which all employees must pass to enter the facility. There, a nurse scans
temperatures and asks about any symptoms workers may have. The company owner was the first to walk through and have his
temperature scanned.

Identified critical positions and ensured there were back-up employees to fill them. If only two employees were qualified for a critical position,
one would be paid to stay home in case the other became ill.

Eliminated a point system that penalized employees for missing work , so that sick workers would stay
home.

"They spent a lot of money on employees staying home , but they were able to maintain production . And
their call-in [sick] rate went way down. People stepped up to the plate because they knew that everyone was taking it seriously, and it didn't hurt
to see the owner walking through that trailer," Lorenz said. "They've had the least disruption of anyone I know, so it is possible."
No COVID spread from the meat itself.
Powell ‘20
Internally quoting Siyun Wang, associate professor of food safety engineering at the University of British Columbia and
Professor Jeffrey Farber, professor of food science at the University of Guelph and Dr. Jennifer Ronholm, a professor of
agricultural and environmental sciences at McGill University. “'Close to zero’: Why you shouldn't worry about catching COVID-
19 from meat” – Financial Post – May 5th - #E&F - https://business.financialpost.com/commodities/agriculture/close-to-zero-
why-you-shouldnt-worry-about-catching-covid-19-from-meat

While meat packing plants have become virus hot spots, there have been no reported cases from food or
food packaging . Experts explain why

The oddsof contracting COVID-19 by eating food processed in a slaughterhouse impacted by outbreaks are
“close to zero,” food safety experts say.
Food processing plants have been particularly hard hit by outbreaks of COVID-19, with many forced to temporarily shut down as the fast-moving
virus spreads among workers. The Cargill plant south of Calgary has taken the toughest blows, with 921 cases of the virus recorded among 2,000
employees.

Though the scale of that outbreak demonstrates just how quickly COVID-19 can move between people, it does not mean
that the meat products carry the potential to infect as well , said Siyun Wang, associate professor of food safety
engineering at the University of British Columbia.

coronavirus is not considered a food borne pathogen which means it doesn’t transmit through
“The key here is that the
food,” Wang said. “So the chances are very close to zero. It passes through person to person contact . That is why it
impacts our respiratory system, not our digestive systems.”
Though there is always a “theoretical possibility,” of infection, the likelihood that the virus could survive on meat or its packaging for very long
is “extremely low” said Professor Jeffrey Farber, professor of food science at the University of Guelph.

“The virus can only live off of our cells,” Farber said. “Once it gets off of us, the number of infectious particles decreases dramatically.”

What’s more, the measures

taken by meat processors to prevent the spread of the virus between workers has also
significantly reduced the likelihood that it will come into contact with products , he added. Among the personal
protective equipment now assigned to workers are face masks, face shields, gowns and gloves.

“I don’t think anyone will be sneezing on your meat,” he said. “So the likelihood of the virus being on packaging is already in low numbers when
it leaves the plant and even lower numbers when it reaches your kitchen.”

Also, COVID-19 is known as an “envelope virus” with a lipid layer that degrades very easily and makes it particularly susceptible to
disinfectants and heat, food safety experts say. That makes washing your hands and practicing proper food handling techniques a powerful tool
for fighting the virus’ spread.

“ There’s no way it survives cooking ,” said Dr. Jennifer Ronholm, a professor of agricultural and environmental sciences at
McGill University. “So if you get meat from a plant take it home and cook it — you’re good.”
Vaccines – Aff answers
 A-to “Vaccines Solve” – Aff internal link is more probable

Our internal link is bigger. The Aff is a public health measure that solves better
than unlikely vaccines.
Kuchler ‘20
Internally quoting Peter Bach, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering and Michael
Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Hannah Kuchler is a
biotech correspondent for Financial Times that reports on pharma, biotech and healthcare - – “Scientists vs politicians: The
reality check for “warp speed” vaccine research” – Ars Technica- 5/25/2020 - #E&F -
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/scientists-vs-politicians-the-reality-check-for-warp-speed-vaccine-research/

The pandemic has pushed governments and companies to pour money into Covid-19 vaccines, even if there has been a lack of global cooperation.
Peter Bach, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering,
says it helps that there are so many horses in this race .
Proving that a vaccine is safe and effective takes time. Participants need to be exposed to the virus to prove a vaccine works. That probably
means recruiting thousands of people across the world to ensure enough live in an area where there is an outbreak, unless vaccine makers opt for
the ethically complicated human challenge trials, where participants are deliberately infected.

“I
don’t want to be a Debbie Downer but let’s be clear: to get a vaccine by 2021 would be like drawing
multiple inside straights in a row , to use a poker analogy ,” Dr. Bach says.
To fight a war, it helps to know your enemy. Originally considered solely a respiratory disease, Covid-19 has launched surprise attacks from our
eyes to our toes. It appears to use different tactics in children, with reports of some suffering from a serious inflammatory condition.

Moderna announced early results from its phase one trial on Monday, showing its vaccine had elicited immune responses at least as robust as
those found in recovered patients.

But some scientists questioned how the trial defined an average patient response. Dr. Hotez says the release came days after a study showing that
recovered patients only had a low level of antibodies. Umer Raffat, a biotech analyst at Evercore, says it will be important to know when the
convalescent antibody level was tested—because it tends to fade over time. If it is tested later, it might not be such a promising comparison.

There are big questions about how long an immune response protects patients for. Most scientists think having had the disease confers some
immunity—but we don’t know how long it lasts. Immunity to Sars only lasted a couple of years.

So far, the virus behind Covid-19 has not mutated significantly, so it shifts shape less rapidly than the flu. But we have only been following the
virus for months, so there is a risk that it will still mutate. Most vaccine makers are focusing on the ‘spike’ protein, which it uses to invade cells.
They try to teach the body to recognize this protein and produce antibodies. If the spike changes, many of the potential immunizations would
miss their target.

Early trials are done in healthy, younger populations: Moderna’s first results were from people aged 18 to 55. But it is
people over 65 who have suffered the most from Covid-19 and whose immune systems tend to be less
responsive. The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is adding an older age group to the trial.
Howard Koh, a former US assistant secretary at the health department, says: “One issue that often comes up is whether older people are able to
generate a response that makes it an effective vaccine.”

Mr. Trump is not the first president to see a vaccine as a way of neutralizing the political risk carried by a virus. In 1976, Gerald Ford rushed out
a vaccine for what he feared would be a massive outbreak of swine flu, having his photo taken getting the shot at the White House. But the
vaccine had a serious side-effect: hundreds of people developed Guillain-Barré syndrome, where the body is paralyzed by the immune system
attacking the nerves.

Covid-19 has proven to be the pandemic that the 1976 swine flu never became. But easing
requirements for approval could put
vaccines on the market before we discover all the side-effects. In the US, the loosening of regulations during the
pandemic has already led to battles over safety and accuracy. Government agencies and doctors have disputed whether it is safe to
treat patients with hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug being used by Mr. Trump that has cardiac and psychiatric side-effects, and the Food
and Drug Administration has warned about the inaccuracy of many antibody tests.

Scientists have still not ruled out the grim prospect that a vaccine could make the disease worse. In some conditions including dengue fever, and
the common childhood respiratory infection RSV, vaccines have actually enhanced the disease. In the first attempts at making a Sars vaccine,
there was some immune enhancement in animal testing. So far, there is no evidence that this is a problem for Covid-19—but the early trials are
on tens, rather than hundreds or thousands of people.

Dr. Swaminathan says this “antibody dependent enhancement” is why the vaccines need to be tested very carefully. “Sometimes antibodies can
actually make things worse.”

If a vaccine proves safe, there will still be questions about its effectiveness. Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer at Johnson & Johnson, says one
of the biggest questions is whether it will stop infection or just the disease—or even, like the flu shot, only prevent the most severe symptoms of
the disease.

“It would be good if it protects against both,” he says. “If you can prevent infection, it prevents spread going forward in the community.”

Before a vaccine is produced, developments in treatments—such as antivirals and antibodies—may help improve outcomes for Covid-19 patients.
A vaccine that is only 60 or 70 per cent effective could still be approved by the regulator and have a significant impact on the spread of the
disease, says Stéphane Bancel, Moderna chief executive.

He is “cautiously optimistic” he will see efficacy in the large and final phase three trial—but does not know if it will be 70 or 95 per cent. “Even
if it was 70 per cent effective it would reduce tremendously the problem, which is that the virus is so contagious,” he says.

Political leaders will declare victory if a vaccine maker manages to move safely at speeds more suited to science fiction. However, the mass
inoculation that could speed up the return to normal life is further away. The first vaccines will probably be given to healthcare workers who will
be studied closely, as if they were still part of a trial.

Michael Osterholm,director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University
of Minnesota , says we must remember there is still a chance we do not get a vaccine at all . It is not a “slam dunk,” he
says.

He is concerned that people are not taking other public health measures to stop the spread because of the
“optimism and enthusiasm” about a vaccine.
“People will just assume
it’s like a Hollywood movie and at the very last minute, someone will swoop in their helicopter
with a new vaccine that was only made a day ago. And the whole world is saved,” Mr. Osterholm says. “It’s human behavior.
When you’re faced with such a serious challenge, you want any good news you can get.”
 Vaccines will be slow, Moderna = wrong

Vaccines will take years. Moderna trials shouldn’t inspire optimism..

Zimmer ‘20
et al; internally quoting Dr. Dan Barouch, a virologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Carl Zimmer is an
award-winning New York Times columnist and writes the “Matter” column for The New York Times. He is the author of
thirteen books about science, including Planet of Viruses, “A New Entry in the Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine: Hope” - The
New York Times - June 3, 2020 - #E&F – available via Lexis Uni database

“What people don’t realize is that normally vaccine development takes many years , sometimes decades ,” said
Dr. Dan Barouch, a virologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston who led the monkey trials. “And so trying
to compress
the whole vaccine process into 12 to 18 months is really unheard-of.”

“If that happens, it will be the fastest vaccine development program ever in history .”
More than 100 research teams around the world are taking aim at the virus from multiple angles.

Moderna’s vaccine is based on a relatively new mRNA technology that delivers bits of the virus’s genes into
human cells. The goal is for cells to begin making a viral protein that the immune system recognizes as foreign. The body builds defenses
against that protein, priming itself to attack if the actual coronavirus invades.

Some vaccine makers, including Inovio , are developing vaccines based on DNA variations of this approach.

But the technology used by both companies has never produced a vaccine approved for clinical use,
let alone one that can be made in industrial quantities. Moderna was criticized for making rosy
predictions, based on a handful of patients, without providing any scientific data.

Vaccine optimism is misplaced

Khemlani ‘20
Internally quoting Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Dr. Rick Bright,
the whistle-blowing former BARDA director who was in charge of developing vaccines for the coronavirus. Anjalee Khemlani -
Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance covering business, with a focus on health care – “Why optimism over a coronavirus vaccine
might be misplaced” - Yahoo Finance - May 15, 2020 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend -
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-optimism-over-a-coronavirus-vaccine-might-be-misplaced-200442654.html

As COVID-19 infections rise worldwide, pharmaceutical companies working on coronavirus vaccines have floated
promising — and sometimes aggressive — timelines for regulatory approval.

However, it’s
highly unlikely that any treatment will see (witness) the light of day in 2020, given that the availability
of those currently under development will be dedicated solely to emergency use.
Hopes for an effective treatment are building alongside expectations that more states can gradually relax the stay-at-home orders decimating the
economy. Yet in a Senate hearing this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID),
reiterated his belief that a vaccine in time for the Fall school term is unlikely.
Back in March, Fauci said that, at best, the industry will find a “signal of efficacy” by the fall.
”And an efficacy signal means that even though you haven’t definitively proven that a vaccine works, you get enough information that if it were
an emergency, you might be able to have an emergency use authorization for it,” Fauci said at a March 31 briefing

On Friday, President Donald Trump on Friday unveiled Operation Warp Speed, an initiative to “finish developing, and
then manufacture and distribute, a proven coronavirus vaccine” expeditiously, perhaps by year’s end.
Still, even with dozens of companies furiously at work on a vaccine, health care professionals say 2021 is the more reasonable
timeframe — and that’s if everything goes perfectly .

“ We’ve never seen ( witnessed) everything go perfectly ,” said Dr. Rick Bright, the whistle-blowing former BARDA
director who was in charge of developing vaccines for the coronavirus.

“I think it’s going to take a lot longer than that,” he told a Congressional hearing on Wednesday. In addition, production remains a
major concern.

“Normally it takes up to 10 years to make a vaccine. We’ve done it faster in emergency situations...when we had starting
material in the freezer for Ebola,” Bright added. “But for a novel virus, it actually hasn’t been done quickly.”
 Vaccines will be slow – manufacturing takes time

Vaccine manufacturing is slow - even a quick breakthrough wouldn’t solve in time.

Zimmer ‘20
et al; internally quoting Akiko Iwasaki, an immunobiologist at Yale University. Carl Zimmer is an award-winning New York
Times columnist and writes the “Matter” column for The New York Times. He is the author of thirteen books about science,
including Planet of Viruses, “A New Entry in the Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine: Hope” - The New York Times - June 3, 2020 -
#E&F – modified for language that may offend - available via Lexis Uni database

Ensuring that vaccines are safe and effective demands large trials that require careful planning and execution. If successful vaccines
emerge from those trials, someone’s going to have to make an awful lot of them.

Almost everyone on the planet is vulnerable to the new coronavirus. Each person may need two doses of a
new vaccine to receive protective immunity. That’s 16 billion doses.

“When companies promise of delivering a vaccine in a year or less, I am not sure what stage they are talking
about (mean) ,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunobiologist at Yale University . “ I doubt they are talking
about (mean) global distributions in billions of doses. ”

Manufacturing vaccines is profoundly more complex than manufacturing, say, shoes or bicycles.
Vaccines typically require large vats in which their ingredients are grown, and these have to be maintained in sterile
conditions. Also, no factories have ever churned out millions of doses of approved vaccines made with the cutting-
edge technology being tested by companies like Inovio and Moderna.

Operation warp speed will fail.

Zimmer ‘20
et al; internally quoting Gen. Gustave F. Perna, who will manage the manufacturing logistics for Operation Warp Speed and Dr.
Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security.
Carl Zimmer is an award-winning New York Times columnist and writes the “Matter” column for The New York Times. He is
the author of thirteen books about science, including Planet of Viruses, “A New Entry in the Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine:
Hope” - The New York Times - June 3, 2020 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend - available via Lexis Uni database

Gen. Gustave F . Perna, who will manage the manufacturing logistics, said
But in an interview on Thursday,
discussions about the equipment and facilities needed for production were just beginning.

He described his work as a “math problem”: how to get 300 million doses of a vaccine that doesn’t yet
exist to Americans — by January.

Finding the supplies and planning their distribution would occur at the same time, he said. “I need to have
syringes,” General Perna said. “I need to have wipes, right? I need to have Band-Aids. I need to have the vaccine.”

He added: “Now, how am I going to distribute it? What is it going to be distributed in? What do I need to order now to make
sure I have the distribution capability? The small bottles, the trucks.”
Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, said that
seemingly minor aspects of production and distribution could complicate progress later on.
“This is on a scale we’ve never seen since the polio vaccine,” he said. “It’s
the little things like the syringes, the needles, the glass
vials. All of that has to be thought about. You don’t want something that seems so simple to be the bottleneck in your vaccination
program.”
A-to “Early release = more community spread”
 2AC Frontline vs. Early Release turn

Each premise of the Neg turn is flawed.

- Absent plan, community spread inevitable;
- Prisoners aren’t young;
- Only the Aff avoids hospital collapse

Prefer more qualified authors

Rich ‘20
Dr. Josiah Rich is Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Brown University and also a practicing Infectious Disease
Specialist at the Rhode Island Department of Corrections. This article is in interview format– but Dr. Rich is the one answering
the questions. “Conversations on COVID: Flattening the curve in jails and prisons” - Brown: News from Brown – April 6 th -
#E&F – This article include interview questions posed to Dr. Rich. https://www.brown.edu/news/2020-04-06/rich

Stemming the tide of COVID-19 cases in jails and prisons is n’t just about protecting those who are incarcerated; it’s
also about saving the lives of those living outside prison walls, says Brown professor Josiah Rich.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — In the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak, public health officials are stressing the importance of social
for millions of people in America’s jails and prisons, social distancing is
distancing to prevent the spread of the virus. But
not an option. And medical experts are sounding the alarm of an additional public health disaster waiting
to happen .

Dr. Josiah Rich, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Brown University, is co-author of an essay published on April 2 in the New
England Journal of Medicine urging immediate action to mitigate mass outbreaks of COVID-19 behind bars. Among
the authors’ recommendations is the immediate release of prisoners who are unlikely to commit further crimes, as well as
those who are elderly or ill . Doing so will free up precious space to enable facilities to better manage the remaining population in the
event of an outbreak.

Taking no action, Rich says, will not only endanger thousands of lives among incarcerated populations, but poses a dire threat
to everyone by further overtaxing health care systems . Last Friday, the Rhode Island Supreme Court cleared the way for 52
prisoners in the Ocean State, but Rich says that further action nationwide is required.

When these people get sick, they’re going to get sick all at once ,” said Rich, who is a practicing infectious diseases
specialist at the Miriam Hospital in Providence. “That means there’s likely to be a large spike in people coming from
corrections to the surrounding health care facilities. We can ill afford to have local health care systems overrun
by a wave of people coming from the correctional setting. The consequences of that are dire.”

Rich, who is the director of the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights, discussed the situation and proposals to address it in an interview.

Q: First, can you provide a sense of the scope of the problem?

We have 2.3 million people incarcerated in this country. That’s 2.3 million people in a congregate setting, and that’s a huge problem. All of the
maneuvering that we’ve been doing to slow the spread of this virus — the social distancing — is very challenging to do in congregate settings.
We’re going to see rapid spread in those populations, much like we saw in China and like what’s happening now at Rikers Island.
And incarcerated populations are particularly vulnerable to severe infection. Older people are at particular risk from COVID-19 and our
prison population is aging due to things like mandatory minimum sentencing and three-strikes laws
that were enacted decades ago . There’s also a high prevalence of underlying medical conditions that could complicate infections.
About half of the people in jails and prisons have at least one chronic medical condition. That’s a problem for the people in those institutions
when this gets in there and spreads.

Q: You make the point that the risks here don’t stay inside prison walls. Can you explain that?

For one thing, we have to think about the staff who work at these facilities. They’re obviously at risk as well, and they could in turn put their
families at risk. But the problem goes far beyond that. The big worry is about the surrounding health care facilities.

Having been taking care of patients sick with this disease for over two weeks now, I can tell you that
there are almost no
correctional facilities that are going to be able to keep people alive who are very sick with this disease.
They will be transferred out to surrounding health care facilities. If the incarcerated population got infected at the same
rate as everybody else, they’d just be another part of the burden on the health care system. But the reality is that, because of the congregate
setting, incarcerated populations are likely to get infected all at once. And they’ll be flooding into the health care system.

Q: Is there any precedent for something like this?

We’ve certainly had outbreaks before in correctional settings. There was an outbreak of chickenpox at the Rhode Island Department of
Corrections a few years ago. Chickenpox can be a serious disease in adults. People who hadn’t gotten vaccinated were vulnerable. It wasn’t as if
it was going to take over the whole facility like COVID-19 could, but we had a cohort who had to be isolated. We had to make rapid diagnosis,
do rapid testing and quickly get people vaccinated.

To me, this was an instructive outbreak because it highlighted the rapidity with which a contagious disease can spread through a facility. And the
chickenpox case was a situation where some of the population had immunity. In this situation now, there’s zero immunity. Everybody’s
vulnerable, and it’s spread by people who are not easy to identify early on, so this will go even faster.

Q: Why are you recommending prisoner release as a way to deal with this problem?

The biggest impact you can have early on is to release as many people as you can, I believe. That’s especially true of people
who are at risk of severe disease, but it’s worth noting that in our hospitals now, we have people in their 20s
and 30s who are extremely ill. This is not just a disease of the elderly. It’s more severe in the
elderly, but it’s plenty severe in young people. So the more people you can get out the better, before the virus gets into the
population.

The advantage of getting people out is not necessarily for those individuals themselves. Freeing up that space allows you to do the other things
that need to happen. Those other things include segregating people into the smallest units possible and not letting units intermingle. And once
people start getting ill, you need to figure out where to keep those people and figure out how to quarantine people who were exposed to them.
That space could be freed up by letting some people out. And we really need to start doing that as soon as possible.
 1AR vs. early release turn

Our Rich card defeats the early-release turn all by itself.

Three warrants:
- The turn’s not-unique – community spread’s inevitable absent the plan.

- Prisoners get sick all at once and get transferred to a local hospital. That’s net
worse for community health. Even if their turn is true, early release still de-
clusters COVID cases – and wouldn’t collapse a hospital.

- Bader’s wrong. Prisoners aren’t young due to harsh sentencing policies in the
90’s. Plan also releases older prisoners before they get COVID – inverting the
Neg elderly fatality warrants.

Prefer Rich – he’s an epidemiologist that’s worked in prisons. He’s much more
qualified than Bader.

(Note: this first Austin card may be repetitive to be read – it already appears in the Disparate
Racial Violence 1AC module. If so, the two cards beneath it are not repetitive with any 1AC
option)

Aff is a much better option for solving elderly fatalities.

Austin ‘20
et al; Roy Austin Jr. is a partner at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis, LLP and a former deputy assistant attorney general, assistant
United States attorney and trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice. “Mr. President, let vulnerable people out of federal
prisons now: Coronavirus demands a bold response” New York Daily News: Editorial Section – April 14 th - #E&F -
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-let-vulnerable-people-out-of-federal-prisons-20200414-
zk7uqy7cxjbmffz43nwzbun5qq-story.html

Thousands of Americans who live and work in our federal prisons are at grave risk from COVID -19, and their
government is not moving quickly enough to protect them. The lives of these grandparents, parents, daughters and sons
rest in the hands of President Trump and Attorney General William Barr, who through misguided half-measures are
potentially condemning them to death .

The body count has begun. The first cases of COVID-19 in federal prisons were confirmed nearly four weeks ago. The virus has spread rapidly
and at least 10 people have now died, with hundreds testing positive or showing symptoms. There are 34 confirmed infections in federal
correctional facilities in NYC, but the vast majority of staff and incarcerated people have not even been tested.
This inevitable tragedy is why we joined over 400 former DOJ officials, lawyers and federal judges — including 35 U.S. attorneys
— who wrote President Trump urging him to commute sentences of elderly, medically vulnerable , or people
near the end of their sentence, posing no serious safety risk.

This would be the best way to address dangers posed by dense, unsanitary living conditions for the 175,000 people in
federal custody. We know the crisis on the horizon; that’s why we urged the president to act now to prevent
more deaths.

By using his executive power to release individuals posing no serious safety risk, the President would be in
good company. Many cities, states and counties have dramatically reduced their incarcerated populations in response
to COVID-19. California and New Jersey have safely ordered the release of thousands, and other jurisdictions plan to dramatically cut
incarcerated populations, some nearly in half. Meanwhile, leaders across the country have committed to shrink the number of people entering the
justice system with cite and release, not seeking bail unless necessary for public safety, and not wasting scarce resources prosecuting low-level
crimes. The President should be leading, not following, these efforts.

The clock is ticking , and there is no time to waste . We’ve learned from the Rikers Island outbreak
that once one person behind bars is infected, the virus spreads aggressively — at eight times the rate it does in the
community. COVID-19 safety precautions ( washing hands , clean spaces , and social distancing ) are
simply not possible in custodial settings.
This is urgent, Mr. President. People who are incarcerated are disproportionately vulnerable to COVID-19. One-third of federal inmates have pre-
existing medical conditions and roughly 10,000 are over age 60. And every day, correctional officers, health-care workers
and others enter and leave, potentially carrying COVID-19 back to their loved ones. The Metropolitan Detention Center in
Brooklyn alone holds 1,700 individuals with over 150 people coming and going every week. The rapid spread of COVID-19 in these
facilities threatens all of our communities.

We need more proactive steps than the responses in Attorney General Barr’s March 26 and April 3 memoranda. Barr suggests
a complex process for considering home confinement for a small category of individuals — to be identified through an
assessment tool many view as problematic and likely to perpetuate racial disparities. He categorically excluded
almost half of those over age 60 and delineates numerous hurdles with little guidance on who should go home
and how fast. And he fails to recognize that those who committed serious offenses at a young age change and no longer pose a safety risk
when older. This elderly population could go home safely, but instead face the threat of a death sentence.

While Barr subsequently expanded potential release to individuals with COVID-19 risk factors, he did so only at facilities where COVID-19 is
already “materially impacting operations.” By the time a facility has an outbreak, it will be too late to save the most vulnerable individuals.

People behind bars also deserve better than lengthy lockdowns BOP announced. This misguided response will exacerbate panic and raise the risk
— seen elsewhere — of hunger strikes and riots. Incarcerated people are terrified and need access to loved ones, quality medical care, free
hygiene supplies, and open communication about what awaits them.

People in our federal prisons aren’t disposable. Leaving thousands of elderly and medically vulnerable people
behind bars fearing for their lives isn’t justice; it’s inhumane. We all lose, Mr. President, if this is our response.

Crowded prisons quickly collapse nearby hospitals. Plan solves.

Venters ‘20
Dr. Homer Venters, former chief medical officer of the New York City jail system, and author of "Life and Death in Rikers
Island. Interviewed by William Brangham, a correspondent and producer for PBS NewsHour in Washington, D.C – “U.S. prisons
are crowded, dirty and opaque. COVID-19 is running rampant” - PBS News Hour - May 14, 2020 - #E&F -
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/u-s-prisons-are-crowded-dirty-and-opaque-covid-19-is-running-rampant
William Brangham:
We have certainly seen certain jails and prison facilities releasing prisoners to try to free up more space. We saw Donald Trump's former
campaign manager Paul Manafort released because he's an older person.

How important is releasing prisoners to free up space as far as preventing the spread inside these facilities?

Homer Venters:

It's a critical tool, and it's one that's being used effectively in many areas, but not enough.

It's a critical tool because it allows us to get some of the most vulnerable people out of detention settings, people we know
are at high risk for actually dying if they contract COVID-19.

It's a critical tool, as you mentioned, because it helps us manage the outbreak inside for everybody who is still there, so we can spread people out,
keep people in appropriate housing areas at a safer distance from each other.

But it's also a critical tool because it helps us prevent local hospital systems from becoming overwhelmed .
When the virus runs like wildfire through these facilities , just in the space of a day or two, it can overwhelm a local
hospital.
And particularly for rural counties, where we have fewer and fewer hospitals because of hospital closures, but we have lots and lots of county
jails, state and federal prisons, and ICE detention centers, when
this virus takes hold in crowded facilities, it can
completely overwhelm the sole hospital that might be serving one or two counties in the space of a day or
two.

Failing to decarcerate causes a much larger health risk. Aff specifically solves
fatalities in ederly communities.
New York Times ‘20
Editorial Board. “No One Deserves to Die of Covid-19 in Jail” - The New York Times - International Edition - #E&F - April 29, 2020 – available
via Lexis Daabase.

No one deserves to die of Covid-19 in prison or jail. But more than 100 inmates already have, and thousands more could if prisons
and elected officials do not take steps to protect the incarcerated now. A report from the American Civil Liberties Union predicted that an
explosion of cases in jails could cause the total death count in the United States to double.
Two weeks ago, Cook County Jail in Chicago was the nation's top hot spot for coronavirus cases, according to The Times. More than 230 inmates
and 115 staff members had tested positive, even as the majority of inmates had not been tested. This week, the Marion Correctional Institution in
Ohio became the largest reported source of virus infections. There, 2,011 inmates, about 80 percent of the prison's population, have tested
positive. In addition, 154 members of the 350-person staff tested positive. In total, at least 2,400 inmates in Ohio's prison system have tested
positive. Ten have died in Ohio's Pickaway Correctional Institution, which houses minimum- and medium-security inmates.

Infection hot spots appearing in prisons is not a fait accompli. The spread of the virus can be curbed if
prisons send home eligible inmates. The federal government and 49 states already recognize some form of
compassionate release for the elderly and very ill. If ever there were a time to show compassion to
vulnerable, nonviolent inmates, it is now. Parole boards in states with indeterminate sentencing also have the power to assess the list of
inmates set to be paroled in the next six months and to consider releasing many of them as soon as possible.
Some states have already taken action to free inmates. Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington this week commuted the sentences of 293 inmates whose
release was set to come within 60 days. In Washington, another 600 inmates are reportedly being considered for a "rapid re-entry program" that
would allow freed inmates to re-enter the community with electronic monitoring. Governors across the country should evaluate ways to use their
clemency powers to save lives.

Releasing these prisoners during this crisis is not just an act of mercy to protect prisoners' health, and the health of the prison staff. Fewer
sick inmates means less strain on the already burdened prison hospital system. The system was ill equipped to provide

proper care to the elderly and sick even before this crisis. A 2016 report from the Department of Justice found that 17 percent of medical positions
in prison hospitals were unfilled, and that 12 Bureau of Prisons facilities were so understaffed that they were at "crisis level." Releasing high-risk inmates will free up
limited resources within the prison health care system to better treat those who remain.

A 2016 study from the Brennan Center for Justice found that there was no compelling public safety reason to incarcerate 39 percent of the
inmates in state and federal prisons, about 576,000 people. Elderly Americans are especially unlikely to commit
further crimes once released . The United States Sentencing Commission found in 2017 that offenders over the age of 65 had just a
13.4 percent chance of being rearrested in an eight-year period after release, compared to a 67.6 percent chance for those under age 21. The report
concluded that "recidivism measured by rearrest, reconviction, and reincarceration declined as age increased." There are more than 10,000 people
Many elderly inmates have been in prison for decades after receiving long
over the age of 61 in federal prison.
sentences in the tough-on-crime 1990s. Many would be good candidates for compassionate release
now .

If prisons are unwilling to release some inmates outright , they could send eligible people into home
confinement, at least for the duration of this crisis. Attorney General William Barr has the authority under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security
Act to expand the authority of the Bureau of Prisons to send people into home confinement. He has already ordered the Bureau of Prisons to make more inmates at
federal facilities eligible for home confinement, prioritizing those at federal facilities with outbreaks of the coronavirus in Louisiana, Connecticut and Ohio. State and
local prisons should follow suit.
Inherency
 Decarceration insufficient now

Decarceration is insufficient in the squo.

Speri ‘20
Alice Speri writes about justice, immigration, and civil rights for The Intercept. “AS CORONAVIRUS SPREADS BEHIND
BARS, PRISONS RELEASE VERY FEW PEOPLE” – The Intercept - May 14 2020 - #E&F -
https://theintercept.com/2020/05/14/prison-release-coronavirus/

THE CORONAVIRUS IS spreading like wildfire through U.S. prisons. As of last week, more than 300 people had died of
the virus in state and federal facilities. More
than 20,000 had tested positive — a major undercount , given the lack
of large-scale testing. Yet despite repeated warnings from public health experts that the only way to slow
the spread of the virus behind bars is to release people in significant numbers , the U.S. prison
population has remained largely unchanged in the middle of the pandemic.

While state governors and the B ureau o f P risons, which runs federal facilities , have responded to mounting public
pressure by authorizing the release of select groups of incarcerated people, restrictive criteria and bureaucratic
hurdles have meant that those releases, where they have actually happened, have made no significant dent in what
continues to be a sprawling mass incarceration apparatus.

Overall, the U.S. prison population has dropped by only 1.6 percent in the first three months of this year, a new
report released Thursday by the Vera Institute of Justice shows. That’s a population reduction of about 20,000 people
nationwide, in a system that incarcerates nearly 1.3 million . The report, which aggregates data from 44
states and the Bureau of Prisons, notes that as of the end of March, “ none had moved with the urgency required to
meet the recommendations of public health officials to reduce incarceration.”
 Status quo Judicial releases = insufficient

Petitioning individual judges for release fails – too ad hoc and slow
Pavlo ‘20
Internally quoting U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman. Walter Pavlo is an Adjunct Professor of Ethics and Corporate Responsibility
at Endicott College, as well as a Journalist Law School Fellow at Loyola Law School. Walter is a contributor to Forbes and New
York University Law’s Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement. Walter is Co-Founder of Prisonology – a
consulting, training and expert testimony firm for lawyers and defendants on the post conviction process of the federal justice
system. “After Seeing Federal Bureau Of Prisons Up Close, Federal Judges May See Sentencing Differently In Future” – Forbes
– May 3rd,, 2020 - #E&F -https://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2020/05/03/after-seeing-federal-bureau-of-prisons-up-close-
federal-judges-may-see-sentencing-differently-in-future/#1b7fbd733f2b

In late March, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman struggled to look for a way to free Nkanga Nkanga, a sixty-seven-year old former doctor with no
prior criminal record who had admitted to unlawfully prescribing oxycodone and other controlled substances for non-medical purposes. Nkanga
was held at MDC Brooklyn New York, a notoriously poorly run, dated and filthy prison operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

Judge Furman, who had remanded Nkanga into custody in October 2019 after entering a guilty plea, was frustrated by what he could and could
not do to free the inmate who was suffering from asthma and lingering conditions from a stroke years earlier. Furman sentenced Nkanga to three
years and was awaiting designation to Federal Medical Center Devens. Assistant US Attorneys Jacob R. Fiddelman and Cecilia E. Vogel
vehemently opposed the ailing doctor’s requests for release, frustrating Furman to call on legislatures and executive branch actions to untie his
hands;

“For the most part, judges

are limited to granting release in individual cases — an approach that is too slow and
ad hoc to do much good against the unprecedented dangers posed by COVID -19. Moreover, as Dr. Nkanga’s
case makes plain, Congress has given judges only limited tools, and there are many inmates — certainly those such as
Dr. Nkanga who have just been sentenced, and potentially the vast majority of inmates serving sentences
previously imposed — for whom judicial relief under current law may be unavailable. Only the
political branches can do what this moment requires .”
 BOP policies failing in the Status Quo

BOP Home confinement strategy fails

Segura ‘20
Internally quoting Kevin Ring, president of FAMM, a criminal justice reform advocacy group. Liliana Segura is an award-
winning investigative journalist covering the U.S. criminal justice system, with a longtime focus on harsh sentencing, the death
penalty, and wrongful convictions. She was previously an associate editor at the Nation Magazine, where she edited a number of
award-winning stories and earned a 2014 Media for a Just Society Award for her writing on prison profiteering. While at The
Intercept, Segura has received the Texas Gavel Award in 2016 and the 2017 Innocence Network Journalism Award for her
investigations into convictions in Arizona and Ohio. In 2019 she was honored in the Abolitionist category of the Frederick
Douglass 200, a recognition given by the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives and the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at
American University. Segura has appeared on NPR, MSNBC, CNN International, Democracy Now!, and numerous other outlets.
- “AS VIRUS SPREADS IN FEDERAL PRISONS, PEOPLE INSIDE DESCRIBE CHAOS, WHILE FAMILIES ARE LEFT IN
THE DARK” – The Intercept - April 15 2020 - #E&F - https://theintercept.com/2020/04/15/federal-prisons-coronavirus/

While Carrillo was on his way to the halfway house in Fargo on March 26, U.S.
Attorney General William Barr issued a
memo directing the BOP to transfer certain “eligible inmates” from prisons to home confinement. “Many
inmates will be safer in BOP facilities where the population is controlled and there is ready access to doctors and medical care,” he maintained.
But for others, including older people susceptible to the virus, home confinement would be “more effective.”
That same day, FAMM sent a letter to the Department of Justice. The $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill passed in late March allows the BOP to
extend the amount of time a person in custody can be placed in home confinement, Ring wrote. Ordinarily, it cannot exceed six months or 10
percent of a person’s sentence, but the CARES Act allows for the relaxation of this rule. Ring urged the BOP to “quickly transfer prisoners who
are at high risk for complications from Covid-19 to home confinement.”

