N AT I O N A L F E D E R AT I O N O F S TAT E H I G H S C H O O L A S S O C I AT I O N S

POLICY DEBATE
QUARTERLY
94th Annual
Discussion and Debate Source Book
Vol. 94 | No. 1 | 2020

Author: Richard E. Edwards

Baylor University

Editor: James Weaver

National Federation of State High School Associations

2020-21 High School Resolution

Resolved: The United States federal government should enact sub-
stantial criminal justice reform in the United States in one or more of
the following: forensic science, policing, sentencing.
 POLICY DEBATE
QUARTERLY
Vol. 94 | No. 1 | 2020

© 2020 – This publication has been copyrighted by the National Federation of State
High School Associa­tions with the United States Copyright Office. No one may re-
publish any material ­contained ­herein without the prior written consent of the NFHS.
Republication of all or any portion of this publication on the Internet is expressly
prohibited.

Published four times annually by the National Federation of State High School As-
sociations.

PO Box 690, Indianapolis, IN 46206

Printed in the United States of America

 PREFACE
This issue of the Policy Debate Quarterly is designed to introduce high school
debaters and coaches to the topic for the upcoming debate season. A special feature
of this issue is the inclusion in Appendix A of a glossary pertaining to the 2020-21
topic and in Appendix B, a selected list of legislation in the current session of Con-
gress. In order to facilitate the use of the Quarterly as a classroom teaching tool,
several “practicum” sections have been included which take simple concepts from
debate theory and make applications to debate practice, making use of the criminal
justice topic.
The definitions sections of the Quarterly have been written on the basis of the
author’s participation in the work of the Topic Selection Committee. It is important,
however, for the high school debater to understand that the national debate topic
becomes community property once it has been adopted by the vote of the debaters
and coaches throughout the nation. It is through the process of topicality debate
that debaters and judges must determine the appropriate definitions of terms; the
Policy Debate Quarterly is designed to provide thoughtful input, but not to be the
final authority in this process.
This issue of the Policy Debate Quarterly is designed to provide students with a
starting place in researching the 2020-21 interscholastic debate topic dealing with
criminal justice reform. The wording of the topic is as follows:
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.
The National Speech and Debate Association has adopted a procedure for the
citation of online resources in debate rounds; this standard requires that debaters cite
such materials consistent with the recommendations of the Modern Language Asso-
ciation (MLA) Style Sheet. This issue of the Policy Debate Quarterly has been prepared
in accordance with the requirements of the National Speech and Debate Association
evidence standard. Following is an example of a citation from an online source:
Tanya Golash-Boza, (professor of sociology at the University of Cali-
fornia at Merced), 5 Charts Show Why Mandatory Minimum Sentenc-
es Don’t Work. June 1, 2017. Retrieved Feb. 20, 2020 from https://
www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/5-charts-show-mandatory-mini-
mum-sentences-dont-work.
All four issues of the 2020-21 Policy Debate Quarterly are devoted to the policy
debate topic on criminal justice reform in forensic science, policing or sentencing.
The Policy Debate Quarterly is published by the National Federation of State
High School Associations (NFHS). The editorial office for the publication is in In-
dianapolis, Indiana. The NFHS Director of Performing Arts and Sports is Dr. James
Weaver who is also the editor of the Policy Debate Quarterly.

Rich Edwards, Ph.D. (Richard_Edwards@baylor.edu)

Professor of Communication Studies
Baylor University
Waco, Texas
 NFHS SPEECH COMMITTEE
Jana Riggins, NFHS Chair NFHS Section 6
University Interscholastic League Christine Jones
Austin, Texas Cherokee Trail High School
Aurora, Colorado
NFHS Section 3
LeAnna Dawson NFHS Section 7
Mississippi High School Kevin Berlat
Activities Association Mesa High School
Clinton, MS Mesa, Arizona

NFHS Section 4 NFHS Section 8

Adam Jacobi Robyn Rose
Wisconsin High School Forensic Lake Oswego High School
Association Lake Oswego, Oregon
La Crosse, Wisconsin
Kevin Minch, NFHS Speech Consultant
NFHS Section 5 Truman State University
Jamelle Brown Kirksville, Missouri
Sumner Academy of Arts & Science
Kansas City, KS Rich Edwards, ex officio
Baylor University
Waco, Texas

NFHS DEBATE TOPIC SELECTION COMMITTEE

Susan McLain, Chair Darin Maier
Glencoe High School St. Andrew’s Episcopal School
Forest Grove, OR Ridgeland, MS

Pam McComas Chris Lowery

Topeka High School Indiana High School Forensics Association
Topeka, KS Chesterton High School
Chesterton, IN
Jana Riggins
University Interscholastic League Nicole Cornish
Austin, Texas Athens High School
Athens, TX
Grace Gill
Roosevelt High School
Sioux Falls, SD
 CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: Criminal Justice Reform........................................................................................ 7
The Mass Incarceration Crisis..................................................................................................... 7
Practicum: Preparing the Affirmative Case.........................................................................11
Practicum: Sample First Affirmative.......................................................................................12
Reforming Forensic Science.....................................................................................................15
Practicum: Designing the Disadvantage..............................................................................17
Practicum: Disadvantages on the Criminal Justice Topic..............................................18
Reforming Policing.......................................................................................................................19
Practicum: Designing the Harm Reduction Argument...................................................26
Reforming Sentencing................................................................................................................27
Practicum: Inherency Arguments on the Negative.........................................................31
Practicum: Attacking Solvency Claims..................................................................................32
Capital Punishment as a Sentencing Alternative..............................................................32

CHAPTER 2: The Debate Resolution........................................................................................34

The Topic Paragraph for the Criminal Justice Reform Topic........................................35
The Debate Resolution for 2020-21......................................................................................37
United States Federal Government........................................................................................37
Enact..................................................................................................................................................37
Substantial.......................................................................................................................................37
Criminal Justice Reform..............................................................................................................39
In the United States.....................................................................................................................39
Forensic Science............................................................................................................................40
Policing.............................................................................................................................................40
Sentencing.......................................................................................................................................41
Practicum: Sample Topicality Argument..............................................................................41

CHAPTER 3: Case Possibilities for the Criminal Justice Topic.....................................42

Cases Proposing Reform of Forensic Science....................................................................42
Cases Proposing Reform of Policing.....................................................................................43
Cases Proposing Reform of Sentencing..............................................................................44

WORKS CITED.....................................................................................................................................46

APPENDIX A: Criminal Justice Topic Terms.........................................................................52

APPENDIX B: Criminal Justice Reform Legislation..........................................................61

APPENDIX C: NFHS 2019 Topic Selection Committee...................................................73

 CHAPTER ONE: CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM
High school debaters and coaches selected criminal justice reform as the issue
most worthy of their attention in the 2020-21 interscholastic debate season. This
topic preference was expressed over the competing topics of climate change, com-
mercial agriculture, election reform and health coverage. This first chapter of the Pol-
icy Debate Quarterly will provide a brief background for current controversies related
to U.S. criminal justice reform.

THE MASS INCARCERATION CRISIS

Prisons and jails in the United States are bursting at the seams. Danielle Sered,
the founder of Common Justice, reports that the U.S. locks up a higher percentage of
its residents than any society in history:
In all the world and all recorded time, no country has locked up
their own people at the rate we do. The United States has nearly 5
percent of the world’s population and nearly 25 percent of its incar-
cerated people. More than 2.3 million people are behind bars on any
given day – and the number of black people incarcerated or under
correctional control exceeds the total number of adults enslaved na-
tionwide in 1861. A black boy born today has a one-in-three chance
of going to prison in his lifetime. Incarceration is not just a dimen-
sion of how we punish crime in our country. It exists at such a scale
that it is a defining feature of our culture. It is who we are, who we
have become. (Sered, 2019, pp. 7-8)
Robert Norris, professor of criminal justice at George Mason University, provides
the following description of the U.S. criminal justice system and the incarceration
numbers associated each of its levels:
The criminal justice systems administered by the federal gov-
ernment and the 50 states are busy. An estimated 10 million misde-
meanor cases are processed annually in the nation’s courts. Approx-
imately 1.1 million adults were convicted of a felony in state courts
in 2004. Federal law enforcement officers made more than 165,000
arrests in 2014 and the federal courts imposed sentence in more
than 71,000 criminal cases during fiscal year 2015. At year-end 2015,
more than 6.7 million people were under some form of supervision
or custody throughout the nation, including roughly 3.8 million on
probation; 871,000 on parole; 1.5 million in prison and 728,000 in
jails. (Norris, 2018, p. 5)
While the 2020-21 resolution focuses on federal government action, it should
be noted that most persons held in the prisons and jails maintained by state and
local governments. Franklin Zimring, professor of law at the University of California
at Berkeley, reports that “about 85 percent of all persons in prisons and more than
90 percent of all persons locked up in prisons and jails are the responsibility of state
governments and their political subdivisions” (Zimring, 2018, p. 181).
The high incarceration rate has a disparate impact on all members of minority
groups. Kevin Reitz, professor of law at the University of Minnesota School of Law,
documents the extent of this problem in the 2018 book American Exceptionalism in
Crime and Punishment:
7
 Compounding problems of the sheer scale of US incarceration
are enormous breakdowns in distributive justice. The African Amer-
ican imprisonment rate is nearly 6 times that for whites, the Latino
rate is more than 2.5 times the white rate and the rate for Native
Americans – although not regularly reported – has been about 2.5
times the white rate. Pew’s “one in 100” report observed that rough-
ly “one in 9” (not a misprint) black men aged 20-34 were in prison or
jail on any given day in 2007. (Reitz, 2018, p. 4)
Other commentators have expressed the concern that the entire structure of
the U.S. criminal justice system is an instrument of social control. Stephanos Bibas,
professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, explains this viewpoint:
A more profound critique of the criminal justice machine is
founded in wealth and power. On this view, the criminal justice
system oppresses the poor and minorities. It uses punishment not
primarily to effect justice or to protect public safety, but to rein in
deviance and disorder, especially among the underclass. Though it
pays lip service to justice and fairness, in practice it is a coercive tool
of social control designed to maintain the status quo. (Bibas, 2017,
p. 64)
Mass incarceration imposes significant costs on taxpayers. Scott Jaschik, writing
in the June 5, 2017 issue of Inside Higher Ed reports that “the cost of jail for each
inmate in the state [of California] will reach $75,560. That’s about $2,000 more than
the price of a year Harvard University, counting tuition, room and board, books and
other expenses” (Jaschik, 2017). John Pfaff, professor of law at the Fordham Law
School, documents the nationwide costs of incarceration:
It’s hard to overstate the scope of mass incarceration today.
There are over 1.5 million people behind bars in state and federal
prisons, and easily tens of millions who have passed through prison
at some point in their lives. State and local governments spend over
$200 billion per year on criminal justice, and about $50 billion just
on locking people up in prisons; much of that money could be far
better spent elsewhere. And neither that $50 billion nor that $200
billion takes into account the costs that incarceration imposes on in-
dividuals and communities, from lost income to disease to strained
or broken families to children growing up with a missing parent.
(Pfaff, 2017, p. 233)
Incarceration harms convicts in ways that go far beyond the loss of freedom. In
many cases, going to prison means family breakup, rape and even death. David Mu-
sick, professor of sociology at the University of Northern Colorado, describes these
impacts in his 2017 book, American Prisons: Their Past, Present and Future:
Prisons are dangerous, foreboding places where humans are
locked up and are forced to behave in ways they would not if they
were free. Prison byproducts, namely rape, other forms of prison
violence and disease, help to accomplish the societal goal of pun-
ishing criminals by making the convict’s life a living hell. However,
prison by-products also make another societal goal, that of rehabil-