The following week, Barr issued a second memo authorizing the expansion of home confinement under the CARES Act. The BOP now
says it has released more than 1,000 people to home confinement since March 26 , but the figure is
misleading at best. For one, transfers are only conducted after a 14-day quarantine at a given BOP facility — and being approved
does not mean being immediately quarantined. An untold number are still waiting. What’s more, families have
described a chaotic process across the country, with loved ones approved for home confinement placed in the same special housing unit as people
isolated due to symptoms. In a text message this week, Cooper also echoed what others with loved ones at Elkton have described: that the
majority of men told to quarantine at the prison in preparation for home confinement have actually been
returned to their cells.
Although it is hard to know precisely how many people have actually gotten home , Ring says it is almost
certainly a fraction of the total figure cited by the BOP. And despite Barr’s suggestion that those who are
older and most vulnerable would be prioritized for home confinement, instead it has been mostly those
serving time for low-level offenses who are close to their release dates . When it comes to halfway houses, “I don’t
think I know what the policy is even if there is one,” Ring said. At the moment, each facility seems to be making its own rules, with many
residents describing crowded conditions. “I don’t know why they have not cleaned out the halfway houses,” Ring added. “To me the halfway
houses are worse for social distancing in most cases than the prisons are. And these are the people who are closest to the door.”

BOP failing now – insufficient resources and leadership

Barr ‘20
et al; Internally quoting Joe Rojas, the Southeast regional representative for the Council of Prisons. Luke Barr is a Justice &
Homeland Security reporter for ABC News – “State prisons prepare for coronavirus but federal prisons not providing significant
guidance, sources say” – ABC News - March 11, 2020 - #E&F - https://abcnews.go.com/US/state-prisons-prepare-coronavirus-
federal-prisons-providing-significant/story?id=69433690
As public health officials in communities across the country prepare for the continued spread of the coronavirus, both state and federal
prisons could face major hurdles if officers or prisoners contract COVID -19.
ABC News has reviewed an internal document sent to the nation's Bureau of Prisons facilities, and sources said
the document doesn’t provide adequate answers to combating the virus.
The internal document details proper protocols including guidance from BOP stating an employee can’t return to work if by doing so they would
jeopardize the health of others.

The document doesn’t touch on visitation for inmates or transporting them facility to facility. Courthouses in the
Southern District of New York have already sought to restrict entry to people who traveled to China, South Korea, Japan, Italy and Iran and
anyone who has been in contact with or has COVID-19.

One source at a Florida facility told ABC News that the

Bureau doesn’t have the ability to order more cleaning supplies
and doesn’t have enough wipes to sanitize the inmate transport buses . The source also said there aren’t enough
N95 masks to cover half the staff, adding that most are of small size . Photos reviewed by ABC News of the facility
show empty hand sanitizer pumps placed throughout.

The source said there are currently more questions than answers.
On Wednesday, the Bureau of Prisons declined to provide guidance on what they were doing citing the fluid nature of the virus. However, they
did say they are using a "comprehensive approach"

"The BOP has an internal web-based system for reporting infectious diseases and outbreaks, allowing access to health care and correctional
professionals system-wide," a spokesman told ABC News in an email. "The Bureau of Prisons is providing information to staff and inmates
regarding practicing good hygiene and other information regarding BOP's initial and preventive preparations. As the COVID-19 outbreak
continues to evolve, the BOP updates and refines its recommendations, guidance, and protocols, and will continue to provide helpful information
to staff, inmates and federal, state and local partners."

Currently, they are not stocking COVID-19 test kits and "testing of inmates will occur if clinically warranted."

The spokesman said as of Wednesday, there are no known cases of the virus at any BOP facility.

"The Bureau of Prisons is providing information to staff and inmates regarding practicing good hygiene and other information regarding BOP's
initial and preventive preparations. As the COVID-19 outbreak continues to evolve, the BOP updates and refines its recommendations, guidance,
and protocols, and will continue to provide helpful information to staff, inmates and federal, state and local partners," a bureau spokeswoman told
ABC News over the weekend.

Joe Rojas, the Southeast regional representative for the Council of Prisons, the union that represents BOP officers, told ABC News that leaders
have to think of the "worst-case scenario."

"You have one inmate that has a virus, it'll affect everybody, staff and inmates, because it's in a confined space," he continued.

Rojas said that there is "no leadership at all" when dealing with the potential for coronavirus in federal
prisons.

Barr’s compassionate release efforts are insufficient.

Gerstein ‘20
Josh Gerstein is a White House reporter for POLITICO, specializing in legal and national security issues. “Virus-wracked federal
prisons again expand release criteria” – Politico – April 11th - #E&F – modified for language that may offered -
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/11/federal-prison-release-criteria-coronavirus-179835
On March 26, citing the growing threat from the coronavirus, Attorney General William Barr ordered a stepped-
up (an enhanced)effort to move prisoners to home confinement .

Last Friday , he moved to prioritize releases from prisons suffering serious outbreaks , including those in Oakdale
as well as others in Elkton, Ohio, and Danbury, Conn. He also used power granted him in the recent stimulus bill to consider a broader swath of
inmates for home confinement, and he relaxed his initial insistence that inmates being sent home first spend at least 14 days quarantined behind
bars.

However , POLITICO reported Friday that the fast-moving policy changes have caused confusion at some prisons, with
significant numbers of inmates being sent to prerelease quarantine , then told they were ineligible.

Federal Compassionate Release program fails in the status quo.

Neff ‘20
et al; Internally quoting David Patton, the chief federal public defender in the New York City area. Joseph Neff is an
investigative reporter who worked at The Associated Press. He was a Pulitzer finalist and has won awards including the Robert F.
Kennedy Journalism Award, the MOLLY National Journalism Prize, and others. He was a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford
University. “COVID-19 Emergency Policies” - The Marshall Project- 04.25.2020 - #E&F -
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/04/25/few-federal-prisoners-released-under-covid-19-emergency-policies

After the coronavirus erupted behind bars in late March, U.S. Attorney General William Barr ordered officials running
federal prisons to “immediately maximize” the release of prisoners to home confinement to prevent the
spread of the virus. In a much-publicized letter, Barr urged them to focus on the most medically vulnerable in facilities with COVID-19
deaths.

But in the three weeks after Barr’s urgent April 3 memo, the Federal B ureau o f P rison’s results are modest: the
number of people allowed to serve the rest of their sentence in home confinement went up by only 1,027 under
the new guidance set out by the attorney general—about half of 1 percent of the more than 174,000 people in the bureau’s custody at
the start of the month, according to data obtained from the agency and Congress.

The data did not itemize how many people who had been in home confinement finished their sentences and are no longer included in the count. It
also did not specify how many prison-to-home transfers were approved by the Bureau of Prisons and how many were ordered by judges—over
objections from federal prosecutors. In one recent court filing, prosecutors unsuccessfully opposed the release of a man from Oakdale prison, in
Louisiana, arguing in part that the bureau was taking sufficient care of prisoners there—even after the virus had killed five men. In
a separate
case, a judge labeled the Bureau of Prisons’ process “Kafkaesque,” and said it prevented many releases.
Critics, including groups advocating for mass releases to reduce prison outbreaks, have called the implementation of Barr’s
memo confusing and chaotic. The Bureau of Prisons initially posted guidelines for families and prisoners, only to retract them days later.
Some prisoners and their families have said people have been placed in quarantines for release, only to be sent back to the general prison
population a few days later. Some federal judges have even resorted to ordering prison officials to define their policy in writing.

The B ureau o f P risons is doing a terrible job carrying out the policies set in Barr’s memo and the CARES Act
stimulus bill, which expanded eligibility for release, said David Patton, the chief federal public defender in the New York City area.

“They don’t want to let people out,” Patton said. “ It’s not in their DNA.”
Case backlines/Extensions - Aff
 Delays Bad

Even small delays kills thousands.

ACLU ‘20
A Partnership Between American Civil Liberties Union Analytics and Researchers from Washington State University, University
of Pennsylvania, and University of Tennessee “COVID-19 Model Finds Nearly 100,000 More Deaths Than Current Estimates,
Due to Failures to Reduce Jails” – ACLU – April - #E&F - chart omitted - https://www.aclu.org/report/flattening-curve-why-
reducing-jail-populations-key-beating-covid-19

Taking these actions will directly result in lives saved in jails and in their surrounding communities.
• If we take action to reduce arrests by 50 percent, we can save 12,000 lives in jails, and 47,000 lives in the surrounding communities14.

• If we stop arrests for anything but the five percent of crimes defined as most serious by the FBI15 — including murder, rape, and aggravated
assault — and are able to double the rate of release for those already detained, we can save 23,000 lives in jails, and 76,000 lives
in communities16.

Every day that goes by without action means more people will die . Delaying action for a week could
mean a difference of 5,000-18,000 lives.17
In the top 20 jail systems by jail population, we can expect over 5,300 people to die in jails in the next six months if we take no action.
Additionally, over 13,300 more people may die than currently projected in those communities once we account for the impact of jails18.

The breakdown by county:

(chart omitted)

Because we have tailored our model to each county’s unique conditions, the death counts and impacts vary by jurisdiction. In places where the
jail population is high relative to the county’s overall population — as well as in those where people churn through jails more rapidly — jails will
have a larger impact on the spread of COVID-19. In counties where the community implemented social distancing measures earlier, jails also end
up being a bigger contributor to the total death count. Conversely, for communities where social distancing measures were adopted late — or
What holds
those which maintained other high-density hubs for the spread of infection — jails will be a smaller share of a larger problem.
true across all counties in the United States is that jails will be the cause of many additional, avoidable deaths.
 Risk in prisons is unique

Prison risk is unique – COVID spread is distinctly likely

Balsamo ‘20
Michael Balsamo, Lead Justice Dept. & federal law enforcement reporter for The Associated Press - “Federal prisons struggle to
combat growing COVID-19 fears” - Associated Press Mar 27, 2020 - #E&F – Note: the missing word in this Article is from the
original – and is not a cut-paste error - https://www.businessinsider.com/federal-prisons-struggle-to-combat-growing-covid-19-
fears-2020-3

Together, these accounts detail a scattershot policy on COVID-19 safety at the federal Bureau of Prisons amid
. Advocates and even prison guards are calling for
reforms to head off a potential outbreak in a prison system plagued for years
by violence, misconduct and staffing shortages.

This report is based on interviews with nearly two dozen correction officers, inmates, attorneys and advocates, many of whom spoke to The
Associated Press on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Health officials have been warning for more than a decade about the dangers of epidemics in jails and prisons,
which are ideal environments for virus outbreaks : Inmates share small cells with strangers, use toilets
just a few feet (meters) from their beds and are herded into day rooms where they spend hours at a time
together.
While statistically the number of confirmed coronavirus cases within the Bureau of Prisons system is far lower than the rate outside prisons in the
U.S., there is widespread fear among inmates and staff members that the virus could spread rapidly. So far, 10 inmates and
eight staff members within the federal prison system have been confirmed to have COVID-19.
 Methodology for the Hinds ev = good

Even with admitted imperfections, Hinds’ methodology is still accurate and helpful
Hinds ‘20
Oliver Hinds is a senior data scientist at the Vera Institute of Justice. The Vera Institute of Justice, founded in 1961, is an
independent nonprofit national research and policy organization in the United States. Vera describes its goal as "to tackle the
most pressing injustices of our day: from the causes and consequences of mass incarceration, racial disparities, and the loss of
public trust in law enforcement, to the unmet needs of the vulnerable, the marginalized, and those harmed by crime and violence.
“EMPTYING PRISONS TO PREVENT THE SPREAD OF CORONAVIRUS WILL SAVE LIVES ON THE OUTSIDE, TOO”
– The Appeal - Apr 15, 2020 - #E&F - https://theappeal.org/coronavirus-jails-prisons-model-hospital-beds/

Despite these limitations , this model is the best tool we have to predict the effects of the COVID-19
pandemic on prisoners, and it can still help us weigh the effects of different choices . It predicts that Louisiana
could reduce its prisoner hospital bed usage to about one-eighth of total beds at peak if it released half of its prisoners now, a move which would
help flatten the curve inside by reducing crowding and allowing for more social distancing. This
estimate starts from a reduced
susceptible population, and also employs a lower rate of spread than the worst case rate of spread. Also
important is that this move would delay peak bed usage by about 10 days, giving the state’s hospitals crucial additional time to prepare. An even
lower rate of spread could be achieved by releasing three-quarters of those in Louisiana jails and prisons now. That would mean that at the peak
need, less than 5 percent of the state’s hospital beds would be used by prisoners. The model predicts that delaying these releases by two weeks
substantially reduces the beneficial impact they would have on hospital bed capacity. Releasing half in two weeks would still result in more than
two-fifths peak hospital bed usage.
General Aff Solvency
 Solvency – details

Here are specific measures that could reduce mass incarceration by 50%.
Pendergrass ‘19
Taylor Pendergrass, Senior Campaign Strategist, ACLU Campaign for Smart Justice – “We Can Cut Mass Incarceration by 50
Percent” – ACLU - JULY 12, 2019 - #E&F - https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/mass-incarceration/we-can-cut-mass-
incarceration-50-percent

The ACLU just shared a “Presidential Roadmap for Ending Mass Incarceration” with all the presidential candidates. The Roadmap
contains dozens of different policy reforms that would each slash the number of people locked up at every
point in the process, and combined would reduce the overall incarcerated population by far more than 50 percent.

The Roadmap includes reforms addressing the front end of the criminal legal system, like policing and
prosecutors , all the way to changes to parole and re-entry at the very back end, and everything in-between. The
Roadmap also allows every presidential candidate to put together their own plan that would reach the 50 percent goal.

Reforms in just these four areas would reduce incarceration by half:

Ending the War on Drugs by decriminalizing all drug possession

Bail reform that reduces the number of people we lock up before trial , often simply because they are too poor to
afford cash bail;

Shortening extraordinarily excessive sentencing practices and abolishing rigid “mandatory minimums” and “three strikes”
laws;

Granting clemency to people trapped in prison who are elderly, sick, or have already served more than
enough time for their offense;
 Solvency - Compassionate Release – precise details

Compassionate release solves – and this ev provides terms of eligibility.

Ofer ‘20
Udi Ofer - Director, Justice Division American Civil Liberties Union – ACLU - March 18, 2020 - #E&F -
https://www.aclu.org/letter/aclu-letter-doj-and-bop-coronavirus-and-criminal-justice-system

The public health crisis presented by coronavirus

highlights the need for the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Bureau of
Prisons (BOP ) to take immediate action to safeguard the health of those under its care . Time is of the essence
and BOP must act swiftly and responsibly to ensure that the 122 facilities in its system housing nearly a quarter of a million people, over 10,000
of whom are over 60 years old,1 are safe. The public health concerns presented by coronavirus in confined spaces creates an urgent need to
ensure the health of those incarcerated, particularly those who are elderly and those with chronic health conditions. BOP
must act in
conjunction with U.S. Attorneys and the recommendations of public health professionals2 to release those most vulnerable to
coronavirus and to diminish intake of others to reduce overcrowding.

In addition, DOJ must direct the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) to release any individuals in their custody who are particularly
susceptible to coronavirus, such as the elderly and those with chronic health conditions. The USMS has a total average daily detention population
of 61,489 people in USMS state and local, private, and BOP facilities,3 and it is important that people under their authority are not further
exposed to coronavirus due to overcrowding in these facilities.

DOJ has the discretion and authority to reduce the number of people entering the BOP and USMS
systems. This discretion and authority should be employed with a view toward decreasing the number of people who are unnecessarily
incarcerated in BOP or USMS facilities. The same social distancing principles guiding public and private sector responses should guide the
BOP’s response and ensure that its facilities do not unnecessarily bring people into confined spaces that may lead to greater exposure to
coronavirus. Deliberate action must be taken to meet the responsibility to ensure the health of those incarcerated in the federal system. Any delay
will only serve to exacerbate the circumstances with possible fatal consequences.

DOJ should immediately seek sentences consistent with retroactive application of provisions of the
First Step Act, including the 851 enhancement, safety valve, and 924(c) “stacking” provisions. DOJ should also support federal legislation,
U.S. Sentencing Commission guidelines, and executive clemency advancing First Step retroactivity. Public health officials agree that
decreasing the number of people in custody is one of the best ways to deal with the inevitable
spread of coronavirus in the carceral system. 4

We call upon DOJ, BOP, and USMS to increase the use of compassionate release5 for those who:

• Are 65 and older;

• Have a terminal medical condition ;

• Have a debilitated medical condition;

• Suffer from a chronic medical condition ; or

• Have suffered a death of a family member who is a primary caregiver to a child of the person incarcerated.

In addition to utilizing compassionate release, we call upon DOJ, BOP, and USMS to release people who are elderly
and/or particularly vulnerable to serious illness or death from COVID-19 due to the following conditions:

• Blood disorders;
• Chronic kidney disease;

• Chronic liver disease ;

• Compromised immune system (immunosuppression);

• Current or recent pregnancy;

• Endocrine disorders;

• Metabolic disorders;

• Heart disease;

• Lung diseases;

• Neurological and neurologic and neurodevelopment conditions; and

• Hypertension.
 Yes, COVID spread = still reversible in prisons

COVID death rates are reversible both inside and out of correctional facilities.
New York Times ‘20
Editorial Board. “No One Deserves to Die of Covid-19 in Jail” - The New York Times - International Edition - #E&F - April 29, 2020 – available
via Lexis Daabase.

No one deserves to die of Covid-19 in prison or jail. But more than 100 inmates already have, and thousands more could if prisons
and elected officials do not take steps to protect the incarcerated now. A report from the American Civil Liberties Union predicted that an
explosion of cases in jails could cause the total death count in the United States to double.
Two weeks ago, Cook County Jail in Chicago was the nation's top hot spot for coronavirus cases, according to The Times. More than 230 inmates
and 115 staff members had tested positive, even as the majority of inmates had not been tested. This week, the Marion Correctional Institution in
Ohio became the largest reported source of virus infections. There, 2,011 inmates, about 80 percent of the prison's population, have tested
positive. In addition, 154 members of the 350-person staff tested positive. In total, at least 2,400 inmates in Ohio's prison system have tested
positive. Ten have died in Ohio's Pickaway Correctional Institution, which houses minimum- and medium-security inmates.

Infection hot spots appearing in prisons is not a fait accompli. The spread of the virus can be curbed if
prisons send home eligible inmates. The federal government and 49 states already recognize some form of
compassionate release for the elderly and very ill. If ever there were a time to show compassion to vulnerable,
nonviolent inmates, it is now. Parole boards in states with indeterminate sentencing also have the power to assess the list of inmates set to be
paroled in the next six months and to consider releasing many of them as soon as possible.
 Plan can flatten the curve

Decarceration vital to flattening the national curve.

Bozelko ‘20
Chandra Bozelko is a columnist. Her blog, Prison Diaries, won two Webby Awards. “Decarceration can reduce Covid-19 spread.
The surgeon general should make that call”– Stat - APRIL 14, 2020 - #E&F -
https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/14/decarceration-can-reduce-covid-19-infection-surgeon-general-should-make-that-call/

The jail on New York’s Rikers Island has a coronavirus infection rate that’s seven times higher than in the
surrounding city. Three inmates in a federal prison in Louisiana have died from Covid-19, with many prisoners and
staff members testing positive for it. More than 100 individuals incarcerated in the crowded Cook County jail have
Covid-19. The first case appeared in a jail in Harris County, Texas. And we’re just getting started.

One solution is decarceration — releasing inmates deemed to be at low risk for reoffending as a way to reduce the density
inside prisons.

Decarceration isn’t just humane for individuals who are incarcerated, whose access to sanitation and competent care is limited. It is
essential to flattening the curve for everyone .
 Creative Plan mechansims
We will not be using these solvency mechanisms in wave 1.0 practice debates – but we may grow into
them in time.
 Solvency Mechanism – Trump commutes sentences

Status quo fails in Federal Prisons. The result is death, racial injustice, and
inevitable outbreak that spill outside the prison.
Austin ‘20
et al; Roy Austin Jr. is a partner at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis, LLP and a former deputy assistant attorney general, assistant
United States attorney and trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice. “Mr. President, let vulnerable people out of federal
prisons now: Coronavirus demands a bold response” New York Daily News: Editorial Section – April 14 th - #E&F -
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-let-vulnerable-people-out-of-federal-prisons-20200414-
zk7uqy7cxjbmffz43nwzbun5qq-story.html

Thousands of Americans who live and work in our federal prisons are at grave risk from COVID -19, and their
government is not moving quickly enough to protect them. The lives of these grandparents, parents, daughters and sons
rest in the hands of President Trump and Attorney General William Barr, who through misguided half-measures are
potentially condemning them to death .

The body count has begun. The first cases of COVID-19 in federal prisons were confirmed nearly four weeks ago. The virus has spread rapidly
and at least 10 people have now died, with hundreds testing positive or showing symptoms. There are 34 confirmed infections in federal
correctional facilities in NYC, but the vast majority of staff and incarcerated people have not even been tested.

This inevitable tragedy is why we joined over 400 former DOJ officials, lawyers and federal judges — including 35 U.S. attorneys
— who wrote President Trump urging him to commute sentences of elderly, medically vulnerable, or people near the
end of their sentence, posing no serious safety risk.

This would be the best way to address dangers posed by dense, unsanitary living conditions for the 175,000 people in
federal custody. We know the crisis on the horizon; that’s why we urged the president to act now to prevent
more deaths.

By using his executive power to release individuals posing no serious safety risk, the President would be in
good company. Many cities, states and counties have dramatically reduced their incarcerated populations in response
to COVID-19. California and New Jersey have safely ordered the release of thousands, and other jurisdictions plan to dramatically cut
incarcerated populations, some nearly in half. Meanwhile, leaders across the country have committed to shrink the number of people entering the
justice system with cite and release, not seeking bail unless necessary for public safety, and not wasting scarce resources prosecuting low-level
crimes. The President should be leading, not following, these efforts.

The clock is ticking , and there is no time to waste . We’ve learned from the Rikers Island outbreak
that once one person behind bars is infected, the virus spreads aggressively — at eight times the rate it does in the
community. COVID-19 safety precautions ( washing hands , clean spaces , and social distancing ) are
simply not possible in custodial settings.
This is urgent, Mr. President. People who are incarcerated are disproportionately vulnerable to COVID-19. One-third of federal inmates have pre-
existing medical conditions and roughly 10,000 are over age 60. And every day, correctional officers, health-care workers
and others enter and leave, potentially carrying COVID-19 back to their loved ones. The Metropolitan Detention Center in
Brooklyn alone holds 1,700 individuals with over 150 people coming and going every week. The rapid spread of COVID-19 in these
facilities threatens all of our communities.

We need more proactive steps than the responses in Attorney General Barr’s March 26 and April 3 memoranda. Barr suggests
a complex process for considering home confinement for a small category of individuals — to be identified through an
assessment tool many view as problematic and likely to perpetuate racial disparities. He categorically excluded
almost half of those over age 60 and delineates numerous hurdles with little guidance on who should go home
and how fast. And he fails to recognize that those who committed serious offenses at a young age change and no longer pose a safety risk
when older. This elderly population could go home safely, but instead face the threat of a death sentence.

While Barr subsequently expanded potential release to individuals with COVID-19 risk factors, he did so only at facilities where COVID-19 is
already “materially impacting operations.” By the time a facility has an outbreak, it will be too late to save the most vulnerable individuals.

People behind bars also deserve better than lengthy lockdowns BOP announced. This misguided response will exacerbate panic and raise the risk
— seen elsewhere — of hunger strikes and riots. Incarcerated people are terrified and need access to loved ones, quality medical care, free
hygiene supplies, and open communication about what awaits them.

People in our federal prisons aren’t disposable. Leaving thousands of elderly and medically vulnerable people
behind bars fearing for their lives isn’t justice; it’s inhumane. We all lose, Mr. President, if this is our response.

The President can commute sentences to accomplish COVID-related releases.

James ‘20
et al; Nathan James - Analyst in Crime Policy for the Congressional Research Service – “Federal Prisoners and COVID-19:
Background and Authorities to Grant Release” - CRS Reports - April 23, 2020 - #E&F -
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46297

Under Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, the President has broad authority to grant relief from punishment for
federal criminal offenses. One form of executive clemency is commutation of a sentence , whereby the sentence
imposed by a federal court is replaced by a less severe punishment, such as reducing a prisoner’s
sentence to time served. 74
While it is not required by the Constitution, there is a process for prisoners who want to have their sentences commuted to submit a petition for
executive clemency through DOJ’s Office of the Pardon Attorney.75 Regulations state that prisoners should not submit petitions for
commutations if other forms of judicial or administrative relief are available, unless there is a showing of “exceptional circumstances” for
submitting the petition.76 When a petition is received, the Pardon Attorney conducts an investigation to determine the merit of the petition, which
can include collecting reports from or using the services of federal agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation.77 After the
investigation is concluded, the Pardon Attorney submits a recommendation about the merits of the petition to the Attorney General through the
Deputy Attorney General.78 The Attorney General makes a final recommendation to the President about whether the petition for clemency
should be granted.79

Guidance issued by DOJ notes that commuting a sentence is an “extraordinary remedy” and that grounds for considering commutation include
“disparity or undue severity of sentence, critical illness or old age, and meritorious service rendered to the government by the petitioner” (such as
aiding the government in an investigation) and/or “other equitable factors,” such as demonstrating rehabilitation or “exigent circumstances
unforeseen by the court at the time of sentencing.” 80

The process for applying for executive clemency established by DOJ regulations and guidance does not “restrict the
authority granted to the President under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution.”81 Therefore, the President could grant
commutations to federal prisoners who do not submit a petition to DOJ or to those who do not meet the standards
outlined by DOJ. Some advocates and commentators have called for the President to exercise this authority to
commute federal prison sentences for populations vulnerable to COVID -19.82
 Solvency Mechanism – Attorney General

The Attorney General can order more prisoners into home confinement
New York Times ‘20
Editorial Board. “No One Deserves to Die of Covid-19 in Jail” - The New York Times - International Edition - #E&F - April 29, 2020 – available
via Lexis Daabase.

No one deserves to die of Covid-19 in prison or jail. But more than 100 inmates already have, and thousands more could if prisons
and elected officials do not take steps to protect the incarcerated now. A report from the American Civil Liberties Union predicted that an
explosion of cases in jails could cause the total death count in the United States to double.
Two weeks ago, Cook County Jail in Chicago was the nation's top hot spot for coronavirus cases, according to The Times. More than 230 inmates
and 115 staff members had tested positive, even as the majority of inmates had not been tested. This week, the Marion Correctional Institution in
Ohio became the largest reported source of virus infections. There, 2,011 inmates, about 80 percent of the prison's population, have tested
positive. In addition, 154 members of the 350-person staff tested positive. In total, at least 2,400 inmates in Ohio's prison system have tested
positive. Ten have died in Ohio's Pickaway Correctional Institution, which houses minimum- and medium-security inmates.

Infection hot spots appearing in prisons is not a fait accompli. The spread of the virus can be curbed if
prisons send home eligible inmates. The federal government and 49 states already recognize some form of
compassionate release for the elderly and very ill. If ever there were a time to show compassion to vulnerable,
nonviolent inmates, it is now. Parole boards in states with indeterminate sentencing also have the power to assess the list of inmates set to be
paroled in the next six months and to consider releasing many of them as soon as possible.

Some states have already taken action to free inmates. Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington this week commuted the sentences of 293 inmates whose
release was set to come within 60 days. In Washington, another 600 inmates are reportedly being considered for a "rapid re-entry program" that
would allow freed inmates to re-enter the community with electronic monitoring. Governors across the country should evaluate ways to use their
clemency powers to save lives.

Releasing these prisoners during this crisis is not just an act of mercy to protect prisoners' health, and the health of the prison
staff. Fewer sick inmates means less strain on the already burdened prison hospital system. The system was ill equipped
to provide proper care to the elderly and sick even before this crisis. A 2016 report from the Department of Justice found that 17 percent of
medical positions in prison hospitals were unfilled, and that 12 Bureau of Prisons facilities were so understaffed that they were at "crisis level."
Releasing high-risk inmates will free up limited resources within the prison health care system to better
treat those who remain.
A 2016 study from the Brennan Center for Justice found that there was no compelling public safety reason to
incarcerate 39 percent of the inmates in state and federal prisons, about 576,000 people . Elderly
Americans are especially unlikely to commit further crimes once released . The United States Sentencing
Commission found in 2017 that offenders over the age of 65 had just a 13.4 percent chance of being rearrested in
an eight-year period after release, compared to a 67.6 percent chance for those under age 21. The report concluded that
"recidivism measured by rearrest, reconviction, and reincarceration declined as age increased." There are more than
10,000 people over the age of 61 in federal prison . Many elderly inmates have been in prison for decades after receiving
long sentences in the tough-on-crime 1990s. Many would be good candidates for compassionate release now.

If prisons are unwilling to release some inmates outright, they

could send eligible people into home confinement, at least for
the duration of this crisis. Attorney General William Barr has the authority under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and
Economic Security Act to expand the authority of the Bureau of Prisons to send people into home confinement.
He has already ordered the Bureau of Prisons to make more inmates at federal facilities eligible for
home confinement, prioritizing those at federal facilities with outbreaks of the coronavirus in Louisiana, Connecticut and Ohio. State and
local prisons should follow suit.
 Solvency mechanism – US Surgeon General

Surgeon General can release prisoners based on COVID concerns – it’s key to
flatten the national curve.
Bozelko ‘20
Chandra Bozelko is a columnist. Her blog, Prison Diaries, won two Webby Awards. “Decarceration can reduce Covid-19 spread.
The surgeon general should make that call”– Stat - APRIL 14, 2020 - #E&F -
https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/14/decarceration-can-reduce-covid-19-infection-surgeon-general-should-make-that-call/

The jail on New York’s Rikers Island has a coronavirus infection rate that’s seven times higher than in the
surrounding city. Three inmates in a federal prison in Louisiana have died from Covid-19, with many prisoners and
staff members testing positive for it. More than 100 individuals incarcerated in the crowded Cook County jail have
Covid-19. The first case appeared in a jail in Harris County, Texas. And we’re just getting started.

One solution is decarceration — releasing inmates deemed to be at low risk for reoffending as a way to reduce the density
inside prisons.

Decarceration isn’t just humane for individuals who are incarcerated, whose access to sanitation and competent care is limited. It is
essential to flattening the curve for everyone .
That’s why public health experts, reform advocates, and even MSNBC host Rachel Maddow have pled with everyone from judges, governors,
law enforcement, and President Trump to spring people. Their entreaties have met with some success — eight states reacted quickly to the
requests and immediately liberated large numbers of people deemed “low risk.” Others, like the state of Connecticut, have refused. Other
jurisdictions remain undecided about decarceration or, like the Federal Bureau of Prisons, inconsistent.

Making the case for release hasn’t worked uniformly because advocates have presented the issue to the wrong people. We need to bring this
urgent public health problem to a doctor, ideally a public health practitioner. Fortunately, one such individuals is directly empowered to release
people from custody, in every jurisdiction.

Federal statute 42 U.S.C 264, which is part of the Public Welfare Code, authorizes the U.S. surgeon general to release,
on a conditional basis, anyone in custody as long as the release has the “purpose of preventing the introduction,
transmission or spread of such communicable diseases.”

No one’s ever invoked the statute for this purpose, but this is the first time in more than a century we’re experiencing a
pandemic and an incarceration crisis at the same time. We don’t know how many people were in prison when the Spanish flu
hit in 1918, but in 1925 it was about 91,000. Today, about 2.2 million people are incarcerated.

This system, which has grown by more than 24-fold in 95 years, isn’t a monolith. It’s a network of 4,000 separate fiefdoms in the United States,
where governors or sheriffs or wardens have control over policy. The localization of criminal justice means that responses to Covid-19 won’t be
equivalent. And that means they won’t be fair, not only to individual inmates but to local communities.

Decarceration is not some strategic manipulation to circumvent the courts or clemency systems and spring people who might not otherwise
have a chance; it’s an essential public health strategy.

A team of epidemiologists published a study in January that showed a significant correlation between incarceration rates and mortality rates at the
county level. When the pandemic struck, the study authors re-analyzed their data to focus on infectious disease and found that the infectious
disease mortality rate (excluding HIV) increased 4% when counties increased their incarceration rates. The threat posed in and by correctional
facilities is real.

It’s obvious that maintaining legal sentences and keeping prisons and jails at their current capacities will likely push more people into the path of
the coronavirus. Yet the people in charge of these legal systems resist a simple solution to that problem.
This slow and uninformed response by government leaders should have been expected. Common sense calls for decarceration don’t seem to work
on people who aren’t medical professionals, namely police, prosecutors, and judges. Incarceration is a public health issue, yet we’ve allowed
people with no medical or health expertise to steer criminal justice for decades. Criminal law and best practices in public health are often
incompatible with each other, as has been said about the war on drugs and the opioid epidemic.

Now that we’re in a new health crisis we’re doing it again: going to the lawmen to solve a medical problem.

The arguments against uncaging people — recidivism and a loss of punitive authority — are weak. It’s unlikely that released inmates will pose
the same danger to public wellness as the coronavirus. Decarcerated individuals would have to kill more than 2,000 people a month to be as lethal
as this virus.

And take note: The releases thus far haven’t resulted in a crime wave. Actually, crime has gone down during the pandemic, mostly because
people are home and not out.

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams has the authority to release people from prisons and jails. That’s
undisputed. Whether he will exercise that authority when asked to do so is the question.
Adams has a unique perspective on incarceration: He’s one of 113 million adults in this country who have an immediate family member who is or
was incarcerated. His brother, Phillip, was incarcerated as recently as early 2017 in Maryland on a burglary charge and sentenced to 10 years in
prison for stealing about $250. Adams has said that his brother’s saga is “the story of America” and an attempt to “punish a chronic disease” —
addiction.
 Solvency mechanism – tightening the CARES ACT

Federal action solves – they can shift the compassionate release goals of CARES Act
from discretionary to obligatory.
Harris ‘20
Holly Harris is the executive director of Justice Action Network, a national organization focused on bipartisan criminal justice
reform solutions. “Blame the Justice Dept for Andrea Circle Bear’s death” – NYT – May 3, 2020 - #E&F - available via the leis
database

It is well known that prisons are significant hot spots for the spread of the coronavirus, due in large part to America’s
incarceration crisis. Our country has just 5 percent of the world’s population, but holds 20 percent of its prisoners. We pack people into
jails and prisons like sardines, often four to a cell and hundreds to a unit.

When disease enters a prison, it spreads like fire through a dry barn, infecting people in and around the
facility, including correctional officers and surrounding communities. Look to the Marion Correctional Institution in Ohio: Nearly
80 percent of prisoners there, almost 2,000 people, have tested positive for the coronavirus, along with more than 160 corrections officers and
staff members. Five prisoners and one corrections officer have died. Public health
authorities report at least 112 cases of
“ community spread,” including 66 cases in the surrounding area that are directly linked to the prison outbreak.

Even Congress saw the risk, which is why Republicans and Democrats united to include language in the
CARES Act giving the Justice Department the discretion to release to home confinement certain
prisoners.
Instead, federal authorities issued confusing guidance memos, each more confusing than the next, all amounting to little
more than dense language intended to obfuscate delay tactics and inaction, obstruct the will of Congress and the president, and
ignore advice from national health experts.
There is a direct link to Andrea Circle Bear’s preventable death. Her case could have taken a number of paths. The prosecutor could have
declined to pursue such a low-level, rarely prosecuted drug offense. The judge could have suspended her sentence and allowed her to report to
prison after she gave birth or after the Covid-19 pandemic subsided. The Bureau of Prisons could have allowed her to serve her sentence in home
confinement. She could have been granted compassionate release.

Instead, with full knowledge of her third-trimester pregnancy and reported underlying medical conditions, federal officials placed Andrea Circle
Bear in the path of the coronavirus, endangering her life and that of her unborn child.

In the aftermath of this tragedy, activists and elected officials from the far right to the far left have erupted in anger, mourning the young mother’s
death, citing the gut-wrenching fact that her child will grow up without her.

But it’s time to go one step further and insist that Congress and the president hold the D epartment o f J ustice and the
B ureau o f P risons accountable. When will the powers that be finally tire of this cancerous bureaucracy that operates as a rogue fourth
branch of government? When will Congress and the White House recognize that giving more discretion to the B ureau o f P risons
is futile, since it will never use its power as Congress intends? When will the president rein in the bureau for repeatedly defying
him and subverting his legacy of criminal justice reform achievement and second chances?

It’s too late to save Andrea Circle Bear, but there

is still time to protect thousands of prisoners in federal custody , the
corrections officers and other employees who work inside prisons and the countless Americans who live in the nearby
communities . In the next federal emergency response package, the president should demand, and Congress must include,
language forcing the Justice Department and the Bureau o f P risons to immediately release to home confinement
individuals who are not a threat to public safety, starting with those who are pregnant or elderly, who have compromised
immune systems or are otherwise at high risk for Covid -19.
**Resurgence Modules – Aff Backlines
start here
Economy backlines
 Yes, V Shape Recovery is possible

V-Shaped recovery likely now – but avoiding resurgence key

Naroff ‘20
Dr. Joel L. Naroff is the president and founder of Naroff Economic Advisors, a strategic economic consulting firm in Bucks
County. Joel received his Ph.D. in economics from Brown University. A nationally recognized economic forecasting expert, Joel
has received numerous honors. For the last six years, he was a Crystal Ball Award winner of the Zillow Home Price Expectations
Survey. He has twice received the National Association for Business Economics Outlook Award as the top economic forecaster.
“What might the post-coronavirus economic recovery look like? It’s complicated” - Philadelphia Inquirer, Updated: April 12,
2020 - #E&F – Modified for language that may offend - https://www.inquirer.com/economy/what-post-coronavirus-economic-
recovery-v-shape-joel-naroff-20200412.html

And, that brings us to the shape of the recovery.

The standard view (perspective) is that we will have a “V”-shaped recovery . We crashed and burned, but once the
economy reopens, it will rebound sharply . Indeed, as the argument goes, given the trillions of dollars being poured into the
economy, a massive rebound is likely.

At least in the first couple of months, that could happen. Since enormous numbers of firms closed, their reopening will obviously create an initial
surge in activity. Households will likely go on a spending binge, restocking their homes and satisfying pent-up demand for all sorts of things.

Unfortunately, to keep growth going, everything must go right:

The V-recovery requires the pandemic end fairly quickly and at about the same time across the country. An extended shutdown increases
damage greatly and reduces business survival rates. An in-sync recovery is needed to create the momentum required for strong
growth.

Households will have to become exuberant almost immediately and businesses will have to rehire most of their laid-off workers, keep them on
the payrolls, and start investing right away.

And most important , there cannot be a resurgence in the virus that leads to another shutdown . If
that happens, the money spent will be largely wasted.

V Shape Recovery is possible – majority of experts predict one.

Johnson ‘20
Keith Johnson is Foreign Policy's global geoeconomics correspondent. He has been at FP since 2013, after spending 15 years
covering terrorism, energy, airlines, politics, foreign affairs, and the economy for the Wall Street Journal. “Can Europe and the
U.S. Follow China’s Lead on Economic Recovery?” - Foreign Policy- March 25 th - #E&F -
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/25/europe-china-us-economic-recovery-v-coronavirus/

That raises a big question for Europe and the United States, which are only now suffering the full brunt of the coronavirus
pandemic: Can they just swallow a horrific second quarter and bank on a healthy economic recovery in the rest of the year? In
other words, are the world’s major economies still on track for what’s known as a V-shaped recovery , as
most forecasters seem to expect despite their catastrophic projections for the second quarter? Or given the complete shutdown of
entire industries—from airlines to restaurants—will big economies essentially flatline?
Avoiding resurgence is key to the US economy. Absent that, Great Depression
numbers can be avoided.
Cox ‘20
Internally quoting Tony Bedikian, head of global markets at Citizens Bank. Jeff Cox is the finance editor for CNBC.com where
he manages coverage of the financial markets and Wall Street. “May sees biggest jobs increase ever of 2.5 million as economy
starts to recover from coronavirus” – CNBC - PUBLISHED FRI, JUN 5 2020 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend -
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/05/jobs-report-may-2020.html

Employment stunningly rose by 2.5 million in May and the jobless rate declined to 13.3%, according to data Friday
from the Labor Department that was far better than economists had been expecting and indicated that an
economic turnaround could be close at hand.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting payrolls to drop by 8.33 million and the unemployment rate to rise to 19.5% from April’s
14.7%. If
Wall Street expectations had been accurate , it would have been the worst figure since the
Great Depression.

As it turned out, May’s numbers showed the U.S. may well be on the road to recovery after its fastest
plunge in history.
“It seems the damage from the nationwide lockdown was not as severe or as lasting as we feared a month ago,” said Scott Clemons, chief
investment strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman.

The stock market roared higher following the report as the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 800 points as of 11 a.m. ET. Government bond
yields raced higher as well, with the benchmark 10-year Treasury most recently at 0.91%.

President Donald Trump expressed pleasure at the report, directing two tweets to CNBC.

The May gain was by far the biggest one-month jobs surge in U.S. history since at least 1939. The only previous month to register more than a
million jobs was September 1983, at 1.1 million.

“ Barringa second surge of Covid -19, the overall U.S. economy may have turned a corner , as
evidenced by the surprise job gains today, even though it still remains to be seen exactly what the new
normal will look like (be),” said Tony Bedikian, head of global markets at Citizens Bank.
 A-to “US consumers not confident”

Medium-term Consumer confidence is already up – avoiding resurgence is key.

Dornbrook ‘20
Internally quoting Joe Williams, director of investment strategy at Commerce Trust Company. James Dornbrook – Staff Writer,
Kansas City Business Journal “KC bank economists: Consumers will chart the course for recovery” – Kansas City Business
Journal – June 8th - #E&F - https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2020/06/08/potential-economic-recovery-factors.html

While consumer confidence dropped off a cliff in April and May, the good news is that consumer
expectations for six months from now remain high. It means that while consumers recognize the troubles in the market right
now, they expect things to improve in the next six months. That's a far different situation than in 2008, when
consumer confidence for six months later fell off a cliff as well .
"When people get scared about the future, they stop spending and it's hard to turn that around," said Joe Williams, director of investment strategy
at Commerce Trust Co. "But this
time, whether it's the boosted unemployment benefits that run through the end of July,
housing prices looking good and the stock market recovering, people don't feel that bad. It's likely one of the
reasons the economy is rebounding so quickly, despite suffering such a huge drop."
Unemployment remains high, at 13.3%, which is worse than the 10% unemployment peak reached during the Great Recession. However, it's
better than expectations.

"We don't know how stimulus programs like the Paycheck Protection Program impacted the number," Mathews said. "Did small businesses lay
everyone off and then call them back because of PPP? Once the money is gone, will economic activity support employment or will we see
another round of layoffs?"

Both Mathews and Williams said there are many more questions that need to be resolved before we know how this economic recovery will turn
out. Here are some key issues they will be watching:

Will people will flock back to restaurants, movie theaters, sporting events, airports and hotels? Or will they continue to stay away for awhile?
Although numbers for those types of industries are starting to show improvement, it's been really slow.

Could we see a resurgence in Covid -19 cases? Even a small jump

What if consumers flock back to business too fast?
could shake consumer confidence and cause them to self-isolate, no matter what the government says about
it. Then again, what if there is a vaccine developed? That would be a game changer, allowing people to quickly go back to their normal routine.

US consumer confident is growing – belief is that the low-point has passed.

Severino ‘20
Ryan Severino currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of real estate, finance, and economics at Columbia University and New
York University teaching courses such as Urban Economics, Portfolio and Risk Management, Microeconomics, and
Macroeconomics. Ryan is the chief economist at JLL where he manages the economics team and is responsible for global and
regional economic research, analysis and forecasting as well as property market forecasting.“Consumers 'More Optimistic' About
Economy's Future” – JLL - June 02, 2020 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend - https://www.us.jll.com/en/trends-
and-insights/research/has-the-US-economy-reached-its-lowest-point-yet

Consumers apparently seeing light at the end of the tunnel

Yet consumers are apparently seeing (witnessing) light at the end of the tunnel , hinting that the economy
already passed its nadir. Both major measures of consumers’ feelings – consumer confidence and
consumer sentiment – slightly increased in May. Although consumers remained dour about the current environment, their
expectations toward the future turned more optimistic. This view generally agrees with higher-frequency data
that shows the economic activity slowly starting to expand.
 A-to “Markets not confident”

Recent economic woes are irrel because there’s still confidence in the market. Re-
emergence destroys that.
Culp ‘20
Internally quoting David Carter, chief investment officer at Lenox Wealth Advisors in New York. Stephen Culp is a Journalist
covering the U.S. stock market for Thomson Reuters- “S&P 500 closes barely higher as investors balance pandemic with
recovery” - Metro - Posted on May 11, 2020 - #E&F – https://www.metro.us/sp-500-closes-barely/

The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average remain within 20% of all-time highs reached in February, and the tech-
heavy Nasdaq is within 10% of its closing record.

Indeed, despite bleak recent economic data , including Friday’s 20.2 million drop in U.S. payrolls, Wall Street has
gained in recent weeks as investors look beyond pandemic to recovery .
“Investors have been buying equities given the realistic expectation that massive fiscal and monetary stimulus will reignite economic and profit
growth,” said David Carter, chief investment officer at Lenox Wealth Advisors in New York. “There
is still a fair amount of
optimism in the markets, but this could be quelled if coronavirus cases re-emerge.”
 Slowing the rate of spread is key to the economy

Economic Decline inevitable unless the COVID-curve flattens

Comstock-Carlson ‘20
Winnie Comstock-Carlson is the president and publisher of Comstock’s magazine. “The COVID-19 Pandemic Calls for Patience,
Not Panic” – Comstock’s Magazine - MAY 1, 2020 - #E&F – Modified for language that may offend -
https://www.comstocksmag.com/commentary/covid-19-pandemic-calls-patience-not-panic

But, as we all know, the virus quickly asserted itself as the most virulent threat to worldwide public health in a century, rivaling the Spanish flu
pandemic of 1918. As the coronavirus began to spread from both sides of the country like a prairie wildfire,
government officials were faced with a dilemma. To prevent the massive death toll that countries like China and Italy already had, they
had to set proverbial backfires to slow the spread.
Some people may see (consider) the shelter-in-place orders and the closing of nonessential businesses as a
choice between the lesser of two evils: save lives or save the economy. But public health and the health of the
economy are tied together, especially in an economy driven by consumer demand . Saving lives in the
short term is the only way to preserve our economic health in the long run .
 A-to “Social Distancing already failing”

Social distancing succeeding now – but resurgence would psychologically crush

public buy-in.
Yong ‘20
Internally quoting Beth Redbird, a sociologist at Northwestern University - ED YONG is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he
covers science. “America’s Patchwork Pandemic Is Fraying Even Further”- The Atlantic - MAY 20, 2020- #E&F – modified for
language that may offend - https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/patchwork-pandemic-states-reopening-
inequalities/611866/

There are signs that this is happening. While Trump’s popularity predictably surged during the crisis, his “rally around the flag” boost was a blip
compared with the prolonged peaks of other leaders. Polls have also shown that pandemic partisanship is narrowing, with Democrats and
Beth Redbird, a sociologist at Northwestern University ,
Republicans more united in how seriously they view the threat.
has been surveying 200 people a day since mid-March, and “70 to 75 percent of people support most
social-distancing measures,” she says. “Those are really large numbers in a society where 52 percent is often
viewed as huge support. We rarely see (get) that outside of authoritarian polling. Americans are by and large
reading information in a very similar way.”
Economic indicators support this view. Even in conservative states, activity plummeted before leaders closed businesses, and hasn’t rebounded
since restrictions were lifted. As such, Redbird
doesn’t share the widely held fear that Americans have become inured to
social distancing and will refuse to suffer through it again. The bigger risk, she says , is that demoralizing bouts of
shutdowns and reopenings will nix any prospect of economic recovery . “You only get to say Go out,
trust me once,” she says. “They won’t believe you the second time.”

Yes, there’s some spread – the key is keeping the reproductive number at “1”.
Resurgence crushes that.
Rogers ‘20
Adam Rogers writes about science for Wired. Previously, Rogers was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT and a reporter
for Newsweek. “The Asian Countries That Beat Covid-19 Have to Do It Again” - Wired - Apr 6, 2020 - #E&F – Modified for
language that may offend - https://www.wired.com/story/the-asian-countries-that-beat-covid-19-have-to-do-it-again/

Other nations couldn’t hold containment, or didn’t try. In Europe and the
United States, governments dithered about whether and
when to institute draconian but necessary measures like social distancing , school closures, and shelter-in-place
orders. Now those same governments and public health researchers have to figure out how long to maintain them.
They’re destructive to people’s psyches and the economy , but letting people swirl back into close contact with one another allows
the disease to spread again.

In epidemiological terms, this tension is about taking control of what’s called the reproductive number , the
number of people a contagious person goes on to infect . At the top of the curve in Wuhan, where Covid-19 started to
spread, that number was something like 2 or 2.5— as it might now be in parts of the US and Europe. After the
Chinese government quarantined Wuhan and forced everyone to stay home, it went down to perhaps as low as 0.3. In China,
those rules went into effect in January; the government may lift them this week.

The virus’s apparent return will spur different kinds of containment measures in different places. Hong Kong’s were already strict, though they’d
relaxed somewhat in the first weeks of March. Now, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan have all instituted even stricter social
distancing rules and immigration controls. Nationals who are allowed in can expect 14-day quarantines, in Hong Kong and Singapore monitored
by smartphone app, though those apps’ efficacy may be doubtful. (Singapore’s numbers do seem to look better since officials started quarantining
everyone coming in, rather than people from specific countries.) Singapore is also closing all schools and most workplaces.

Despite the resurgences, these places are all still roughly in the containment phase of dealing with the pandemic, tracing individual cases and
contacts—or some transitional phase that combines containment and the next step, mitigation, including social distancing measures, school and
workplace closures, and canceling mass gatherings. The US and Europe are well into mitigation, riding the exponential curve upward. “Right
now they’re in different parts of the graph,” Wang says. “When it’s near the peak, and you have to manage it, you start to do as much of the
mitigation strategy as possible, so you flatten the curve. Then you try to wait and see where you are, and if you lift it too early, you get a
resurgence.”

For the US, that’s a scary warning. The peak numbers could be terrifying, and they’ll certainly vary across hot spots. But once the peak
is passed? Hundreds of millions of people can’t stay socially distanced forever . Despite the new cases, Singapore, Hong
Kong, and Taiwan are still keeping their reproductive numbers around 1—a slow enough spread to follow cases
and contain flare-ups. “That may be the long-term strategy for the US and Europe,” Cowling says. “There’s two
approaches, maybe. One is test, test, test. Identify cases, isolate them, stop transmission of them into the community. But it’s always difficult to
catch every infection, especially the mild ones. So the other approach that is necessary, really important, is to maintain some social distancing.”

The nice thing about this goal—get that number hovering down to 1—is that it might actually make for a more
pleasant country. Schools could reopen , but only with better ventilation and smaller class sizes. Polling places for the election
would have to be plentiful enough, and big enough, to give everyone room and make sure they aren’t packed into queues. Stores and
restaurants could reopen. People’s work hours would have to be flexible enough that offices and factories wouldn’t be packed, and
commute times would be smeared out to prevent crowded buses and subways. A good blood test for Covid-19 antibodies could determine who’s
immune and could help everyone else get back to a more normal life.
 A-to “Econ resilient - government bailouts = Plan B”

Our Altitrade Partners ev proves US Government Spending is no longer a great

backstop and is stretched to the max now.

Government programs alone won’t solve – successful re-opening is key.

Naroff ‘20
Dr. Joel L. Naroff is the president and founder of Naroff Economic Advisors, a strategic economic consulting firm in Bucks
County. Joel received his Ph.D. in economics from Brown University. A nationally recognized economic forecasting expert, Joel
has received numerous honors. For the last six years, he was a Crystal Ball Award winner of the Zillow Home Price Expectations
Survey. He has twice received the National Association for Business Economics Outlook Award as the top economic forecaster.
“What might the post-coronavirus economic recovery look like? It’s complicated” - Philadelphia Inquirer, Updated: April 12,
2020 - #E&F - https://www.inquirer.com/economy/what-post-coronavirus-economic-recovery-v-shape-joel-naroff-
20200412.html

When the economy reopens, what will the recovery look like?
Every economist is struggling with that question. The timing of the reopening will greatly affect the shape of the upturn. And the strength of the
expansion will depend upon business and consumer behavior, government finances, and a global recovery. There are lots of variables, but not a
lot of certainty.

First, keep one thing in mind: The actions

taken by Congress and the Federal Reserve are stabilization programs , not
stimulus plans. You have to stop falling before you can start rising again.
The Fed flooded the financial markets with massive amounts of liquidity. But while those actions created financial market stability,
they do not insure growth will take place.
Similarly, the CARES Act may create a temporary lifeboat for many businesses and households, but when funds begin to run out, they will have
to stand on their own.

The CARES Act also has some time-limited elements to it. For many, there are one-time grants of $1,200, plus up to $1,000 for children. But
those grants will not be repeated.

There is a major boost to unemployment insurance payments of $600 per week, on top of regular state payments. But those last for four months.

And the extra unemployment payments come with unintended consequences. While state payments vary, the average is roughly $350 per week.
When you add $600 to that, the total is large enough that many low- and moderate-income workers would have an incentive to remain on the
unemployment rolls rather than accept job offers.

The CARES Act also changes the way government funds are distributed to “unemployed” workers. Instead of laid-off workers receiving
unemployment compensation, the government funds the wages of small to mid-size business who hire back workers. Those “workers” shift from
being unemployed to being employed, even though the true “employer” paying the salary is the government.

The idea is to create a Reserve Army of the Employed. Whether they actually work is irrelevant. As long as firms meet certain rehiring and
retention requirements, the “loan” becomes a “grant” – it’s free money for salaries and other costs such as rent.

But thatmoney does run out and firms will have to start acting like private-sector companies, not wards
of the state. That means they have to “make money the old-fashioned way: They have to earn it”. When that time comes, the economy
matters most.

Despite all the money flowing from all the government funding plans, the best they can do is stop the
decline. Turning it around will require the economy reopening — and probably a lot more government money.
 US is key to the global economy

The warrant is their Ip cards goes Aff.

Yes, China matters to the global economy – which means avoiding resurgence in
the US is an extra 20% global economy cant handle.
Ito ‘20
Hiro Ito, a professor of economics at Portland State University, as interviewed by KGW's staff member Nina Mehlhaf – “'We just
need to calm down': How coronavirus is affecting the economy and stock market” - March 4, 2020 - KGW'8 - #E&F -
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/live-chat-coronavirus-impact-on-the-economy/283-12814aa2-ace6-460d-
9dc9-504846826d23

ITO: One thing we need to keep in mind is that the U.S. economy accounts for 20% of the world economy. East
Asian economies – South Korea, China, Japan – all together account for about another 20% of the world economy. So, if the
U.S. economy slows down, we have to worry about 40% of the world economy. But if the U.S. can
contain the situation as it is, then we would only have to be worried about 20% of the world economy. I think we
are standing at the crossroads at this moment . What’s going to happen to the U.S. economy or what’s going to
happen to the global economy, really depends on how the virus situation will be within the U nited States
in the next few weeks .

Decline goes global

Larsen 15 – Peter Thal Larsen, Asia Editor for Reuters, Degree from the London School of Economics,
“No Chance for India to Rescue the World Economy Next Year”, The Nation (Thailand), 12-25, Lexis

India will not rescue the global economy in 2016. The subcontinent's expanding GDP is one of next year's few economic
bright spots. But Indian output is still too small . Any negative shocks from the sluggish U nited S tates and
decelerating China will reverberate more widely.

India is finally emerging from China's shadow in the global growth stakes. Helped by a controversial overhaul of its GDP statistics, the Indian
economy probably expanded by 7.5 per cent in 2015 and is set to swell by a further 7.8 per cent in 2016. Contrast that with the People's Republic,
which is struggling to maintain the near-7 per cent pace promised by its leaders.

The prospect of sustained rapid growth has drawn the attention of prominent central bankers. India's economy has "enormous potential" to
recharge Asia's growth engine, Stanley Fischer, the US Federal Reserve's vice chairman, declared in a recent speech.

For now, however, the country's economic progress has relatively little impact on the rest of the world –
although it is enormously important to India's 1.3 billion citizens. The economy accounts for little more than 3 percent
of global output, according to Reuters calculations based on World Bank forecasts. China is almost four times as large, while the
U nited S tates is still responsible for more than a fifth of all economic activity.
On current projections, India will produce about 7 per cent of global growth in 2016 while the United States and China will together be
responsible for about 45 per cent of GDP expansion. Put another way, India's growth rate would need to rise by about 3 percentage points in order
to add 0.1 percentage point to next year's expected global growth rate of 3.3 per cent. China could have the same impact with a 1-point increase in
the pace of expansion. For the United States, an extra half point would suffice.

With Europe stuck in the doldrums and Japan struggling to recover, the world economy still depends
heavily on its two largest growth engines, both of which are sputtering. A severe slowdown in China or a stalled
recovery in the U nited States would be felt around the world . By comparison, India's economic
performance, no matter how impressive, will barely register .

Other countries can’t fill in

Irwin 16 – Neil Irwin, Senior Economic Correspondent at The New York Times, Formerly a
Washington Post Columnist and the Economics Editor of Wonkblog, “Foreign Crises Test America's
Resilience”, International New York Times, 1-6, Lexis
Seven days in, 2016 is shaping up to be a chaotic year in global economics and geopolitics, with profound challenges nearly everywhere. Except, for now at least, in the world's largest economy.

The American economy is acting as a steadying force in a volatile world.

A giant question for 2016 - not just for Americans but for people across the globe who benefit from having one of the
world's major economic engines revving while others sputter - is how resilient the U nited S tates will prove
to be.

in an interconnected global economy , troubles in one place can spread easily , whether through
On one hand,

financial markets, the banking system or trade linkages. Just Thursday the World Bank downgraded its forecast of 2016 global growth, which implies less
demand for American products around the world - and fewer jobs for American workers.

On the other hand, in the past, the United States has shown an uncanny tendency to benefit economically from tumult abroad.

''The United States may not have incredibly robust economic growth and has plenty of problems you can point to,'' said Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, a geopolitical consultancy.
''But from a stability perspective, when things are more unstable, the United States in some ways gets stronger,'' as both people and investment dollars gravitate to the nation's relative stability.

The truth is, not one of the problems that have flared across financial news tickers so far in 2016 is completely new or surprising. Rather, they are continuations of trends that were well
established in 2015.

And as disturbing as it may be to see tensions rise, conflict in the Middle East is not exactly new. Usually the way those tensions ripple through the global economy is by driving the cost of oil
up; instead, the opposite is happening.

Oil prices fell to $37 a barrel from around $53 a barrel over the course of last year and are now under $34. The Shanghai composite index fell sharply, starting in June of last year, and even after
steep declines in the opening days of 2016 is above its late-August level (though it is anybody's guess how much it would have fallen, absent a string of government interventions to try to stanch
the declines).

Economic growth has been slowing not just in China but across many emerging markets, including Brazil and Nigeria,
for two years now. Europe and Japan are growing only barely, and even formerly hot advanced economies like Canada are suffering from the commodity glut.

Against that gloomy backdrop, the consensus economic forecasts for the U nited S tates - the International Monetary Fund
forecasts 2.8 percent growth in 2016 - look pretty terrific . The American stock market indexes, despite the global sell-off and major hits to oil companies'

earnings, remain above their September levels.

But there are two basic questions about the notion that the U nited S tates can serve as an island of economic and political stability in
a messy world.
 A-to “Alt cause – Trump trade policies”

Trump won’t axe the China deal because of election fears. It’s not a big deal
anyway,
Johnson ‘20
Internally quoting Simon Lester, a trade expert at the Cato Institute; Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies; and Derek Scissors, a China trade expert at the American Enterprise Institute, Keith Johnson is a senior
staff writer at Foreign Policy – “China Puts the Final Kibosh on Trump’s Trade Deal” - Foreign Policy - JUNE 1, 2020 - #E&F -
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5AVTMP3J1esJ:https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/01/china-ends-
trump-trade-deal-phase-one/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

“The ‘phase one’ deal’s importance to the overall relationship is relatively small . It’s not the anchor that some
thought it could be,” said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies , who described the status of the trade deal—if reports of Chinese orders to halt purchases are confirmed—as
“hanging by a thread.”

“The deal itself cannot stabilize the relationship, but if you remove the deal, then that is further evidence that both sides are throwing up their
hands and see the relationship in purely competitive terms with nothing on the other side of the scale,” Kennedy said.

If that is where things go this summer, there are a couple of different ways they could play out. For Scissors, the main factor is the
November election —and Trump’s ability to position himself as tougher on China than Biden. If the Democratic nominee talks of simply
taking up China’s abuses with the United Nations, for instance, or offers vague ideas about working with allies to push back against China, then
Trump could just go back to his preferred weapon of across-the-board tariffs on Chinese goods, Scissors said. But if Biden starts to articulate a
tougher response to China’s violation of Hong Kong’s autonomy, repeated trade and human rights abuses, and relentlessly aggressive foreign
policy, then the Trump administration would likely be forced into a more muscular response.

“If we are going to jettison the deal, Trump is absolutely going to have to come up with new actions—the president is not going to be outflanked
by Biden,” Scissors said.

Those tougher actions could include anything from more sweeping restrictions on U.S. technology exports to Chinese firms beyond current limits
on U.S. sales to the telecom giant Huawei to more aggressive regulation of Chinese finance, including limiting Chinese firms’ ability to list on
U.S. stock markets. Additionally, the administration could take other measures, including more restrictive visa policies or limiting U.S.
investment in China-linked companies, that could ramp up the pressure and accelerate the decoupling between the two countries.

Others see (consider) Trump, who always hoped to run for reelection on the back of a strong economy and a
buoyant stock market, as walking (on) a tightrope.

“Politically, he’s going to keep whipping China. But at the same time, he has a fragile economic recovery, and
is scared of a negative
market reaction to a resumption of the trade war , so he’s likely to feel constrained ,” said Simon Lester, a
trade expert at the Cato Institute. “There’s likely to be lots of talk, which will work politically, but less action, which
could hurt economically.”
 A-to “Empirically false - 2008 downturn ”

Prior crises isn’t the same an collapse – which is the threshold in our Altitrade
Partners ev

2008 and other events weren’t a collapse – Coronavirus could still go either way.
Amadeo ‘20
Kimberly Amadeo is president of WorldMoneyWatch. The company produces publications about the global economy Has a
master's in management from the Sloan School of Business at MIT and over 20 years of senior-level corporate experience in
economic analysis and business strategy. Kimberly is also a U.S. Economy expert for The Balance and Balance Careers - “US
Economy Collapse: What Would Happen?” – The Balance - April 08, 2020 - #E&F -Modified for language that may offend -
https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-economy-collapse-what-will-happen-how-to-prepare-3305690

What Would Happen If the U.S. Economy Collapses?

If the U.S. economy collapses , you would likely lose access to credit. Banks would close . Demand would outstrip supply of
food, gas, and other necessities. If the collapse affected local governments and utilities, then water and electricity might no longer be available.

A U.S. economic collapse would create global panic . Demand for the dollar and U.S. Treasurys would
plummet. Interest rates would skyrocket. Investors would rush to other currencies, such as the yuan, euro, or even gold. It would
create not just inflation, but hyperinflation, as the dollar lost value to other currencies .

If you want to understand what life is like during a collapse, think back to the Great Depression . The stock market crashed on
Black Thursday.3

By the following Tuesday, it was down 25%. Many investors lost their life savings that weekend.

By 1932, one out of four people was unemployed.4 Wages for those who still had jobs fell precipitously—manufacturing wages dropped 32%
from 1929 to 1932.5 U.S. gross domestic product was cut nearly in half. Thousands of farmers and other unemployed workers moved to
California and elsewhere in search of work. Two-and-a-half million people left the Midwestern Dust Bowl states.6 The Dow Jones Industrial
Average didn't rebound to its pre-Crash level until 1954.

Collapse Versus Crisis

An economic crisis is not the same as an economic collapse . As painful as it was, the 2008 financial
crisis was not a collapse . Millions of people lost jobs and homes, but basic services were still provided.

Other past financial crises seemed like a collapse at the time, but are barely remembered now.

1970s Stagflation
The OPEC oil embargo and President Richard Nixon’s abolishment of the gold standard triggered double-digit inflation. The government
responded to this economic downturn by freezing wages and labor rates to curb inflation.7 The result was a high unemployment rate. Businesses,
hampered by low prices, could not afford to keep workers at unprofitable wage rates.8

1981 Recession
The Fed raised interest rates in a bid to end double-digit inflation.9 That created the worst recession since the Great Depression. President Ronald
Reagan cut taxes and increased government spending to end it.10

1989 Savings and Loan Crisis

One thousand banks closed after improper real estate investments turned sour. Charles Keating and other Savings & Loan bankers had mis-used
bank depositor’s funds.11 The consequent recession triggered an unemployment rate as high as 7.5%.12 The government was forced to bail out
some banks to the tune of $124 billion.13

Post-9/11 Recession
The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 sowed nationwide apprehension and prolonged the 2001 recession—and unemployment of greater
than 10%—through 2003.14 The United States’ response, the War on Terror, has cost the nation $6.4 trillion, and counting.15

2008 Financial Crisis

The early warning signs of the 2008 Financial Crisis were rapidly falling housing prices and increasing mortgage defaults in 2006.16

Left untended, the resulting subprime mortgage crisis, which panicked investors and led to massive bank withdrawals, spread like wildfire across
the financial community.17 The U.S. government had no choice but to bail out “too big to fail” banks and insurance
companies, like Bear Stearns and AIG, or face both national and global financial catastrophes. 18

2020 Coronavirus Crisis

It is too soon to tally up the total costs of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic —the crisis is still ongoing. Already we
have seen (witnessed) worldwide supply-chain interruptions, heightened volatility and steep losses in financial
markets, and sharp slowdowns in the travel and hospitality industries.

Unlike 2008, Global bailouts aren’t in place.

Smart ‘20
Christopher Smart is managing director, chief global strategist and head of the Barings Investment Institute. “Opinion: Is anyone
in charge? Unlike in 2008, there’s no plan to stabilize the global economy” – MarketWatch - Published: March 12, 2020 -#E&F -
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-anyone-in-charge-unlike-in-2008-theres-no-unified-response-to-stabilize-the-global-
economy-2020-03-11

Opinion: Is anyone in charge? Unlike in 2008, there’s no plan to stabilize the global economy

What’s spooking the investing markets, in part, is the dawning realization that there is no plan

Among the unlikely heroes of the 2008 global financial crisis were the world leaders who scrambled to
assemble in Washington to respond to the plummeting investing markets.

They discussed fiscal and monetary measures to bolster the economy. They promised financial-markets reform and resources to support emerging
markets. They even foreswore protectionism and committed to accelerate free-trade talks.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away …

What may spook markets most this week is the dawning realization that there is no plan — and no one is in charge.
There has been precious little coordination on how best to contain COVID-19 with President Trump still downplaying the risks. Trump’s address
to the nation Wednesday night only made the situation worse. And on the same day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.57% in the U.S.
fell into a bear market. The other major indexes, the S&P 500 Index SPX, -0.21% and Nasdaq COMP, -0.46%, aren’t far behind.

There has been no significant conversation about a financial or economic response outside a limp statement last week from G-7 finance ministers
and central bank governors. Still worse, Russia and Saudi Arabia, two of the world’s more recalcitrant governments, seem to be taking advantage
of the global shock to advance their narrow oil agendas.

Markets didn’t react immediately to the G-20 meeting that President George W. Bush had hastily convened 12 years ago, but there was a clear
sense that policy makers were pulling in the same direction. At later summits in Pittsburgh and London, more concrete measures included fresh
government spending, coordinated efforts to stabilize financial markets, better bank regulation and new money for the International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank.
It was an important part of restoring confidence to markets that had lost their bearings, and within months prices began a slow and steady climb
back.

A world apart

Today’s G-20 operates amid a very different set of constraints. Its two largest economies have embarked on an
escalating trade war, notwithstanding the recent truce. The European Union just lost its second largest economy and the future relationship
with Britain looks as cloudy as ever. Japan’s feeble growth and inflation rates send chills through everyone else at the table.

And don’t forget the games between Moscow and Riyadh. In a different time, Washington might be expected to mediate, but those days are long
past given how far the Russian relationship has deteriorated. Indeed, it seems like President Vladimir Putin may be using the coronavirus shock at
least in part to damage the U.S. shale oil sector that underpins America’s energy independence.

In many respects, today’s world brings echoes of the financial turmoil before the Great Depression , when
short-sightedness and sharp elbows among the world’s largest economies triggered a collapse of the gold-backed monetary system that no one
actually intended. Clearly the threat of military conflict seems very different a hundred years later, but the sense of disorder is rising.