8
 itating offenders, almost impossible for many, if not most inmates.
(Musick, 2017, p. 148)
Sharon Dolovich, professor of law at the UCLA School of Law, writes that mass
incarceration in the United States is increasingly viewed as a crisis and national em-
barassment: “Mass incarceration, until recently viewed with indifference if it was no-
ticed at all, is now broadly recognized as a national crisis and an expensive mistake.
The system’s racial skew is openly acknowledged at the highest levels of govern-
ment. States are experimenting with decarceration, decriminalization and alternative
forms of punishment. Liberals and conservatives alike condemn the enormous eco-
nomic costs and questionable public safety benefits of the current system” (Dolovich,
2017, p. 1).
The extent of incarceration seems all the more curious, given that the incidence
of violent crime has been in a steady decline for decades. Patrick Sharkey, professor
of sociology at New York University, documents this decline in the 2018 book, Un-
easy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life and the Next War On
Violence: “All the best sources of data on American violence – the national survey of
victimization, the figures from vital statistics and reports from police departments –
tell the same story. The level of violence in the United States has fallen dramatically
from its latest peak in the early 1990s. No matter which data source one trusts, it is
impossible to argue that the nation is not safer than it was twenty years ago” (Shar-
key, 2018, p. 12).
Numerous explanations have been offered to account for the high incarceration
rate at a time of declining crime rates. Dominique Gilliard, director of the Do Justice
Initiative, believes that the growth of the private prison industry offers a partial ex-
planation: “In 1984 there was a revolutionary change in the trajectory of incarcera-
tion. The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a private entity, took control of
a prison in Hamilton County, Tennessee. The number of privately operated prisons
skyrocketed in the decades that followed. By 2013, 10 percent of prisons nationwide
were privately operated and the growth of private prisons now outpaces the growth
of public prisons” (Gilliard, 2018, p. 61). Tara Joy, an analyst with the Justice Policy
Institute, believes that the lobbying activities of private prison corporations have
fueled mass incarceration: “Prison corporations use lobbyists, campaign contribu-
tions and relationships with policymakers to further their own political agenda. For
instance, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison
company in the US, has spent $17.4 million on lobbying expenditures in the last 10
years and $1.9 million on political contributions between 2003 and 2012” (Joy, 2018).
Another explanation for the mass incarceration crisis focuses on the war on
drugs. Gabriel Sayegh, co-director of the Katal Center for Health, Equity and Justice,
quantifies the impact of drug offenses on the U.S. criminal justice system:
The drug war plays a unique role in criminalizing people, for
mere possession and use of certain psychoactive substances. Con-
sider that in 2013, 38 percent of Americans (more than 120 million
people) had tried cannabis at least once. That same year, nearly 1.5
million people were arrested in the United States on drug offenses,
the vast majority for simple possession – and almost half those ar-
rests were for cannabis alone. In 2017, 45 percent of Americans (over
140 million people) said they had tried cannabis at least once, and
9
 12 percent of Americans (nearly 40 million people) said they were
currently using it. (Sayegh, 2018, p. 125)
Pressure for mass incarceration may also arise from the political interests of
prosecuting attorneys. In most states and localities, the offices of attorney general
and district attorney are elective positions. The formula for getting elected to these
positions seems to be a promise to get tough on crime, leading to a ratcheting-up of
prosecutions. Emily Bazelon, fellow at Yale Law School, believes that prosecutors are
to blame for the high rates of imprisonment:
American prosecutors have breathtaking power, leading to di-
sastrous results for millions of people churning through the criminal
justice system. Over the last forty years, prosecutors have amassed
more power than our system was designed for. And they have most-
ly used it to put more people in prison, contributing to the scourge
of mass incarceration, which continues to rip apart poor commu-
nities, especially if they are mostly black or brown, and long ago
passed the level required for public safety. (Bazelon, 2019, p. xxv)
The phenomenon of over-criminalization has given powerful weapons to the al-
ready considerable power of prosecutors. Municipalities, state governments and the
U.S. Congress pass new laws each year, creating scores of new crimes to an already
long list. Erik Luna, professor of law at Arizona State University, commented on this
phenomenon in the 2004 book, Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost
Everything:
Some crimes barely pass the laugh test. New Mexico makes it
a misdemeanor to claim that a product contains honey unless it is
made of “pure honey produced by honeybees.” Florida criminalizes
the display of deformed animals and the peddling of untested spar-
klers, as well as the mutilization of the Confederate flag for “crass
or commercial purposes.” Pretending to be a member of the clergy
is a misdemeanor in Alabama, and Kentucky bans the use of rep-
tiles during religious services. Maine prohibits the catching of crus-
taceans with anything but “conventional lobster traps,” and Texas
declares it a felony to trip a horse or “seriously overwork” an animal.
In turn, California forbids “three-card monte” and, as a general rule,
cheating at card games, while it’s a crime in Illinois to camp on the
side of a public highway or offer a movie for rent without clearly
displaying its rating. (Luna, 2004, p. 2)
According to Harvey Silverglate, author of Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds
Target the Innocent, the U.S. Justice Department can, if it chooses, successfully pros-
ecute any American for the commission of felonies:
Today, in spite of [Supreme Court Justice, Robert] Jackson’s
warning, it is only a slight exaggeration to say that the average busy
professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work,
comes home, takes care of personal and family obligations and
then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she likely committed several
federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of
modern federal criminal laws, which have become not only exceed-

10
 ingly numerous (Jackson’s main fear at the time of his admonition
to prosecutors) and broad, but also, since Jackson’s day, impossibly
vague. (Silverglate, 2011, p. xxxvi).
Rachel Barkow, professor of law at the New York University School of Law, re-
ports that federal prosecutors have hundreds of thousands of possible felonies from
which to choose if they wish to prosecute an American citizen:
There are upwards of 300,000 federal regulations that subject
someone who violates them to criminal penalties. Many of these
thousands of laws and regulations impose strict liability and there-
fore make no distinction between intentional violations and acci-
dents that could not be prevented even with due care. In one case,
Lawrence Lewis, a military retirement home engineer, diverted
backed-up sewage into a storm drain in an effort to protect the
elderly residents from health problems associated with sewage
overflow at the facility. Unbeknownst to Lewis, however, the backup
drain fed into the Potomac River. Lewis was charged with felony vi-
olations of the Clean Water Act. (Barkow, 2019, p. 30)
An arrest even for a misdemeanor offense can result in lengthy periods of impris-
onment in city or county jails. Persons who cannot post bail awaiting trial may expe-
rience the trauma of imprisonment even though they have not yet been found guilty
of any crime. Robert Ferguson, professor of law at Columbia University, describes this
problem in his 2018 book, Metamorphosis: How to Transform Punishment in America:
The United States clearly punishes more heavily and for longer
periods than other countries with comparable social and political
values. You can land in an American prison for life over minor offens-
es, a punishment not used for serious offenses in Western Europe.
You can be locked up forever for siphoning gasoline from a truck,
shoplifting small items from a department store, attempting to cash
a stolen check or possessing a crack pipe. (Ferguson, 2018, p. 30)
There is some evidence that Americans are now waking up to the many problems
associated with mass incarceration and are beginning to pursue criminal justice re-
forms designed to turn away from overly harsh punishments.

PRACTICUM: PREPARING THE AFFIRMATIVE CASE

PRINCIPLES GOVERNING THE CHOICE OF AN AFFIRMATIVE CASE
1. Topicality: The Plan Does What the Resolution Says It Should Do.
The resolution should be the guide to what the plan must do. Serious at-
tention must be given to this issue, since for most judges, topicality is an in-
dependent voting issue. The affirmative team may win every other issue in the
round, but still lose on topicality. The plan may incidentally go beyond the
resolution, but the advantages should come from the topical portion.
2. Harm: The Case Establishes that Serious Harms Exist Now that Could Be Ad-
dressed by Enacting Substantial Criminal Justice Reforms in Forensic Science,
Policing and/or Sentencing.

11
 Harm is one of the traditional stock issues. While not all judges hearing
high school debate rounds are looking from a stock issues perspective, many
judges still expect to see the harm issue addressed. Since the first affirmative
speech is pre-written and will be used before a variety of judges, it is wise to
prepare the first affirmative speech with a harm contention present.
3. Inherency: The Case Provides Evidence that There Is a Law or Prevailing Atti-
tude Among U.S. Policy Makers Which Perpetuates the Harm.
The inherency requirement asks the affirmative team to specify the struc-
ture (such as a law or bureaucratic rule) or attitudes which explain why the
harm is deeply rooted in the present system and will, therefore, be perpetuated
absent the adoption of the affirmative plan. Inherency explains the cause of
the problem. Inherency arguments will typically focus on some existing law or
prevailing attitude of the Trump administration Department of Justice under
the leadership of William Barr. If the presidential election in 2020 results in the
defeat of President Donald Trump, then the attitudinal inherency evidence will
need to focus on the prevailing attitudes of the newly elected president.
4. Solvency: The Case Demonstrates that the Adoption of the Plan Would Remove
All or a Significant Part of the Affirmative Harm.
The case must not only show that things are bad now, but that the adop-
tion of the affirmative plan would help that bad situation. If the harm argument
focuses on the harms of mass incarceration, the affirmative team must present
evidence showing that the plan is both a necessary and sufficient mechanism
for addressing at least a significant portion of that harm.
5. Desirability: The Disadvantages Created by Adoption of the Plan Would Be Less
Significant than the Advantages Gained by the Case.
Experienced debaters know that this fifth principle is the real key to finding
a winning affirmative case. The debater must always think carefully about po-
tential disadvantages before selecting a case. The ideal situation is to have the
kind of case where one can predict the disadvantages which one will hear and
to know how those disadvantages can be turned by adopting the plan.

PRACTICUM – SAMPLE FIRST AFFIRMATIVE

NOTE: The following affirmative case structure is a highly simplified example; an
actual first affirmative speech would be longer and have much more evidence.
PLAN: The United States federal government will enact substantial criminal justice
reform by abolishing the use of capital punishment as a sentencing alternative.
A. The Continued Use of the Death Penalty Is a Violation of the Constitutional Bar
to Cruel and Unusual Punishment. (Harm)
Jenny Carroll, (Professor of Law at the University of Alabama), Final Judg-
ments: The Death Penalty In American Law And Culture, 2017, p. 161. The impo-
sition of death as punishment by its very nature is the most cruel and the most
unusual. It is a punishment of no return for those upon whom it is imposed, as
well as for the community on whose behalf it is imposed.
Brandon Garrett, (Professor of Law at Duke University), End Of Its Rope:
How Killing The Death Penalty Can Revive Criminal Justice, 2017, p. 200.
12
 Botched executions—and their numbers are legion—inevitably occur with ev-
ery execution technique, whether the electric chair or hangings, as professor
Austin Sarat has described in-depth. Hangings largely ended after a botched
hanging in Arizona, with gas chambers taking their place. Gas chambers gave
way over time to the electric chair. After a series of botched electrocutions, in-
cluding the high-profile botched execution of Allen Lee Davis in “Old Sparky,”
Florida’s chair, electrocutions gave way to lethal in-jection. A problem with
all state-sanctioned methods of killing was that it was impossible to test an
execution method. There is no ethical way to scientifically evaluate a method
to kill humans. More fundamentally, there is no humane way to carry out an
inherently brutal act.
B. Several U.S. States Continue to Use the Death Penalty as a Sentencing Alterna-
tive. (Inherency)
Kim MacKinnis, (Professor of Sociology at Bridgewater State University),
The Death Penalty: A Reference Handbook, 2017, p. 154. Currently, there are
31 states with capital punishment statutes: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Cali-
fornia, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Car-
olina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota,
Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming, as well as the U.S.
Government and U.S. Military.
C. Terminating the use of Capital Punishment Offers the Superior Solution to
Preserving the Constitutional Bar Against Cruel and Unusual Punishment. (Sol-
vency)
Richard Dieter, (Director of the Death Penalty Information Center), The
Death Penalty: A Reference Handbook, 2017, p. 137. From a practical perspec-
tive, it is becoming increasingly clear that the death penalty no longer serves
the public interest. Given the enormous risks, costs and divisiveness of this
extreme punishment, there is no reasonable justification for retaining it. Two
of the nation’s largest states – California and New York – are leading the effort
to reduce incarceration levels. Michael Romano, director of the Three Strikes
Project at Stanford Law School, describes the changes now taking place in Cal-
ifornia: “Once California was the national vanguard of tough-on-crime politics;
today it is one of the states leading the trend in the opposite direction. Over
the past decade, and during the past five years in particular, no other state has
grappled as vigorously with its prison policies or enacted and implemented
more reforms to reduce its prison and jail populations than the Golden State. In
fact, to the extent that the total national prison population is on the decline, it
is largely attributable to prison downsizing in California” (Romano, 2018, p. 65).
The decarceration experience in New York City is documented by Judith Greene,
a senior research fellow at the University of Minnesota Law School:
New York’s more than 50 percent decline in jail and prison in-
carceration starting in the mid-1990s began at a time when incar-
ceration rates in the rest of the United States, taken as a whole, as
well as in the remainder of New York State, were still increasing.
New York’s decarceration experiment first flowed from a bottom-up

13
 effort to amend, repeal and reverse the laws, policies and practic-
es that swept our nation into the era of mass incarceration—most
particularly those involving the war on drugs. Second, the profound
decline in incarceration in the nation’s largest city left it one of the
least incarcerated cities in America. At the same time New York was
also becoming the safest city in America, giving the lie to the no-
tion that more incarceration was needed to provide more safety.
(Greene, 2018, p. 42)
According to journalist Shana Hattis, the changes underway in California and
New York have resulted in a “35,500 person drop in the prison population” over the
past few years (Hattis, 2017, p. 3). Michael O’Hear, professor of law at Marquette
University, reports that many state legislatures have now jointed the movement away
from imprisonment and toward community corrections:
With few exceptions, the sentencing legislation of the 1980s and
1990s pointed in one direction: greater use of incarceration. Then,
beginning in about 2000, the basic thrust of new sentencing laws
changed. The reforms of the new millennium varied widely from
state to state and year to year, but they generally reflected a belief
that some group of offenders being sent to prison should be kept
in the community, or that some group of inmates should be given
an opportunity for early release. To be sure, legislatures have also
continued to pass tough-on-crime laws since 2000, but these pu-
nitive outbursts seem more episodic than systematic. Instead, the
new era has been typified by the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI),
which has been formally embraced by more than half of the states
and which establishes a structured process for identifying groups of
incarcerated offenders who can be more cost-effectively managed
in other ways. Other states, not officially part of the JRI movement,
have nonetheless been influenced by it and adopted reforms in the
same spirit. (O’Hear, 2017, p. 197)
Police groups have become active in this movement to community corrections,
especially for certain types of offenses dealing with mental health disorders, drug use
or prostitution. Ernest Drucker, professor of public health at the New York University
College of Global Public Health, explains this movement:
We now also see a growing and very progressive role for the
police in decarceration. At the front end – in terms of primary in-
terventions – there is a role for police working with early diversion
programs to prevent arrest and jail time. Law Enforcement Assisted
Diversion (LEAD) is a partnership between local police and men-
tal health organizations and personnel that operates pre-book-
ing diversion programs. These were first developed in the United
States in Seattle, where the community used this approach to ad-
dress low-level drug and prostitution crimes in King County. These
pre-booking, community-based diversion programs are designed to
divert those suspected of low-level drug and prostitution offenses
away from the courts and jail and to replace prosecution with case
management and other supportive services. Follow-up studies show

14
 that intervention groups are significantly less likely to have been ar-
rested compared with the control groups. (Drucker, 2018, pp. 15-16)
NBC News reporter, Allan Smith, finds that the movement to community correc-
tions also includes local prosecutors:
Progressive, reform-minded prosecutors have taken the reins
in top local prosecutor roles across the country that have allowed
them to begin to change the criminal justice system from the inside
out. These left-leaning Democratic district attorneys have sought
reforms to the bail system, curbed enforcement of lower-level mar-
ijuana offenses, increased the use of diversion programs over jail
time and pledged to end mass incarceration. They have also tried
changing the culture in their offices, adjusting their prosecutorial
priorities to upend a system they believe has contributed to the rise
in prison populations. And they’ve vowed to hold police account-
able for alleged wrongdoing. (Smith, 2019)
The federal government became involved in the decarceration movement with
the December 21, 2018 passage of the FIRST STEP [Formerly Incarcerated Reenter
Society Transformed Safely Transitioning Every Person] Act. This legislation was sum-
marized by Steve Horn in Prison Legal News: “The FIRST STEP Act has 36 distinct sec-
tions which address many aspects of federal sentencing and prison-related policies.
They range from placing prisoners in facilities closer to their families to sentencing
reform and de-escalation training for guards, plus creating a risk and needs assess-
ment system. The bill also calls for studies on medication-assisted opioid addiction
treatment for prisoners, and an expansion and accompanying audit of Federal Prison
Industries” (Horn, 2019).
But Natasha Frost, professor of criminology at Northeastern University, has been
critical of the current reform movement: “Across almost two-thirds of the states, we
are witnessing policy reform to curtail further prison population growth, with dozens
of states reconsidering the utility of inflexible sentencing structures and contemplat-
ing the repeal of mandatory sentences. Some of the current approaches to criminal
justice reform – including most of the current justice reinvestment approaches to
prison population reduction – will not effectively reduce mass incarceration in the
near term” (Frost, 2018, p. 21). Frost also questions the value of community correc-
tions since the conditions of probation are often overly harsh: “The second problem
with intensive supervision programs is the ‘intensive’ part. Watching people closely
while they are in the community always uncovers problems, especially with an at-risk
or high-risk population such as people who have committed serious enough felonies
to make them otherwise candidates for prison sentences. There is always a threat:
‘We will be watching you closely, and if we see anything we don’t like we will send
you right to prison’” (Frost, 2018, p. 23).

REFORMING FORENSIC SCIENCE

Since the passage in 1968 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, the
federal government has provided funding for state and local forensic crime laborato-
ries; this legislation created the Paul Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Grants
Program, named for a United States Senator from Georgia. But Matthew Gamette,

15
chair of the Consortium of Forensic Science Organizations, reports that the federal
funding levels fall far short of what is needed:
The Department of Justice reported that 125 excellent requests
were made last year for Coverdell competitive funding that were not
able to be fulfilled due to a lack of funding. Over $14 million in need-
ed instrumentation and training from mostly State and local labs
could not be funded to support the criminal justice system of this
country. Even a very small investment in the Federal budget could
make a huge difference in this community. (Gamette, 2017, p. 10)
Funding shortfalls for crime labs impacts the criminal justice system in many
ways. One result is a huge backlog of untested sexual assault kits. Edward Maguire,
professor of law and criminal justice at American University, along with his research
associates, described this problem in the May 13, 2015 issue of Police Quarterly:
Among the most noteworthy controversies faced by police de-
partments and crime laboratories over the past 5 years has been the
discovery of hundreds of thousands of untested sexual assault kits
in police custody. The existence of these kits has been framed as an
error of impunity that has denied justice to victims and has allowed
perpetrators to escape accountability for their misdeeds. A sexual
assault kit is used to collect evidence from victims following a sexu-
al assault. Physical evidence collected with the kit includes intimate
swabs, blood, urine, clothing, pubic hair combings and other forms of
evidence depending on the nature of the case. (Maguire et al., 2015)
Shortfalls in funding for crime labs not only results in testing backlogs, but also
means that technicians are not receiving adequate training. Victor Weedn, professor
of forensic sciences at George Washington University, proposes a broad federal pro-
gram to correct the problems facing crime labs:
Furthermore, forensic science, as currently practiced, is stressed
and inadequately supported. The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ lat-
est census of publicly-funded crime laboratory reports significant
casework backlogs. Important discussions on DNA mixture decon-
volution, statistical interpretation and language for reporting and
testimony need Federal attention. Presently, the only grant avail-
able that exists for addressing at least some of these issues is the
Paul Coverdell Act, which you recently reauthorized in the Justice
for All Reauthorization. While detailed to DOJ as the senior forensic
adviser to the Deputy Attorney General, it became clear to me that
the creation of an outwardly-facing, grant-making Office of Forensic
Sciences, or OFS, from a consolidation of existing programs within
DOJ, given a forensic science mission and an elevated position with-
in the DOJ structure and with an advisory board from leaders in the
forensic science community outside of DOJ, would be an important
step to correct many of these concerns. (Weedn, 2017, p. 8)
Another controversy related to forensic crime labs involves their relationship to
local police departments. Most crime labs are operated by local law enforcement
agencies, meaning that lab technicians work for the police. This arrangement rais-

16
es questions about whether technicians can render objective, scientifically-accurate
judgments when they are working for the prosecution. In an extensive 2009 report,
the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) rec-
ommended that forensic labs should be independent of police departments. Robert
Norris, professor of criminal justice at George Mason University, explains the ratio-
nale for separating crime labs from police departments:
The majority of publicly funded crime laboratories in the United
States are administered by law enforcement agencies. To combat
the potential for pro-law enforcement bias, the NRC recommended
removing crime laboratories from the administrative control of law
enforcement. In the words of the NRC Report, “The best science is
conducted in a scientific setting as opposed to a law enforcement
setting. Because forensic scientists often are driven in their work by
a need to answer a particular question related to the issues of a par-
ticular case, they sometimes face pressure to sacrifice appropriate
methodology for the sake of expediency.” (Norris, 2018, p. 95)

PRACTICUM: DESIGNING THE DISADVANTAGE

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WELL-DESIGNED DISADVANTAGE
1. The Disadvantage Has an Understandable Thesis.
The thesis of the disadvantage is a single sentence statement which clari-
fies the nature of the argument. Examples of thesis statements may be found
on the following page. When a disadvantage is presented without a thesis sen-
tence, there is too great an opportunity for confusion. It is not enough to label
a disadvantage as “politics.” That could mean that the plan will strengthen or
weaken a political party’s electoral prospects and it fails to specify why the po-
litical change will be undesirable.
2. The Disadvantage is Linked to the Specific Affirmative Case.
The disadvantage should not be a canned negative strategy; the negative
team should select the disadvantages which most directly relate to the affirma-
tive case in a particular round.
3. The Disadvantage Has a Specifically Stated Impact.
Impact means the bottom-line harm which will be claimed. Consider the
case of a first negative speaker who presents the link to a disadvantage claim-
ing that the affirmative plan will create a backlash from police, creating the
phenomenon of “depolicing” where the police stop patrolling inner city re-
gions. The second affirmative speaker turns the link by arguing that the plan
actually will increase police patrolling in inner city regions since it will decrease
tensions between the police and minority groups. Then the second negative
speaker reverses the disadvantage by arguing that depolicing is actually good,
rather than bad. This negative strategy is clearly abusive; the affirmative team
has a right to know exactly what will be the claimed impact of the argument
before hazarding a response to it. A disadvantage is not an argument until it is
given some impact.

17
4. The Connection between the Disadvantage Links and Impacts Are Clear.
The negative team may not simply observe that the plan will restrict the
power of the police and then begin reading impacts about a race war in Amer-
ica. If the negative team wishes to establish a connection between restricting
police power and a race war, it will be necessary to read evidence showing the
connection. Perhaps the argument is that the white nationalism movement will
increase after police power is restricted, but authoritative support would cer-
tainly be needed to support such a claim.
5. The Disadvantage Is Unique to the Affirmative Plan.
The negative team must show that the disadvantage is not already hap-
pening, or that it will happen to a greater degree with the adoption of the
affirmative plan. Perhaps the disadvantage argues that the affirmative plan
would widen the net of social control if the plan creates community corrections
alternatives to prison sentences. Yet in order for the disadvantage to have any
force, the negative must be able to prove that this is not already happening in
the present system.

PRACTICUM: DISADVANTAGES ON THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE TOPIC

FEDERALISM: Most law enforcement in the United States is conducted at the
state and local levels. Whenever the federal government intrudes upon powers
traditionally reserved to states and localities, serious harm results. Dozens of
approaches to policing are in use throughout the United States, properly ad-
justing to the differing needs of individual communities. There is no “one-size-
fits-all” solution to law enforcement problems.
PUBLIC BACKLASH/VIGILATES: Large majorities in America back the police, be-
lieving that they are doing their best to maintain public order. Actions per-
ceived as attacks on the police will be counterproductive and lead to increased
use of private policing alternatives with unfortunate results.
POLICE BACKLASH/DEPOLICING: Local police forces, feeling that they are under
siege for simply doing their jobs, will withdraw from efforts to enforce the law
in minority and inner city neighborhoods, leading to lawlessness.
NET WIDENING: Increased use of alternatives to imprisonment – such as drug
courts, mental health courts and community supervision – lead to a widening
of the net of social control. At present, the use of imprisonment imposes physi-
cal and financial limits on decisions to prosecute, but the creation of new alter-
natives removes these checks and brings more people under state supervision.
POLITICS: Prior to the 2020 presidential election, this disadvantage will focus on
the impact of criminal justice reform on the election of the president. After the
election, the politics disadvantage will claim that political backlash or the use of
political capital associated with criminal justice reform will result in unfortunate
outcomes in other areas.
DOMESTIC TERRORISM: Restricting the power of the police will advance the
goals of white nationalist groups. These groups will use perceived assaults on
the police as an element in their recruitment campaigns. In addition, any re-
strictions on the data collection capabilities of the police will allow nationalist
groups to operate more freely.
18
 INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM: Restrictions on police powers – especially the pow-
er to use data-analysis tools such as facial recognition software or predictive
policing techniques – will allow international terrorist groups to operate more
freely in the United States.
DEMOBILIZATION: This disadvantage will argue that the only real solutions to
racial injustices in policing involve ongoing social movements such as “Black
Lives Matter.” The changing public attitudes that will result from these move-
ments represent the only real solution to racial injustice. Federally-imposed
changes in local policing will not only be ineffective, but also counterproduc-
tive by creating the sense in the public that racial justice issues have been
adequately addressed.
HUMAN TRAFFICKING: Restricting the power of the police to engage in predic-
tive policing or advanced data collection and analysis will disable their capabil-
ity to disrupt human trafficking networks.