COVID-induced economic decline is worse than the 2008 collapse – appropriate

management is key
Berengaut & Kahl ‘20
Ariana Berengaut is the director of programs, partnerships, and strategic planning at the Penn Biden Center, a senior adviser to
National Security Action, and a former official at the State Department. Colin H. Kahl is co-director of Stanford University’s
Center for International Security, a strategic consultant at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, and a
former national security adviser to Vice President Joseph Biden. “AFTERSHOCKS: THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC AND
THE NEW WORLD DISORDER” – War on the Rocks - APRIL 10, 2020 - #E&F -
https://warontherocks.com/2020/04/aftershocks-the-coronavirus-pandemic-and-the-new-world-disorder/

Moreover, as the International Monetary Fund notes, “[t]he economic

damage is mounting across all countries, tracking the sharp
rise in new infections and containment
measures put in place by governments,” likely producing a global
economic meltdown this year that will be worse than the 2008 financial crisis. Travel and tourism have been
shut down around the world, trade has been disrupted, factories and businesses have been shuttered, and billions of people have been forced to
practice social distancing and shelter in place. Meanwhile, global supply chains have been crippled and demand has plummeted. This situation
If inadequately addressed , it could produce a self-reinforcing
has led companies to shed jobs at an astounding rate.
spiral in which huge numbers of unemployed people can no longer afford to buy goods and services.
 A-to Clary ev, “Econ decline not cause war”

Clary relies on “rare events regression”, which biases against wars

Allison ‘12
(Paul, Ph.D., is Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania where he teaches graduate courses in methods and
statistics, “Logistic Regression for Rare Events”, http://statisticalhorizons.com/logistic-regression-for-rare-events)

Prompted by a 2001 article by King and Zeng, many researchers worry about whether they can legitimately use conventional logistic regression
for data in which events are rare. Although
King and Zeng accurately described the problem and proposed an
appropriate solution, there are still a lot of misconceptions about this issue.

The problem is not specifically the rarity of events, but rather the possibility of a small number of cases on
the rarer of the two outcomes. If you have a sample size of 1000 but only 20 events, you have a problem.
If you have a sample size of 10,000 with 200 events, you may be OK. If your sample has 100,000 cases
with 2000 events, you’re golden.
There’s nothing wrong with the logistic model in such cases. The problem is that maximum likelihood estimation of the logistic model is well-
known to suffer from small-sample bias. And the degree of bias is strongly dependent on the number of cases in the less frequent of the two
even with a sample size of 100,000, if there are only 20 events in the sample, you may
categories. So
have substantial bias .

There’s robust empirical support for our impact

Howell ‘13
(Patrick, B.A. from Emory University. “Economic Crises and the Initiation of Militarized Disputes,” A Thesis Submitted to the
Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts, 2013,
https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/howell_patrick_d_201305_ma.pdf)

The findings are clear: economic crises are an important trigger for shifts in a state’s rate of dispute
initiation. By using a large sample of states over a period of 185 years, this conclusion then can also be taken as
generalizable to the entire population of states in the international system. In addition to providing support for issue
crossover and the influence economic troubles can play on foreign policy decisions, the findings here also support the methodological

rationale for using economic crises as explicit, observable events , instead of as trends in other
variables (e.g. GDP growth). Of course, this is not to say that all work on this topic is final. There exist a number of areas where this research agenda can be
improved upon and/or extended to in order to provide a more holistic account of where and how economic crises exactly apply political pressure on leaders. First, the
study of diversionary war exists in both quantitative tests and in more fine toothed examinations of actual
cases (Levy and Vakili 1992; Fravel 2010). Exploring the internal processes within states in such a fashion can also produce a deeper understanding of the exact
causal mechanisms through which prospect theory operates. Aggregation and levels of analysis become a basic concern with applying prospect theory outside of the
laboratory and to states and governments. After all, “prospect theory is developed as a theory of individual decision making, the question is whether it is applicable to
collective decision making” (Vis 2011, 337). Here a unitary actor assumption is made from the outset, but it is also possible that the
observed effect is
driven instead by individual decision-makers themselves (for example, Fuhrmann and Early 2008, who keep the level of analysis only on
President Bush). A deeper case study of a few select cases with an eye towards process might reveal whether the increase in conflict initiation is due to a single policy
entrepreneur or leader, or if it is the result of collective behavior (as perhaps even aides, legislators, and bureaucrats seek to compensate for the detrimental effects that
accompany an economic crisis separately or in concert). Examination of specific cases might also provide a more accurate picture for policymakers of the strategy that
can accompany an economic crisis and inducement of diversionary tendencies in another state. Smith (Smith 1998) hypothesizes diversionary actions as a
strategic game, and finds that potential target states should then adopt a policy of strategic avoidance – disengaging from any scenario that might make
them a target from a diversionary conflict initiated by an opposing state in dire straits. This question of strategic avoidance occurs most often in the study of
the U nited S tates (Fordham 2005; Meernik 2005), with evidence that other states avoid and/or initiate fewer disputes with the United States when the American
economy is performing poorly. The empirical test here using a proportionbased dependent variable might already be capturing some degree of a strategic avoidance
effect, in that some of the variation in the proportion of initiation could be because the rate of other states initiating disputes on the crisis-stricken state is decreasing.
If strategic avoidance is occurring, it actually increases the strength of aspects of the diversionary war
literature (in that other states are actually behaving according to expectations of diversionary actions ),
but much more work and nuance would be needed to separate where then the logic in strategic avoiders is originating. The final implication of the
findings to be discussed here is the role of institutions in this analysis. As stated above, the institutional controls that
were included in the estimation demonstrated null effects on the overall rate of militarized dispute
initiation. This finding is interesting considering the enshrined role that institutions and regime types tend to play within scholarly work on diversionary war.
Similar to the mixed results of GDP indicators, mixed and contradictory results can be found throughout the body of work on diversionary war: some find that
the diversionary effects exist mainly in democratic settings (Gelpi 1997; Davies 2002; Brul´e and Williams 2009), while others
find that diversionary effects occur in autocratic settings (Miller 1999; Lai and Slater 2005; Pickering and Kisangani 2010). One
method of reconciling the conflicting conclusions of whether democratic or autocratic leaders are more
likely to engage in diversionary behavior is in direct tests comparing the two regime types. Typically, these
comparisons have either found the two regime types differ in the targets that are selected by each (Bueno De Mesquita and Siverson 1995), or have found some fault
with the way that the regime types themselves are defined, due to differing incentives for differing subtypes of regimes (Pickering and Kisangani 2005). In order to
examine the difference between democracies and autocracies, I split the sample from Model 2 into either of the regime types, using a score of 6 in the Polity2 measure
as a cut-point. Splitting the sample has the effect of interacting regime type with all independent variables,
giving regime specific effects not only for economic crises, but also all control variables .1 The results of this regime
split can be found in Table 2. As can be seen here, the effect of economic crises is positive and significant in both institutional

settings . Comparing the coefficients for economic crisis in Table 2 with those of the original Model 2, the likely explanation for why the institutional variables in
the original model did not have an impact on crisis initiation is because all democracies and autocracies possess relatively similar

incentives for increasing crisis initiation following economic crises, so any variation across institutions
was only averaged out. However, the results presented in Table 2 also provide support for a difference existing in the process of how diversionary conflict
might occur in either regime type, due to the differences in control variable significance. This lends some credence to the separation of democracies and autocracies
for study of diversionary war, but provides no evidence that the effect should only exist in one or the other. Thesimilarity in the main
independent variable of economic crises, though, furthers the assertion that the effect of economic crises
increasing dispute initiation can be viewed as a general behavior of all states in the international system.
Conclusions Altogether, there can be said to be a robust, positive relationship between the occurrence of

economic crises and the rate of dispute initiation by states . This effect is especially strong and
demonstrable when time ordering is preserved by examining how crises in the previous year affect
states in their current year. These findings can also be said to have a relatively high degree of substantive import as well. As Figure 1 showed, the
occurrence of each subsequent economic crisis increases the chances of a state initiating disputes by almost 3%. The nearly 20 percentage point
increase in dispute initiation across the range of the lagged economic crisis variable also represents a
substantial impact, especially considering the rare event nature of militarized disputes to begin with.
This generalizable finding can have far-reaching impact to both the study of diversionary war in academia, as well as directly for policymakers. In academe settings,
there is good evidence to support the use of acute economic crises over those variables based on the
slowershifting trends of GDP or public opinion measurements. Economic crises act as an explicit trigger
that can mark a leader’s shift into a losses frame and engage in riskier behavior consistent with both
prospect theory and diversionary war hypotheses. Meanwhile, applying this observed effect to the real world would seem to indicate that if
a state goes through an economic crisis, other states should have increased wariness in their dealings with the crisis-stricken state and/or be more prepared for the
possibility of a new dispute emerging in the wake of such an event.
 Econ Decline causes escalation/nuclear conflict

Economic decline causes global war

Royal ‘10
(Jedediah, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction – U.S. Department of Defense, “Economic Integration, Economic Signaling
and the Problem of Economic Crises”, Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, Ed. Goldsmith
and Brauer, p. 213-215)

Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict . Political science literature has
contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of interdependent states. Research in this vein has been considered at
systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory,

rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the
finding that

often bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next . As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could

usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin. 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of
miscalculation (Feaver, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a
permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner. 1999). Separately, Pollins (1996) also shows that
global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections

future
between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland's (1996, 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that '

expectation of trade' is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security

behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However,
if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict
increases , as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources . Crises could potentially be the
trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 Third, others have
considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg
and Hess (2002) find a s trong correlat ion between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly
during periods of economic downturn . They write: The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic
conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to

which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002. p. 89) Economic decline
has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 2004), which has the capacity to spill
across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. "Diversionary theory" suggests that, when

facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to
fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995). and Blomberg, Hess, and
Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009)

the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that
suggest that

periods of
democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that

weak economic performance in the U nited S tates, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase
in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political
science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national
levels.5 This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention.

Economic decline causes global nuclear war

Kemp ‘10
Geoffrey Kemp, Director of Regional Strategic Programs at The Nixon Center, served in the White House under Ronald Reagan,
special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the
National Security Council Staff, Former Director, Middle East Arms Control Project at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, 2010, The East Moves West: India, China, and Asia’s Growing Presence in the Middle East, p. 233-234

The second scenario, called Mayhem and Chaos, is the opposite of the first scenario; everything that can go wrong does go wrong. The
world
economic situation weakens rather than strengthens, and India, China, and Japan suffer a major reduction
in their growth rates, further weakening the global economy. As a result, energy demand falls and the price of
fossil fuels plummets, leading to a financial crisis for the energy-producing states, which are forced to cut
back dramatically on expansion programs and social welfare. That in turn leads to political unrest : and
nurtures different radical groups , including, but not limited to, Islamic extremists. The internal stability of some
countries is challenged, and there are more “failed states.” Most serious is the collapse of the democratic
government in Pakistan and its takeover by Muslim extremists, who then take possession of a large
number of nuclear weapons. The danger of war between India and Pakistan increases significantly.
Iran, always worried about an extremist Pakistan, expands and weaponizes its nuclear program. That further enhances
nuclear proliferation in the Middle East , with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt joining Israel and Iran
as nuclear states. Under these circumstances, the potential for nuclear terrorism increases, and the possibility of a
nuclear terrorist attack in either the Western world or in the oil-producing states may lead to a further
devastating collapse of the world economic market, with a tsunami-like impact on stability. In this
scenario, major disruptions can be expected, with dire consequences for two-thirds of the planet’s
population .

Decline snowballs conflict

Auslin 9
(Michael, Resident Scholar – American Enterprise Institute, and Desmond Lachman – Resident Fellow – American Enterprise
Institute, “The Global Economy Unravels”, Forbes, 3-6, http://www.aei.org/article/100187)

global chaos followed hard

What do these trends mean in the short and medium term? The Great Depression showed how social and
on economic collapse. The mere fact that parliaments across the globe, from America to Japan, are unable to make responsible,
economically sound recovery plans suggests that they do not know what to do and are simply hoping for the least disruption. Equally worrisome
is the adoption of more statist economic programs around the globe, and the concurrent decline of trust in free-market systems. The threat of
instability is a pressing concern. China, until last year the world's fastest growing economy, just reported that 20 million migrant
laborers lost their jobs. Even in the flush times of recent years, China faced upward of 70,000 labor uprisings a year. A
sustained downturn poses grave and possibly immediate threats to Chinese internal stability. The regime in
Beijing may be faced with a choice of repressing its own people or diverting their energies outward, leading to conflict with China's neighbors.
Russia, an oil state completely dependent on energy sales, has had to put down riots in its Far East as well as in
downtown Moscow. Vladimir Putin's rule has been predicated on squeezing civil liberties while providing economic largesse. If that
devil's bargain falls apart, then wide-scale repression inside Russia, along with a continuing threatening posture
toward Russia's neighbors, is likely. Even apparently stable societies face increasing risk and the threat of internal or possibly external
conflict. As Japan's exports have plummeted by nearly 50%, one-third of the country's prefectures have passed emergency economic stabilization
plans. Hundreds of thousands of temporary employees hired during the first part of this decade are being laid off. Spain's unemployment rate is
expected to climb to nearly 20% by the end of 2010; Spanish unions are already protesting the lack of jobs, and the specter of violence, as
occurred in the 1980s, is haunting the country. Meanwhile, in Greece, workers have already taken to the streets. Europe as a whole will
face dangerously increasing tensions between native citizens and immigrants, largely from poorer Muslim nations, who have
increased the labor pool in the past several decades. Spain has absorbed five million immigrants since 1999, while nearly 9% of Germany's
residents have foreign citizenship, including almost 2 million Turks. The xenophobic labor strikes in the U.K. do not bode well for the rest of
Europe. Aprolonged global downturn, let alone a collapse, would dramatically raise tensions inside these
countries. Couple that with possible protectionist legislation in the United States, unresolved ethnic and territorial
disputes in all regions of the globe and a loss of confidence that world leaders actually know what they are doing. The result
may be a series of small explosions that coalesce into a big bang .
 Yes, Diversionary War Theory is True

Diversionary theory’s true

Rothkopf ‘9
David Rothkopf, Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 3-11, 2009, “Security and the Financial
Crisis,” Testimony Before the House Armed Services Committee, CQ Congressional Testimony, lexis

--Destabilizing Bilateral or Regional Effects of the Crisis: The weakening of states can produce instability that spills
across borders or can produce social pressures that increase migration and create associated tensions
along borders. The rise of opposition groups can create an opportunity for like-minded neighbors to support
their activities and thus cause rifts and potential conflicts to spread . Political and economic weakness in
nations can be seen by opportunistic neighbors (some wishing to produce distractions from their own crises)
as an invitation to intervene in their neighbors politics or even to step in and take control of neighboring territories or to seek
to use force to resolve in their favor long-simmering disputes. In the same vein, old animosities may be inflamed by the
crisis either because they produce tensions that play into the origins of old rivalries or because political leaders seek to play on
those rivalries to produce a distraction from their inability to manage the economic crisis . Need may
enhance tensions and produce conflicts over shared or disputed resources. A desire to preserve national
resources, jobs, or capital may produce reactive economic, border or other policies that can increase
tension with neighbors. This can include both trade and capital markets protectionism (in traditional and new forms see below),
closed or more tightly monitored borders, more disputes on cross-border issues and thus both an increase in tensions and a decreased
ability to effectively cooperate with neighbors on issues of common concern.

Best studies confirm

Pickering ‘9
Department of Political Science at Kansas State, citing the International Military Intervention dataset (Jeffrey and Emizet, British
Journal of Political Science, 39:483-515, “The Dividends of Diversion”, ProQuest)

In this article, we contend that the Argentinian use of diversionary force was an anomaly in 1982, but the British diversion was not. Contrary
to common normative assumptions, leaders in mature, established democracies are more prone to use foreign
military force for domestic political gain than even the most contemptible autocrats. This argument seems paradoxical, because
policy makers in established democracies have presumably not only accepted norms which emphasize negotiation, compromise and the value of
human life, they operate within systems designed to check their own authority. We maintain that it is these
very checks which often
compel decision makers in mature democracies to divert. Institutional and partisan restraints prevent them from
implementing effective domestic policy when their electoral prospects dim, forcing them to at least consider
diversionary force. Leaders in the most liberal states in the international system may consequently, and seemingly illogically, fall into an
illiberal pattern of using foreign military force to solve domestic problems. We have followed our own earlier extension of Bruce Bueno de
Mesquita and his associates’ institutional approach, rational choice literature on voting and research on democratic audience costs to develop the
three major components of our argument.7 We define ‘audience costs’ as the penalty that leaders incur for failing to keep commitments or for
initiating disastrous policies.8 Following Michael Doyle’s conceptualization, we define mature democracies as countries with sovereignty, market
and private economies, judicial rights and representative political institutions.9 The institutional approach highlights the institutional barriers that
leaders in mature democracies encounter when they try to find domestic solutions to certain domestic problems. The rational choice literature on
voting demonstrates how difficult it is for leaders in mature democracies to regain popular support when the country has experienced domestic
economic difficulties. Even domestic policy which successfully resolves economic problems and increases growth often does little to boost the
political executive’s popular support and may even have the seemingly contradictory effect of reducing the leader’s standing in public opinion
polls further.10 Since
the voting public is not inclined to reward successful economic policy, embattled
leaders in mature democracies may turn to foreign policy to regain their political credibility and to improve their chances of retaining
office. The decision to use diversionary force is made easier when leaders are confident that the military operation will be both a military success
and provide the domestic political boost they are seeking. Recent
research on audience costs suggests that military
missions launched by leaders in mature democracies have a high probability of achieving both of these outcomes. Of
course, a good deal of institutional variation exists among countries typically labelled ‘mature democracies’. The final component of our theory
refines our earlier approach further by developing hypotheses on the impact that institutional differences have on mature democracies’
diversionary proclivities. To determine whether the leaders of mature democracies, and especially certain types of mature democracies, are more
likely both to use diversionary force and to reap political rewards from doing so than other leaders, we test the reciprocal relationships which
exist between the use of foreign military force and the domestic political and economic variables which may cause it. Our study is certainly not
the first to analyse mature democracies’ propensity to use diversionary military force. A number of studies have been undertaken on the subject
with, to date, mixed results.11 Our analysis is, however, the first to separate out and test the diversionary behaviour of several distinct types
of established democracies and to determine whether diversionary force by these actors ‘works’ by producing domestic political and economic
benefits for leaders. To our knowledge, it is also the
first to develop an integrated, multi-layer theory that attempts to
bring greater clarity to the seemingly illogical phenomenon of democratic diversion.
Leadership + Illiberal Norms – backlines
 A-to “China won’t gain power, can’t claim credit”

China is successful seizing on US COVID failures

Gramer ‘20
et al; Internally quoting Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a professor of government and international studies at Hong Kong Baptist
University and Lee Seong-hyon, the director of the Center for Chinese Studies at the Sejong Institute in Seoul. Robbie Gramer is
a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy. - “China Casts Itself as Global Savior While U.S. and EU Focus on
Virus at Home” - Foreign Policy - MARCH 19, 2020 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend -
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/19/china-us-eu-coronavirus-great-power-competition/

As Western countries battle with their own domestic epidemic, a newly stabilized China seizes a chance
to portray itself as the emerging superpower. Will it work?

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic was emotional as he gave a press conference on the global
coronavirus pandemic this week , bluntly naming which countries Serbia could count on for support —and
which ones it couldn’t. At the top of the list wasn’t any European country, despite Serbia’s long-standing goal to join the European Union, but
China, the country where the new coronavirus originated.

“By now you all understand that great international solidarity does not exist. European solidarity does not exist,” Vucic said. “It was a fairy tale
on paper. Today
I sent a special letter,” he paused briefly and swallowed audibly, “to the only ones who can help, and
that is China.” He then said he had asked Chinese President Xi Jinping “not only as a dear friend, but as a brother” to provide Serbia
sorely needed medical supplies denied by the EU.

Vucic’s words amounted to a stinging rebuke of how the European Union has handled its response to the coronavirus outside its borders.
But it also served as a warning sign to Western leaders that China is on the soft power offensive , scrambling
to refurbish its image after botching the initial coronavirus response .
The Chinese government’s mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak that began in the city of Wuhan—initially trying to cover it up, including
detaining doctors who raised early alarm bells—helped lead to the global spread of the pandemic. But now, as
cases within its own
borders begin to ebb, Beijing is shipping sorely needed medical supplies and doctors worldwide, including to
Italy and Iran, two of the countries hit hardest by the virus outside of China.
That has led to a combination of praise, mistrust, and criticism from top Western officials and experts who see China’s pandemic response as
reflective of its growing global clout, especially in the face of what critics characterize as stumbling responses by the EU and United States.

“I commend them for sending supplies to Italy and Iran and impacted areas. … I think that’s a humanitarian effort, but they don’t do anything
without the propaganda component,” Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Foreign Policy in
an interview.

“Remember, they covered this up for about two months where they could’ve been containing it better, and now the world is at risk,” he said. “I do
think they need to be held accountable and responsible.”

The Chinese government is trying to “establish itself as a global hero that saved many people both in and outside
China,” Lee Seong-hyon, the director of the Center for Chinese Studies at the Sejong Institute in Seoul, told Foreign Policy. “China’s
coming out strong with its PR, sensing, correctly , that this global epidemic is also a great opportunity to
burnish China’s soft power credentials with Europe and [others]. On the other hand, America is not investing enough
resources to help its traditional allies and friends, and not investing enough in this narrative war.”
“China is very good at grasping (seizing on) any opportunity to move forward and showing they’re doing the right
thing when other countries are distracted,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a professor of government and international studies at Hong Kong Baptist
University.

Chinese global propaganda campaign is working – Democracies are being swung.

Rough ‘20
Peter Rough, the former director of research in the office of George W. Bush, is a fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington
D.C. “How China is Exploiting the Coronavirus to Weaken Democracies” – Foreign Policy – MARCH 25, 2020 - #E&F –
modified for language that may offend - https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/25/china-coronavirus-propaganda-weakens-western-
democracies/

The Chinese Communist Party, known for cooking its books on everything from military spending to economic growth, has
applied its trademark mendacity to this crisis, too. Already adept at censoring, China has used the crisis as an opportunity to shut
the country off even more from the outside world, expelling most U.S. journalists and enforcing even stricter censorship. As a result, little of what
Beijing tells the world is verifiable. If
China’s response to the coronavirus appears impressive , it is only because the
authorities in Beijing are the ones doing the telling.
Beijing has reinforced this propaganda campaign by sending medical supplies to Europe . It is hard to believe
that a country that interns more than 1 million of its own citizens is capable of altruism. Indeed, every Chinese action betrays a Machiavellian
motivation behind a humanitarian guise.

Take, for example, the decision by Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei to donate 800,000 masks to
the Netherlands . Why would the conglomerate, known for its closeness to the Chinese government, display such benevolence toward a
country which, at the time, had hardly any coronavirus cases? Surely it could not be because the Netherlands’ auction of fifth-generation (5G)
mobile licenses is slated for June, and because the Dutch still have to decide whether to exclude Huawei from its 5G networks over espionage
concerns.

Or consider Italy, where China has sent doctors and donated ventilators that have been in short supply. Does China’s
newfound interest in Italy’s well-being stem from genuine concern, or from that of Rome’s status as one of Europe’s biggest supporters of the
Belt and Road Initiative?

Perhaps, then, China’s donation of 500,000 masks to Greece is an uncharacteristically generous gift. Or is it
nothing but a gift horse, part of much longer campaign that has showered Greece with trade and investment? Already, Greece has been a
reliable supporter of China in Brussels, which Beijing increasingly counts on to veto any measures China
considers to be against its interests—on trade, security, or human rights, for example.
Another attempt by China to drive a wedge between Europeans is the so-called Cooperation Between China and Central and Eastern European
Countries initiative. There, China has focused on non-EU countries such as Serbia, another recent recipient of Chinese aid in Europe.

Unfortunately, the Europeans have made it easy for Beijing to exploit their differences. With Europe hit
particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic, intra-European solidarity has been sorely lacking as borders
close and every country fends for itself.

Nowhere has this been more apparent than in Italy, where the death toll has soared into the thousands in mere days as its health system has
buckled. Instead of coming to Rome’s assistance, EU member states have kept their health care facilities stocked in preparation for their own
crises. Many of them are also imposing strict border controls with little coordination, among other unilateral actions. It took until the middle of
March for Germany to take the lead in Europe and announce it was sending medical equipment to Italy.

The upshot is that just one-fifth of Italians now believe that EU membership is helping Italy, while two-thirds say that that membership is “a
disadvantage.” Serbia, which is not in the EU but aspired to membership, has denounced Europe ’s lack of
solidarity and is publicly turning to Beijing for help. “ The only country that can help us is China, ” Serbian
President Aleksandar Vucic said. “As for the rest of them, thanks for nothing.” Vucic duly thanked the Chinese Communist
Party.

The implications for the politics of Europe are grave, because the coronavirus is exposing the frailty and brittleness of the European
Union as a supranational project. The coronavirus crisis is exacerbating the EU’s weakness to deadly effect. As much as it’s been maligned by its
opponents, the EU has long stood for a united, peaceful, and prosperous continent, and has acted as a magnet to neighboring
countries aspiring to join its exclusive democratic club. A frail and divided Europe will find itself easy pickings
for the enemies of the liberal democratic order—whether they be in Moscow or Beijing .

China is adept at seizing on failures in US COVID-policy

Campbell ‘20
et al; KURT M. CAMPBELL is Chair and CEO of the Asia Group and was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and
Pacific Affairs from 2009 to 2013. - “The Coronavirus Could Reshape Global Order” – Foreign Affairs – March 18 th - #E&F –
modified for language that may offend - https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2020-03-18/coronavirus-could-reshape-
global-order

The status of the United States as a global leader over the past seven decades has been built not just on wealth and
power but also, and just as important , on the legitimacy that flows from the United States’ domestic
governance, provision of global public goods, and ability and willingness to muster and coordinate a global response to crises. The
coronavirus pandemic is testing all three elements of U.S. leadership. So far, Washington is failing the test.

As Washington falters, Beijing is moving quickly and adeptly to take advantage of the opening
created by U.S. mistakes, filling the vacuum to position itself as the global leader in pandemic response. It is
working to tout its own system, provide material assistance to other countries, and even organize other governments. The sheer
chutzpah of China’s move is hard to overstate. After all, it was Beijing’s own missteps—especially its efforts at first to cover up the severity and
spread of the outbreak—that helped create the very crisis now afflicting much of the world. Yet
Beijing understands that if it is seen
as leading, and Washington is seen (perceived) as unable or unwilling to do so, this perception could
fundamentally alter the United States’ position in global politics and the contest for leadership in
the twenty-first century.

China *is already* making in-roads and discouraging global democracy.

Roy ‘20
Dr. Ash Narain Roy - Director, Institute of Social Sciences, Delhi. The author holds a Ph.D in International Studies from
Jawaharlal Nehru University and has contributed papers to reputed journals, participated and presented dozens of papers in
international seminars and conferences on democracy, local government, federalism, globalization, and Indian foreign policy. –
“Orwellian nightmare?” – The Statesman - May 6, 2020 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend -
https://www.thestatesman.com/opinion/orwellian-nightmare-1502884805.html

People don’t live in national government. They live in local governments. Nations and governments also need
to prepare for what
Henry Kissinger describes as “ transition
to a post-Coronavirus world order ”. Geopolitical sages are already
talking of (discussing) likely winners and losers . China is working to shape the international narrative in its
favour by posing itself as a saviour. China can be trusted to sell its digital police state as a model of success
claiming superiority of its system .

It may also take advantage of the fact that the democratic world has been on retreat . What is worrying is
that there has been a surge of digital surveillance in authoritarian and democratic states alike . Will China
succeed? History tells us that success came to the Romans not because of technology but ideology. Roman military author Flavius Vegetius
writes that “The Romans were less prolific than the Gauls, shorter than the Germans, weaker than the Spanish, inferior to the Greeks in
technology.

China’s is adept at COVID propaganda – their campaign is apt to succeed.

Rough ‘20
Peter Rough, the former director of research in the office of George W. Bush, is a fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington
D.C. “How China is Exploiting the Coronavirus to Weaken Democracies” – Foreign Policy – MARCH 25, 2020 - #E&F –
modified for language that may offend - https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/25/china-coronavirus-propaganda-weakens-western-
democracies/

Beijing is using the pandemic to drive wedges between members of the E uropean Union, and to advance its
propaganda war against the United States.
As the coronavirus works its way around the globe, it is putting unprecedented strain on public health systems and devastating economies along
its path.

In time, it will also lead to political upheavals that are just as potent. Already, we see (witness) the
crisis posing tremendous
challenges to the liberal democracies of the West as they struggle to manage the crisis in full public glare.
Closed, authoritarian states such as China have it easier: Not only have they imposed their draconian
lockdowns with ruthless efficiency, they have also suppressed information that might lead to panic and quashed all dissent.

They have also been quick to exploit Western weaknesses . China, in particular, has been extremely adept at
exploiting the virus for its global propaganda war against the U nited States. Beijing is also taking every opportunity
during this crisis to drive wedges between members of the European Union, which it sees as a potential rival protecting European interests and
values against Chinese attempts to project its interests and power on the continent.

The jury is still out , but one thing is clear: China cannot be allowed to win .
 A-to “US Status is resilient - No Suez Moment”

US leadership status not resilient – could unwind rapidly and COVID management
is key.
Campbell ‘20
et al; KURT M. CAMPBELL is Chair and CEO of the Asia Group and was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and
Pacific Affairs from 2009 to 2013. - “The Coronavirus Could Reshape Global Order” – Foreign Affairs – March 18 th - #E&F -
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2020-03-18/coronavirus-could-reshape-global-order

With hundreds of millions of people now isolating themselves around the world, the novel coronavirus pandemic has
become a truly global event. And while its geopolitical implications should be considered secondary to matters of health and
safety, those implications may, in the long term, prove just as consequential— especially when it comes to the United
States’ global position . Global orders have a tendency to change gradually at first and then all at once.
In 1956, a botched intervention in the Suez laid bare the decay in British power and marked the end of the
United Kingdom’s reign as a global power. Today, U.S. policymakers should recognize that if the United States does not rise
to meet the moment, the coronavirus pandemic could mark another “Suez moment.”

Yes, US can quickly lose its leadership status – time frame is 2021.
Hannah ‘20
Mark Hannah. PhD, is a senior fellow at the Eurasia Group Foundation. Hannah is an affiliate of the Global Freedom of
Expression initiative at Columbia University. He teaches at New York University and previously taught at The New School and
Queens College. “Will America’s Coronavirus Response Inspire Countries to Follow China’s Model?” – The National Interest -
March 24, 2020 - #E&F - https://nationalinterest.org/feature/will-america%E2%80%99s-coronavirus-response-inspire-countries-
follow-china%E2%80%99s-model-136712

How could this be when the Chinese government badly bungled the initial reaction to COVID-19? Contrary to
rosy portrayals in its propaganda, officials covered up the outbreak in Wuhan for weeks. But after instituting draconian lockdowns
and intensifying already-intrusive surveillance measures, China appears to have mostly contained the virus . It reported
no new local infections on Thursday for the first time since the outbreak began.

China now looks to capitalize on its position to challenge America’s status as the default leader on issues
of international concern. Its diplomats have been coordinating the fight against the virus through regional organizations like the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the “17 + 1” group of central and eastern European countries.

An annual survey by my organization, the Eurasia Group Foundation (EGF), fielded in the weeks leading up to the pandemic, found broad
support for America’s continued global leadership. Nearly 80 percent of respondents across nine diverse countries believed that, compared with
China, having the United States “as the world’s leading power” would be better for their country.

But this preference is fueled more by pragmatism and self-interest than many in Washington might presume. Of a list of rationales for picking the
United States over China, the two most frequent responses were, respectively, that the United States is a trustworthy economic partner, and that
their country has a history of working closely with the United States. Less frequently selected reasons were related to democracy, freedom, and
human rights. The least popular option was that the United States “sets a good example for national development for my country.”

World opinion could swiftly shift if the United States appears incompetent, and President Donald Trump’s
response to COVID-19 continues to fail to inspire confidence in American leadership . The president
initially downplayed the virus ’s risks, called it a “hoax,” compared it to the seasonal flu, and resisted calls to declare a state of emergency when
they would have undermined his earlier statements. His administration eliminated the nation’s pandemic response team, failed to scale up testing,
and enacted an ineffective travel ban that has turned airports into fertile ground for the virus to spread.

This litany of bad

decisions makes America look (appear) like a nation unable to protect its own people, much less
meet complex global challenges. It’s little wonder, then, that a survey by a leading PR firm found Americans less confident in their
country’s preparedness for the viral outbreak than Canadians, Germans, Brits, South Koreans, and even Italians. An informal Twitter poll by
EGF’s board president, Ian Bremmer, pointedly asked, “who is doing the best job responding to the coronavirus crisis?” The roughly thirty-four
thousand respondents chose China over the United States by a nearly 4-to-1 margin.

Chinese officials and state media claim a strong, centralized authoritarian government is better at reacting to crises
than democracy, which must contend with individual freedoms, competing interests, and checks and balances on power. This is usually
wrong. Officials in autocracies won’t acknowledge problems for fear of making the national leadership look bad, whereas in democracies,
information flows freely and officials can act without fear of retribution.

With the world watching, America must restore confidence in its democratic model where, at least in
theory, policy and public action are informed by rational debate and reasoned judgment rather than top-down peer
pressure or bottom-up performances of loyalty. If America doesn’t meet this challenge , then it may discover
next year that the world prefers that a different country serves as a global leader; it may discover that China is
cutting into its lead. In the meantime, as people’s lives and livelihoods are at stake, Americans must hope that competent leaders will
support and protect the country and democracy.
 A-to “US image not reversible – Trump perma-fumbled”

Extend our two 1AC Walt cards – both say that US image is not locked-in if Federal
Action is perceived as preventing resurgence.

Yes, reversible – Trump is actually great with 180 degree turns.

Walt ‘20
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University. “The United States
Can Still Win the Coronavirus Pandemic” – Foreign Policy - April 3 rd - #E&F - https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/03/united-
states-can-still-win-coronavirus-pandemic-power/

Is it too late for the Trump administration to pirouette from incompetence at home and indifference abroad? I’m not
optimistic, but it’s not impossible . As I’ve noted before, perhaps Donald Trump’s sole virtue as president is his ability to
reverse course without apology or shame and to pretend that whatever he’s doing today is what he meant to
do all along. He’s already trying rewrite the history of his failures at the start of this crisis, and there’s no logical reason why he
couldn’t use this moment as an opportunity to restore a modest degree of confidence in American
judgment and goodwill overseas. If he did, the long-term damage to America’s global position might be
significantly attenuated. Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, I continue to hope that Trump will finally heed a piece of advice
frequently attributed to Mark Twain: “Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”
 US success on COVD = key to overall Leadership

Inadequacy of US response to COVID is the key overall leadership status.

Campbell ‘20
et al; KURT M. CAMPBELL is Chair and CEO of the Asia Group and was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and
Pacific Affairs from 2009 to 2013. - “The Coronavirus Could Reshape Global Order” – Foreign Affairs – March 18 th - #E&F -
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2020-03-18/coronavirus-could-reshape-global-order

China’s chief asset in its pursuit of global leadership—in the face of the coronavirus and more broadly—is the
perceived inadequacy and inward focus of U.S. policy . The ultimate success of China’s pursuit, therefore, will
depend as much on what happens in Washington as on what happens in Beijing. In the current crisis,
Washington can still turn the tide if it proves capable of doing what is expected of a leader: managing
the problem at home , supplying global public goods, and coordinating a global response.
 A-to “US has too big of a lead in hard power”

Their impact answers solely assume US hard power – but our 1AC cites US soft and
hard power variables. Our Gerson ev proves that if the US unipolarity gets
challenged, molehills are more likely to turn into mountains.

Nye is wrong – the US lead is not too big. China’s catching up quickly. A return to
multipoliarty ensures great power wars.
Brands ‘18
Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of
Advanced International Studies, Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and the Foreign Policy
Research Institute, Ph.D. in history from Yale University. “Chapter 6: Does America Have Enough Hard Power?” American
Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump; pp. 129-133.

Much contemporary commentary favors the first option—reducing commitments—and denounces the third as financially ruinous and perhaps
impossible.5 Yet significantly expanding American capabilities would not be nearly as economically onerous as it may seem. Compared to the
alternatives, in fact, this approach represents the best option for sustaining American primacy and preventing a slide into strategic bankruptcy that
will eventually be punished. Since World War II, the United States has had a military second to none. Since the Cold War , America
has committed to having overwhelming military primacy . The idea, as George W. Bush declared in 2002, that America
must possess “strengths beyond challenge” has featured in every major U.S. strategy document for a quarter century; it has also been reflected in
concrete terms.6 From the early 1990s, for example, the United States consistently accounted for around 35 to 45 percent of world defense
spending and maintained peerless global power-projection capabilities.7 Perhaps more important, U.S. primacy was also unrivaled in key
overseas strategic regions—Europe, East Asia, the Middle East. From thrashing Saddam Hussein’s million-man Iraqi military during Operation
Desert Storm, to deploying—with impunity—two carrier strike groups off Taiwan during the China-Taiwan crisis of 1995– 96, Washington has
been able to project military power superior to anything a regional rival could employ even on its own geopolitical doorstep. This
military
dominance has constituted the hard-power backbone of an ambitious global strategy. After the Cold War,
U.S. policymakers committed to averting a return to the unstable multipolarity of earlier eras, and to perpetuating the
more favorable unipolar order. They committed to building on the successes of the postwar era by further advancing liberal political values and
an open international economy, and to suppressing international scourges such as rogue states, nuclear proliferation, and catastrophic terrorism.
And because they recognized that military force remained the ultima ratio regum, they understood the centrality of military preponderance.
Washington would need the military power necessary to underwrite worldwide alliance commitments. It would have to preserve substantial
overmatch versus any potential great-power rival. It must be able to answer the sharpest challenges to the international system, such as Saddam’s
invasion of Kuwait in 1990 or jihadist extremism after 9/11. Finally, because prevailing global norms generally reflect hard-power realities,
America would need the superiority to assure that its own values remained ascendant. It was impolitic to say that U.S. strategy and the
international order required “strengths beyond challenge,” but it was not at all inaccurate. American primacy, moreover, was eminently
affordable. At the height of the Cold War, the United States spent over 12 percent of GDP on defense. Since the mid-1990s, the number has
usually been between 3 and 4 percent.8 In a historically favorable international environment, Washington could enjoy primacy—and its
geopolitical fruits—on the cheap. Yet U.S. strategy also heeded, at least until recently, the fact that there was a limit to how cheaply that primacy
could be had. The American military did shrink significantly during the 1990s, but U.S.
officials understood that if Washington
cut back too far, its primacy would erode to a point where it ceased to deliver its geopolitical benefits.
Alliances would lose credibility; the stability of key regions would be erode d; rivals would be emboldened ;
international crises would go unaddressed . American primacy was thus like a reasonably priced insurance policy. It required
nontrivial expenditures, but protected against far costlier outcomes.9 Washington paid its insurance premiums for two decades after the Cold
War. But more recently American primacy and strategic solvency have been imperiled. THE DARKENING HORIZON For most of the post–
Cold War era, the international system was— by historical standards—remarkably benign. Dangers existed, and as the terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001, demonstrated, they could manifest with horrific effect. But for
two decades after the Soviet collapse, the
world was characterized by remarkably low levels of great-power competition , high levels of security in key theaters
such as Europe and East Asia, and the comparative weakness of those “rogue” actors—Iran, Iraq, North Korea, al-Qaeda—who most
aggressively challenged American power. During the 1990s, some observers even spoke of a “strategic pause,” the idea being that the end of the
Cold War had afforded the United States a respite from normal levels of geopolitical danger and competition. Now, however, the strategic
 great-power military competition is back. The world’s two leading
horizon is darkening, due to four factors. First,
authoritarian powers— China and Russia—are seeking regional hegemony, contesting global norms such as
nonaggression and freedom of navigation, and developing the military punch to underwrite these ambitions.
Notwithstanding severe economic and demographic problems, Russia has conducted a major military modernization
emphasizing nuclear weapons, high-end conventional capabilities, and rapid-deployment and special operations
forces— and utilized many of these capabilities in conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.10 China, meanwhile, has carried out a
buildup of historic proportions , with constant-dollar defense outlays rising from US$26 billion in 1995 to US$226 billion in
2016.11 Ominously, these expenditures have funded development of power-projection and antiaccess/area denial
(A2/AD) tools necessary to threaten China’s neighbors and complicate U.S. intervention on their behalf. Washington
has grown accustomed to having a generational military lead; Russian and Chinese modernization efforts are now creating
a far more competitive environment . Second, the international outlaws are no longer so weak. North Korea’s conventional forces
have atrophied, but it has amassed a growing nuclear arsenal and is developing an intercontinental delivery capability that will soon allow it to
threaten not just America’s regional allies but also the continental United States.12 Iran remains a nuclear threshold state, one that continues to
develop ballistic missiles and A2/AD capabilities while employing sectarian and proxy forces across the Middle East. The Islamic State, for its
part, is headed for defeat, but has displayed military capabilities unprecedented for any terrorist group, and shown that counterterrorism will
continue to place significant operational demands on U.S. forces whether in this context or in others. Rogue actors have long preoccupied
American planners, but the rogues are now more capable than at any time in decades. Third, the democratization of technology has allowed more
actors to contest American superiority in dangerous ways. The spread of antisatellite and cyberwarfare capabilities; the proliferation of man-
portable air defense systems and ballistic missiles; the increasing availability of key elements of the precision-strike complex— these phenomena
have had a military leveling effect by giving weaker actors capabilities which were formerly unique to technologically advanced states. As such
technologies “proliferate worldwide,” Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein commented in 2016, “the technology and
capability gaps between America and our adversaries are closing dangerously fast .”13 Indeed, as these capabilities spread,
fourth-generation systems (such as F-15s and F-16s) may provide decreasing utility against even non-great-power
competitors, and far more fifth-generation capabilities may be needed to perpetuate American
overmatch . Finally, the number of challenges has multiplied . During the 1990s and early 2000s, Washington faced rogue
states and jihadist extremism—but not intense great-power rivalry. America faced conflicts in the Middle East—but East Asia and Europe were
comparatively secure. Now, the old threats still exist—but the more permissive conditions have vanished. The United
States confronts rogue states , lethal jihadist organizations, and great-power competition ; there are severe
challenges in all three Eurasian theaters. “I don’t recall a time when we have been confronted with a more
diverse array of threats , whether it’s the nation state threats posed by Russia and China and particularly their substantial
nuclear capabilities, or non-nation states of the likes of ISIL, Al Qaida, etc.,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper commented
in 2016. Trends in the strategic landscape constitute d a veritable “ litany of doom .”14 The United States thus faces
not just more significant, but also more numerous, challenges to its military dominance than it has for at least a quarter century.
 A-to “US decline won’t cause war”

Retaining US Hegemony does prevent great power war---best stats go Aff.

Ramsey 15
(et al; Patrick; October 2015; Political Science Professor, citing a meta-compilation of IR reviews; Journal of International
Relations and Development, “Order and disorder across geopolitical space: the effect of declining dominance on interstate
conflict,”) *MID = Militarized Interstate Disputes; Complete dominance vacuum = Power vacuum

Findings for each of the three models are listed in Table 2. Each model offers results that appear to support
our theory of dominance vacuums and conflict onset. Regardless of the unit of analysis or controls present in the testing of
our hypothesis, the influence of vacuums on MID onset is substantively and statistically significant.22 Model
1, using ten degree by ten degree geographic spaces as the unit of analysis, demonstrates that geographic spaces in a space of
complete dominance are 3.6 times more likely to experience a MID than those in a space where a single
state's projected capabilities are unchallenged. The presence of a border within the geographic space is also statistically
significant and increase the odds of MID onset by 9.2 times, underscoring the significant number of MIDs that are territorial disputes and
demonstrating the particular potential for MID onset within dominance vacuums that contain borders [Table 2 About Here] Figure 4 illustrates
the predicted probabilities of MID onset for these geographic spaces depending upon whether they include interstate borders and the strength of
the dominance vacuum.23 When the space includes a border, the effect of a vacuum is even more dramatic,
with the predicted probability of conflict onset in a dominance vacuum containing a border at 25%, and
the degree of dominance vacuum present increasing the probability of conflict across the range of
observations by 18%. Model 2 repeats the analysis but restricts the dependent variable to joint major power MID onset within a
geographic space, as a test of hypothesis 2. Results confirm our expectations, with geographic spaces in a complete
dominance vacuum 16.9 times more likely to experience joint major power conflicts than geographic
spaces where a single state's projected capabilities dominate. Figure 5 illustrates the predicted probability of Joint Major
Power MID onset for geographic spaces, with the probability rising rapidly as relative projected parity increases between the top two projecting
dominant states, and at a greater rate if the space includes a border. In the absence of a dominance vacuum, joint major power conflict is almost
entirely absent. [Figure 5 About Here] The effect of dominance vacuums on conflict is confirmed by the dyadic test in Model 3, testing
Hypothesis 3 expectations regarding all contiguous dyads. Even when controlling for joint democracy, perhaps the most consistently powerful
indicator of conflict behavior in the literature (Levy 1989), we find a strong substantive impact, with the existence of a dominance vacuum in the
geopolitical space increasing the probability of experiencing a MID within a dyad by 18%, as illustrated in Figure 6. [Figure 6 About Here]
Dominance Vacuums and Politics On the chessboard of international politics the dynamics of regions and the security of states are subject to the
ordering influence by dominant powers. However, their influence is not constant across geographic space, as their relative capabilities deteriorate
across distance. Within
dominance vacuums, where no clear leader exists to structure international
politics, the formation of “shatterbelts” is likely as other states are less restrained by dominant powers. As
demonstrated by our findings and descriptive analysis, these vacuums present the most likely contexts of
geopolitical spaces for conflict onset in the international system. We may expect, for instance, the clustering of conflicts
in the Middle East and Africa to continue until a shift in the power hierarchy within these geographic spaces terminates the vacuum. By contrast,
the implications for states moving out of vacuums may be observed in the rapid evolution of the preexisting European Economic Community into
the more sophisticated and cooperative institutional structures of the European Union with the Maastricht Treaty following the end of the Cold
War. While we provide an important component to explaining the opportunity for states to engage in
conflict given the contextual salience of the systemic environment, willingness to engage in conflict
remains a product of dyadic and domestic level indicators, ranging across historical, cultural, national,
and ideological grievances, territory, and economic interests . Yet, our theory also provides a compelling
case in those instances where these willingness measures are present, but conflict does not occur, including many
ongoing territorial disputes such as Japan and Russia’s continued disagreement over the Kuril Islands, Guatemala’s
territorial claims on Belize, or British and Spanish disagreement over Gibraltar. The framework for identifying
probable conflict locations in this effort has the potential for numerous other applications. First, further exploration of the regional dynamics
identified by Lemke (2002) is warranted. We examined only the projected capabilities of the most powerful states in a geographic space.
Applying our analysis to regional subsystems nested within the dominant power reach used here to define vacuums may have important
implications for regional politics, as well as the prospects for regional powers such as Brazil and India to achieve future major power status as
they attempt to reconcile regional concerns and focus globally (Volgy et al. 2014). Consistent with the literature on regional politics over the past
century, it is likely that the intersection of dominant power capabilities with regional power dynamics is an additional component influencing
regional stability (e.g. Buzan and Waever 2003; Katzenstein 2005). In fact, an analysis of regions based in part on the extent to which those
geopolitical spaces vary according to the extent of the existence of dominance vacuums may yield fruitful inter-regional comparisons regarding
conflict processes. Second,
our theory is based upon the stability of a clear hierarchy in international politics
and the instability resulting when hierarchical dominance is degraded over geopolitical spaces.
Logically, the byproducts of this instability should not simply be restricted to MIDs, but also other forms
of political violence. For example, the decline of piracy in the South China Sea coincides with the rise of Chinese dominance in the
geographic space in the early 1990s (Prins and Daxecker 2011) and domestic conflicts in Central and Eastern Africa likely reside within very
consistent power vacuums. The absence of a clearly defined hierarchy over a geographic space may increase
the probability of civil war, separatist movements, terrorism, and perhaps even the ending of enduring
rivalries. Research relating such vacuums to the locations of extraand intra- state violence is a logical
next step toward a better understanding of peace and conflict in the international system.
 A-to “Alt cause – US power is shot bc of American First policies”

Trump’s America First policies aren’t key

Walt ‘20
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University. “The Death of
American Competence”– Foreign Policy -MARCH 23, 2020 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend -
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:CAMcw4NUZikJ:https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/23/death-
american-competence-reputation-coronavirus/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Absent a reversal of this trend, the United States’ global influence will continue to recede. Not because the
country has embraced “America First” and deliberately chosen to disengage , but because people
around the world will not take its ideas or advice as seriously as they once did. They’ll listen, perhaps, and they may
agree with it from time to time, but the deference U.S. leaders used to be able to count on will fade. Once COVID-19 is over,
Americans are likely to discover to their chagrin that other voices (perspectives) ( Beijing, anyone? ) are
receiving more respectful attention. That’s not an omen of imminent disaster, but it will be a different world than the one Americans
have been accustomed to inhabiting. At the margin, the broad contours of world politics and some important aspects of the world economy will
no longer slant so heavily in the United States’ favor.
Democracy Backlines
 US Demo Model checks escalating WMD wars

Successful model checks escalating WMD wars.

Tammen ‘17
et al; Dr. Ron Tammen (Ph.D. 1975, University of Michigan) is Professor of Political Science and former Director of the Mark O.
Hatfield School of Government at Portland State. In previous positions he served as Associate Dean and Chair of the Department
of National Strategy at the National War College. Dr. Tammen specializes in world politics, with particular reference to power
relationships among the great powers, present and future. “Foundations of Power Transition Theory” – Oxford Research
Encyclopedias - Publication Date: Oct 2017 - #CutWithRJ -
http://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-296

Figure 12 shows, consistent with the results in Figure 11, that that a total nuclear war remains a likely prospect at parity among dissatisfied
parties. More disturbing is the revelation in Kang and Kugler’s recent work that if or when unexposed terrorists acquire such weapons they would
use them against far stronger defenders. Note further that deterrence is only stable among nuclear nations like North Korea and the United States,
where exposure to nuclear devastation is assured for one side only. Power Transition provides a consistent perspective on all levels of nuclear
involvement and suggests strongly that the use
of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) cannot be dismissed simply because
of the severe anticipated consequences. Kang and Kugler also show the solution is not, as many in Balance of Power advocate, the
proliferation of nuclear weapons, but rather that nuclear arsenals should be reduced, and eliminated regionally to limit the risk of nuclear war. A
nuclear free world is not feasible unless all are satisfied. Further, the value or threat generated by nuclear proliferation hinges on satisfaction with
the status quo, trust and exposure. Nuclearproliferation to satisfied states (for example, to France and the United Kingdom), does not
increase the probability of nuclear war. But, proliferation to
states that either are dissatisfied or could move in that
direction (for example, North Korea, Iran, or Pakistan), is a global threat. At some point, parity combined with dissatisfaction can
trigger the use of nuclear weapons. For terrorists, there is no credible threat of retaliation because such groups are not exposed to
retaliation, and there is no geographic home base to target. Nuclear weapons fit the terrorist’s predisposition to utilize force multipliers, given
their lack of standing armies and conventional power.

The Costs of War—the Phoenix Factor

Power Transition is concerned with the costs of war for two reasons. First, there is the empirical question represented by the fact that sometimes states fight all-out wars separated by only a few
years, as in the case of World War II rapidly following upon World War I. This suggests a recovery or rebound effect at work. Second, the duration of waging war is generally shorter than the
recovery period from such conflicts. While war is studied in great detail, the recovery period is less often explored, even though the aftermath of war has far more important impact on the future
of a society.

Kugler (1993) and Organski and Kugler (1977, 1980) show that the most developed nations recover, like a “Phoenix” rising from its own ashes, following major wars. They regain their overall
population, productivity, and power within one generation of waging even the most severe wars. Populations are severely depleted by war in the short term, but postwar baby booms manage to
replace the lost generation. Yet, the composition of the population is dramatically altered generating lasting variability in cohorts that subsequently affect education, employment, and retirement
patterns (Frumkin, 1951; Kugler & Kugler, 2010; Kugler, Tammen, & Thomas, 2011).

World Wars among the great powers generate patterns, as shown first in Figure 13. The economic performance of active belligerents does not differ much from that of non-belligerents. In the
short term, there is a clear difference between winning and losing, but within one generation that difference disappears and patterns of pre-war performance reappear. Consistent with Solow’s
(1960) neo-classic model of growth, nations devastated by war recover because war resets the conditions for a more effective utilization of cheap labor given existing technology even with
minimal investment.

This optimistic view of conflict suggests that such disasters only affect one generation. This surprisingly rapid recovery from even the worst wars (the trajectories graphed in Figure 14 are based
on the empirical experience of belligerents in World War II—the most destructive war in human memory) explains why wars among great powers for control of the international system can
follow each other even in close temporal proximity.

This optimistic view of recovery has been challenged by analysis of war consequences in less and least developed societies, where the costs of war persist and in many cases lead to a poverty trap
that devastates societies long after the end of a conflict. This restatement of war costs is based on the overlapping generations (OLG) perspective advanced by Samuelson (1958), developed by
Lucas (1975), and extended into the political arena by Feng, Kugler, and Zak (2000). The new argument by Kugler et al., 2013 here is straightforward and incorporates, in part, the early Solow
(1960) results.

Consistent with the Solow perspective, the OLG approach shows that relatively affluent nations will recover rapidly from the ravages of war (or natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, or
floods) because capital losses will accelerate the rate of growth of such societies. The elements that contribute here include technological level, human capital, foreign and domestic investment,
and the political capacity of the government. A key point is that foreign aid is not the key to recovery—rather, the prewar performance and structures of a society determine the path of recovery
to a large extent. Japan, Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union recovered following each of the World Wars (Arbetman, 1996; Kugler & Arbetman, 1987; Organski & Kugler, 1977; Organski &
Kugler, 1980). So did South Korea and Vietnam following severe regional wars.

The Phoenix factor pattern is not universal. Two additional outcomes emerge (see Figure 15):

Kugler, Kang, Kugler, Arbetman, and Thomas (2013) report that developed societies recover economically within a generation from severe conflicts, but developing societies frequently do not.
The more developed societies recover partially, while the least developed suffer further losses and retrenchment long after the conflict is over. In other words, economic recovery is a conditional,
rather than universal, phenomenon.
Tadeusz Kugler et al., 2013 show the negative side of nonrecovery takes place when a less or least developed society is so devastated by war that if falls into the poverty trap. Instead of
recovering after the conflict these societies continue their descent into poverty as population growth exceeds the growth rate of productivity. Each successive generation in this environment is
poorer than the previous one. Extreme examples are found in Afghanistan, Angola Cambodia, Liberia, or Rwanda. This analysis also shows that foreign aid only marginally advances recovery
among the developed societies and is even detrimental for the lead advanced societies (Fisunoglu, 2014; Kang et al., 2017; Kugler et al., 2013). Note that these changes are not driven by culture.
Starting from a very similar base, North and South Korea show very different patterns of recovery following their conflict in 1950. Both nations recovered population losses quickly, but only
South Korea recovered pre-war productivity and joined the developed societies; while North Korea still lingers in dire poverty.

Monetary Implications

Power Transition arguments provide insights beyond conflict and cooperation. One of the key elements that allow a dominant nation to affect international interactions is control over the global
currency. Britain was powerful not only because its navy ruled the sea-lanes, but also because the British pound remained the preferred international currency until the end of World War II. The
Bretton Woods System, created in 1944, ushered in a system of monetary management that established new rules for commercial and financial relations among the world’s major industrial states.

That negotiated new order was intended to govern monetary relations among all nations. Not surprisingly, however, the dollar emerged as the global currency used in most international
transactions among non-communist states. The dollar replaced the pound because America’s economy was strong enough that it could exercise the discipline necessary to retain the dollar as the
global anchor currency (with an ounce of gold set at a value of $35), providing a firm foundation for the fixed exchange rate regime central to Bretton Woods.

The United States was the least damaged global economy, and thus it was the initial primary contributor to the World Bank tasked with reconstructing devastated European economies. The
dollar’s overtaking of the pound in international importance coincided with American ascension to the summit of the international power pyramid. Now the emergence of the euro within the
European Union provides a potential competitor, along with limited scope for the British pound, which still remains in use particularly among commonwealth countries.

Power Transition posits that the dominant nation will seek to control the international norms securing monetary and trade transactions internationally. Therefore, it is anticipated that, with the rise
of China, the dollar will have to share preeminence with other currencies. This is precisely what Mundell (1961) argued after tracing the evolution of international currency after Bretton Woods.
He concluded that there will be a movement away from the dollar as the most commonly used form of international currency beyond 2020, just prior to the anticipated power transition. The
dollar will have to share its place of dominance with two other currencies (Figure 16).

In this new world, the dollar remains a major currency along with the euro and China’s RMB. This representation has a very close connection to the anticipated power transitions in the global
system. As China rises, both the dollar and euro areas are likely to shrink, and a mixed currency based on these three main currencies could replace the single dollar system now in place
(Mundell, 2009). A challenge for monetary control of the international system is coming—the remaining question is whether it will be competitive (dollar replaces pound), cooperative (euro and
dollar and RMB base) or confrontational (dollar limits RMB and euro or vice versa). Current development in the European Union suggests the competition may be limited to the dollar and RMB.

Power Transition and Democratic Peace

Power Transition can help us understand other areas of IR theory, in particular the
widely accepted empirical finding — the
democratic peace . The democratic peace refers to the observation that no two democracies have ever waged a
war with each other. Less extreme presentations of the democratic peace contend only that militarized
conflict among democracies is very rare. Regardless of which version of the democratic peace we accept, Power Transition theory
can help understand why democracies live at peace with each other.

The empirical evidence in support of all democratic peace claims cover the years from 1816 to the present
(the limits within which extensive, systematic data about international relations are available). During that time period, the
international system’s dominant power was first Britain (until 1945) and then the United States . Both of
these dominant powers have been liberal democracies. Power Transition contends that the dominant power creates the set of rules
and norms to govern the international system reflected by the status quo. Thus, for the past two centuries, the rules of the
international system have been written by democratic dominant powers.
Dominant powers select rules and create and enforce norms that they prefer. They externalize governance
characteristics that have been useful to them domestically. Thus, democratic dominant powers have created international
political organizations based on voting and consensus. They have built alliance networks that are explicitly defensive in nature. And when it
comes to international economic interactions, they have favored solutions that leave a lot of power over outcomes in the hands of lightly
regulated markets. The United Kingdom and the United States have institutionalized a status quo with these
characteristics because voting, defensive military postures, and market exchanges “work” for them. They have prospered under these rules
and so have externalized them.

But just as the United Kingdom and the United States benefit from such interactions, so too have other liberal democracies. Thus, democracies
other than the United States and the United Kingdom benefit from the international status quo and want to see it maintained. Like the United
States and the United Kingdom, they are satisfied with the international status quo. Satisfied states do not fight with each other,
and thus Power Transition theory explains the democratic peace by identifying it as a subset of the peace shared among satisfied states.

Lemke and Reed (1996). They analyzed statistically the competing

An empirical test of this claim was reported by
explanatory power of joint democracy and joint status quo satisfaction on the probability of wars and
militarized disputes among pairs of states across the entire international system over the past two centuries. They found that joint
satisfaction is an empirically more potent predictor of peace than is joint democracy. That is, a dyad (pair of states) composed of satisfied states
(as indicated by the alliance similarity measure described above) is less likely to experience militarized conflict than is a dyad composed of two
democracies. This
study supports the observation that the democratic peace is a subset of the Power Transition satisfied peace
characterized by high trust and cooperation.
 Yes, US model

Reversing anti-liberal US policies - like the aff does - creates global momentum
Rubin ‘14
Trudy, author of Willful Blindness: the Bush Administration and Iraq, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary and in
2008 she was awarded the Edward Weintal prize for international reporting. In 2010 she won the Arthur Ross award for
international commentary from the Academy of American Diplomacy, writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, “Trudy Rubin
commentary: U.S. isn’t making democracy look attractive to world,” November 12,
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2014/11/12/1-u-s-isnt-making-democracy-look-attractive-to-world.html)

The 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is a good time to reflect on the dimming regard for democratic government — at home and
abroad. Nov. 9, 1989, the day that East Berliners scaled the wall and embraced their fellow Germans from the West, marked the zenith of global
faith in democracy’s promise, shortly before the communist empire collapsed. I was lucky enough to witness Eastern Europe’s democratic
uprisings firsthand. In November 1989, in East Germany, I watched tens of thousands of peaceful demonstrators in Leipzig roar for a united,
democratic Germany, in a series of Monday protests that helped seal East Germany’s fate. In Czechoslovakia, I heard soon-to-be President
Vaclav Havel, at Prague’s Letna Park, urge a massive crowd to strike for free elections and the right “to think freely.” I hurtled around Gdansk in
a van driven by the legendary Polish labor activist-dissident Lech Walesa, who shouted out his hopes of building “the country we dreamed of.”
Soon, communist systems collapsed in all three countries. The fall of the wall not only ended the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe, but also led
inexorably to the collapse of the Soviet Union two years later. Third
World countries turned toward the American
capitalist model in hopes it would deliver the prosperity that socialism hadn’t. In the United States, hubris reigned
as pundits decreed “the end of history” and democracy’s global triumph. “This was a period of a lot of illusions,” said the National Endowment
for Democracy’s Carl Gershman at a conference called “Does
Democracy (still) Matter?” cosponsored by Philadelphia’s Foreign
Policy Research Institute. Twenty-five years later, democracy is on the defensive , and that question is a matter
for hot debate. In Europe, right-wing xenophobic parties are on the rise, as a result of the continent’s ongoing
economic problems. In the Muslim world, the Arab Spring uprisings that called for democratic rights have collapsed
in a backlash that produced a military coup in Egypt and entrenched a bloody dictator in Syria. The American experiment with imposing
democracy on Iraq produced a sectarian regime and the birth of the Islamic State. (It also made foreigners question the competence of America’s
democracy.) Meanwhile, Russia’s Vladimir Putin is promoting his toxic brew of ultranationalism- authoritarianism
as an alternative ideology to democracy. Never mind that Moscow can sustain this new authoritarianism only on the back of high oil prices.
From the outside, Putin’s model looks attractive to some leaders — for example, in Egypt and Venezuela — who are
crushing free media and political opposition. Meanwhile, China, too, hypes its brand of authoritarian rule as a better
alternative for Asia than messy democracy or any political alliance with America. Yet none of this global backlash
threatens the future of democracy as much as the crisis of democracy within the United States . After
all, it was the U.S. (and European) model that attracted other countries to democracy in the first place . Over the last
two decades, Americans have learned that democracy can’t easily take root in countries that lack adequate governmental and civic institutions.
But would-be democrats in those countries still look to this country for inspiration and support . Few
Americans realize how tarnished the concept of democracy becomes worldwide when the world’s
premier democracy no longer believes in itself. That sour attitude was apparent in Tuesday’s
congressional elections, which were as much about distrust in government as they were about dislike for President Barack Obama. Exit
polls reflected voter dissatisfaction with both political parties, with Congress and with the direction of the country. Most young people
aren’t voting. When foreigners look at America today — and I hear this everywhere I travel — they don’t see the same
country that aroused so much admiration at the time the Berlin Wall fell. They see (witness) a country
where the government is paralyzed (stifled), the infrastructure shockingly poor and inequality is rising —
and an education system that trails woefully behind Asia’s. And they recognize that these problems can’t all be blamed on
Obama. What bewilders folks abroad is the visceral American distrust of government. Such cynicism makes government unworkable. No wonder
only 24 percent of the general public has faith in the government, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll. No
wonder that the
U.S. model of democracy has lost much of its global luster. Why would foreign countries want to emulate
American democracy if Americans no longer believe in it themselves? So, on the 25th anniversary of the Wall’s fall,
it’s time that Americans looked inward. In Gershman’s words, they “must find a way to rebuild a sense of democratic conviction.” As Europe
continues to wrestle with its economic problems, it’s
more important than ever that America demonstrate the strengths
of democracy, as opposed to the siren song of the new authoritarians. But no American leader, from either party,
will be able to make that case convincingly unless we renew our democracy at home .
 Democracy Solves War

Democracy is a conflict filter – caps escalation of all wars.

Albright 17 [Madeline Albright, currently a professor of International Relations at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service,
PhD from Columbia University, former US Secretary of State, Mehdi Jomaa is a Tunisian engineer and was the acting Prime Minister of Tunisia
from 29 January 2014 to 6 February 2015 September 17 https://www.brookings.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2017/09/fp_20170912_liberal_democracy__peace_security.pdf]

Given these trends, the Community of Democracies has a new imperative: to demonstrate to itself and to the world that the core values
of democracy and
human rights are not only goods in and of themselves, but also the most promising path to peace and security in an

increasingly turbulent world. The report we present here to their representatives and to all engaged citizens from civil society, parliaments, businesses,
and youth seeks to show that the norms and practices of liberal democracy and human rights do in fact lead to better security
outcomes over time and across multiple dimensions.

Based on a year-long research project gathering the empirical evidence on the relationship between democracy and security, and
on accumulated experience with combating the scourge of extremist violence and terrorism, we can say with confidence that liberal

democracy, when allowed to consolidate and flourish , is the best path toward achieving domestic and
international peace and security. A series of policy briefs covering a range of security-related issues from civil war to digital technology were
commissioned by the Community of Democracies’ Permanent Secretariat and prepared by the Brookings Institution’s Foreign Policy Program and the Institute for
Security Studies.1 This
research, which was complemented by consultations with policymakers, academic experts,
and civil society during workshops held in India, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Poland, Sweden, and the
United States, examines these linkages in substantial detail .

The evidence affirms the standard observation that democracies do not go to war against one another . But
the data also prove that democracies are less likely to spawn internal armed conflicts or experience deadly

terrorism because they channel dissent through nonviolent means and manage violence through respect for the
rule of law and human rights. Authoritarian and failed states, on the other hand, are more likely to experience intra and interstate conflict, generate refugees,
hinder women’s equality, and harbor violent extremists.

The research also shows that states at intermediate stages of democratization—hybrid regimes with mixed features of democracy and
autocracy, elite-driven patronage systems, and/or weak institutions—are generally the most vulnerable to insecurity , whether from violent crime,

terrorism, or entrenched poverty. These are states where there is both weak institutional capacity and weak political
legitimacy, which together contribute to a breakdown in the social contract between citizens and the government. This
report argues that to foster domestic and international security , and to address the underlying drivers of violent extremism, this social

contract must be repaired. It is essential, therefore, to adopt strategies to institutionalize democratic governance ,

inclusive politics , and human rights in fragile states. Civil society —as independent participants, monitors, and critics of our democratic institutions
—are also critical ingredients to any strategy for peace.

Democratic consolidation solves inter and intra-state escalation and miscalc

Albright 17 [Madeline Albright, currently a professor of International Relations at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service,
PhD from Columbia University, former US Secretary of State, Mehdi Jomaa is a Tunisian engineer and was the acting Prime Minister of Tunisia
from 29 January 2014 to 6 February 2015 September 17 https://www.brookings.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2017/09/fp_20170912_liberal_democracy__peace_security.pdf]

Scholars and practitioners of diplomacy and international relations have long considered the proposition, articulated by theorists like Immanuel Kant, that
societies governed democratically are more inclined to avoid armed conflict with each other . The
accumulated evidence, in fact, remains strong that established liberal democracies do not go to war
against each other . Leaders accustomed to the negotiated trade-offs of shared power and accountable to citizens through free, fair, and periodic elections,
embedded in constitutional systems with independent judiciaries, free media, and civilian control of the military, have built-in checks against belligerence toward
similar liberal democratic countries. Healthy
democracies are better at credibly signaling their intentions to their citizens
and to other states. Such transparency reduces the likelihood of miscalculations and is more likely to lead to

peaceful settlements before the onset of direct military conflict. At least in the realm of interstate conflict, the empirical
record suggests that a world of stronger democracies will be more peaceful.
With the decline of interstate war over the last many decades, particularly after the end of the Cold War, the international community has struggled instead with the
persistence of internal armed conflicts of varying intensities, some of which also have international dimensions. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, according to
the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), the number of civil wars has increased with a significant uptick since 2010. Notably, 70 conflicts involving nonstate
actors were recorded in 2015, dwarfing the yearly average of 35 between 1989 and 2015. Similarly, armed conflicts between governments and rebel groups increased
from 41 in 2014 to 50 in 2015—making it the second highest tally since 52 were recorded in 1991. Factors contributing to internal conflict,
including defining elements of democracy and human rights such as elections and political repression, are complex and diverse. The historical

record shows, however, that countries with strong records of respect for democracy and human rights are far less
likely to experience civil wars than hybrid regimes.2

Stronger democracies are less prone to civil war for at least two reasons. First, at the elite level, healthy democratic institutions and
regular
electoral processes create incentives for political participation by a wide range of ideological actors at relatively low
cost, while taking up arms involves much higher costs. Second, rebel groups are less likely to find support
among citizens if popular grievances are being met through peaceful and credible political processes. Strong autocracies also
tend to avoid civil wars because of the repression and cooptation employed by their state institutions.