REFORMING POLICING
Racial injustice is at the center of many of the controversies related to policing
techniques. In numerous high profile cases, African-Americans have been killed by
police without any apparent justification. The most widely discussed incident hap-
pened on August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri when an 18-year-old African Ameri-
can man, Michael Brown, Jr., was shot and killed by a white police officer. Some eye
witnesses claimed that Brown had his hands up in surrender at the time that the po-
lice officer fired twelve bullets, leading to use of the slogan, “Hands up, don’t shoot,”
as a protest against excessive use of deadly force by police. The official investigation,
conducted by the Obama administration Justice Department, found no convincing
evidence that Brown had raised his hands in surrender or that he had said “don’t
shoot.” A grand jury examined the evidence and decided not to indict the police
officer, but the shooting and the failure to hold the police officer accountable led
to months of protest throughout the United States. Unfortunately, the shooting in
Ferguson was not just an isolated instance. Caroline Haskins, a journalist with Vice
News, reports that such shootings are all too common:
Across the U.S., black people were 3.49 times more likely to be
shot by police compared to white people across police shootings
between 2011 and 2015, according to a statistical analysis of the US
Police-Shooting Database. And police shootings happen constantly.
According to a Vice News investigation, officers from the 50 largest
police departments in the country have shot, on average, more than
500 people per year between 2010 and 2016. (Haskins, 2019)
Angela Davis, a former member of the Black Panther Party who is now a visiting
professor of law at American University, is the author of the 2017 book, Policing
the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution and Imprisonment. She connects the shootings of
black men to the police use of racial profiling:
Many unarmed black men and boys have been killed since
Trayvon Martin’s tragic death five years ago. Many of the killings
occurred after police officers arguably engaged in racial profiling –
stopping and harassing these men for no explainable reason other
than the color of their skin. In all of the cases where black men were

19
 shot and killed, the officers claimed that they felt threatened, even
though the men were unarmed and often running away or retreat-
ing. In almost all of the cases, the police officers were never arrested
or charged with a crime. (Davis, 2017, p. xiii)
The term “racial profiling” is explained by David Thomas, professor of forensic
studies at Florida Gulf Coast University, writing in the 2019 book, The State of Amer-
ican Policing: Behavior, Problems and Solutions:
Racial profiling is the application of a stereotype to selectively
enforce the law. It could be dependent on a person being in the
wrong neighborhood. Laney defines racial profiling as “the practice
of targeting individuals for police or security interdiction, detention
or other disperate treatment based on their race or ethnicity, in the
belief that certain minority groups are more likely to engage in un-
lawful behavior.” Categories of racial profiling that minority com-
munities experience include walking while Black, driving while Black
and riding a bicycle while Black. (Thomas, 2019, p. 17)
The U.S. Constitution theoretically provides protection against police arrest in the
absence of probable cause that a crime has been committed. But the U.S. Supreme
Court has ruled that police officers can stop and interrogate a motorist or pedestrian
for pretty much any reason. Such stops are commonly called “Terry stops,” based on
the Supreme Court decision in Terry v. Ohio. This ruling was explained by Jennifer
Cobbina, professor of criminal justice at Michigan State University, in her 2019 book,
Hands Up, Don’t Shoot: Why the Protests in Ferguson and Baltimore Matter, and How
They Changed America:
In its seminal decision in Terry v. Ohio in 1968, the US Supreme
Court ruled that police officers are permitted to stop, interrogate,
and, under appropriate circumstances (i.e., where there is reason-
able signs of potential danger), perform a “pat down” of detainees’
outer clothing, provided that the officer can articulate a reasonable
basis for the stop-and-frisk. The court thereby set a precedent giv-
ing police formal authority to stop citizens on the street based on
a standard of proof less than probable cause and to conduct pat-
down searches of those citizens they stop. The effect of this ruling
has been that a disproportionate number of Black individuals have
been stopped and frisked by police. (Cobbina, 2019, pp. 21-22)
Cobbina offers quantification for the claim that African Americans are more likely
to be stopped than white Americans:
Several studies show that police are more likely to stop Blacks
than Whites. For instance, in 1994 the problem of disproportionate
traffic stops against Black drivers was brought to light in State of
New Jersey v. Pedro Soto, in which the Black defendant claimed that
he was stopped because of his ethnicity. Racial profiling expert John
Lambert served as an expert witness. Using rigorous statistical anal-
ysis of the racial distribution of traffic stops in New Jersey, Lambert
found that 73.2 percent of those stopped and arrested along the

20
 turnpike over a 3.5 year period were Black – making them 16.5 times
more likely to be arrested than others. (Cobbina, 2019, p. 21)
The Terry v. Ohio standard allows police to stop and interrogate persons when
they have “reasonable articulable suspicion.” According to Kristin Henning, professor
of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, this standard is unduly vague:
Under the guise of “reasonable articulable suspicion,” police
stop black boys on the vaguest of descriptions. Black boys running.
Two black males in jeans, one in a gray hoodie. Black male in athletic
gear. Black male with a bicycle. Young black males are treated as if
they are “out of place” not only when they are in white, middle-class
neighborhoods, but also when they are hanging out in public spaces
or sitting on their own front porches. Black boys who congregate on
the “corner” attract the attention of the police at all times of the day
or night. Young black males cannot escape police surveillance even
when they dress nicely or drive nice cars since such signs of wealth
among black youth are presumed to be associated with drug deal-
ing. (Henning, 2017, pp. 69-70)
Defenders of law enforcement tactics point out that the police have a difficult,
dangerous and thankless job as they try to limit criminal activity in inner city neigh-
borhoods. Heather Mac Donald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, presents such
a perspective in her 2016 book, The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and
Order Makes Everyone Less Safe, as she responds to a New York Times article criticiz-
ing the police:
The Times serves up a good example of anti-cop propaganda
when it confidently states that “many police officers see black men
as expendable figures on the urban landscape, not quite human be-
ings.” That would be news to the thousands of police officers who
are the only people willing to put their lives on the line to protect
innocent blacks from predation. Until editors and reporters from the
Times start patrolling dark stairwells in housing projects and running
toward gang gunfire, their superior concern for black men will lack
credibility. (Mac Donald, 2016, p. 19)
Mac Donald believes that the national uproar about police violence has created
an impossible situation for police, leading them to believe that their only option is to
adopt a strategy known as “depolicing,” where inner city crime is ignored:
The incessant drumbeat against the police has resulted in what
Sam Dotson, police chief of St. Louis, called the “Ferguson effect”
Cops are disengaging from discretionary enforcement activity, and
the “criminal element is feeling empowered,” Dotson reported in
November 2014. By that point, arrests in the city and county of St.
Louis had dropped a third since the shooting of Michael Brown in
August. Not surprisingly, homicides in the city had surged 47 per-
cent by early November and robberies in the county were up 82
percent. (Mac Donald, 2016, p. 57)
Some reformers have suggested that the solution to racial profiling is a greater
representation of minorities in police department hiring practices. Yet some studies

21
indicate that minority officers are just as likely – or perhaps even more likely – to
engage in racial profiling as their white counterparts. Paul Butler, professor of law
at the Georgetown University Law Center, offers some disturbing statistics on this
tendency:
A U.S. Justice Department report confirms that African Ameri-
can men are more likely to be killed by black than white cops. One
study, done in 1998, found that the black-officer-kills-black-suspect
rate was 32 per 100,000 black officers and the white-officer-kills-
black-suspect rate was 14 per 100,000 white officers. An officer of
the same race as the suspect committed some 65 percent of the
justifiable homicides. (Butler, 2017, pp. 33-34)
Butler, the author of the 2017 book, Chokehold: Policing Black Men, cites studies
showing that minority officers are more likely to perceive a threat, and to respond
with deadly force, than are white officers:
Another investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice of the
Philadelphia Police Department raises serious concerns about police
officers of color. Among other things, the Justice Department in-
vestigated “threat-perception failure,” which means that the officer
mistakenly believed that an unarmed suspect had a weapon. The
threat-perception failure for white officers and black suspects was
6.8 percent. For black officers and black suspects, the threat-per-
ception failure rate was 11.4 percent. For Hispanic officers and black
suspects, the threat-perception failure rate was 16.7 percent. His-
panic officers were most likely to mistakenly think a black suspect
was armed, followed by African American officers. White officers
were actually the least likely to shoot an unarmed black person.
(Butler, 2017, p. 34)
Another suggested solution to racial profiling is the requirement that police of-
ficers use body-worn cameras (BWC). Matt Stroud, an Associated Press journalist,
describes the federal government’s promotion of this solution: “By the end of 2015,
the U.S. Department of Justice awarded tens of millions of dollars in grants to help
police departments purchase body cameras – a program created specifically in re-
sponse to the controversy over Brown’s death” (Stroud, 2019, p. 12). But Stroud,
writing in his 2019 book, Thin Blue Lie: The Failure of High-Tech Policing, casts doubt
on this solution to police use of excessive force: “Body cameras have simply not been
proven to keep officers honest. In fact, the largest study of their use to date found
that when more than two thousand cops were outfitted with body cameras in Wash-
ington, D.C., there was no change in their use of force or the number of citizen com-
plaints” (Stroud, 2019, pp. 213-214). Steven Cox, professor of justice administration
at Western Illinois University, and his research associates writing in their 2017 book,
Introduction to Policing, also questions the efficacy of a body-worn-camera solution:
Different people can look at the same video and interpret it in
two completely different ways. So, a video from the police officer’s
point of view does not necessarily provide the best-possible per-
spective. The cameras are only one of many tools, and there is a
danger in relying too heavily on them. The question of who controls
the on-off switch is of critical importance. If officers can turn their
22
 cameras off themselves, the question of discretion is still at the fore-
front. If officers cannot turn the cameras off, there is the problem of
whether the department can protect the privacy rights of witnesses,
bystanders, confidential informants, victims and officers themselves.
(Cox et al., 2017, p. 321)
Community policing has also been suggested as a solution to strained relations
between police and the minority neighborhoods they are assigned to protect. The
community policing approach is explained by MaCherie Placide, professor of crim-
inal justice at Western Illinois University: “The community policing approach urged
greater use of foot patrols so that officers will become known to citizens, who in turn
will cooperate with the police. It is believed that through attention to little problems,
the police may not only reduce disorder and fear but also improve public attitudes
toward policing. When citizens respond positively to police efforts, the police will
have improved bases of community and political support” (Placide, 2017, p. 181).
According to Johnny Nhan, professor of criminal justice at Texas Christian University,
over 90% of police departments serving large cities have explicitly adopted commu-
nity policing (Nhan, 2019, pp. 178). But Alex Vitale, professor of sociology at Brooklyn
College, argues that community policing accomplishes little more than expanding
police power: “The research shows that community policing does not empower com-
munities in meaningful ways. It expands police power, but does nothing to reduce
the burden of overpolicing on people of color and the poor. It is time to invest in
communities instead. Participatory budgeting and enhanced local political account-
ability will do more to improve the wellbeing of communities than enhancing the
power and scope of policing” (Vitale, 2017, p. 17).
Some theorists argue that almost all reform efforts are misguided because they
fail to address the deeply-rooted racial prejudice present in all aspects of American
society. Ethnographist, Rebecca Bodenheimer, explains the thesis of the Critical Race
Theory (CRT) movement: “CRT originated among legal scholars like Derrick Bell, Kim-
berlé Crenshaw and Richard Delgado, who argued that racism and white supremacy
were defining elements of the American legal system – and of American society writ
large – despite language related to ‘equal protection.’ Early proponents argued for
a contextual, historicized analysis of the law that would challenge seemingly neutral
concepts like meritocracy and objectivity, which, in practice, tend to reinforce white
supremacy” (Bodenheimer, 2019). Bodenheimer also explains why CRT theorists have
little faith in the power of Supreme Court rulings to address the problem of racism:
“Derrick Bell is often thought of as the forefather of CRT. He made important theoret-
ical contributions, such as arguing that the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board
of Education was a result of the self-interest of elite whites instead of a desire to de-
segregate schools and improve education for black children” (Bodenheimer, 2019).
It is not only the Critical Race Theorists who question the value of Supreme Court
rulings to produce meaningful social change. Gerald Rosenberg, professor of polit-
ical science at the University of Chicago, is the author of the 2008 book, The Hollow
Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? His answer is that “U.S. courts can al-
most never be effective producers of significant social reform” (Rosenberg, 2008, p.
422). Instead, he worries that Supreme Court change becomes “fly paper” for social
reformers, deactivating real social change because of the “lure of litigation,” produc-
ing only an “illusion of change” (Rosenberg, 2008, 427).

23
 If it is true that police officers – and other Americans, for that matter – take ac-
tions based on explicit or implicit racial bias, what is the solution? Can the Supreme
Court solve the problem by changing rulings, such as the one in Terry v. Ohio? Can
the U.S. Congress pass a law against racial bias? Would it help to require all police
officers to wear cameras? Some commentators argue that the only real solution is
public exposure, leading to a grass roots movement for change. Joo-Hyun Kang,
director of Communities United for Police Reform, believes that such a movement is
already underway:
National awareness of police brutality and the need for polic-
ing reform is at an all-time high. Sustained attention to horrific mo-
ments has led to the birth of a movement, and a tipping point is in
sight. Tides and its sister organization, The Advocacy Fund, work
closely with funders and grassroots organizers to accelerate policing
reform. Since 2010, we’ve been bringing people together to find
innovative solutions for safer communities. (Kang, 2016)
Another controversy involves the use of predictive police software. Jeffrey Brant-
ingham, professor of anthropology at UCLA, is a designer of PredPol, one of the most
widely used pieces of software. He explains its purpose and operation in a recent
issue of the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law:
Predictive policing refers to a three-part process: (1) data of one
or more type are ingested; (2) algorithmic methods use ingested
data to forecast the occurrence of crime in some domain of interest
and (3) police use forecasts to inform strategic and tactical decisions
in the field. A primary goal of predictive policing is to reduce uncer-
tainty so that police can approach the allocation of resources in an
optimal manner. The theory is that an optimal allocation of police
resources has a better chance at disrupting opportunities for crime
before they happen. (Brantingham, 2018, p. 473)
Andrew Ferguson, professor of criminal law at the Clarke School of Law and
author of the 2017 book, The Rise of Big Data Policing: Surveillance, Race and the
Future of Law Enforcement, reports that predictive policing methods are now being
implemented throughout the nation:
Almost overnight, predictive policing went from an idea to a
reality and then to a for-profit company. Time magazine heralded
predictive policing as one of the top-50 best inventions of the year.
The Department of Justice invested millions of dollars in grants to
fund studies. Smaller cities like Santa Cruz, California, promoted the
technology, and Norcross, Georgia, made headlines because on the
very first day of rolling out PredPol, officers made a burglary arrest
in a precisely predicted burglary box. News stories in the New York
Times and other major national and international publications drew
increased media attention, and PredPol began heavily marketing
the idea that targeted, place-based crime technology was the “must
have” resource for modern police departments. (Ferguson, 2017, pp.
66-67).

24
 IBM Consultant, Felipe Campos, along with other graduate students in the Uni-
versity of California at Berkeley’s Master of Information and Data Science Program,
report that a predictive policing software tool called Optipol has the potential to
remove discriminatory bias from police practices:
Police departments have lately been struggling with a diminish-
ing number of resources and a growing number of complaints of
police discriminative behavior. Current predictive policing solutions
in the market generally work by predicting crimes using solely the
historical crime data, which may already have some discrimination
bias embedded into them due to police behavior in the past. Op-
tipol tries to leverage other datasources along with the historical
crime data while removing possibly biased features to train less-bi-
ased predictive models. It also tries to create awareness to possible
discrimination by showing a Fairness Indicator along with other KPIs
[Key Performance Indicators] which is constantly measuring the bias
in crime predictions and patrol deployment plans. (Campos et al.,
2019)
But other experts worry that predictive policing software will entrench racism by
burying in within a seemingly objective computer tool. Renata O’Donnell offers the
following warning in the June 2019 issue of the New York University Law Review:
Algorithms are capable of racism, just as humans are capable
of racism. This is particularly true of an algorithm used in the con-
text of the racially biased criminal justice system. Predictive policing
algorithms are trained on data that is heavily infected with racism
because that data is generated by human beings. Predictive policing
algorithms are coded to delineate patterns in massive data sets and
subsequently dictate who or where to police. Because of the reali-
ties of America’s criminal justice system, a salient pattern emerges
from the racially skewed data: Race is associated with criminality
in the United States. Because of the “black-box” nature of machine
learning, a police officer could naively presume that an algorithm’s
results are neutral, when they are, in fact, infected with racial bias.
In this way, a machine learning algorithm is capable of perpetuating
racist policing in the United States. (O’Donnell, 2019, p. 545)
Andrew Selbst, visiting fellow at the Yale University Information Society Project,
expresses a similar concern in the Fall 2017 issue of the Georgia Law Review:
If they remain unregulated, predictive policing systems will hard-
en and perpetuate the racial discrimination that pervades the crim-
inal justice system. Unless society recognizes the urgency and acts
soon, we will become inured to the toxic discriminatory emissions of
predictive policing systems. The narrative pull of “trusting the data”
will hard-code racial discrimination into the technology, making it
even harder to eradicate later. Given the history of discriminatory
policing, no technology or police practice should ever be adopted
without investigating how it impacts minority populations. Society
cannot afford to let the allure of new technologies blind people to
the systemic inequalities they can perpetuate. (Selbst, 2017, p. 194)
25
 Sarah Valentine, professor of law at the City University of New York Law School,
questions the effectiveness of predictive policing: “There is little research on whether
predictive policing systems actually work. Most of the studies on these systems are
either authored or paid for by the very companies developing them, leaving police
departments with little reliable information to use when deciding whether to procure
predictive algorithms” (Valentine, 2019, p. 378).

PRACTICUM: THE HARM REDUCTION ARGUMENT

PRINCIPLES GUIDING NEGATIVE HARM REDUCTION BRIEFS
1. Reasonable Objectives: The negative harm reduction brief does not need to
deny altogether that a problem exists; the main purpose of the argument is to
limit the affirmative harm to something that the disadvantages can outweigh.
It is rarely the case that problems are nonexistent.
2. Short, Clear Labels: The best briefs are those which have labels or “tags” that
the judge can easily record.
3. Numerical Organization: Answers to an affirmative harm claim should be orga-
nized with a number for each independent answer; the arguments should not
be substructured with little “a” or little “1.” It is much easier for a debater to say,
“I will have four answers; first . . .”
4. Evidentiary Support for Each Label: Each argument should be supported with
one or more quotations from authority.

EXAMPLE OF A HARM REDUCTION ARGUMENT

Use of Predictive Policing Is More Beneficial Than Harmful.
1. Predictive Policing Works as a Crime-Fighting Tool.
Albert Meijer & Martijn Wessels, (Professors at Utrecht University), Inter-
national Journal Of Public Administration, Feb. 12, 2019. Retrieved Feb. 4, 2020
from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01900692.2019.1575664.
The use of statistical models can be of immense value for reducing crime and
ensuring the safety in cities. Indeed, some cases in the United States indicate
that when predictive policing software is used, the crime rate decreases. For
instance, with the use of historic data, Richmond’s police department tried to
forecast where gun firing would occur on New Year’s Eve, in 2003, and adapt-
ed their surveillance routes to these predictions. It was deemed a success: the
random gunfire decreased on this night with 47%, 246% more weapons were
seized, while the police force became more efficient as $15,000 was saved.
2. Predictive Policing Software Helps in Identifying Police Misconduct.
Andrew Ferguson, (Professor of Law at Clarke School of Law), Vanderbilt
Law Review, Mar. 2019, p. 563. Predictive policing guides patrols. Pervasive sur-
veillance monitors the streets. Yet, in adopting this data-focused, quantified
approach to law enforcement, police have inadvertently created equally reveal-
ing data-driven methods of police accountability. The same surveillance tech-
nologies that can watch the citizenry can also watch the police, and patterns of
police misconduct can be predicted and analyzed.

26
 3. Predictive Policing Offers a More Efficient Use of Scarce Police Resources.
Erik Bakke, (J.D.), New York University Annual Survey Of American Law, 2018,
p. 135. When well-designed and backed by good data, predictive policing al-
gorithms have been a boon to a number of law enforcement goals: overcoming
budget restrictions, increasing surveillance and preventing crimes before they
occur. First and foremost, algorithms allow departments to get more out of a
smaller force, cutting crime without significantly expanding budgets.

REFORMING SENTENCING
One of the major sources of the mass incarceration crisis is the use of manda-
tory minimum sentences. Over the past several decades, legislators at all levels of
government have responded to public demands to get tough on crime by restricting
the options available to sentencing judges. Rachel Barkow, professor of law at the
New York University School of Law, reports on the extent of reliance on mandatory
minimum sentencing:
Mandatory sentences thus exploded for drug crimes, weapon
offenses and sex offenses. Jurisdictions also turned to mandatory
minimums to address repeat offenders, with 40 states adopting a
recidivism mandatory minimum regime between 1970 and 1996
and 24 states and the federal government adopting three-strikes
versions of these mandatory laws between 1993 and 1995. Where-
as previously in American history, Congress had passed mandato-
ry minimum sentencing laws only sporadically, the total number of
these laws skyrocketed from 77 in 1980 to 284 in 2000. (Barkow,
2019, p. 33)
According to Federal District Court Judge, Harold Baer, Jr., “almost one-quarter
of federal offenders had convictions under statutes that impose mandatory mini-
mum sentences” (Baer, 2019, p. 36). Paul Hofer, professor of psychology at Johns
Hopkins University, writing in the 2019 book, American Sentencing: What Happens
and Why?, argues that the mandatory minimum sentencing statutes “are the most
important source of excessive severity and unwarranted disparity today. By giving
prosecutors power to threaten and require severe punishments that are unreview-
able by judges, these statutes enable prosecutors to pressure defendants to waive
important procedural rights meant to bolster the system’s truth-seeking functions”
(Hofer, 2019, pp. 140-141). Patrisia Macias-Rojas, professor of sociology at the Uni-
versiy of Illinois at Chicago, also believes that it was “the shift to mandatory minimum
sentences or “zero tolerance” measures, that created the present conditions of mass
incarceration” (Macias-Rojas, 2016, p. 19).
The federal government took a small step back from mandatory minimum sen-
tencing with the passage on December 21, 2018 of the FIRST STEP Act. The provi-
sions of the Act were described by Ames Grawert and Tim Lau, analysts at the Bren-
nan Center for Justice:
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 convic-
tions – and issues a 25-year sentence instead. Most consequentially,
it expands the “drug safety-valve,” which would give judges more

27
 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. (Grawert & Lau, 2019)
NBC News journalists, Dartunorro Clark and Janell Ross, also reported on the
beneficial changes resulting from the FIRST STEP Act in a November 24, 2019 article:
“More than 3,000 inmates have been released and another roughly 1,700 people
convicted of crack cocaine offenses have seen their sentences reduced thanks to the
FIRST STEP Act, according to data from the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the U.S.
Sentencing Commission” (Clark & Ross, 2019).
While a reduction of 3,000 in the federal prison population sounds significant, it
requires some context. Joe Davidson, staff writer for the Washington Post, points out
that “the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, which currently incarcerates about 175,250 inmates”
and states and locals jails are “where the bulk of the nation’s 2 million prisoners are
held” (Davidson, 2020). Even more concerning is a report from the Sentencing Proj-
ect that “while sentence reductions have been approved by judges, the Department
of Justice (DOJ) has attempted to block hundreds of eligible beneficiaries” (Davidson,
2020). Fred Davie, Vice President of Union Theological Seminary, and Julio Medina,
director of the Exodus Transitional Community, wrote an article in the January 30,
2020 issue of USA Today in which they argued that Attorney General William Barr is
now doing its best to avoid implementing the FIRST STEP Act:
As criminal justice reform advocates with a combined 40 years
of experience in developing and administering programs that help
prisoners reenter society, we can say that what the Justice Depart-
ment is doing is cruel and unusual. And it will increase recidivism
by removing any sense of hope – the antithesis of the legislation’s
intent. In our work, we have seen that hopelessness and cynicism
about the justice system equal a catalyst for anti-social and criminal
behavior. (Davie & Medina, 2020)
The Washington Post Editorial Board, in an article entitled, “Before Boasting
About the FIRST STEP Act, Trump Should Get His Administration to Agree on It,” also
accuses the U.S. Justice Department’s of failing to carry out the provisions of the Act:
The FIRST STEP Act, passed nearly a year ago, was the most sig-
nificant overhaul of the federal justice system in a generation. It has
led to the release from prison of more than 3,000 inmates who were
serving harsh sentences for low-level and nonviolent crimes. But,
as the Post’s Neena Satija, Wesley Lowery and Josh Dawsey report-
ed last week, a rift has emerged between White House supporters
of the bill and the Justice Department, which never much liked the
legislation and is now seeking to limit the number of inmates who
could benefit from it. (Washington Post Editorial Board, 2019)

28
 The key point about the FIRST STEP Act is implied by its name -- it is intended
only as a starting point in sentencing reform. Brennan Center for Justice analysts,
Ames Grawert and Tim Lau, point out that much remains to be done:
The FIRST STEP Act marks progress for criminal justice reform, but
it has some notable shortcomings. It will leave significant mandatory
minimum sentences in place. In addition, two of the bill’s key sen-
tencing provisions are not retroactive, which minimizes their overall
impact. “It’s imperative that this first step not be the only step,” said
Inimai Chettiar, director of the Brennan Center’s Justice Program.
“Now we must focus our efforts on bigger and bolder widespread
reforms that will make our system more fair and more humane. We
know better, and we must do better.” (Grawert & Lau, 2019)
Increasing the use of community corrections is viewed by many commentators
as the solution to mass incarceration. Lynn Branham, professor of law at St. Louis Uni-
versity School of Law, and author of the 2017 book, The Law and Policy of Sentencing
and Corrections in a Nutshell, describes the benefits of community corrections:
Community-based sanctions, if properly structured, offer many
advantages – to victims, to the public, to those who have commit-
ted crimes and to their families. Some of these advantages include
the following: (1) Such sanctions are generally cheaper, and often
substantially cheaper, than incarceration in either prison or jail. (2)
If people convicted of crimes are already employed, they can con-
tinue to work if they serve community sentences, enhancing their
rehabilitation prospects and the likelihood that they will be able to
pay restitution to the victims of their crimes. (3) The economic bur-
den incarcerative sanctions inflict on taxpayers can be diminished
further as convicted individuals with jobs pay taxes and support
their families instead of the public supporting them through welfare
payments. (4) When sentenced individuals remain in the commu-
nity, family ties can be preserved, which in turn will enhance the
likelihood that rehabilitative endeavors will be successful. (5) The
severe emotional trauma that ensues, particularly in children, when
a close family member is incarcerated can be avoided. (6) By serving
their sentences in the community, people can avoid the crimino-
genic influences that pervade prisons and jails, the dependency and
“learned helplessness” that incarceration fosters and the debilitating
and sometimes permanent psychological harm that often attends
confinement. (7) By imposing community-based penalties on peo-
ple who can be sanctioned safely and effectively in the community,
crowding in prisons and jails can be alleviated or avoided, thereby
making the correctional facilities safer and easier to manage and
less likely to be embroiled in litigation. In addition, the efficacy of
prison and jail educational, training, work and treatment programs
can be enhanced as the number of inmates who have needs to be
met by such programs is reduced. (Branham, 2017, pp. 121-122)
Community alternatives can take many forms, according to Branham. Persons
convicted of a crime can be sent to drug treatment, drug courts, mental health courts,