Democracy solves WMD conflict

Halperin 11 (Morton H., Senior Advisor – Open Society Institute and Senior Vice President of the
Center for American Progress, “Unconventional Wisdom – Democracy is Still Worth Fighting For”,
Foreign Policy, January / February,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/02/unconventional_wisdom?page=0,11)

As the U nited S tates struggles to wind down two wars and recover from a humbling financial crisis, realism
is enjoying a renaissance. Afghanistan and Iraq bear scant resemblance to the democracies we were promised. The Treasury is broke.
And America has a president, Barack Obama, who once compared his foreign-policy philosophy to the realism of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:
"There's serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain," Obama said during his 2008 campaign. "And we should be humble and modest in our
belief we can eliminate those things." But one can take such words of wisdom to the extreme-as realists like former Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger and writer Robert Kaplan sometimes do, arguing that the United States can't afford the risks inherent in supporting democracy and
human rights around the world. Others, such as cultural historian Jacques Barzun, go even further, saying that America can't export democracy at
all, "because it is not an ideology but a wayward historical development." Taken too far, such realist absolutism can be just as dangerous, and
wrong, as neoconservative hubris. For there is one thing the neocons get right: As I argue in The Democracy Advantage, democratic
governments are more likely than autocratic regimes to engage in conduct that advances U.S. interests
and avoids situations that pose a threat to peace and security . Democratic states are more likely to
develop and to avoid famines and economic collapse. They are also less likely to become failed states or
suffer a civil war . Democratic states are also more likely to cooperate in dealing with security issues,
such as terrorism and proliferation of w eapons of m ass d estruction. As the bloody aftermath of the Iraq invasion painfully
shows, democracy cannot be imposed from the outside by force or coercion. It must come from the people of a nation working to
get on the path of democracy and then adopting the policies necessary to remain on that path . But we
should be careful about overlearning the lessons of Iraq. In fact, the outside world can make an enormous difference in
whether such efforts succeed . There are numerous examples-starting with Spain and Portugal and spreading to Eastern
Europe, Latin America, and Asia-in which the struggle to establish democracy and advance human rights received critical
support from multilateral bodies, including the United Nations, as well as from regional organizations, democratic governments,
and private groups. It is very much in America's interest to provide such assistance now to new democracies, such as Indonesia, Liberia, and
Nepal, and to stand with those advocating democracy in countries such as Belarus, Burma, and China. It will still be true that the United States
will sometimes need to work with a nondemocratic regime to secure an immediate objective, such as use of a military base to support the U.S.
mission in Afghanistan, or in the case of Russia, to sign an arms-control treaty. None of that, however, should come at the expense of speaking
out in support of those struggling for their rights. Nor should we doubt that America would be more secure if they succeed.

Studies are on our side – consensus upholds both the dyadic and monadic peace
theories.
MacMillan, 3 [Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Keele University, 2003 (John, Journal of
Peace Research, Vol 40 No 2, pp.234-235)

The first tenet of separate peace theory – that democracies tend not to fight each other – remains robust . It has
withstood a critical debate with realists and statistical challenges (see Chan, 1997; but also Lemke & Reed, 1996; Gartzke, 1998;
Russett & Oneal, 2001: 228–237; Henderson, 2002) and has recently been deepened to include the claim that ‘ pairs of
democracies are much less likely than other pairs of states to fight or to threaten each other in militarized
disputes less violent than war’ (Russett & Oneal, 2001: 46).2 But the second tenet – that liberal states are peace
prone only in relations with other liberal states – is increasingly challenged. The significance attached to the
‘frequency’ of war involvement has diminished as studies have turned to other aspects and indicators of war proneness. The balance of
empirical research increasingly supports the view that liberal states are more generally peace prone.
Indeed, two literature reviews of the mid-1990s (Ray, 1995: 11–21, 33; Elman, 1997: 15–18; see also Russett & Starr, 2000) find that
‘much of the aggregate data on the democratic peace phenomenon suggest that democracies are less war
prone in general , and that it is not only in their relations with each other that the pacifying effects of democracy emerge’ (Elman, 1997:
16).

Democracy solves war – international democratization causes global peace.

Lynn-Jones, at the International Security Program at the Kennedy School of Government, 1998
(Sean, “Why the United States Should Spread Democracy,” March, http://www.ciaonet.org/wps/lys02/)
In addition to improving the lives of individual citizens in new democracies ,
the spread of democracy will benefit the
international system by reducing the likelihood of war. Democracies do not wage war on other
democracies. This absence—or near absence, depending on the definitions of "war" and "democracy" used— has been called
"one of the strongest nontrivial and nontautological generalizations that can be made about international
relations." 51 One scholar argues that "the absence of war between democracies comes as close as
anything we have to an empirical law in international relations." 52 If the number of democracies in the
international system continues to grow, the number of potential conflicts that might escalate to war will
diminish. Although wars between democracies and nondemocracies would persist in the short run, in the long run an international
system composed of democracies would be a peaceful world. At the very least, adding to the number of democracies
would gradually enlarge the democratic "zone of peace."

Continued spread of democracy key to global peace.

Weart, Director of the Center for the History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics, 1998
(Spencer, Never at War: Why Democracies Will Not Fight, p.296)
Driven by these powerful forces, the zone of democratic peace seems likely to expand. We can be sure that existing democracies will keep
striving, prudently or not, to reproduce their own kind, and wherever a new democracy emerges they will tend to support it against its enemies.
After two centuries of expanding by fits and starts, approximately democratic regimes now govern over half of the world's population, and some
each new democracy establishes peaceful relationships
two- thirds of its economic product. It is becoming obvious that
with the others, so that nations within the democratic zone of peace can devote their military energies to confronting authoritarian nations.
Meanwhile, in their characteristic fashion the democracies have been weaving an ever denser web of contractual
relationships with one another, greatly augmenting their combined economic and political strength. Already we may be near
some critical point where the preponderance of democracies will transform the entire world system of
international relations. None of this suggests that we should sit back and await an automatic triumph. In
important nations from Egypt to China it is hard to imagine the establishment of democracy coming any time soon. And as rising populations
crash against the barriers of finite ecosystems, entire regions that are now precariously democratic could fall back into despotism or chaos.
Further, new information and behavior-modification technologies may push even the most stable democracies toward different forms of
governance, as yet unsuspected and perhaps unwelcome. If democracy is to survive and expand, many people must
devote their lifetimes; many must give their very lives, as millions before us have done. Even with such ardent efforts, no rule of history
Yet the goal is worth even more than has commonly been
promises us that we are bound to achieve universal democracy.
supposed. For if we can attain this, we will at the same time attain universal peace .
 A-to: DPT Wrong – General
Studies prove that liberal democracy solves both international and civil peace.
Danilovic and Clare, associate professor of political science at the University at Buffalo and visiting
assistant professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , 2007 (Vesna
and Joe, American Journal of Political Science, April, InterScience Online)
In our study, we addressed theoretical and empirical gaps in the Kantian tradition in international relations. Our focus was on domestic sources of
although democracy is consistent with Kantian thinking, the most
conflict in Kant's theory, and we showed that,
essential elements of his "republic" concern the protection of civil liberties, the separation of powers, and
the rule of law as barriers to arbitrary rul e. Our interpretation of Kant's republicanism is in agreement with Kantian political
theorists (e.g., Ellis 2005; Rosen 1993), yet liberal governance has routinely been subordinated to electoral democracy in the democratic peace
studies. The distinction we draw between procedural democratic rule and liberal governance is relevant both theoretically and empirically. Once
we unpack Kant's republic in terms of constitutional liberal governance, we can uncover several levels of his reasoning
behind the domestic sources for peace which were largely obscured in the previous studies. Not only do
we find that monadic and dyadic views are consistent with Kant's theory, but also that both normative and
interest-based explanations for international peace can equally draw on Kant as their theoretical precursor .
We further demonstrate that, if we are to fully understand all constitutive elements of his republicanism, we can additionally infer that
the Kantian legacy is related to a liberal civil peace as well. Though one of our primary goals was to provide a theoretical
contribution to the Kantian tradition in international relations, we also examined its empirical validation. The results of our empirical analysis
strongly support all hypotheses inferred from our reexamination of Kantian legacy. While the results are mixed for the "democratic peace"—
international and domestic alike—the
findings are robust and consistent with our theoretical expectations
concerning the impact of constitutional liberalism on both international and civil "liberal peace." The
compelling evidence in this study validates Doyle's (2005) recent response to the critics of democratic peace, especially those questioning its
historical validity (e.g., Farber and Gowa 1995; Rosato 2003), that the verdict is still out as previous empirical studies have not incorporated "the
principles of liberal individualism"—the heart of Kant's republic. As Doyle points out, while these might "evolve" with "democratic
institutions,""we cannot be sure of this" (2005, 466), and thus the theory needs additional testing that separately codes a liberal component. We
precisely provide such an analysis, casting doubt on the critics' rejection of liberal peace on the grounds of empirical invalidity, though our
analytical aim extends well beyond this empirical task. Finally, our study is particularly relevant today. In the last "wave"
of democratization, many states that are commonly categorized as democracies continue to have
questionable records concerning the protection of individual freedoms, civil rights, and the rule of law against arbitrary rulings or policy
implementations. Indeed, as our descriptive analysis indicates, there is a substantial group of states that fit into the category
of semiliberal democracies. As comparative politics scholars point out, these are not transitional regimes, but rather consolidated
systems that elude previous classifications, which typically conflate the liberal and democratic regime dimensions. Like comparativists, but from
a very different—that is, Kantian—angle, we also caution against conflating liberal democracies and "hybrid regimes." At the same time, we have
Our empirical analysis validates the caution
gone a step further to show the implications of analyses for conflict behavior.
against quick conclusions about the peaceful prospects for these new regimes . As demonstrated in our study, if the
spread of democracy is indeed going to lead to international and domestic peace, it must be simultaneous
with the full development of what was at the heart of Kant's republicanism, that is, constitutional liberal governance .
 A-to: DPT Wrong – Wars with Non-Democracies
Non-democracies more likely to start wars with democracies – they have it
backwards.
Russett, Professor of International Relations at Yale, 2009 (Bruce, European Journal of International
Relations, Vol 15 No 1, pp.11-12)
Another major qualification concerns which side starts or escalates the fight, moving a substantially peaceful diplomatic dispute up to the level of
the evidence is stronger: even when
a militarized one, and a low-level militarized dispute up to full-scale war. On this
democracies are involved in diplomatic disputes with dictatorships they are less likely than the
dictators to initiate the use of violence (Reiter and Stam, 2003; Rousseau, 2005; Oneal, 2006; Boehmer, 2008), and less
likely to escalate any violence to a high level (Huth and Allee, 2002; Caprioli and Trumbore, 2006; Oneal and Tir, 2006).10 In
other words, it is the dictator’s action that tends to produce the fight .

Consensus agrees that democracies don’t initiate crises.

MacMillan, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Keele University, 2003 (John, Journal of
Peace Research, Vol 40 No 2, p.235)

However, one point on which a consensus does appear to be consolidating is that liberal states have a lower
propensity to initiate violence . Rousseau et al. (1996: 512–513) suggest ‘that democracies are less likely than non-
democracies to initiate crises against all states ’, but that once a democracy is involved in an international crisis, the regime type
of its opponent will influence its bargaining behaviour. Gleditsch & Hegre (1997: 295) note problems of interpretation but find that in the
modern era ‘democracies would appear to initiate violence very rarely, except in protracted conflicts’. Rioux (1998:
282) also finds that democracies initiate fewer crises than non-democracies , as does Schultz (2001: 137). Russett, a leading
proponent of the separate peace position, is increasingly inclined towards this revisionist position (Russett & Oneal, 2001: 50).3

New studies prove democracies are less likely to resort to first use of violence.
Caprioli and Trumbore, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota at
Duluth and Associate Professor of Political Science at Oakland University, 2006 (Mary and Peter,
Journal of Peace Research, pp.747-748)

The results of both the multivariate analysis and measures of association reveal interesting patterns and
raise intriguing questions for future study. For the time period 1980–2001, we find that both democracies and major powers are less
likely to use violent force first than non-democracies or minor powers. More often than not, first users of violence were also
driven by a revisionist agenda. And yet, such a conflict strategy seems ill advised, given that first users of violent force were
unlikely to see that strategy pay off with a victory in the dispute. We leave it to others to begin the process of further
refining these tests and explaining the outcomes.
 A-to: DPT Wrong – Diversionary Wars

Diversionary war theory untrue – dyadic models prove.

ONeal and Tir, Professor of Political Science at the University of Alabama and Associate Professor of
Political Science at the University of Georgia, 2006 (John and Jaroslav, International Studies Quarterly,
Vol 50 No 4, Wiley InterScience Online)
In this article, we assess whether diversionary incentives increase the likelihood of interstate conflict and threaten the democratic peace, focusing
on the influence of hard economic times. We use the method adopted in previous research on the democratic peace: directed and nondirected
dyadic analyses of pooled time-series data regarding militarized interstate disputes. This allows us to confront the evidence for the democratic
Our dyadic approach is an important departure from most previous
peace directly with tests of diversionary theory.
research on the diversionary thesis, which has used a monadic framework. Smith (1996) has shown that the strategic
interaction of states—observable only in directed dyads—must be considered in testing for diversionary conflict
because domestic problems may simultaneously make a state a likely initiator and a forbidding target . Thus,
we examine the influence of slow economic growth on states' initiation of and their involvement in militarized disputes, 1921–2001. We also test
the effect of the timing of legislative elections on interstate conflict. Our results indicate that diversionary incentives pose little
threat to Kant's vision. Slow economic growth increases the incidence with which democracies initiate militarized disputes against
autocracies, states with mixed political regimes, and even other democracies; but only a small minority of democracies
experience such slow growth that the greater peacefulness of democratic dyads is eliminated . There is
little evidence that poor economic performance increases the initiation of disputes by the leaders of
powerful democracies, including the United States, which are thought to be most prone to using force for partisan
purposes. Of five prominent democracies examined, only Israel seems to respond to diversionary incentives. We also show that military
conflict is unaffected by the timing of legislative elections. Kant's hope for a dramatically more peaceful
world does not seem misplaced.
 A-to: DPT Wrong – Studies
Recent publications ignore studies that prove the monadic peace.
Boehmer, Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas at El Paso, 2008 (Dr. Charles,
Conflict Management and Peace Science, March, p.83)
Research has produced findings supporting the DPP using a state-year unit of analysis , although these studies
have been fewin number the past 20 years. Ray (1995: 11) cites studies from the 1960s and 1970s, rarely cited by others in
recent years, that showed evidence for the DPP (Haas, 1965; East & Gregg, 1967; Salmore & Hermann, 1969; Zinnes &
Wilkenfeld, 1971; East & Hermann, 1974). It appears that these studies have been excluded from recent literature reviews
because some scholars in the field accepted the conclusion that democracies are no less conflict prone
than autocracies. Ray (1995: 10–13) argues that Small & Singer’s (1976) discussion stunted research on the democratic peace and skewed
our view of the DPP. However, the DPP has not been doomed to the dustbin; evidence has again emerged
supporting the DPP.
 A-to: DPT Wrong – Examples of Democracies Going to War
Counter-examples don’t disprove the democratic peace – democracies are
statistically much less likely to go to war.
Lynn-Jones, at the International Security Program at the Kennedy School of Government, 1998
(Sean, “Why the United States Should Spread Democracy,” March, http://www.ciaonet.org/wps/lys02/)
Responses: There are three reasons to reject the claim that the democratic peace proposition is invalid
because democracies may have fought some wars. First, the democratic peace proposition Ccorrectly formulated
—holds that democracies rarely fight , not that they never fight . In social science it is probably impossible
to generate laws with 100% accuracy. Thus the correct formulation of the democratic peace proposition is the statement that
democracies almost never go to war with one another. 94 Second, many of the cases cited do not qualify as "wars"
between "democracies." A closer examination of the conflicts in question reveals that the apparent exceptions do not
refute the d emocratic p eace proposition. In some cases, one of the participants was not a democracy. In 1812, Britain was not a
democracy. Spain's democratic credentials in 1898 were dubious. Germany in 1914 was not governed by liberal principles and its foreign policy
was directed by the Kaiser, not the elected Reichstag. 95 In other cases, no international war took place. The American Civil War was not an
international war. Finland engaged in virtually no direct hostilities with the Western allies during World War Two; it fought almost entirely
against communist Russia. 96 Third, the criticism that democracies have fought one another is irrelevant to deciding
whether the United States should export democracy. The spread of democracy makes sense as long as democracies are
significantly less likely to go to war with one another. A policy of spreading democracy would be justified if democracies
have, for example, avoided war 99.9% of the time; we can decide to spread democracy without debating whether the figure is 99.9% or 100%.
 A-to: DPT Wrong – Henderson
Henderson’s study doesn’t disprove the dyadic peace theory – alternate
explanations ignore momentum towards democratic cooperation.
Modelski, Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Washington, 2003 (George,
Review of Democracy and War, Perspectives on Politics, September, p.645)
Having cast doubt on, or discarded, several explanations,the author still has not disposed of the kernel of the DPP: to wit,
the well-established fact that democracies have not fought wars among themselves in the modern period.
He offers a good critique of the normative and institutional theories of DPP, but his "alternative" explanation which draws on the
notion of the post-1945 international security regime centered on NATO, and the World Trade Organization, in conditions of cold war bipolarity,
is basically ad hoc: It ignores the long, and formative, pre- 1945 period; it might suggest why the NATO-WTO system
remains intact but not why the Warsaw Pact-Comecon regime is no more; and it offers no guidance for the future except for
repeated warnings about the irrelevance, or the (imputed) dangers, of the policy of "democratic enlargement ." On balance, the reader is
left with the feeling that the title of one of the books chapters, " Strong Statistics, Weak Theory," might
apply to the book as a whole. The statistics look good but they do not explain much or tell the whole story. Henderson's petard (to use
his own word) may ruffle some feathers, but the essentials of the democratic peace still stand. We would agree with the author that democracy
may not be the sufficient condition of world peace but would also maintain that at the global level (that the author
systematically ignores), democracy is one of the necessary conditions of enduring world organization,
hence, of peace on a systemic scale . What the author distinctly lacks is the sense of democratization as a massive, worldwide
process that today reaches more than 3 billion people where only 150 years ago it may have affected fewer than 100 million. It is a
centuries-long evolutionary movement in which humans are learning to cooperate on a worldwide scal e, an
ongoing if error-prone process that cannot be adequately captured in a 46-years lice of war statistics, in a period in which the democratic peace is
only beginning to be evident. Is the democratic peace an illusion? No, it is not an illusion but it is a vision that we owe to the Age
of Enlightenment. It is a long-term vision and therefore liable to be blurred or even ignored. But it is a vision that scholars also have
a duty to keep sharp, and above all, alive

Henderson’s empirical study and alternate explanation are both flawed.

Choi, Assistant Professor of International Relations at Yonsei University, 2003 (Ajin, International
Affairs, January, IngentaConnect)
There are, however, certain weaknesses in the development of findings and explanations in both books. First,
Henderson does not provide strong theoretical support for the variables he included in his new model of the onset
of international conflicts. For example, he includes the political dissimilarity variable in his new model, and then finds that the democracy
variable is no longer either statistically or substantively significant. This new variable and the onset of international conflicts are not theoretically
well connected. Indeed it is hard to find any theoretical explanation in international relations theory for why similar regime types, especially
between non-democratic states, do not fight each other. Next, contrasting with his meticulous steps to prove the irrelevance of a relationship
Henderson’s own explanation about the absence of war between
between democracy and international peace,
democracies in the postwar era rushes towards the conclusion. He contends that ‘a combination of factors including
bipolarity, nuclear deterrence, alliance aggregation, and trade links contributed to the formation of an international security regime among the
major power democracies and their minor power democratic allies. It was this international regime—more than joint democracy—that allowed
Henderson’s argument would have benefited from explaining the
for postwar joint democratic stability’ (p.125).
mechanisms of why international security regimes among democracies have a positive impact on
international peace. If he had included answers, it would have strengthened his argument significantly.
**Disparate Racial Violence 2AC
Disparate Racial Violence - Backlines
(Note to students: Also glance at Aff A-to the Abilition Kritik – much overlap)
 2AC – Impact Overview Moral Imperative/Inequity impacts

Our inequity impacts outweigh the disads for two reasons:

One – negative peace is a lie.

Absence of nuclear war isn’t the same as peace. The world can’t be peaceful if it’s
built on an injustice towards those lacking socio-economic privilege.
The disad is stuck in the old paradigm of “safety” – the Aff is an example of
imagining better priorities.
Leadership Conference ‘19
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200
national organizations to promote and protect the civil and human rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership
Conference is a 501(c)(4) organization that engages in legislative advocacy. It was founded in 1950 and has coordinated national
lobbying efforts on behalf of every major civil rights law since 1957 – “Justice Reform” - Leadership Conference on Civil and
Human Rights - Copyright 2019, 2020 - #E&F - https://civilrights.org/value/justice-reform/

New research shows that nearly one in two adults in America — approximately 113 million people — has an immediate
family member who is currently or formerly incarcerated . Our nation must be willing to imagine new
paradigms for public safety that do not rely exclusively on criminalization, and we must take bold action
to end the structural inequalities and racism that plague the system.
At The Leadership Conference, our team partners with coalition members, local communities, and impacted people to build a fair and equitable
legal system. Together, we are addressing injustice at every stage – from policing and pretrial detention to sentencing and incarceration to reentry.
We also advocate for decarceration through the limited use of prisons and jails and the creation of meaningful
pathways to redemption and rehabilitation.

Two – probability
Our Smith ev says over-criminalization of black and brown people is a concrete
urgency that’s every bit as impactful as a national security disad.
The Aff outweighs – our impact and solvency claims are 100% certain. Unjust mass-
incarceration exists and plan immediately solves it. The disads are prone to a host of
uncertain predictions. Current events confirm that ongoing structural inequities
remain consistently undervalued by policy makers.
The disad’s an example of “security” logic that’s less likely than the impacts of mass
incarceration.
Simon ‘14
Jonathan - Adrian A. Kragen Professor of Law, University of California–Berkeley “Ending Mass Incarceration is a Moral
Imperative” - FEDERAL SENTENCING REPORTER - VOL. 26, NO. 4 - APRIL 2014 - #E&F – modified for language that
may offend - https://watermark.silverchair.com/fsr_2014_26_4_271.pdf?
token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAnUwggJxBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggJiMIICXgIB
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NC-I07tFxjlnD2FLbBTkKayAlsQFEncGEqSA0BITEHw

The movement to name, blame, and shame mass incarceration has arguably achieved considerable success in just the last few years.1 The idea
of putting more people in prison as a way to bring security and social order to American cities has largely run
its course , and prison is now seen (considered) for the first time in decades as itself a social problem, at least as
serious as crime. Prison populations are dropping (if slowly and mostly under court order). Politicians openly discuss alternatives to prison
(although mostly for nonviolent, nonserious, and nonsexual felonies), and the media discusses mass incarceration as at least a
failed public policy, if not a looming crisis. Yet the structure of sentencing laws, prosecutorial attitudes, policing practices, and court
routines that produce high incarceration rates and overcrowded prisons remains very much intact. How far will the present legal and
cultural momentum against mass incarceration take us?

For those of us who believe that mass incarceration has been a profound political and social catastrophe for the United
States, there is every reason to be concerned that improving economic conditions, coupled with the continuing traction of
crime victimization fear and racialized stereotypes on common sense assumptions and routines in American life, could stall or
even reverse progress.2 The carceral future could look (appear) a lot like the carceral present, perhaps a bit
smaller —300 per 100,000 on average rather than 400—still highly racialized, and given the labels of ‘‘violent,’’ ‘‘serious,’’ or ‘‘sexual’’
likely to be laid on those left, ever more securitized and devoid of programs. I call this ‘‘mass incarceration lite,’’ and if we end up
accepting something like this, it will be as great a shame as the incompleteness of the civil rights movement of
the 1960s. Only by establishing that ending mass incarceration is a moral imperative can we assure the
sustained progress over political resistance that will be necessary to avoid such an incomplete and unjust
resolution.
 Extensions – Moral imperative

The Aff framework of prioritizing racial equity comes first – it is a moral

imperative.
Sayegh ‘18
gabriel sayegh is the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director at the Katal Center for Health, Equity, and Justice. Sayegh serves as
a trustee of the New York Foundation, and sits on the board of Atlanta-based movement organization, Project South: Institute for
the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide. He holds a Master’s in Public Health from the CUNY School of Public Health at
Hunter College, and a BA from The Evergreen State College. From the book: Decarcerating America: From Mass Punishment to
Public Health (edited by Ernest Drucker) – From Chapter Six “Making Drug Policy Reform Work for Meaningful Decarceration”
- #E&F - obtained via google books.

Nixon's war has had its intended effect. Racially discriminatory enforcement of drug possession laws has produced profound disparities at all
levels of the criminal justice system.83 Black people are far more likely to be criminalized for drug possession and use
than white people, despite the fact that rates of reported drug use do not differ substantially among people of
different races.84 African Americans experience discrimination at every stage of the criminal justice system and are more likely to be
stopped, searched, arrested, convicted, harshly sentenced, and saddled with a criminal record for mere possession.85 Black people
account for just 13 percent of the U.S. population but 30 percent of those arrested for drug law violations, nearly 40
percent of those incarcerated in state or federal prison for any drug law violations, and roughly 40 percent of those incarcerated in
state prison for possession only. 86

A racial equity framework will help all advocates understand how to address this history and the laws and
practices that derive from it. Ending racial disparity in the criminal justice system is an essential component
of taking on racial inequity in society generally. It is a moral imperative .
 Positive Peace – Justice = Pre-requisite to peace.

The Neg’s disad is an example of “negative peace”. It doesn’t outweigh because

ignores that justice is a pre-requisite to peace.
Cuomo '96
Chris J. Cuomo is a Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at the University of Georgia She is also an affiliate faculty
member of the Environmental Ethics Certificate Program, the Institute for African-American Studies, and the Institute for Native
American Studies (all also at the University of Georgia. Before moving to the University of Georgia, Cuomo was the Obed J.
Wilson Professor of Ethics at the University of Cincinnati. “War Is Not Just an Event: Reflections on the Significance of
Everyday Violence” - Hypatia Vol. 11, No. 4, Women and Violence (Autumn, 1996), - #E&F - pp. 30-45

When Peach discusses "alternatives to war," she is clearly referring to alternatives to entering into war, or to participating in "the escalation of
conflicts." The avoidance of eruptions of military violence is certainly impor- tant, and Peach is correct that feminist
insights about conflict resolution could present significant recommendations in this regard. However, feminist moral imagination
cannot end there . In thinking of alternatives to war, we need to continue to imagine alternatives to militaristic economies, symbolic
systems, values, and political institutions. The task of constructing such alternatives is far more daunting and comprehensive
than creating alternatives to a specific event or kind of event.

Pacifist writers as diverse as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Barbara Deming have emphasized the fact that pacifism entails a
critique of pervasive, systematic human violence . Despite its reductionist tendencies, there is much to learn from the ways
in which pacifists conceive of war as a presence, as well as the pacifist refusal to let go of the ideal of peace. Characterizing pacifism as
motivated by the desire to avoid specific events disregards the extent to which pacifism aims to criticize the preconditions underlying events of
war.

3) Following several influential moves in feminist philosophy, Peach rejects just-war theory's reliance on abstraction-of the realities, or "horrors,"
of war; of enemies as one-dimensional evil, killable Others; and of the ethical responses needed to address the morality of war, such as a
privileging of justice and rights over love and caring. Following Elshtain, she believes that feminist just-war principles should be more
particularized, contextualized, and individualized.

But the abstraction of the particularities of war depends on an abstraction of war itself. The distance of such
abstraction is created in part by willingness to think of war without considering the presence of war in
"peaceful" times. Wars becomes conceptual entities-objects for consideration-rather than diverse, historically loaded exemplifications of
the contexts in which they occur. In order to notice the particular and individual realities of war, attention must be given to the
particular, individual, and contextualized causes and effects of pervasive militarism, as well as the patterns and connections among
them.
 A-to “Trump makes solvency impossible”

One – their Ifill ev assumes the Aff strives to solve all injustice.

The 1AC – instead – said our goal was to reduce the specific inequities that result
from mass incarceration.
Even if Trump doesn’t cooperate on broader efforts, the aff is a lodestar item that
makes a meaningful difference.

Two – fiat means the Aff won’t get rolled-back.

Any other interpretation means the Aff would always lose based on their own
inherency claim

Three – COVID is a political game-charger.

Trump hasn’t worked to undercut Federal decarceration efforts.
Stillman ‘20
Internally quoting Patrisse Cullors, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter. Sarah Stillman is a staff writer at The New Yorker. She
is also the director of the Global Migration Program at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She has written on
topics ranging from civil forfeiture to debtors’ prisons and from Mexico’s drug cartels to Bangladesh’s garment-factory workers.
She won the 2012 National Magazine Award for Public Interest for her reporting. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2016. –
New Yorker -May 18, 2020 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend -
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/25/will-the-coronavirus-make-us-rethink-mass-incarceration

For decades , community groups have pointed out the social costs of mass incarceration : its failure to address the
root causes of addiction and violence; its steep fiscal price tag; its deepening of racial inequalities. The coronavirus pandemic
has exposed another danger of the system: its public-health risks. In April, the American Civil Liberties Union worked
with epidemiologists and statisticians to show that, without protective measures in jails and prisons, including rapid reductions in incarcerated
national legal
populations, the virus could kill an additional hundred thousand Americans. Families of the incarcerated—along with
organizations , grassroots groups, and religious leaders—began to push for mass releases, focussing on
defendants arrested for nonviolent offenses , those nearing the ends of their sentences, and the medically vulnerable. In
Philadelphia, outside the Criminal Justice Center, protesters lined up coffins to mark the coronavirus-related death of a woman who had been
eligible to be released in a few months. In Columbus, Ohio, they wore masks reading “20K by May,” the number of releases they were
demanding. A team based at U.C.L.A.’s law school started a spreadsheet to track such actions, calling itself the Covid-19 Behind Bars Data
Project. By mid-May, it had tallied more than five hundred legal filings and court orders, along with dozens of protests.

Some efforts accomplished in weeks or months what activists had been working toward for decades ,
leading to large experiments in decarceration . Since mid-March , San Francisco has reduced its jail
population by nearly forty per cent , and California has made plans to release thousands of people from state prisons. In New
Jersey, the State Supreme Court authorized the release of as many as a thousand detainees from county jails. Each week in April, the
federal-prison population declined by around a thousand people; by May, it had reached its lowest
level in two decades . In dozens of cities, cops were ordered to make fewer arrests , district attorneys
dropped low-level charges , and judges vacated bench warrants for unpaid fines and other minor
infractions . “Advocates on the ground have been challenging mass incarceration for so long — and now
much of what we’ve been calling for , pre-covid-19, we’re seeing (witnessing) it transpire,” Patrisse
Cullors , the co-founder of Black Lives Matter , told me, from Los Angeles, where she’s been
organizing for releases with Reform L.A. Jails. “At the local, state, and national level , this is a moment
when we can collectively transform how our country relates to the most vulnerable .”

One early push occurred in Santa Clara County, California, where the country’s first coronavirus deaths were recorded. Raj Jayadev runs
Silicon Valley De-Bug, a grassroots group that helps incarcerated people devise creative strategies to
fight their cases. Some eighty per cent of people in the county jail are awaiting trial, often because they can’t afford bail. At weekly De-Bug
meetings, families put together “social biography packets,” stuffed with personal photos, letters, and eight-to-ten-minute videos, to present a
fuller picture of defendants. In mid-March, as the virus spread, Jayadev worked with Carson White, an attorney with the
public defender’s office, who compiled a list of people seeking release from the county jail. White negotiated with prosecutors, the
sheriff’s office, and pretrial services, and an agreement was reached to shrink the jail’s population by twenty per cent. On March 19th, the county
released an initial group of about a hundred and fifty people. Since then, the jail’s population has been reduced by more than a thousand. “ This
moment has flipped the script on mass incarceration ,” White told me . “It’s laid bare that caging huge
swaths of our society isn’t necessary— it’s just convenient.”

No guarantee that Trump wins – the Aff could be a bridge to a new Administration.

Kushner means Trump won’t roll back implementation.

Gass ‘18
Internally quoting Clark Neily, vice president of criminal justice at the Cato Institute. Henry Gass, Staff writer for CSM, “Behind
the surprising surge of hope for US criminal justice reform” – Christian Science Monitor -November 15, 2018 - #E&F -
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2018/1115/Behind-the-surprising-surge-of-hope-for-US-criminal-justice-reform

For years a glimmer of bipartisan hope amid congressional gridlock, lawmakers from both parties worked on legislation to reform a justice
system riven with issues that can begin at the moment of arrest and can continue through the moment a former prisoner re-enters society. But
nothing ever reached the desk of a supportive President Barack Obama, and when Donald Trump won the election to replace him after a
campaign marked by tough-on-crime rhetoric, for many advocates the window of opportunity seemed to slam shut.

Yesterday, President Trump threw his support behind a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill called the First
Step Act.
The bill “will make our communities safer and give former inmates a second chance at life after they have served their time,” Trump said at a
press conference. “It’s a first step, but it’s a very big first step.”

The bill still needs to be voted on by Congress, but if passed – and then signed into law – it would represent the most significant revision of
American criminal justice laws since the mid-1990s, when the federal government enacted a host of new tough-on-crime measures. Crafted by a
diverse coalition of lawmakers and interest groups, and championed by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, the bill would revise
sentencing laws and improve conditions of confinement for prisoners, among other things.

Among its supporters, however, there is widespread agreement that the bill both contains some problems and leaves many issues unaddressed.
While they are heartened by the commitment to this legislation from a Trump administration premised on “restoring law and order,” the question
now becomes how enduring that commitment will be.

“I was really thinking about this moment and how truly remarkable it is that, during an unlikely time, with this unlikely president, that we’re
going to pass this unlikely piece of legislation,” says Holly Harris, executive director of the bipartisan Justice Action Network.
“The effort has been under way to turn away from the [punitive] ’94 crime bill for decades,” she adds, and “when this president was elected on a
‘lock ’em up and throw away the key’ platform very few people had hope.”

Many of Trump’s actions in office hadn’t given much cause for hope either.

One of his first acts was to nominate Jeff Sessions, an Alabama senator described as “the No. 1 opponent” of bipartisan criminal justice reform in
Congress, as Attorney General. The president has also regularly, and falsely, decried violent crime rates as spiraling out of control around the
country. (Crime remains at or near historic lows.)

Yet in a matter of days, criminal

justice reform legislation has catapulted from near the bottom of the congressional
to-do list to the brink of becoming law.

Mr. Sessions’ forced resignation last week undoubtedly helped, experts and advocates say. As a senator he had helped derail a
bipartisan bill, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, in 2015. So too did a number of endorsements from law enforcement unions,
including the Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Mr. Kushner’s behind-the-scenes advocacy also seems to have played a major role in winning Trump’s
support. Earlier this year, along with celebrity Kim Kardashian-West, he persuaded the president to commute
the life sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a nonviolent drug offender who had become a grandmother and great-grandmother during
her 21 years in prison.

Prison reform has been Kushner’s priority, however, based in large part on his personal experiences. In 2004, his
father pled guilty to 18 counts of white collar crimes , and Kushner visited him nearly every weekend of his 14-month
imprisonment.

“Ijust never wanted to be on the other side of that and cause pain to the families I was doing that to,” he
said in 2014, according to The Washington Post, of his decision to not be a prosecutor.