29
“unsupervised probation, standard supervised probation, intensive-supervision pro-
bation, community service, home confinement without electronic monitoring, elec-
tronically monitored home confinement, other forms of electronic surveillance, out-
patient and inpatient treatment programs, community residential centers, day fines,
restitution and day reporting centers” (Branham, 2017, p. 123).
Critics of the movement to community corrections worry about the phenome-
non of “net-widening.” When the police, prosecutors and judges have only a prison
alternative, certain natural limits are created. There are only so many prison spaces
available and the use of these spaces imposes significant costs on the government
entity paying the bill. But community corrections alternatives do away with all of
those limits and, in most cases, the offender pays the bill. Michael O’Hear, professor
of law at Marquette University, comments on this problem in his 2017 book, The
Failed Promise of Sentencing Reform:
Many diversion programs have suffered from “net-widening,”
that is, the tendency for such programs to draw in very low-level
offenders who were not likely to be incarcerated anyway, but who
now may face significant risks of incarceration through the rigor-
ous systems of monitoring and sanctions that go with diversion.
For instance, before a drug court is implemented in a jurisdiction,
police and prosecutors might tend to ignore simple drug posses-
sion offenses by addicts, but, after the drug court is in place, those
same offenders might be seen as good candidates for the diversion
– even though it would not really be a “diversion” as to them. Once
in drug court, they are likely to spend some time behind bars as a re-
sponse to the normal struggles that addicts experience in treatment.
(O’Hear, 2017, p. 201)
Peter Edelman, professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, de-
scribes the financial burdens charged to offenders for their participation in commu-
nity corrections programs:
The number of people on probation has skyrocketed, rising from
roughly 800,000 adults in 1977 to more than four million in 2010. In
forty-four states offenders are charged for the costs of their own
probation or parole (up from twenty-six in 1990), and forty-nine (ex-
cept Hawaii and the District of Columbia) have a fee for electronic
bracelets in lieu of detention while waiting for trial. Defendants are
also charged for drug testing, vehicle interlocking for those with a
DUI and any court-ordered treatment they receive, as well as inter-
est, late fees, payment plan fees and collection fees. The charges
can be stiff. Home supervision and alcohol monitoring cost between
$180 and $360 a month and drug testing can be $25 per week, or
$1,300 a year. (Edelman, 2017, p. 12)
Edelman notes that excessive costs exclude many users from participation in
community corrects: “In a national New York Times survey of two hundred defense
lawyers, two-thirds said their clients were effectively barred from diversion programs
by the fees. And the price can be steep – up to $5,000 for drunken driving in Dothan,
Alabama, for example” (Edelman, 2017, p. 18).

30
 PRACTICUM: INHERENCY ARGUMENTS ON THE NEGATIVE
PRINCIPLES GUIDING PREPARATION OF INHERENCY BRIEFS
1. Give Way to Disadvantages: The most common problem with first negative
inherency arguments is that they diminish the credibility of disadvantages.
Suppose, for example, that an affirmative case proposes to increase the U.S.
Department of Justice consent decrees to battle abusive police tactics. The first
negative speaker might select an inherency argument claiming that the U.S.
Justice Department remains vigilant in enforcing consent decrees. But if the
negative team intends to win the debate with a federalism disadvantage, then
the inherency argument undermines the disadvantage.
2. Think beyond the Affirmative Inherency Claim: Rather than merely answering
the inherency arguments of the affirmative, look for existing programs which
are resolving the harm in ways totally different from the affirmative plan. The
stronger negative inherency arguments argue that some mechanism wholly
unlike the affirmative plan mechanism is solving the harm.
3. Integrate Inherency into the Whole Negative Strategy: Rather than expecting
the inherency argument to win the round all by itself, the second negative can
argue that the present system offers the best chance to reduce the affirmative
harm while avoiding the disadvantages.

EXAMPLE OF A FIRST NEGATIVE INHERENCY ARGUMENT

Non-Federal Activities Are Actively Working to Limit Abusive Police Tactics.
1. State and Local Governments Are Acting to Limit Police Abuse.
Samuel Walker, (Prof., Criminal Justice, U. of Nebraska at Omaha), Police
Reform Is Moving Ahead, Nov. 27, 2019. Retrieved Feb. 8, 2020 from https://
thecrimereport.org/2019/11/27/ignore-the-headlines-police-reform-is-
moving-ahead/. State legislatures have been extremely active on police
reform. A national survey by the Vera Institute found that in 2015 and 2016
34 states and the District of Columbia passed a total of 79 laws enhancing
police accountability. These laws reformed police use of force policies, limited
racial profiling, mandated body-worn cameras, protected the right of citizens
to record police officers at work, mandated data collection on traffic stops and
arrests and provided for independent investigations of police fatal shooting
incidents.
2. Social Activism Has Causes Police Groups Themselves to Act Against Abuse.
Samuel Walker, (Prof., Criminal Justice, U. of Nebraska at Omaha), Police
Reform Is Moving Ahead, Nov. 27, 2019. Retrieved Feb. 8, 2020 from https://
thecrimereport.org/2019/11/27/ignore-the-headlines-police-reform-is-
moving-ahead/. Finally, forward-looking police chiefs across the country,
recognizing the national crisis in police-race relations, have been leading
the police profession with a series of recommended reforms. Since 2012, the
Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) has published a series of reports with
recommendations on the importance of de-escalation, the need for legitimacy
and procedural justice, the need to improve police training programs and a
comprehensive strategy for limiting police use of force, among other issues.

31
 PRACTICUM: ATTACKING SOLVENCY CLAIMS
QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT AFFIRMATIVE SOLVENCY CLAIMS:
1. Does the solvency evidence go in the right direction? Much of the solvency
evidence read in affirmative cases is really harm evidence in disguise. Instead
of showing how the plan will resolve the problem, the evidence just says that
there is a problem needing a solution.
2. Is the plan practicable? Is it possible to do what the affirmative plan proposes?
3. Does the solvency evidence take into account the affirmative plan? The affir-
mative team may read solvency evidence from an expert who is actually pro-
posing an action different from the affirmative plan.
EXAMPLE OF A SOLVENCY ARGUMENT
Programs To Increase Minority Recruitment of Officers Are Ineffective in Address-
ing Problems With Policing.
1. Increased Recruitment of Minority Officers Will Not Improve Policing.
Kenneth Novak, (Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri
at Kansas City), et al., Police And Society, 2017, p. 381. Some evidence indicates
that black officers are actually more punitive on black citizens than white offi-
cers. In a study in Philadelphia in the 1950s, Kephart found that the majority of
black officers believed it was necessary to be “stricter” with their “own” people
than they were with nonblacks. Alex found that black officers were actually
challenged more by young blacks and may have viewed themselves as protec-
tors of the black community. In contrast, black officers needed to prove to the
white officers that they were not biased and therefore treated black suspects
the same as they treated white suspects—or even more harshly. Contemporary
research on this issue draws similar conclusions; Brown and Frank reported that
black officers were significantly more likely to arrest black citizens than white
officers.
2. Increased Recruitment of Female Officers Will Not Improve Policing.
Johnny Nhan, (Professor of Criminal Justice at Texas Christian University),
Issues And Controversies In Policing Today, 2019, p. 155. It is often the case
that female officers are not sympathetic to female victims. The same Detroit
study of abused women found that female officers did not automatically side
with female victims. Moreover, oftentimes female officers treat female victims
generally more harshly than their male colleagues. Female officers, who typically
have a different mind-set than women in the general population, often find
it very difficult to relate to the female victim of crime. For example, female
officers often find it difficult to understand why women who are repeatedly
victimized by their spouses or partners do not leave or take action. They see
these women as inexplicably weak and wonder why they put up with the abuse,
and consider them almost deserving of the abuse. The female officer cannot
fathom allowing a male to dominate them in that way.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AS A SENTENCING ALTERNATIVE

One of the most powerful arguments in favor of abolishing the death penalty
is the possibility of killing innocent persons. R. J. Maratea, professor of sociology

32
at George Washington University, reports that “since 1973, there have been 161 in-
mates exonerated from death row in the United States, as of December 31, 2017.
Conservative estimates further suggest that 4.1 percent of inmates sentenced to
death were wrongfully convicted” (Maratea, 2019, p. 161).
Another problem with capital punishment is its excessive cost. Richard Dieter,
director of the Death Penalty Information Center, estimates these costs in hundreds
of millions of dollars for each execution:
Even states that have carried out executions are doing so at
enormous costs. A recent report by a senior federal judge and a
law professor in California found that the state had spent $4 billion
on the death penalty since its reinstatement in 1978, resulting in 13
executions. That translates to a cost of $308 million per execution.
Such expenditures represent thousands of police officers not hired,
libraries and schools closed or even prisoners released early because
of overcrowding. And there is no sign that the costs of the death
penalty will be going down. (Dieter, 2017, p. 140)
Journalist, Sydney Harris, summarizes the case against capital punishment in
the 2017 book, Fighting the Death Penalty: A Fifty-Year Journey of Argument and
Persuasion: “Additional well-documented evidence shows many of the death penal-
ty’s inherent defects: It fails to deter murder. It severely obstructs that certainty and
swiftness of conviction and punishment which is society’s best deterrent to crime. It
distorts the administration of justice and the course of the criminal law. It causes the
death of innocent persons, by occasionally executing the innocent and by inciting
additional killings by the mentally disturbed. It is inflicted discriminatorily against
blacks, severely aggravating racial tensions. And it is immensely expensive” (Harris,
2017, p. 83).
Many states have eliminated capital punishment altogether and other states
have a moratorium because of problems associated with administering lethal injec-
tion. Austin Sarat, professor of political science at Amherst College, reports that “in
1999, 98 people were executed in the United States. In 2014, that number was 35.
And, of the 19 states that do not have capital punishment on the books, six abolished
it since 2007. Another 13 states that still retain capital punishment have either formal
or de facto moratoria” (Sarat, 2017, p. 2).
Defenders of capital punishment, such as law professor, Brett Melzer, argue that
the death sentence is used only for the most heinous crimes and then only with care-
ful due process controls: “By requiring a jury in a capital case to carefully consider
both the guilt of the offender and any aggravating or mitigating circumstances, the
penalty is limited to the most brutal of crimes. Finally, by mandating appeals in such
cases, the appellate courts safeguard against capricious and weak prosecutions, or
egregiously erroneous jury determinations unsupported by the evidence. Thus, with
these safeguards in place the offender is afforded due process. (Melzer, 2017, pp.
148-149).