That personal experience is likely to continue to motivate Kushner , says Clark Neily, vice president of criminal
justice at the libertarian Cato Institute.

Empirically false – Trump hasn’t rolled back the First Step Act and politics is
shifting. Even if he tried – the Aff is creating a higher baseline.
Waldman ‘19
et al; Michael Waldman, President, Brennan Center for Justice – “Ending Mass Incarceration: Ideas from Today's Leaders” -
Brennan Center for Justice - PUBLISHED: May 16, 2019 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend -
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/ending-mass-incarceration-ideas-todays-leaders

Last year, Congress took a step (advanced) forward by overwhelmingly passing the bipartisan First Step Act. It
shortened some of the most extreme federal drug sentences and expanded programming for incarcerated people. But in recent years,
we’ve also seen the country’s leadership take grave steps back, from expanding immigration detention to reinstituting draconian federal charging
policies. The
First Step Act — which needs to be fully funded and implemented — will not fix our deeply broken system .
But with both Democrats and Republicans committed to reform, it represents a new baseline. This breakthrough
shows it is possible to make even bigger changes — and that the politics can align .

And federal policy matters. While the vast majority of the nation’s prison population is held in state facilities, what happens at the
federal level sets the stage for the rest of the nation. Federal reforms can spur national culture change to end mass
incarceration, and federal incentive funding can help states to decarcerate and provide support for innovative new ideas.
 A-to “COVID is prison = not a death sentence”

Their ev doesn’t respond to the Aff – our claim is that cases will inevitably explode.

BOP fails and “low death rate” stats are the result of willful ignorance.
Balsamo ‘20
Michael - Lead Justice Dept. and federal law enforcement reporter for The Associated Press - “Over 70% of tested inmates in
federal prisons have COVID-19” – AP - April 29, 2020 - #E&F - https://apnews.com/fb43e3ebc447355a4f71e3563dbdca4f

The response from the federal Bureau of Prisons to the growing coronavirus crisis in prisons has raised alarm
among advocates and lawmakers about whether the agency is doing enough to ensure the safety of the nearly 150,000
inmates serving time in federal facilities.
And even thoughofficials have stressed infection and death rates inside prisons are lower compared with outside,
new figures provided by the Bureau of Prisons show that out of 2,700 tests systemwide, nearly 2,000 have come back
positive, strongly suggesting there are far more COVID -19 cases left uncovered.

Cases will inevitably emerge – only decarceration solves.

Rich ‘20
et al; Josiah Rich is professor of medicine and epidemiology at Brown University - “Flattening the Curve for Incarcerated
Populations — Covid-19 in Jails and Prisons” – New England Journal of Medicine - April 2, 2020 - #E&F -
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2005687

B ureau o f P risons and certain states and municipalities have opted to suspend visitation by
To date, the Federal
community members, limit visits by legal representatives, and reduce facility transfers for incarcerated persons. To reduce
social isolation and maintain a degree of connectedness for incarcerated people, some correctional systems are providing teleconferencing
services for personal and legal visits. Irrespective of these interventions , infected persons — including staff members
— will continue to enter correctional settings. By March 14, some U.S. correctional staff members had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2,
and the first Covid-19 diagnosis in a detained person was announced on March 16. A recent SARS-CoV-2 outbreak among cruise-ship
passengers and crew in Yokohama, Japan, provides a warning about what could soon happen in correctional settings.4

To operationalize a response for incarcerated populations, three levels of preparedness need to be addressed: the virus should be delayed as much
as possible from entering correctional settings; if it is already in circulation, it should be controlled; and jails and prisons should prepare to deal
with a high burden of disease. The better the mitigation job done by legal, public health, and correctional health partnerships, the lighter the
burden correctional facilities and their surrounding communities will bear. We have learned from other epidemics, such as the 1918 influenza
pandemic, that nonpharmaceutical interventions are effective, but they have the greatest impact when implemented early.5

Therefore, we believe that we

need to prepare now, by “decarcerating,” or releasing , as many people as possible,
focusing on those who are least likely to commit additional crimes, but also on the elderly and infirm; urging
police and courts to immediately suspend arresting and sentencing people, as much as possible, for low-level crimes and misdemeanors; isolating
and separating incarcerated persons who are infected and those who are under investigation for possible infection from the general prison
population; hospitalizing those who are seriously ill; and identifying correctional staff and health care providers who became infected early and
have recovered, who can help with custodial and care efforts once they have been cleared, since they may have some degree of immunity and
severe staff shortages are likely.

All these interventions will help to flatten the curve of Covid-19 cases among incarcerated populations and limit the impact of
transmission both inside correctional facilities and in the community after incarcerated people are released. Such measures will
also reduce the burden on the correctional system in terms of stabilizing and transferring critically ill patients, as well as the burden on the
community health care system to which such patients will be sent. Each person needlessly infected in a correctional setting who develops severe
illness will be one too many.

Beyond federal, state, and local action, we need to consider the impact of correctional facilities in the global context. The boundaries between
communities and correctional institutions are porous, as are the borders between countries in the age of mass human travel. Despite security at
nearly every nation’s border, Covid-19 has appeared in practically all countries. We can’t expect to find sturdier barriers between correctional
institutions and their surrounding communities in any affected country. Thus far, we have witnessed a spectrum of epidemic responses from
various countries when it comes to correctional institutions. Iran, for example, orchestrated the controlled release of more than 70,000 prisoners,
which may help “bend the curve” of the Iranian epidemic. Conversely, failure to calm incarcerated populations in Italy led to widespread rioting
in Italian prisons. Reports have also emerged of incarceration of exposed persons for violating quarantine, a practice that will exacerbate the very
problem we are trying to mitigate. To respond to this global crisis, we
need to consider prisons and jails as reservoirs that
could lead to epidemic resurgence if the epidemic is not adequately addressed in these facilities everywhere.
As with general epidemic preparedness, the Covid-19 pandemic will teach us valuable lessons for preparedness in correctional settings. It will
also invariably highlight the injustice and inequality in the United States that are magnified in the criminal justice system. As U.S. criminal
justice reform continues to unfold, emerging communicable diseases and our ability to combat them need to be taken into account. To promote
public health, we believe that efforts to decarcerate, which are already under way in some jurisdictions, need to be scaled up; and
associated reductions of incarcerated populations should be sustained. The
interrelation of correctional-system health and
public health is a reality not only in the United States but around the world.

BOP COVID policies have failed

Segura ‘20
Liliana Segura is an award-winning investigative journalist covering the U.S. criminal justice system, with a longtime focus on
harsh sentencing, the death penalty, and wrongful convictions. She was previously an associate editor at the Nation Magazine,
where she edited a number of award-winning stories and earned a 2014 Media for a Just Society Award for her writing on prison
profiteering. While at The Intercept, Segura has received the Texas Gavel Award in 2016 and the 2017 Innocence Network
Journalism Award for her investigations into convictions in Arizona and Ohio. In 2019 she was honored in the Abolitionist
category of the Frederick Douglass 200, a recognition given by the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives and the Antiracist
Research and Policy Center at American University. Segura has appeared on NPR, MSNBC, CNN International, Democracy
Now!, and numerous other outlets. - “AS VIRUS SPREADS IN FEDERAL PRISONS, PEOPLE INSIDE DESCRIBE CHAOS,
WHILE FAMILIES ARE LEFT IN THE DARK” – The Intercept - April 15 2020 - #E&F -
https://theintercept.com/2020/04/15/federal-prisons-coronavirus/

As the crisis has escalated, the BOP

has rolled out a series of “action plans” aimed at combating the virus’ s spread.
Visits have been eliminated and transfers have largely been halted . But many of the precautions have come
too late , if they have been implemented at all. On the section of the BOP’s website tracking Covid-19 cases, the
numbers are rising every day. At Otisville, 13 cases have been confirmed since Carrillo was released, including five employees. As of
April 14, the BOP had confirmed 694 total cases — 446 incarcerated people and 248 staffers. Fourteen incarcerated people have died of Covid-19
to date, according to the bureau.
 A-to “Decarceration Dodge – Aff answers”

Their “dodge” argument can’t turn the case. Even if impulses to incarcerate re-
emerge, plan fiats that it won’t be *in prisons*. Home confinement disperses
clustering – solving 100,000 COVID deaths in prison.

Aff causes culture shifting. That changes police practice and resources. It’s front-
end prevention that’ll hamper growth of “alternatives to incarceration”.
McLeod ‘12
Allegra M. McLeod - Associate Professor, Georgetown University Law Center. J.D., Yale Law School, 2006; Ph.D., -
“Decarceration Courts: Possibilities and Perils of a Shifting Criminal Law” - THE GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL - Vol.
100, p. 1587-1674 - #E&F - https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2285&context=facpub

In response to the concern raised by Spinak—that the structural problems at issue emanate from police
practices, legislatures, prosecutorial prerogatives , and the desolation of poor urban and rural
neighborhoods and so cannot be resolved by court innovation—a decarceration model directs attention to
reframing understandings of crime and punishment in ways that promise to shift police practices and
prosecutorial prerogatives, as explored earlier in Part III. A decarceration model does not purport to use the court directly to resolve
the broader problems but, in reframing and publicizing a conception of drug dependency, mental illness, and other matters as
structural and social challenges, a decarceration model: (a) makes available other ways of conceiving and managing
these concerns and (b) actively enlists police and prosecutors in the courts’ work, thereby influencing those
agencies’ perspectives and conduct. Empirical documentation of the courts’ progress may ultimately provide the basis for
legislative change, as described earlier in Part III. A decarceration model, thus, promises to effect change in policing ,
prosecution, and to do so through legislation rather than assuming that a legalist court -based strategy on its own will
effect desired change. Finally, in galvanizing resources for blighted social service sectors and neighborhoods, a
decarceration model may begin to address ( invariably only partially ) some of the broader structural
deficits to which therapeutic, judicial monitoring, or order maintenance models are less attuned due to the almost
exclusive focus of these approaches on the presumed pathologies of individuals .

Decarceration trap is wrong. Money gets re-diverted and addresses so-called

“criminal” behaviors.
McLeod ‘12
Allegra M. McLeod - Associate Professor, Georgetown University Law Center. J.D., Yale Law School, 2006; Ph.D., -
“Decarceration Courts: Possibilities and Perils of a Shifting Criminal Law” - THE GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL - Vol.
100, p. 1587-1674 - #E&F - https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2285&context=facpub

A further advantage of a decarceration model is that it works

to reduce reliance on incarceration while closely
attending to the particular needs and risks associated with specific populations of defendants. The hope is that this will
free up resources currently allocated to criminal law administration and make them available for other
sectors better suited to addressing the relevant underlying problems. This may help to negotiate (if not to entirely
avoid ) the decarceration trap that Professors Robert Weisberg and Joan Petersilia have cautioned against: the “grave risk of
backfire if advocates attempt to reduce mass incarceration simply for the sake of reduction rather than
coupling advocacy with a full consideration of the causes of recidivism.” 207 Because, as Weisberg and Petersilia
warn, “even if small increases in crime by released prisoners . . . are not statistically meaningful, they may reignite the political demagoguery that
contributed to mass incarceration in the first place.”208 A decarceration model functions
in an incrementalist fashion to
reduce reliance on incarceration by experimenting with alternatives closely tailored to the needs of
populations currently subject to criminal supervision while attending to the causes of recidivism and
creating a record of demonstrated positive results .

The turn can’t be unique. Prison is always worse. Alternatives to incarceration are
far less violent
McLeod ‘12
Allegra M. McLeod - Associate Professor, Georgetown University Law Center. J.D., Yale Law School, 2006; Ph.D., -
“Decarceration Courts: Possibilities and Perils of a Shifting Criminal Law” - THE GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL - Vol.
100, p. 1587-1674 - #E&F - https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2285&context=facpub

A decarceration model also begins to account for Quinn’s objections regarding the implausibility, due to cost, of bringing specialized criminal
courts to scale as well as the threat of judicial overreaching. On
a decarceration model, the courts are part of an interim
decarceration strategy carried out by reframing particular conceptions of crime, punishment, and its
alternatives; by partially reshaping the institutional roles of judges, defense counsel, prosecutors, and criminal courts; and by shifting
resources. A decarceration model need not be brought to scale to stimulate some significant measure of cognitive reframing, institutional
reinvention, and systemic change, as certain specialized criminal courts have already begun to do.

The problem of judicial overreaching to which Quinn attends, and which is in part a product of excessive faith in legal fora
to facilitate change , is mitigated on a decarceration model due to the minimalist, diversionary approach
characteristic of the model. The central aspiration of courts adopting a decarceration model is to divert cases to other social
sectors, which fulfill some less formal surveillant function and provide social services without enlisting judges in
that work. Although, as with any court-based reform strategy, a decarceration model runs some risk of excessive legalism,
the experimental, empirically, and sociologically oriented diversionary approach of a decarceration model mitigates
this risk considerably.

Thompson admits the plan alone would make an enormous difference.

Thompson ‘14
Dr. Heather Ann Thompson is a Historian at Temple University who has written numerous popular as well as scholarly articles
on the history of incarceration as well as its current impact. These include pieces for the New York Times, The Atlantic,
Salon.com, Dissent, and New Labor Forum, as well as the award-winning articles: “Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking
Crisis, Decline and Transformation in Postwar American History” and “Rethinking Working Class Struggle through the Lens of
the Carceral State: Toward a Labor History of Inmates and Guards. Thompson recently served on a National Academy of
Sciences blue-ribbon panel that studied the causes and consequences of mass incarceration in the U.S. and serves as well on the
boards of several policy organizations including the Prison Policy Initiative the Eastern State Penitentiary, a historic site, and on
the advisory boards of Life of the Law. She also works in an advisory capacity with the Center for Community Change and the
Open Society Foundation on issues related to work. On the scholarly front, Thompson recently was honored to be named a
Distinguished Lecturer by the Organization of American Historians and, in addition to recently completing Blood in the Water:
the Attica Prison uprising of 1971 for Pantheon books, Thompson is also the author of Whose Detroit: Politics, Labor and Race
in a Modern American City as well as the edited collection, Speaking Out: Protest and Activism in the 1960s and 1970s. She has
also consulted on several documentary films including Criminal Injustice at Attica. In 2015 Thompson joins the faculty at the
University of Michigan. “Dodging Decarceration: The Shell Game of 'Getting Smart' on Crime” – Huffington Post – 07/09/2014
– #E&F - modified for language that may offend - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-ann-thompson/dodging-
decarceration-the_b_5485361.html

And, thus, what exactly it means today that we are seeing “U.S. Prison Populations Decline,” merits serious consideration and skepticism.
There is absolutely no question that we must , in fact, decarcerate. In order to bring our incarceration rate
even remotely in step (line) with our crime rate — say even accepting the level of imprisonment we had back in 1970 — would
mean reuniting over 1.5 million people with their families and communities. And this would be a
substantial addressing of our current carceral crisis . As we embrace various headlines indicating that we are now
reducing prison populations, though, we must be very sure that we have not just fallen prey to a sleight of hand — that we have not indeed been
“taken” by the insidious shell game that is Decarceration Dodge.
 Inherency – Status quo policies = racial disparities

Federal release process creates racial disparities – it’s arbitrary and violent.
Cohen ‘20
Andrew Cohen, a former network legal analyst and commentator, is a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and a senior editor
at The Marshall Project. “Bureau of Prisons response to COVID-19 has been dangerous. The public deserves answers.” – USA
Today – May 21 - #E&F - https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/policing/2020/05/21/bureau-prisons-response-covid-
dangerous-public-deserves-answers/5220095002/

As coronavirus cases spike throughout federal prison system — posing a threat to surrounding
communities — officials must be held accountable.

The B ureau o f P risons response to the coronavirus has largely been a disaster , and federal prison officials have avoided
any meaningful accountability that desperate families of the incarcerated (and prison employees) if not the rest of the public, deserve.

The bureaucrats responsible for the calamity unfolding behind bars, the men and women whose actions and inaction have led to a spike in
COVID-19 prison cases and an unyielding number of deaths, have not substantively answered even basic questions about growing fears that
coronavirus clusters may, or already have, spread out from behind bars into nearby communities.

This lack of a candid and continuing public response is unacceptable, even for an agency that has long been considered one of the most secretive
within the federal government. The level and intensity of congressional oversight over the BOP during this difficult time has been disappointing,
too.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have poked around the issue, speaking by telephone with U.S. Attorney General William Barr this
month. Barr’s responses, evidently, satisfied the senators but have not been made public. The House Judiciary Committee also reached out to
Barr about the BOP — but that was more than a month ago.

Despite a few success stories , the story of the bureau’s handling of the pandemic is not a pretty one. Federal
prison officials downplayed the threat of COVID-19. Then they failed to adequately protect both prisoners and prison
employees from the spread of the virus — requiring staff who may have been exposed to the virus to go back to work
instead of into quarantine.
They kept prison factories running long after outside businesses began to shut down. They failed for weeks to publicly disclose the extent to
which the virus had affected immigration detainees kept in privately run federal prisons.

Even attempts to alleviate the problem have been disjointed and riddled with mistakes. The
Justice Department, for example,
announced in early April that it was authorizing the early release into home confinement of certain medically
vulnerable prisoners. That plan raised questions about racial disparities , but at least it was a plan.
But the national rollout of this laudable program was half-hearted to start — there was a needless kerfuffle over the length of time a prisoner
had to have served a sentence before becoming eligible — and then became bogged down in the sort of bureaucratic stagnation
that has marked the history of the Bureau.

Thousands of federal prisoners have, indeed, been sent into home confinement as the pandemic worsened. But there are many more,
also eligible, who have not yet been processed for release. Some prisoners were told they were being released only to have
those orders rescinded as family members began to make their way to prisons to pick up their loved ones. Some federal prisoners, who
were allowed to be released, first were shunted off to dangerous quarantine behind bars before they became eligible to leave prison. It is so bad
that federal judges are now complaining about the Justice Department’s tactics.

Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, a disgraced political consultant, was
released to home confinement even
though he did not appear eligible for special treatment. Andrea Circle Bear, a pregnant Native American woman
sentenced for a nonviolent drug crime, was left in federal prison to die of COVID -19 shortly after she gave birth.
If it all seems arbitrary and capricious , that’s because it is. All of this, by the way, all of the bureaucratic delays and
crossed signals, the dubious justifications and excuses, came as the number of COVID-19 cases within federal prisons
began to soar.
 Mass incarceration = Racial inequity outside of prisons

Mass incarceration has a lingering ripple-effect – perpetuating racial injustice both

within the criminal justice system and beyond.
Waldman ‘19
et al; Michael Waldman, President, Brennan Center for Justice – “Ending Mass Incarceration: Ideas from Today's Leaders” -
Brennan Center for Justice - PUBLISHED: May 16, 2019 - #E&F - https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-
solutions/ending-mass-incarceration-ideas-todays-leaders

Mass incarceration is the civil rights crisis of our time. The racial disparities pervasive in our justice system
compound at every juncture: African Americans are more likely to be stopped by police , arrested, detained
before trial , and given harsher sentences than whites. Worse, the disparities in our justice system perpetuate
racial inequity in our society more broadly .
In this remarkable collaboration, the country’s most prominent lawmakers and activists join together to propose ideas for transformative change.
In these essays, they lay out their proposals to reduce the prison population and challenge our very conception of justice reform, paving the way
for far-reaching political and cultural change. Marking a clear shift from the draconian rhetoric of the past, these essays take on the web of
harmful policies that fuel mass incarceration and diminish opportunities for communities of color.

How do we achieve change? From eliminating prison for lower-level crimes to incentivizing states to decarcerate, from ending money bail to
abolishing private prisons, from reforming housing and employment laws to changing the public perception of the justice system and cultivating
respect for all lives, the ideas in this book offer a path forward: one rooted in fairness, equality, and humanity. The second volume in the series,
Ending Mass Incarceration: Ideas from Today’s Leaders aims to further the momentum needed to achieve that vision. It builds on the 2015
Brennan Center publication profiling the Voices of national leaders, Solutions: American Leaders Speak Out on Criminal Justice.

Foreword

How can we end mass incarceration in America? By now, the debate is over: our nation grossly over-incarcerates its people. The United States
has less than five percent of the world’s population and nearly one-quarter of its prisoners. Astonishingly, if the 2.3 million incarcerated
Americans were a state, it would be more populous than 16 other states. All told, one in three people in the United States has some type of
criminal record. No other industrialized country comes close. This system grew over decades in plain sight, and only a broad and bold national
response will end it.

Mass incarceration has crushing consequences : racial, social, and economic. We spend around $270 billion per year
on our criminal justice system. In California it costs more than $75,000 per year to house each prisoner — more than it would cost to send them
to Harvard. Massincarceration exacerbates poverty and inequality , serving as an economic ball and chain that holds back
millions, making it harder to find a job, access public benefits, and reintegrate into the community.

Most disturbingly, the system profoundly discriminates against people of color at every juncture. African Americans are more likely to be
stopped by police, arrested, detained before trial, and given harsher sentences than whites. As a result, they are imprisoned at more than five times
the rate of whites. In some states, this disparity is more than ten to one. For too long, we have tolerated this civil rights crisis.
 Bail Reforms solve

Compassionate release and bail reform reduces the system’s disparate impact on
those lacking racial privilege.
Taylor ‘20
Dr. Charlene Y. Taylor joined The National Council on Crime & Delinquency in 2018 and is currently a Senior Research at the
Organization. Previously, she worked as a senior trainer and research analyst at the Crime and Justice Institute, where she
provided training, technical assistance, and implementation support to juvenile and adult corrections agencies across the United
States. Prior to this work, Charlene taught courses in corrections, drugs and crime, gangs, research methods and statistics, and
juvenile justice at Boise State University; California State University, Bakersfield; and Portland State University. “Justice Fees
and Fines in the COVID-19 Era” – National Council on Crime & Delinquency (NCCD Blog) - May 6, 2020 - #E&F -
https://www.nccdglobal.org/blog/justice-fees-and-fines-covid-19-era

The COVID-19 pandemic providesan opportunity to try new and different approaches that do not force low-
income people and people of color further into debt. Agencies have options to preserve public health and limit the spread of
the virus that do not create new LFOs or exacerbate challenges presented by existing LFOs. Jurisdictions should consider the following
alternatives to LFOs.

Expanding Pretrial Release/Removing Monetary Bail

One of the easiest things to address is removing monetary bail , which would eliminate this financial
obligation from those who are arrested and reduce the size of the incarcerated population . An abundance of
research highlights the negative impact of monetary bail on poor people and people of color.7 These
individuals are more likely to be held on high monetary bail and be affected by the cascade of negative
consequences that happen when bail cannot be met (e.g., job loss , economic and housing instability ).

The pandemic provides an opportune time to reduce or eliminate the use of money bail across the country. California
has reduced bail to zero for many offenses, and several other states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Michigan, among others) have reduced or
eliminated bail for certain offenses or for individuals fitting specific criteria. Presumptively, this has led to the release of hundreds of jail
inmates.8 These efforts begin to level the playing field in terms of the monetary impact of criminal justice
involvement.
Reducing the jail population also protects public health by decreasing the jail population and curbing the opportunity for the
virus to spread. Reducing jail populations has the potential to save tens of thousands of lives , based on projections by several
universities and the ACLU.9

(Note: The acronym LFO = “legal financial obligations”)

**Global Health, Taiwan Advantage
Global Health, Taiwan - Backlines
 Re-surgence = hurts Taiwan economy

Re-surge would cause economic and social chaos in Taiwan.

Chiang ‘20
Chuck Chiang, journalist specializing in Asia-Pacific relations – “How Asia reopened after COVID, #4: Taiwan remains top
performer despite loophole threat” – Biv - May 8, 2020 - #E&F – modified for language that may offend -
https://biv.com/article/2020/05/how-asia-reopened-after-covid-4-taiwan-remains-top-performer-despite-second-wave

In some ways, Taiwan is similar to Singapore. Both places were hailed as early examples of how
governments should handle the threat of a contagious disease like COVID-19, and both were lauded for keeping
initial new daily cases to under 30 for much of February and March.
So when Singapore saw (witnessed) its daily count surge past 1,000 in April due to it overlooking its migrant workers
population, observers were equally nervous that a loophole somewhere could ignite a second wave in Taiwan.

That loophole came on April 18, when news broke that a Taiwanese naval ship was allowed to dock in the southern port city of Kaohsiung on
April 9 after a visit to Palau, with crew members allowed to disembark on April 15.

At least 28 of those sailors would test positive for COVID-19, fueling speculation that the military did not report infections on the ship before
docking. By the time the sailors were recalled into quarantine on April 18, they have already visited 90 locations in 10 Taiwanese cities, officials
said.

“I didn’t know there was this loophole,” said Jerome DuBois, a Vancouver native now living in Kaohsiung with his wife and three children.
“Now we know… Everyone -without exception - was supposed to do 14 days home quarantine when returning from overseas, except soldiers.”

But that’s where the similarities with Singapore ends. Whereas Singapore is now firmly in the throes of a second COVID wave, Taiwan saw its
daily new cases spike on April 18 with 22 - then saw it drop right back into single digits (2) the next day. For almost an entire week - from April
26 to May 1 - the island did not see a single new COVID case.

In fact, Taiwan
- with a population roughly the same size as Australia at 24 million - has a grand total of 440 cases of
COVID (and six deaths) since the outbreak began in January despite being situated off the mainland
Chinese coast. Australia, for comparison, has 6,896 cases to date and 97 deaths.
“They moved very early and very aggressively,” said Jeff Reeves, vice president of research at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. “They
imposed travel restrictions from mainland China very quickly, and they instituted very early aggressive contact tracing using technology and
smart apps to inform Taiwan citizens about the potential risks if you were in contact with certain people.

“There’s lots of information being pushed out through society.”

The level of public comfort due to the high level of transparency is readily apparent to DuBois, who said Taiwan never shut down .
His son and elder daughter go to school like always, he noted, and malls remain open.

“ The gyms are still packed,” he added. “We own and operate a small business, and our sales numbers are still pretty
close to pre-COVID-19. The main difference is that there are protocols in place that make us feel safe… The combination of mask,
temperature checks and hand-sanitizing has become normal almost everywhere.”

Similar to South Korea, Taiwan uses mobile platforms and contact tracing to identify those who are infected and the places they’ve visited,
warning and tracking people who are potentially exposed until they are proven to have tested negative. This allowed most places to stay open for
the duration of the pandemic - and allowed for a quick, focused response when mini-outbreaks like the navy sailors case happens.

Allowing businesses and restaurants to stay open wasn’t simply an economic consideration , DuBois added; it
was a social necessity in a place like Taiwan.
 A-to “Alt cause - Taiwan Navy”

Blanchard ev goes Aff – un-underlined parts say cases are still very low. And –
factually – Naval cases won’t shut their economy.
Blanchard ‘20
Internally quoting vice-president elect William Lai. Ben Blanchard is the Bureau Chief for Taiwan-related matters at Reuters
News – “Unnerved by new virus cases in navy, Taiwan debates lockdowns” – Reuters - APRIL 22, 2020 - #E&F -
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-taiwan/unnerved-by-new-virus-cases-in-navy-taiwan-debates-lockdowns-
idUSKCN2250AY

The central government, however, says lockdowns are not being seriously considered for now, even as city governments raise
the possibility.

Although Taiwan
has reported a handful of cases where the source of infection is unclear, it has no widespread
community transmission , and the majority of cases are termed “imported”, having been brought to the island from people infected
overseas.

Taiwan does not carry out mass coronavirus testing, saying it has no need because its rates of infection are so low and it can trace the contacts of
those who are infected.

Last week, Taiwan reported three days with no new cases .

“Considering the global and domestic disease situation, and the control over emergency situations, it
is not the time to implement a
lockdown for Taiwan,” Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told reporters this week. “Everyone should be cautious, but we are very far
from having a lockdown.”

Late Wednesday, vice-president elect William Lai , who was a physician before entering politics,
appealed on his Facebook page for calm, pointing out that lockdowns were for when there was a massive rise in cases that may
overwhelm the health system.

Infection control for the navy is well in hand, he said, adding: “Please don’t be alarmed”.

Even if Taiwan has some new cases, the reproductive number is low enough to
check resurgence.
Rogers ‘20
Adam Rogers writes about science for Wired. Previously, Rogers was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT and a reporter
for Newsweek. “The Asian Countries That Beat Covid-19 Have to Do It Again” - Wired - Apr 6, 2020 - #E&F – Modified for
language that may offend - https://www.wired.com/story/the-asian-countries-that-beat-covid-19-have-to-do-it-again/

In epidemiological terms , this tension is about taking control of what’s called the reproductive number , the
number of people a contagious person goes on to infect . At the top of the curve in Wuhan, where Covid-19 started to
spread, that number was something like 2 or 2.5—as it might now be in parts of the US and Europe. After the Chinese
government quarantined Wuhan and forced everyone to stay home, it went down to perhaps as low as 0.3. In China, those rules went into effect
in January; the government may lift them this week.

The virus’s apparent return will spur different kinds of containment measures in different places. Hong Kong’s were already strict, though they’d
relaxed somewhat in the first weeks of March. Now, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan have all instituted even stricter social
distancing rules and immigration controls. Nationals who are allowed in can expect 14-day quarantines, in Hong Kong and Singapore monitored
by smartphone app, though those apps’ efficacy may be doubtful. (Singapore’s numbers do seem to look better since officials started quarantining
everyone coming in, rather than people from specific countries.) Singapore is also closing all schools and most workplaces.

Despite the resurgences, these places are all still roughly in the containment phase of dealing with the pandemic, tracing individual cases and
contacts—or some transitional phase that combines containment and the next step, mitigation, including social distancing measures, school and
workplace closures, and canceling mass gatherings. The US and Europe are well into mitigation, riding the exponential curve upward. “Right
now they’re in different parts of the graph,” Wang says. “When it’s near the peak, and you have to manage it, you start to do as much of the
mitigation strategy as possible, so you flatten the curve. Then you try to wait and see where you are, and if you lift it too early, you get a
resurgence.”

For the US, that’s a scary warning. The peak numbers could be terrifying, and they’ll certainly vary across hot spots. But once the peak is passed?
Hundreds of millions of people can’t stay socially distanced forever. Despite the new cases, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
are still keeping their reproductive numbers around 1 —a slow enough spread to follow cases and contain
flare-ups. “That may be the long-term strategy for the US and Europe,” Cowling says. “There’s two approaches, maybe. One is test, test,
test. Identify cases, isolate them, stop transmission of them into the community. But it’s always difficult to catch every infection, especially the
mild ones. So the other approach that is necessary, really important, is to maintain some social distancing.”

The nice thing about this goal—get that number hovering down to 1—is that it might actually make for a more pleasant
country. Schools could reopen , but only with better ventilation and smaller class sizes. Polling places for the election would have to be
plentiful enough, and big enough, to give everyone room and make sure they aren’t packed into queues. Stores and restaurants
could reopen . People’s work hours would have to be flexible enough that offices and factories wouldn’t be packed, and commute times
would be smeared out to prevent crowded buses and subways. A good blood test for Covid-19 antibodies could determine who’s immune and
could help everyone else get back to a more normal life.
 A-to “Taiwan economy not key to deterring China”

Taiwan economy is vital – they can’t afford to go on the cheap because China is
modernizing now. The better Taiwan’s defenses, the more apt they are to discourage
Chinese invasion.
Hunzeker and Lanoszka ‘18
Michael A. Hunzeker is an assistant professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government (George Mason University), former
postdoctoral research associate and lecturer in public affairs (Princeton University), Ph.D. in Public Affairs (Princeton
University), Master’s Degree in Public Affairs (Princeton University), B.A. in political science (University of California,
Berkeley), Alexander Lanoszka is an assistant professor (University of Waterloo), former US Foreign Policy and International
Security Fellow (Dartmouth University), former Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology), M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics (Princeton University), and B.A. in IR (University of Windsor), A Question of Time:
Enhancing Taiwan’s Conventional Deterrence Posture, Center for Security Policy Studies, Schar School of Policy and
Government (George Mason University), November, http://csps.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/A-Question-of-Time.pdf

By almost any measure, Taiwan

should be one of the most secure places on earth. A flourishing liberal democracy
located in the heart of East Asia, it
boasts a vibrant, globalized economy, a well-educated population, and a high
standard of living.1 Yet Taiwan’s future is anything but secure . It is an outlier in the international
system—a sovereign state in practice, but not in name. China regards it as a renegade province and
systematically seeks to isolate it diplomatically and economically.2 More ominously , China—which lies less than
100 miles away from Taiwan— has not renounced the use of military force to resolve the standoff .3 In fact,
China is investing heavily in its land, air, sea, space, cyber, and long-range strike capabilities. 4 Far from
safe and secure , Taiwan’s 23.5 million inhabitants—a population roughly equivalent to Australia’s—perpetually live in the shadow
of potential violence .

War is not inevitable. Indeed, cross-Strait relations even seemed to warm considerably from 2008 to 2016, a period in which
Taiwan followed a policy of rapprochement under President Ma Ying-jiu and the Kuomintang (KMT). But tensions lingered beneath the

veneer of reconciliation . Far from renouncing its right to use military force , China’s military buildup
continued . Meanwhile, across the Strait, a distinct and coherent national identity took form .5 The Democratic
Progressive Party’s (DPP) return to power in 2016 shattered any misplaced faith that war had become unthinkable .

Whether China might one day choose to wage war against Taiwan is a matter of much debate and speculation. Whether
Taiwan should take steps to convince Chinese leaders that the costs of waging such a war will outweigh
any possible benefits is not . The more war becomes unacceptably painful, the more likely both sides will
endeavor to resolve their differences peacefully.
 A-to “Taiwan could just deficit spend, even if their economy is bad”

Taiwan can’t afford to have a recession – there’s no room in the budget to wish-
away non-military priorities.
Hunzeker and Lanoszka 18
Michael A. Hunzeker is an assistant professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government (George Mason University), former
postdoctoral research associate and lecturer in public affairs (Princeton University), Ph.D. in Public Affairs (Princeton
University), Master’s Degree in Public Affairs (Princeton University), B.A. in political science (University of California,
Berkeley), Alexander Lanoszka is an assistant professor (University of Waterloo), former US Foreign Policy and International
Security Fellow (Dartmouth University), former Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology), M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics (Princeton University), and B.A. in IR (University of Windsor), A Question of Time:
Enhancing Taiwan’s Conventional Deterrence Posture, Center for Security Policy Studies, Schar School of Policy and
Government (George Mason University), November, http://csps.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/A-Question-of-Time.pdf

Yet a disconnect exists between the goals of a layered defensive scheme and the force structure, both current and planned. Rather than developing a force optimized
for layered defense, Taiwan’s force planning remains focused on highend platforms in a manner that is inconsistent with their QDR. Moreover, Taiwan’s Armed
Forces are trying to implement their new defense strategies while reacting to the evolving cross-Strait military balance within the
difficult resource constraints imposed by a tight defense budget . Taiwan’s defense budget has been
relatively stable at roughly $10B U.S. dollars over the past three years, rising negligibly from 319B NT in 2015 to 322B NT in
2017. Taiwan’s annual defense budget is thus less than 2% of GDP, although many Taiwan officials are optimistic

that Taiwan will soon increase its defense budget to 2% of GDP.135 Unfortunately , it seems implausible that
Taiwan will be able to increase its defense spending levels much higher than that. Current budgetary
constraints , largely driven by public pension shortfalls, have already forced Taiwan to reduce its
military pension payments for all but junior personnel, which resulted in domestic protests.136 The transition from a
conscript force to an all-volunteer force (AVF) also comes with significant manpower costs that will further

stress the defense budget . In response to the challenges associated with AVF recruiting, Taiwan is considering several
proposals—such as increased education benefits for volunteers—that will further increase the manpower
costs for Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense.137 The defense budget will be unlikely to support across-
theboard modernization and rapid fielding of high-end platforms.
 A-to “China won’t initiate war with Taiwan ”

Framing point – their warrants don’t assume Chinese modernization efforts, which
is why Taiwan needs a strong economy to keep up.