33
 CHAPTER TWO: THE DEBATE RESOLUTION
A discussion of what the words in the debate resolution mean has become a
major part of the interscholastic debate process. The wording of the resolution is
the only force limiting the subject matter that the affirmative team will choose for
the debate. The negative team attempts, therefore, to prepare for all of the cases
which could possibly fit within the wording of the topic. From the perspective of the
negative team, the task of preparing for all of the legitimate affirmative cases is large
enough without having to worry about cases that seem to bear no relationship to the
topic. When the affirmative team does step outside the realm of the resolution, it is
necessary for the negative debaters to argue that the case is nontopical by referring
to the particular words in the resolution that the plan fails to meet.
Debate theorists typically hold that topicality is an independent voting issue. This
means that the negative team can win the debate if it can show that the affirmative
plan is nontopical, even if the affirmative team wins every other issue in the debate.
The fact that topicality is such a threatening argument means that the affirmative
team must take it very seriously. Negative teams often make a topicality argument
just to see if they can force an affirmative mistake; many rounds are won because an
affirmative team inadvertently failed to answer a topicality argument that could have
easily been answered. For all of the above reasons, debaters need to give careful
attention to the meaning of each word in the debate resolution.
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the meanings of the words in the res-
olution on criminal justice reform. It is important, however, to establish that there is
not one author of the debate resolution who has the right to decree what the words
in the debate resolution must mean.
Words are not things that can be identified as having one-and-only-one possible
meaning. Instead, words are symbolic representations that can arguably have many
meanings in different contexts. The clash over definitions of terms is a vital part of
the debate process itself. The meaning of the terms of the resolution must be decid-
ed by an individual judge in a round of debate after hearing arguments on the issue
from both teams.
The definition chapter in the Policy Debate Quarterly is designed to stimulate
the debater’s own thinking about arguments which might be used in topicality de-
bates. Debaters who do not have access to political science, criminal justice or legal
dictionaries may wish to take for their own use some of the definitions quoted here.
The description of the wording alternatives considered by the Topic Selection Com-
mittee might also provide supporting substance for a topicality brief. The debater is
discouraged, however, from quoting the Policy Debate Quarterly itself as some sort
of final authority on the question of topicality.
The resolution on the criminal justice reform topic originated with a topic pro-
posal submitted by Colton Gilbert of Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock,
Arkansas. In early 2019, Mr. Gilbert’s proposal went to Dr. James Weaver of the Na-
tional Federation of State High School Associations in Indianapolis, along with nu-
merous other topic reports recommending various topic areas.
After topic reports were prepared for ten potential debate topic areas, the next
stage in the topic selection process was the submission of the topic proposals to a
panel of peer reviewers. James Weaver then passed along the recommendations of

34
the reviewers to each of the authors of the topic proposals so that they might (if they
so desired) alter their original manuscript.
The above-described refinement processes all culminated in the annual meeting
of the Topic Selection Committee. This committee included one voting delegate from
each of the states which sponsor high school debate activities, one delegate from
the National Speech and Debate Association, one delegate from the National Debate
Coaches Association, one delegate from the National Catholic Forensic League, and
one delegate from the National Association of Urban Debate Leagues.
The 2019 Topic Selection Committee met in Chicago, Illinois. The task of the
group was to make final revisions in the wording of each suggested resolution with-
in the ten potential topic areas. Most of the actual wording changes were made
within the process of the Wording Committee sessions. The Wording Committee
was chaired by Susan McLain of Glencoe High School in Forest Grove, Oregon and
included Darin Maier of the St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Ridgeland, Mississippi;
Pam McComas of Topeka High School in Topeka, Kansas; Grace Gill of Roosevelt High
School in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Nicole Yeakley Cornish of Athens High School
in Athens, Texas; Chris Lowery of the Indiana High School Forensics Association in
Chesterton, Indiana and Jana Riggins of the University Interscholastic League in Aus-
tin, Texas.
The final decision for approval of the wording of the resolutions rested with the
voting delegates of the Topic Selection Committee. The committee selected criminal
justice reform, climate change, commercial agriculture, election reform and health
coverage as the five areas which would offer the greatest potential for national high
school debate topics.
The narrowing of the five topic areas to the criminal justice reform and climate
change topics took place as a result of a national vote in which coaches and de-
baters participated. The state activities offices balloted their membership to deter-
mine which of the five possible areas would be most desirable. The vote to choose
between the final two topics took place in December of 2019 and the results were
announced in mid-January of 2020. The criminal justice reform topic was preferred
over the climate change topic by a narrow margin.
The national topic for policy debate in 2020-21 as selected in the national bal-
loting was “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.”

THE TOPIC PARAGRAPH FOR THE

CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM TOPIC
A useful index of the intent of the topic framers is provided by the paragraph
which is sent along with the topic selection ballot. The authors of the topic proposal
and the members of the Wording Committee jointly wrote this paragraph. The para-
graph on the ballot for the criminal justice reform topic follows:
The FIRST STEP Act was a bipartisan effort which made minor
changes to the criminal justice system that didn’t go far enough.
What it did was spark a conversation which in turn produced a
wealth of literature that would be ripe for debate. As the nation with
the most incarcerated people per capita we have an obligation to
35
 find ways to reform our current system; this resolution offers stu-
dents the opportunity to explore a plethora of options. Affirmatives
can explore different ways to improve policing. These could include,
but is not limited to, body cameras, increased community policing,
instituting community review boards to investigate police miscon-
duct or can overturn Supreme Court decisions that have increased
protections for police officers. When seeking to address forensic sci-
ence affirmatives can explore the accreditation standards for crime
labs, change how evidence is handled, increase testing to establish
validity in crime lab results or institute statutory mechanisms that
allows individuals to prove their innocence in court based on evolv-
ing science or expert reputation. With respect to the third area of
sentencing, affirmatives can change/end mandatory minimum sen-
tencing, can change the way drug crimes are sentenced or could
abolish/change the requirements for the death penalty. Negatives
can argue that reforming forensic science would have catastrophic
impacts for evidence collection or would lead to an increase in mis-
takes made in crime labs. When negating policing, teams can argue
that increased reform on policing would lead to officers leaving the
profession, could mobilize the creation of underground militias or
would cause an increase of violence towards police officers. A gener-
ic circumvention argument available to negatives could be that those
in power, specifically, Attorney General Barr, will choose not to en-
force whatever the affirmative does. Negative teams have access to
agent counterplans that test the mechanism of the affirmative; there
is a debate to be had on whether Congress or the courts are more
effective at initiating reform in the criminal justice system. Disadvan-
tage ground would include federalism arguments that challenge the
roles both the federal and state governments play in the criminal
justice system, backlash disadvantages in the form of police officers
rebelling against the affirmative or funding disadvantages since a lot
of the funding will have to be absorbed by state governments.
This topic paragraph is useful in the construction of topicality arguments in nu-
merous ways. First, the paragraph provides the best record of what the topic framers
were thinking about when they wrote the topic. Whenever the topicality debate turns
to “framers’ intent,” the topic paragraph provides the most authoritative evidence.
Second, the paragraph was available to the debaters and coaches when they were
voting on the topics. As such, the topic paragraph provides the best indication of the
limits that the voters themselves expected would be placed on the resolution.
The fact that the framers suggested particular cases does not mean that they are
automatically topical (such matters are always determined by the arguments heard in
an individual debate round). Debaters using one of the cases listed in the paragraph
should, however, make some of their topicality arguments based upon the fact that
they are explicitly listed in the topic paragraph. The fact that a case is not listed in
the paragraph does not mean it is nontopical; the Wording Committee members
never attempt to list all cases that they believe might be topical. They are simply
trying to provide a representative list of cases to guide those who are voting on the
resolutions.
36
 THE DEBATE RESOLUTION FOR 2020-21
Resolved: The United States federal government should enact substantial crim-
inal justice reform in the United States in one or more of the following: forensic sci-
ence, policing, sentencing.

UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

The term “United States federal government” is the agent of action in the res-
olution. This means that affirmative teams must limit their plans to changes in the
policies or programs of the national government in Washington, D.C. It may be true,
however, that changes in a Supreme Court ruling or strings tied to federal funding of
state and local police forces could promote changes throughout the criminal justice
system.

ENACT
To “enact” normally implies legislative action, which in the case of the federal
government, would involve Congressional passage of a law. The Longman Dictionary
of Contemporary English: The Living Dictionary, defines “enact” as “to make a pro-
posal into a law” (Summers, 2005, p. 513). Similarly, Black’s Law Dictionary defines
“enact” as “to make into law by authoritative act” (Garner, 2014, p. 642). According
to these definitions, only Congress can “enact” something – not Supreme Court or
executive agency action. Law professor Bryan Garner addresses this question directly
in Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage: “The platitude is that courts adjudicate, rather
than legislate. Some judicial decisions seem to belie this principle; still, it is unidiom-
atic to refer to a court as enacting doctrines” (Garner, 2011, p. 316). The legal ency-
clopedia, Words & Phrases, offers the following explanation: “The words ‘enact’ and
‘enacted’ within provision of constitutional amendments related to appropriation
bills refer solely to legislative action” (Words & Phrases, 2005).
The question of whether the Supreme Court can, by issuing or overturning a
decision, “enact” criminal justice reform is not an idle question. When the Supreme
Court issues an interpretation of citizen rights as protected by the U.S. Constitution,
that ruling impacts law enforcement at the federal level as well as the state and local
level. Historically, Supreme Court rulings have impacted the operation of local police
departments in many ways, including Miranda warnings, the exclusionary rule and
Terry stops. Accordingly, affirmative plans could expand the rights of citizens vis-a-
vis the police by changing a Supreme Court ruling – assuming that the “enact” term
could be interpreted in such a way as to establish the topicality of such plans.
Some legal experts have used the word “enact” to apply to Supreme Court rul-
ings. Consider the following explanation from Mark Hermann, an attorney with firm
Aon PLC:
Important practical considerations also weigh in the decision
whether to enact a rule or statute. Generally, a court-created rule is
likely to be simpler to adopt than legislation because a rule avoids
the complexities of the legislative process. Courts are closer to the
litigation process and have a better understanding of how the spe-
cific aspects of coordination will affect existing procedures, and a
court-created rule may be easier to modify as courts accumulate ex-
perience with coordination and identify problems. (Hermann, 2005,
p. 40)
37
 A recent statement from the NAACP also uses the term “enact” to apply either
to congressional legislation or to Supreme Court decisions: “To be sure, America has
made progress over the decades. Government and the courts enacted statutes and
rulings ranging from Brown v. Board of Education to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to
the Fair Housing Act of 1968 that outlawed public discrimination, while purportedly
providing equal opportunities” (NAACP, 2017).

SUBSTANTIAL
In the resolutional sentence, “substantial” is an adjective modifying the phrase
“criminal justice reform.” The problem is that this adjective is used in such a wide
variety of ways. The legal encyclopedia Words and Phrases presents more than 500
pages of fine-print definitions of this term. The variety of definitions found in Words
and Phrases (a legal encyclopedia) may become a source of confusion for debaters.
The context for these definitions should be understood: each one involves the judg-
ment of a court in a particular case concerning what the word meant in the context
of that case. It is natural that debaters will try to make use of these legal definitions,
but it must always be done with a key question in mind: “Is the context for this court
case similar to the way that the word ‘substantial’ is used in the debate resolution?”
One group of definitions for “substantial” indicates that it means “an important
amount.” The court in Bank of Chatham v. Arendall said that “substantial is defined
as important, essential, material” (Words and Phrases, Vol. 40, 1964, p. 761). In White
v. City of Ottawa, the Illinois Court of Appeals wrote that “substantial means in sub-
stance, in the main, essential, including material or essential parts” (Words and Phras-
es, Vol. 40, 1964, p. 761). The Cambridge Dictionary of American English says that
“substantial” means “large in size, value or importance” (Landau, 2000, p. 867). One
of the New Oxford American Dictionary definitions of “substantial” is “of considerable
importance, size or worth” (Jewell, 2001, p. 1696).
Numerous court cases have found changes of twenty-five percent to be sub-
stantial. Words and Phrases cited one such case: “Evidence including eating estab-
lishments owner’s admission that 25 percent of food served in the years 1963-1965
and 18 percent of first six months of fiscal year of 1965-1966 moved in commerce
established that a ‘substantial’ portion of food served had moved in interstate com-
merce” (Words and Phrases, Vol. 40, 1995, p. 309).
Given the abundance of specific percentage interpretations of the term “sub-
stantial,” it is possible that negative topicality violations will require of the affirmative
plan a certain percentage of change. There are, however, several court rulings which
have held that “substantial” should not be quantified as a percent. In Burnet v. Bank
of Italy the court ruled that “‘substantially all’ within statute permitting consolidated
income return by affiliated corporations does not mean fixed percentage, and must
be construed according to particular facts” (Words and Phrases, Vol. 40, 1964, p. 821).
The most important definitions of terms such as “substantial” will be those found
in the context of the criminal justice system. As debaters research the topic, they
should look for the use of the words appearing in the resolution. Consider, for exam-
ple, the following statement of Tim Lau, an analyst at the Brennan Center for Justice:
“The FIRST STEP Act, which Congress passed last December, represents the most
substantial criminal justice reform legislation in a generation. The law aims to shorten
mandatory minimum sentences for some drug offenses and to improve conditions

38
for people currently in prison” (Lau, 2019).
Yet Ted Gest, analyst at the Center on Media Crime and Justice at John Jay Col-
lege, describes numerous steps beyond the FIRST STEP Act that experts regard as
substantial reforms of the criminal justice system:
The new federal FIRST STEP Act is an “important accomplish-
ment,” but many of its reforms to the prison system do not go so
far as those recommended by the Colson Task Force on Federal Cor-
rections that was created by Congress in 2014, writes a team from
the Urban Institute. “Substantial reform work remains to be done,”
say Julie Samuels, Nancy La Vigne and Chelsea Thomson in a new
brief on federal prison issues. The group says areas for future reform
include expanding inmate eligibility for earned time credits while in
custody, making all changes in federal sentencing reform and provi-
sions retroactive and adopting other reforms recommended by the
Colson Task Force in 2016. (Gest, 2019)
Michelle Phelps, professor of sociology at Princeton University, writes that pro-
grams encouraging judges to utilize alternatives to incarceration are categorized as
“substantial criminal justice reform:”
In each recent period of substantial criminal justice reform – in-
cluding the progressive period, the “decarceration” movement in
the 1960s, the push for “intermediate sanctions” in the 1990s and
the initial stirrings of reform in the contemporary period – advocates
have promoted probation as a cheaper, more effective alternative
to incarceration. Through expanding statutory eligibility, increasing
spending on probation and incentivizing judges to favor probation
sentences, advocates have argued that states and counties can re-
duce the price of supervision by transferring cases from costly insti-
tutions to relatively inexpensive community supervision programs.
(Phelps, 2013)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM

Black’s Law Dictionary defines the “criminal justice system” as “the collective
institutions through which an accused offender passes until the accusations have
been disposed of or the assessed punishment concluded. The system typically has
three components: law enforcement (police, sheriffs, marshals), the judicial process
(judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys) and corrections (prison officials, probation
officers and parole officers)” (Garner, 2014, p. 456).
The Bouvier Law Dictionary defines “reform” as “improvement, correction or res-
toration; reform is a process by which a person, idea, document, institution or any-
thing else is made better or by which its defects are diminished” (Sheppard, 2011, p.
924). The use of the term “reform” makes the resolution bidirectional. Most affirma-
tive teams will propose to “improve” criminal justice by restricting police powers or
shortening sentences. But some affirmative teams could propose increasing police
powers or sentencing in such areas as white collar crime or human trafficking.