Chinese modernization overcomes the obstacles in the Neg ev.

Hunzeker and Lanoszka ‘18
Michael A. Hunzeker is an assistant professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government (George Mason University), former
postdoctoral research associate and lecturer in public affairs (Princeton University), Ph.D. in Public Affairs (Princeton
University), Master’s Degree in Public Affairs (Princeton University), B.A. in political science (University of California,
Berkeley), Alexander Lanoszka is an assistant professor (University of Waterloo), former US Foreign Policy and International
Security Fellow (Dartmouth University), former Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology), M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics (Princeton University), and B.A. in IR (University of Windsor), A Question of Time:
Enhancing Taiwan’s Conventional Deterrence Posture, Center for Security Policy Studies, Schar School of Policy and
Government (George Mason University), November, http://csps.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/A-Question-of-Time.pdf

Taiwan might have the buffer of the Strait that complicates any invasion plans that China could have. Still, water ultimately does not have stopping power: coastal
defenses and manpower do. The
future does not look like the past , when China lacked the maritime capabilities
to mount an assault across the Strait for the longest time. Though we acknowledge that amphibious
operations are perhaps the most difficult to do militarily, China’s efforts at modernizing its armed forces do not bode well
for Taiwan . Even if we suspect that China prefers to resolve Taiwan’s status peacefully , we know from
historical experience that wars can still happen . Beijing might feel pressure to exploit a window of
opportunity, whether or not Taipei realizes it. Accordingly, Taiwan needs to prepare for the worst-case
scenario in the appropriate manner: making sure that it can last as long as possible in a military confrontation with
China without the help of others.

Consensus of experts proves China intends to invade

Hunzeker and Lanoszka ‘18
Michael A. Hunzeker is an assistant professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government (George Mason University), former
postdoctoral research associate and lecturer in public affairs (Princeton University), Ph.D. in Public Affairs (Princeton
University), Master’s Degree in Public Affairs (Princeton University), B.A. in political science (University of California,
Berkeley), Alexander Lanoszka is an assistant professor (University of Waterloo), former US Foreign Policy and International
Security Fellow (Dartmouth University), former Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology), M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics (Princeton University), and B.A. in IR (University of Windsor), A Question of Time:
Enhancing Taiwan’s Conventional Deterrence Posture, Center for Security Policy Studies, Schar School of Policy and
Government (George Mason University), November, http://csps.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/A-Question-of-Time.pdf

2.2 EXPERTS AGREE OVER CHINA’S INTENTIONS TOWARD TAIWAN

Whether or not China harbors revisionist intentions towards the international order matters a great deal for the United States and its allies in East Asia. Unfortunately,
Virtually every analysis we read draws the same basic conclusion: China wants to
it probably matters little for Taiwan.

reassert political control over the island.

Nor does China see Taiwan as a negotiable issue. Ever since Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist forces fled to
Taiwan as the Chinese Civil War drew to a close in 1949, China has been steadfast in its interest in reunification .

According to Gregory Moore, China has a “sacred commitment ” to restoring political control over Taiwan.
That is, Taiwan is part and parcel a “ basket of emotional, nationalistic, historical and almost spiritual

notions held by many in China about the ‘sacredness’ of territorial integrity and the commitment of
the founders and revolutionaries of modern China to the reunification of the motherland .”52 Reflecting
on his own government experience in Sino-American relations, Alan Romberg similarly observes that “[f ]or Beijing it symbolized

sovereignty, occupying a place at the very core of China’s own sense of national identity . It stood as an
issue of principle that permitted no compromise .”53 Although Thomas J. Christensen labels China as the “high
church of realpolitik in the post-Cold War,” he admits that China would tolerate economic damage and war
with the U nited S tates if Taiwan were to try to formalize legally its de facto independence.54 Indeed, a 1996 Chinese press
release unequivocally declared that “Taiwan is China’s sacred territory,” whereas various leading Chinese officials have
used “sacred” alongside such words as “holy” to describe China’s desire to reunify with Taiwan .55 Rational
interests and strategic considerations may be salient but should not be exaggerated . After all, if China wanted to
assert control over Taiwan in order to break through beyond the First Island China, it could have resorted to a more conciliatory posture
to draw the island into a shared security arrangement . At the very least, it would not have allowed the
symbolism of Taiwan’s status to create material risks as it has .56 Hence, Legro advises that “China’s
obsession with Taiwan … is hard to understand from strictly a power perspective .”57

The clearest expression of China’s intent with respect to Taiwan is the 2005 Anti-Secession Law. With this law, China
formalized its intention to reserve the use of force to unify with Taiwan . Force will be used in the last resort, but the
CCP has the authority to decide when a situation necessitates “last resort” actions . In presenting the legal text, China’s
spokesman stated that the new law:

“… provides that in
the event the Taiwan independence forces should act under any name or by any means to cause the fact of Taiwan’s secession from China,
or that major incidents entailing Taiwan’s secession from China should occur, or that possibilities for a peaceful
reunification should be
completely exhausted, the state shall employ nonpeaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China’s
sovereignty and territorial integrity.”58

Revisions of Taiwan’s independence may be just one of those red lines that would prompt Chinese action .
Whichever is the case, these comments harken back to some of the previously “hidden” triggers discussed above when the PLA has taken the

reins from Jiang Zemin in the 1990s. Apparently, those hidden triggers have emerged from the shadows and found their way

into mainstream Chinese political redlines.

Capabilities gaps can be filled quickly

Hunzeker and Lanoszka ‘18
Michael A. Hunzeker is an assistant professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government (George Mason University), former
postdoctoral research associate and lecturer in public affairs (Princeton University), Ph.D. in Public Affairs (Princeton
University), Master’s Degree in Public Affairs (Princeton University), B.A. in political science (University of California,
Berkeley), Alexander Lanoszka is an assistant professor (University of Waterloo), former US Foreign Policy and International
Security Fellow (Dartmouth University), former Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology), M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics (Princeton University), and B.A. in IR (University of Windsor), A Question of Time:
Enhancing Taiwan’s Conventional Deterrence Posture, Center for Security Policy Studies, Schar School of Policy and
Government (George Mason University), November, http://csps.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/A-Question-of-Time.pdf
We offer such an analysis in this chapter. We compare China’s ability to suppress Taiwan’s defenses, to isolate it from trade and reinforcement, and ferry invasion
forces across the Taiwan Strait. We similarly explore Taiwan’s ability to defend against such operations. We conclude that China
still lacks critical
capabilities to mount a major amphibious assault . However , such a finding should not be a source of
complacency for Taiwan’s leaders and defense planners. China is likely aware of these gaps. To the degree that it
wants to maintain the option of resolving its “Taiwan problem” by force of arms, it can likely redress
many of these gaps in relatively short order.
 US-China war over Taiwan does escalate

Taiwan war causes extinction- no checks on escalation

Littlefield ‘15
(8/11, Alex Littlefield is a professor at Feng Chia University, Dr. Adam Lowther is Director, School of
Advanced Nuclear Deterrence Studies, Air Force Global Strike Command, Taiwan and the Prospects for
War Between China and America, http://thediplomat.com/2015/08/taiwan-and-the-prospects-for-war-
between-china-and-america/)

For the United States and its allies and partners in Asia, China’s aggressive efforts to assert questionable claims in the South and East China Sea,
enforce a disputed Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), build the rocket/missile and naval capabilities needed to invade Taiwan, and build a
substantial ballistic missile capability all work to create a situation where conflict
between the U.S. and the PRC could occur
and rapidly escalate. Given that American political and military leaders have a poor understanding of Chinese
ambitions and particularly their opaque nuclear thinking, there is ample reason to be concerned that a future conflict could
escalate to a limited nuclear conflict. Thus, it is worth taking a look at the PRC with an eye toward offering insight into Chinese
motivation and thinking when it comes to how a possible crisis over Taiwan could escalate to the use of nuclear
weapons. Chinese Capabilities In their latest estimate, Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris assess that the Second Artillery Corps
possesses forty long-range nuclear missiles that can strike the United States if fired from China’s eastern seaboard and an additional twenty that
could hit Hawaii and Alaska. The challenge for China, is reaching the East Coast – home to the nation’s capital and largest economic centers. To
overcome this challenge China is also developing its JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) which is a sea-based variant of the DF-31
land-mobile long-range missile that will go to sea on Jin-class submarines. China may also be developing a new mobile missile, the DF-41, which
will carry multiple warheads, giving the Chinese a way to potentially defeat an American ballistic missile defense system. It is worth noting that
the quantity, though not the quality, of China’s nuclear arsenal is only limited by its dwindling stock of weapons grade plutonium. This raises the
question; to what end is China developing and deploying its nuclear arsenal? Chinese Motivation The textbook answer is straightforward. China
seeks a secure second (retaliatory) strike capability that will serve to deter an American first strike. As China argues, it has a “no-nuclear-first
policy” which makes its arsenal purely defensive – while its other capabilities such as cyber are offensive. Potential nuclear adversaries including
Russia, India, and the United States are fully aware that China’s investment in advanced warheads and ballistic missile delivery systems bring
Delhi, Moscow, and, soon, Washington within reach of the “East Wind.” While not a nuclear peer competitor to either Russia or the U.S., China
is rapidly catching up as it builds an estimated 30-50 new nuclear warheads each year. While American leaders may find such a sentiment
unfounded, the PRC has a strong fear that the United States will use its nuclear arsenal as a tool to blackmail (coerce) China into taking or not
taking a number of actions that are against its interests. China’s fears are not unfounded. Unlike China, the United States maintains an ambiguous
use-policy in order to provide maximum flexibility. As declassified government documents from the 1970s clearly show, the United States
certainly planned to use overwhelming nuclear force early in a European conflict with the Soviet Union. Given American nuclear superiority and
its positioning of ballistic missile defenses in Asia, ostensibly to defend against a North Korean attack, China sees its position and ability to deter
the United States as vulnerable. Possible Scenario While there are several scenarios where conflict between the United States and China is
possible, some analysts believe that a conflict over Taiwan
remains the most likely place where the PRC and the U.S.
would come to blows. Beijing is aware that any coercive action on its part to force Taiwan to accept its political domination
could incur the wrath of the United States. [US]To prevent the U.S. from intervening in the region, China will certainly turn to
its anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) strategy, beginning with non-lethal means and non-lethal threats to discourage the American public from
supporting the use of force in support of Taiwan. If thwarted in its initial efforts to stop Chinese aggression against Taiwan, the United States may
be tempted to resort to stronger measures and attack mainland China. A kinetic response to a cyber-attack, for example, although an
option, would very likely lead to escalation on the part of the Chinese. Given the regime’s relative weakness and the
probability that American attacks (cyber and conventional) on China will include strikes against PLA command and control (C2) nodes,
which mingle conventional and nuclear C2, the Chinese may escalate to the use of a nuclear weapon (against a
U.S. carrier in China’s self-declared waters for example) as a means of forcing de-escalation . In the view of China, such a strike
would not be a violation of its no-first-use policy because the strike would occur in sovereign Chinese
waters, thus making the use of nuclear weapons a defensive act. Since Taiwan is a domestic matter, any U.S.
intervention would be viewed as an act of aggression. This, in the minds of the Chinese, makes the United States an outside
aggressor, not China. It is also important to remember that nuclear weapons are an asymmetric response to American
conventional superiority. Given that China is incapable of executing and sustaining a conventional military campaign against the
continental United States, China would clearly have an asymmetry of interest and capability with the United
States – far more is at stake for China than it is for the United States. In essence, the only effective option in retaliation for a
successful U.S. conventional campaign on Chinese soil is the nuclear one. Without making too crude a point, the nuclear option provides more
bang for the buck, or yuan. Given that mutually assured destruction (MAD) is not part of China’s strategic thinking – in fact it is explicitly
rejected – the PRC will see the situation very differently than the United States. China likely has no desire to become a nuclear peer of the United
States. It does not need to be in order to achieve its geopolitical objectives. However, China does have specific goals that are a part of its
stated core security interests, including reunification with Taiwan. Reunification is necessary for China to reach its
unstated goal of becoming a regional hegemon. As long as Taiwan maintains its de facto independence of China it acts as a literal and symbolic
barrier to China’s power projection beyond the East China Sea. Without Taiwan, China cannot gain military hegemony in its own neighborhood.
China’s maritime land reclamation strategy for Southeast Asia pales in scope and significance with the historical and political value of Taiwan.
With Taiwan returned to its rightful place, the relevance to China of the U.S. military presence in Japan and South Korea is greatly diminished.
China’s relationship with the Philippines, which lies just to the south of Taiwan, would also change dramatically. Although China criticizes the
United States for playing the role of global hegemon, it is actively seeking to supplant the United States in Asia so that it can play a similar role in
the region. While Beijing may take a longer view toward geopolitical issues than Washington does, Chinese political leaders must still be
responsive to a domestic audience that demands ever higher levels of prosperity. Central to China’s ability to guarantee that prosperity is the
return of Taiwan, and control of the sea lines of commerce and communication upon which it relies. Unfortunately, too many Americans
underestimate the importance of these core interests to China and the lengths to which China will ultimately go in order to guarantee them – even
the use of nuclear weapons. Should China succeed it pushing the United States back, the PRC can deal with regional territorial disputes bilaterally
and without U.S. involvement. After all, Washington invariably takes the non-Chinese side. China sees the U.S. as a direct competitor and
obstacle to its geopolitical ambitions. As such it is preparing for the next step in a crisis that it will likely instigate, control, and conclude in the
Taiwan Straits. China will likely use the election or statement of a pro-independence high-ranking official as the
impetus for action. This is the same method it used when it fired missiles in the Straits in response to remarks by
then-President Lee Teng-hui, ushering in the 1996 Taiwan Straits Crisis. The U.S. brought an end to the mainland’s antics when the
U.S.S Nimitz and six additional ships sailed into the Straits. Despite the pro-China presidency of Ma Ying-jeou, China continues to expand its
missile force targeting Taiwan and undertakes annual war games that simulate an attack on Taiwan. China has not forgotten the humiliation it
The Second Artillery Corps’
faced in 1996 and will be certain no U.S. carrier groups have access to the Strait during the next crisis.
nuclear capabilities exist to help secure the results China seeks when the U.S. is caught off-guard,
overwhelmed, and forced to either escalate a crisis or capitulate . While the scenario described is certainly not
inevitable, the fact than many American readers will see it as implausible if not impossible is an example of the mirror-imaging that often
occurs when attempting to understand an adversary. China is not the United States nor do Chinese leaders think like their counterparts in the
United States. Unless
we give serious thought to possible scenarios where nuclear conflict could occur, the
United States may be unprepared for a situation that escalates beyond its ability to prevent a catastrophe .

Taiwan goes nuclear

Lowther 13 – William Lowther, Taipei Times, citing a report by the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, 3/16/13, “Taiwan Could Spark Nuclear War: Report,”
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2013/03/16/2003557211

Taiwan is the most likely potential crisis that could trigger a nuclear war between China and the US, a new
academic report concludes.¶ “Taiwan remains the single most plausible and dangerous source of tension and conflict between the US and China,”
says the 42-page report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). ¶ Prepared by the CSIS’ Project on
Nuclear Issues and resulting from a year-long study, the report emphasizes that Beijing continues to be set on a policy
to prevent Taiwan’s independence, while at the same time the US maintains the capability to come to Taiwan’s
defense.¶ “Although tensions across the Taiwan Strait have subsided since both Taipei and Beijing embraced a policy of engagement in 2008,
the situation remains combustible , complicated by rapidly diverging cross-strait military capabilities and
persistent political disagreements,” the report says.¶ In a footnote, it quotes senior fellow at the US Council on Foreign Relations
Richard Betts describing Taiwan as “the main potential flashpoint for the US in East Asia.” ¶ The report also quotes Betts as saying that neither
Beijing nor Washington can fully control developments that might ignite a Taiwan crisis .¶ “This is a classic
recipe for surprise, miscalculation and uncontrolled escalation ,” Betts wrote in a separate study of his own.¶ The CSIS study
says: “For the foreseeable future Taiwan is the contingency in which nuclear weapons would most likely become a
major factor, because the fate of the island is intertwined both with the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party
and the reliability of US defense commitments in the Asia-Pacific region.Ӧ Titled Nuclear Weapons and US-China Relations,
the study says disputes in the East and South China seas appear unlikely to lead to major conflict between China and the US, but they do “provide
kindling” for potential conflict between the two nations because the disputes implicate a number of important regional interests, including the
interests of treaty allies of the US.¶ The danger posed by flashpoints such as Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula and maritime demarcation disputes is
magnified by the potential for mistakes, the study says.¶ “Although Beijing and Washington have agreed to a range of crisis
management mechanisms, such as the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement and the establishment of a direct hotline between the
Pentagon and the Ministry of Defense, the bases for miscommunication and misunderstanding remain and draw on
deep historical reservoirs of suspicion ,” the report says.¶ For example, it says, it is unclear whether either side
understands what kinds of actions would result in a military or even nuclear response by the other party.¶ To
make things worse, “neither side seems to believe the other’s declared policies and intentions, suggesting that
escalation management , already a very uncertain endeavor, could be especially difficult in any conflict,” it says.¶ Although
conflict “mercifully” seems unlikely at this point, the report concludes that “it cannot be ruled out and may become increasingly likely if we are
unwise or unlucky.”¶ The report says: “With
both sides possessing and looking set to retain formidable nuclear weapons
arsenals , such a conflict would be tremendously dangerous and quite possibly devastating.”

China/Taiwan war goes nuclear

Glaser 11 (Charles, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the Elliott School of
International Affairs at George Washington University, Director of the Institute for Security and Conflict
Studies, “Will China’s Rise lead to War? ,” Foreign Affairs March/April 2011,
http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/zselden/coursereading2011/Glaser.pdf)

THE PROSPECTS for avoiding intense military competition and war may be good, but growth in China's power may nevertheless require some
changes in U.S. foreign policy that Washington will find disagreeable--particularly regarding Taiwan. Although it lost control of Taiwan during
the Chinese Civil War more than six decades ago, China still considers
Taiwan to be part of its homeland, and unification
remains a key political goal for Beijing. China has made clear that it will use force if Taiwan declares independence,
and much of China's conventional military buildup has been dedicated to increasing its ability to coerce Taiwan
and reducing the United States' ability to intervene. Because China places such high value on Taiwan and
because the United States and China--whatever they might formally agree to--have such different attitudes regarding the
legitimacy of the status quo, the issue poses special dangers and challenges for the U.S.-Chinese relationship, placing it in a different

A crisis over Taiwan could fairly easily escalate to nuclear war , because
category than Japan or South Korea.
each step along the way might well seem rational to the actors involved. Current U.S. policy is designed to reduce the
probability that Taiwan will declare independence and to make clear that the United States will not come to Taiwan's aid if it does. Nevertheless,
the United States would find itself under pressure to protect Taiwan against any sort of attack, no matter how
it originated. Given the different interests and perceptions of the various parties and the limited control Washington has over Taipei's
behavior, a crisis could unfold in which the United States found itself following events rather than leading them. Such dangers have been around
for decades, but ongoing improvements in China's military capabilities may make Beijing more willing to
escalate a Taiwan crisis. In addition to its improved conventional capabilities, China is modernizing its nuclear forces
to increase their ability to survive and retaliate following a large-scale U.S. attack. Standard deterrence theory holds
that Washington's current ability to destroy most or all of China's nuclear force enhances its bargaining position. China's nuclear
modernization might remove that check on Chinese action , leading Beijing to behave more boldly in
future crises than it has in past ones. A U.S. attempt to preserve its ability to defend Taiwan, meanwhile, could fuel
a conventional and nuclear arms race . Enhancements to U.S. offensive targeting capabilities and strategic ballistic missile
defenses might be interpreted by China as a signal of malign U.S. motives, leading to further Chinese military efforts and a general poisoning of
U.S.-Chinese relations.
 A-to “US strength deters China from invading Taiwan”

China’s assessment of Taiwan’s capabilities are key – they don’t base their Taiwan
calculations on the prospect of US intervention
Hunzeker and Lanoszka ‘18
Michael A. Hunzeker is an assistant professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government (George Mason University), former
postdoctoral research associate and lecturer in public affairs (Princeton University), Ph.D. in Public Affairs (Princeton
University), Master’s Degree in Public Affairs (Princeton University), B.A. in political science (University of California,
Berkeley), Alexander Lanoszka is an assistant professor (University of Waterloo), former US Foreign Policy and International
Security Fellow (Dartmouth University), former Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology), M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics (Princeton University), and B.A. in IR (University of Windsor), A Question of Time:
Enhancing Taiwan’s Conventional Deterrence Posture, Center for Security Policy Studies, Schar School of Policy and
Government (George Mason University), November, http://csps.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/A-Question-of-Time.pdf

The cornerstone of any deterrence posture is its ability to impose unacceptable costs on an adversary if it attempts to attack,
either through denial or punishment. To date, Taiwan has largely hedged in a manner that emphasizes high-end, highvisibility platforms ,

largely on the assumption that the international community in general—and the U nited S tates in particular—will

intervene in a worst-case invasion scenario. We think this assumption is dangerous for reasons already discussed. Moreover, although
China might appear content with maintaining the status quo for now, its strategic calculus is surely based, in
part, on its beliefs about Taiwan’s ability to impose unacceptable costs on an invasion force . To the

degree that Taiwan continues over-investing in a small number of expensive and exquisite platforms , it
will likely continue to find itself at both a qualitative and quantitative disadvantage . The more the gap
widens, the more Chinese leaders may be tempted to resolve the “Taiwan problem” by force of arms.

U.S.-China war causes nuclear extinction

Wittner 11 — Lawrence S. Wittner, Emeritus Professor of History at the State University of New York
at Albany, holds a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University, 2011 (“Is a Nuclear War with China
Possible?,” Huntington News, November 28th, Available Online at http://www.huntingtonnews.net/14446)

While nuclear weapons exist, there remains a danger that they will be used . After all, for centuries national
conflicts have led to wars, with nations employing their deadliest weapons . The current deterioration of
U.S. relations with China might end up providing us with yet another example of this phenomenon.
The gathering tension between the United States and China is clear enough. Disturbed by China’s growing economic and military
strength, the U.S. government recently challenged China’s claims in the South China Sea, increased the U.S. military presence in Australia, and deepened U.S.
military ties with other nations in the Pacific region. According to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the United States was “asserting our own position as a Pacific
power.” But need
this lead to nuclear war? Not necessarily. And yet, there are signs that it could . After all, both the United
States and China possess large numbers of nuclear weapons. The U.S. government threatened to attack China with nuclear weapons
during the Korean War and, later, during the conflict over the future of China’s offshore islands, Quemoy and Matsu. In the midst of the latter confrontation, President
Dwight Eisenhower declared publicly, and chillingly, that U.S. nuclear weapons would “be used just exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else.” Of course,
China didn’t have nuclear weapons then. Now that it does, perhaps the behavior of national leaders will be more temperate. But the loose nuclear threats of U.S. and
Soviet government officials during the Cold War, when both nations had vast nuclear arsenals, should convince us that, even as the military ante is raised, nuclear
saber-rattling persists. Some pundits argue that nuclear weapons prevent wars between nuclear-armed nations; and,
admittedly, there haven’t been very many—at least not yet. But
the Kargil War of 1999, between nuclear-armed India and
nuclear-armed Pakistan, should convince us that such wars can occur. Indeed, in that case, the conflict almost slipped into a
nuclear war. Pakistan’s foreign secretary threatened that, if the war escalated, his country felt free to use “any weapon” in its arsenal. During the conflict, Pakistan did
move nuclear weapons toward its border, while India, it is claimed, readied its own nuclear missiles for an attack on Pakistan. At the least, though, don’t nuclear
weapons deter a nuclear attack? Do they? Obviously, NATO leaders didn’t feel deterred, for, throughout the Cold War, NATO’s strategy was to respond to a Soviet
conventional military attack on Western Europe by launching a Western nuclear attack on the nuclear-armed Soviet Union. Furthermore, if U.S. government officials
really believed that nuclear deterrence worked, they would not have resorted to championing “Star Wars” and its modern variant, national missile defense. Why are
these vastly expensive—and probably unworkable—military defense systems needed if other nuclear powers are deterred from attacking by U.S. nuclear might? Of
course, the bottom line for those Americans convinced that nuclear weapons safeguard them from a Chinese nuclear attack might be that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is far
greater than its Chinese counterpart. Today, it is estimated that the U.S. government possesses over five thousand nuclear warheads, while the Chinese government
has a total inventory of roughly three hundred. Moreover, only about forty of these Chinese nuclear weapons can reach the United States. Surely the United States
would “win” any nuclear war with China. But what would that “victory” entail? A
nuclear attack by China would immediately
slaughter at least 10 million Americans in a great storm of blast and fire, while leaving many more dying
horribly of sickness and radiation poisoning. The Chinese death toll in a nuclear war would be far
higher . Both nations would be reduced to smoldering, radioactive wastelands . Also, radioactive debris
sent aloft by the nuclear explosions would blot out the sun and bring on a “ nuclear winter ” around the
globe— destroying agriculture , creating worldwide famine , and generating chaos and destruction .
Moreover, in another decade the extent of this catastrophe would be far worse. The Chinese government is currently expanding its nuclear arsenal, and by the year
2020 it is expected to more than double its number of nuclear weapons that can hit the United States. The U.S. government, in turn, has plans to spend hundreds of
billions of dollars “modernizing” its nuclear weapons and nuclear production facilities over the next decade. To
avert the enormous disaster of a
U.S.-China nuclear war, there are two obvious actions that can be taken. The first is to get rid of nuclear
weapons, as the nuclear powers have agreed to do but thus far have resisted doing. The second, conducted while the nuclear disarmament process is
occurring, is to improve U.S.-China relations . If the American and Chinese people are interested in

ensuring their survival and that of the world , they should be working to encourage these policies .
 China-Taiwan Conflict likely

China-Taiwan conflict is likely – sits on the brink now.

Carpenter 19 ---- Ted Galen, senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute,
Ph.D. in U.S. diplomatic history (University of Texas), “Forget the U.S.-China Trade War: Is a Conflict
Over Taiwan the Real Threat?” 6/8, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/forget-us-china-trade-war-conflict-
over-taiwan-real-threat-61627

Tensions between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are surging to an alarming extent . The latest
indicator is the recent exchange of heated rhetoric between Gen. Wei Fenghe, China’s Minister of National Defense, and
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, the Taiwanese government’s chief policymaking body dealing with cross-strait relations. As Taiwan’s self-proclaimed
protector, Washington should be extremely worried about these developments.

Speaking on June 1 at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual multilateral conference on Pacific security issues, Wei
warned against efforts either in
Taiwan or foreign countries to thwart China’s goal of reunification. Moreover, “any underestimation of the PLA’s resolve and will is

extremely dangerous .” Wei added ominously that, “If anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the
Chinese military will have no choice but to fight at all costs , at all costs, (sic.) for national unity. If the PLA cannot even
safeguard the unity of our motherland, what do we need it for?”

The Mainland Affairs Council responded with equally harsh and uncompromising language . In a statement
issued the following day, the council reasserted that Taiwan has never been a part of the PRC and would never

accept Beijing’s control or threats. It accused China not only of “challenging international norms and order,” but added the gratuitous
slap that Beijing’s claim to seek peaceful development was “a lie of the ages.” Lest anyone not fully grasp the
extent of Taipei’s hostility toward the PRC, the statement went on: “We need to remind the public that the
C hinese C ommunist P arty is practicing anti-democracy, anti-peace between the two sides of the strait and further resorting to war. This
is the main cause of the tension in the Taiwan Strait and the region, and it is the source of danger and
provocation against peace and stability.”

The vitriolic exchange constituted a worrisome escalation of the animosity between Taipei and Beijing
that has been roiling for the past three years. The victory of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in Taiwan’s 2016 elections

dashed any hopes Chinese leaders had that the burgeoning economic ties with the mainland would translate gradually
into increased Taiwanese popular support for political reunification. Anger at that strategy’s failure led Beijing to revive a
campaign to increase Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation by poaching the few small nations that still maintain formal relations with Taipei.
The PRC’s menacing military activities also increased . Chinese war games in and around the Taiwan Strait
have soared since 2016. The U.S. D efense I ntelligence A gency’s 2019 report to Congress also concludes that Beijing is building
up its ground, air, and naval forces to achieve a more robust capability to invade Taiwan .
Anger at Beijing’s treatment of Taiwan has led to congressional and executive branch measures to strengthen Washington’s backing for Taipei. A major step occurred
in March 2018 when President Trump signed into law the Taiwan Travel Act (TTA), which encouraged high-level U.S. officials to meet with their Taiwan
counterparts. That legislation, which passed both houses of Congress, ended Washington’s cautious practice under the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) of holding
meetings only with relatively low-level Taiwanese officials.

It was especially noticeable that the TTA specifically promoted interaction by “cabinet-level national security officials.” That provision proved to be more than a
symbolic gesture when National Security Adviser John Bolton met with Taiwan National Security Council Secretary-General David Lee in May. Bolton’s intention to
push for stronger security ties between the United States and Taiwan cannot be overstated. Before his current stint in government service, he pushed for highly
dangerous and provocative policies. He urged the United States to establish formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan and even advocated moving U.S. military forces
from Okinawa to Taiwan. Either measure would cross a bright red line as far as Beijing is concerned and would likely trigger PRC military action to prevent Taiwan’s
permanent political separation from the mainland. Having someone with those views holding a crucial policy post and sitting just a few doors down from the Oval
Office greatly increases the likelihood of a further boost in U.S. support for Taiwan, despite the risk of war with China.

There are multiple signs from various sources of growing U.S. backing for Taiwan’s de facto independence. Congress certainly is stepping up its support. By a
unanimous voice vote in early May, the House of Representatives passed the Taiwan Assurance Act, which expresses firm support for Taiwan while urging Taipei to
increase its own defense spending. The legislation also recommends that Washington continue “regular sales of defense articles” to Taiwan and back Taipei’s
participation in international organizations—something Beijing emphatically resists.

The Trump administration doesn’t seem to need much prodding. U.S. warships have transited the Taiwan Strait on several occasions over the past year to demonstrate
military support for Taipei. At the Shangri-La Dialogue session, Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan stated that the United States would no longer “tiptoe
around” destabilizing Chinese behavior regarding Taiwan or the South China Sea.

While Americans are focused on the ongoing trade war between the U nited S tates and China, the danger is
growing of an actual shooting war that could involve Taiwan . The rhetoric coming out of both Beijing
and Taipei is increasingly confrontational and shrill . Taiwan’s governing party is firmly committed to
resisting the PRC’s pressure for unification; indeed, incumbent president Tsai Ing-wen is being challenged by an even
more hardline, pro-independence faction within the DPP. At the same time, Chinese leaders seem
intent on pushing their reunification agenda with greater insistence and urgency .

Those are not comforting trends. Washington has a vague but very real commitment under the Taiwan Relations Act to
protect the island’s security. Both Congress and the Trump administration seem to be drifting toward boosting the
traditional level of U.S. support in response to Beijing’s escalating pressure on Taiwan. The danger is growing

that the TRA’s paper security commitment may be put to a real-world test. U.S. leaders and the American
people need to ask themselves whether they are really willing to risk war with a nuclear-armed power
to protect Taiwan. The prudent answer clearly should be “no.”
**Misc
Misc
 Plan saves money

Plan saves 16 billion dollars per year.

Ring ‘20
Kevin Ring, president of FAMM, a criminal justice reform advocacy group. “COVID-19 gives us an urgent argument for
compassionate release”- The Hill - 03/26/20 - #E&F – https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/489442-covid-19-gives-us-an-
urgent-argument-for-compassionate-release

We need to take immediate action to stop the spread of COVID -19 in prisons and jails. It’s the right thing to do for the
thousands of families whose loved ones were not sentenced to die in prison, but who are most at risk from the deadly virus. Even those who care
nothing for people who have broken the law should recognize that others will be affected if policymakers do not act. Thousands of people who
work in prisons and jails leave at the end of their shifts to go out into the world. If we don’t stop the spread of the virus in prisons, the crisis will
become that much more menacing.

But there’s a big problem. Scientists worldwide advise that the two most important steps to take to limit the spread are social distancing and good
hygiene. Both are nearly impossible for those behind bars. Adequate health care is mostly nonexistent. Once the virus takes off in a corrections
facility, the impact will be swift and harsh.

However, there is a solution — and it’s not new.

Compassionate release , sometimes called medical or geriatric parole, is a process that allows for the release of people
who are elderly or sick. Some kind of compassionate release mechanism exists in nearly every state, and at least 17 states authorize the
discretionary release of prisoners based on age alone. However, while the mechanisms exist in principle, few prisoners actually receive the
benefit of these programs.

For years we have been warning U.S. policymakers about the rise of incarcerating elderly and sick people. Today, there are more than 10,000
people in federal prison alone who are over age 60. In the states, the number of people behind bars who are 55 or older increased 400 percent
between 1993 and 2013. By some estimates, in about a decade those individuals will make up more than one-third of all incarcerated people.
Today’s graying prison population is older and sicker than at any time in our nation’s history.

Given that we know most people simply age out of crime — one study of 200 elderly prisoners serving life sentences who were released in 2013
found a recidivism rate of just 3 percent — most experts believe the continued incarceration of these people does not increase public safety.

This unnecessary incarceration is expensive. Older prisoners cost about $16 billion annually , including more
than $8 billion in medical expenses. It is also immoral. That’s why groups such as ours have called on state and
federal lawmakers to rein in the sentencing laws that lead to excessive incarceration and explore options for the release of
anyone for whom continued incarceration is unnecessary , especially elderly and sick individuals.
 Home confinement is not the same as “release”

Home confinement is not the same as “release”

Gerstein ‘20
Josh Gerstein is a White House reporter for POLITICO, specializing in legal and national security issues. “Virus-wracked federal
prisons again expand release criteria” – Politico – April 11th - #E&F - https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/11/federal-prison-
release-criteria-coronavirus-179835

The prison system does not consider transfers to home confinement to be “releases.” Such convicts are
normally put on GPS monitoring, but Barr has waived that requirement for now because of the volume of transfers and the logistical
difficulties related to the pandemic.