IN THE UNITED STATES

The prepositional phrase, “in the United States,” serves as a reminder that the

39
resolution concerns only reforms of the criminal justice system within U.S. borders –
not the military justice system at Guantanamo Bay, for example.

FORENSIC SCIENCE
The phrase, “forensic science,” is defined by Brent Turvey, professor of criminal
justice studies at Oklahoma City University in the 2013 book, Forensic Fraud: Eval-
uating Law Enforcement and Forensic Science Cultures in the Context of Examiner
Misconduct:
Forensic science is the application of scientific methodolo-
gy, knowledge and principles to the resolution of legal questions,
whether criminal or civil. This definition, generally consistent across
the forensic science literature, is intentionally broad. There are, in
fact, many different forensic subdisciplines, including (but certainly
not limited to) criminalistics, crime reconstruction, forensic patholo-
gy, forensic anthropology, forensic toxicology, forensic odontology,
forensic entomology, forensic mental health (psychology and psy-
chiatry) and forensic criminology. (Turvey, 2013, p. 34)
Michael Schlicht, as part of his Master’s thesis in criminal justice at the University
of Wisconsin at Platteville, offers the following definition of “forensic science:”
Forensic science is defined by the American Academy of Foren-
sic Sciences as “the study and practice of the application of science
to the purposes of law.” The all-encompassing term of forensic sci-
ence embraces all scientific disciplines that are utilized in the inves-
tigation of crime. Forensic science includes, but is not limited to the
disciplines of forensic medicine, toxicology, psychology, anthropol-
ogy and practitioners of the examination of fingerprints, firearms,
tool marks and questioned documents. (Schlicht, 2016).
Black’s Law Dictionary defines “forensic science” as “a broad range of evi-
dence-related disciplines, some laboratory-based (as with nuclear and mitochondrial
DNA analysis, toxicology and drug analysis), others based on interpretation of pat-
terns (as with fingerprints, writing samples, foot marks, bite marks and specimens)
and still others based on a combination of experiential and scientific analysis (as with
explosive and fire-debris analysis, blood-splatter analysis)” (Garner, 2014, p. 764).

POLICING
The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English: The Living Dictionary, defines
“policing” as “the way that the police are used to keep control over a particular area
and to protect people and property” (Summers, 2005, p. 1264). A more extensive
definition is found in the Bouvier Law Dictionary: “Policing: The means and ends of
police operations. Policing includes the tactics and strategy of police operations, in-
cluding patrol, neighborhood and community supervision, investigation, arrest and
detention of suspects as well as the public policy to be promoted or hindered by
various approaches” (Sheppard, 2011, p. 820).
The Bouvier Law Dictionary then lists the various federal agencies that are as-
signed policing functions, including the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the
Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Military Police (MPs)
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The Bouvier Law Dictionary explains

40
that “the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the principal law enforcement agency
of the United States federal government. A division of the Department of Justice,
the bureau is charge with investigating violations of U.S. criminal law, investigating
threats to U.S. security from terrorists and foreign intelligence agencies, investigating
particular likelihood of federal interest or interstate transportation, such as cases of
kidnapping, child abduction and bank robbery and providing assistance to state and
local law enforcement agencies” (Sheppard, 2011, p. 819).

SENTENCING
Sentencing, according to Black’s Law Dictionary, is “the judgment that a court
formally pronounces after finding a criminal defendant guilty: the punishment im-
posed on a criminal wrongdoer” (Garner, 2014, p. 1569). The Bouvier Law Dictionary
explains that a “sentence may include any lawful form of punishment, usually in-
cluding a fine, community service, shaming penalties, probation, imprisonment, hard
labor or death, as well as costs and victim restitution” (Sheppard, 2011, p. 1015).
Words & Phrases, citing the case of Bryan v. Rainwater, describes sentencing in the
following way: “Sentencing of a criminal defendant, whether by fine, imprisonment
or order to pay restitution, declares the legal consequences of predetermined guilt”
(Words & Phrases, 2002).
Notice that these definitions of “sentencing” all apply post-conviction; accord-
ingly, an affirmative plan that legalizes drugs would not involve a change in sentenc-
ing because there would be no conviction. On the other hand, a change in sentencing
could mean that a person convicted of a drug offense could be sent to a treatment
alternative rather than to prison.

PRACTICUM: SAMPLE TOPICALITY ARGUMENT

SUGGESTIONS FOR NEGATIVE TOPICALITY ARGUMENTS
1. Present the argument in the first negative constructive speech: Waiting until
the second negative constructive speech to make a topicality attack diminishes
the credibility of the argument.
2. Clearly label the word or words in the resolution that the plan fails to meet: De-
baters typically label the entire topicality attack with the word being violated.
Thus the label might be “Not Substantial” or “Is Not Enacted.”
3. Support the violation with an authoritative definition of the violated term: Only
in rare instances will the negative win on topicality without providing a defini-
tion.
4. Clearly state a reason why topicality is a voting issue: For many debate judges,
topicality will be a voting issue because it is, in some debate leagues, a rule.
Even in such instances, it is worthwhile to take the time necessary to say that
“Topicality is, by the rules of our league, a voting issue.”
SAMPLE TOPICALITY ARGUMENT
This example applies to an affirmative plan proposing to enact criminal justice
reform by legalizing drugs.
A. The Standard for Topicality is “Each Word Has Meaning.”
We should assume that each word in the resolution has been placed there
for a reason. A topical affirmative plan must reform one or more of the follow-
41
 ing: “forensic science, policing or sentencing.” The affirmative claim is that the
“sentencing” term enables legalization of drugs.
B. A standard definition of “sentencing” applies only post-conviction.
Bryan Garner, (Editor-in-chief), Black’s Law Dictionary, 10th Ed., 2014, p.
1569. Sentence: The judgment that a court formally pronounces after finding a
criminal defendant guilty: the punishment imposed on a criminal wrongdoer.
C. Violation: The affirmative plan operates pre-conviction, rather than post-con-
viction, something not allowed by the resolution. This involves a significant vio-
lation of negative ground in that it eliminates the opportunity for a legalization
counterplan. It also unfairly allows the affirmative to avoid disadvantages such
as net widening that would otherwise apply to sentencing alternatives such as
drug courts or drug treatment.
D. Violation: Topicality is a voting issue.
The resolution establishes the outer limits of affirmative jurisdiction for
plan action. Since this affirmative plan falls outside the resolution, there is no
jurisdiction for adoption of the plan. Accordingly, the affirmative team has cho-
sen to advocate something other than the assigned resolution. This means that
there is now no reason to vote for the resolution.

CHAPTER THREE: CASE POSSIBILITIES FOR THE

CRIMINAL JUSTICE TOPIC
This chapter is designed to provide a preliminary list of cases on the 2020-21 res-
olution. The debater should clearly understand that the presence or absence of a case
in this chapter does not determine its topicality; such matters must be determined in
individual rounds of debate based upon the topicality arguments presented.

CASES PROPOSING REFORM OF FORENSIC SCIENCE

Make crime labs independent of police departments: Sandra Thompson, profes-
sor of the Criminal Justice Institute at the University of Houston is a major advocate
of this change: “In independent forensic laboratories, analysts have a broader view
of the customer they serve. Rather than serving only the police and prosecution,
analysts in independent laboratories serve the criminal justice system as a whole”
(Thompson, 2015, p. 144).
Testing of SAFE kits: Local crime labs throughout the United States have massive
backlogs of untested SAFE (Sexual Assault Forensic Exam) kits, thus hampering the
prosecution of rapists. While the proposal to provide federal funding for this purpose
seems a promising case area, debaters need to be aware that President Trump, on
December 30, 2019, signed into law the Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act of 2019.
This legislation provides $151 million for state and local crime labs to reduce the
backlog of 100,000 untested SAFE kits (Coleman, 2020).
DNA collection: The Trump administration has issued a controversial order to
collect and store DNA records for immigrants (Ellerbeck, 2020). A Florida judge has
ordered that a private company turn over its DNA database of 1.3 million unsuspect-
ing customers to police investigators (Kaiser, 2019). This decision raises a concern
that other private DNA collection companies such as Ancestry.com and 23andMe
might also be required to surrender their records to government investigators. Some
42
affirmative teams will propose to increase privacy standards for the collection and
storage of DNA.

CASES PROPOSING REFORM OF POLICING

Predictive policing: Many large police departments use predictive policing soft-
ware such as PredPol, HunchLab, CrimeScan and LASER. These software packages
often implement controversial tactics, such as “broken windows policing,” while hid-
ing the strategy within a cloak of seeming objectivity. Andrew Ferguson, professor
of criminal justice at the Clarke School of Law, warns that “predictive policing may,
in fact, lead to additional police shootings and civilian unrest. In the targeted areas,
police may feel additional license to investigate more aggressively. Because the ar-
eas have been designated as more dangerous, police may also respond in a more
aggressively protective posture” (Ferguson, 2017, p. 79).
Body-worn-cameras: While some cases may propose increased federal funding
for local police department purchases of body-worn-cameras, the U.S. Justice De-
partment already operates such assistance programs. A more interesting approach
might condition federal funding on the setting of standards for when cameras can be
turned off and on, or how the resulting videos can be stored or released.
Policing immigration: Nolan Kline, professor of anthropology at Rollins College,
writes that “immigrant policing comprises policies and police practices that render
undocumented immigrants visible to authorities for arrest and potential deporta-
tion” (Kline, 2019, p. 2). Kline adds that “immigration status is often conflated with a
form of racial otherness and assumed associations with Mexico, Central America or
South America, harsh immigrant policing regimes are a way of symbolically investing
in the lives of white nonimmigrants while simultaneously divesting from the lives of
nonwhite undocumented immigrants” (Kline, 2019, p. 7).
Policing in Indian Country: Numerous treaties obligate the federal government
to provide adequate funding of criminal justice systems on Native American reser-
vations. Anne Luna-Gordinier, professor of Native American sociology at California
State University at Sacramento, calls for changes in the way the federal government
makes good on its criminal justice obligations: “Federal Indian law and policy has
created complicated criminal jurisdictional issues, making it difficult for tribes to
maintain law and order on their lands. In addition, the scant allocation of resources
for tribal criminal justice systems makes law enforcement especially burdensome.
Regardless of the causal factors, comprehensive federal legislation to support tribal
criminal justice systems is needed” (Luna-Gorinier, 2018, pp. 121-122).
Policing the homeless: Tristia Bauman, an analyst at the National Law Center on
Homelessness and Poverty reports that “The criminalization of homelessness is on
the rise. The results of our research show that the criminalization of homelessness is
prevalent across the country and has increased in every measured category” (Bau-
man, 2019)
Policing human trafficking: This is one of a few areas where an affirmative case
might call for more intensive use of police resources. Texas Representative, Michael
McCaul, details the scale of the harm: “Human trafficking is a despicable multi-bil-
lion-dollar industry. It enslaves an estimated 25 million people world-wide including
more than 300,000 people in my home State of Texas, 80,000 of whom are minors.
Many of these victims are sexually exploited or forced into slave labor and to some

43
Americans trafficking may seem like an industry that only exists in poverty-stricken
dictatorships or other poor parts of the world but sadly that is not the case, traffick-
ing is an epidemic and it grows by the day” (McCaul, 2018).
Policing domestic terrorism: An affirmative case might argue that the Trump ad-
ministration Justice Department has failed to devote appropriate resources to fight-
ing white nationalist violence. Trevor Aaronson, director of the Florida Center for
Investigative Journalism writes that “the Justice Department has routinely declined to
bring terrorism charges against right-wing extremists even when their alleged crimes
meet the legal definition of domestic terrorism” (Aaronson, 2019).
Use of civil asset forfeiture by police: Steven Greenhut, a resident fellow at the R
Street Institute, writes about the growing abuses in this federally-supported program
that he says has “expanded beyond recognition. It’s turned into an astoundingly
abusive process by which police seize the property of people who have never been
convicted – or even accused – of a crime” (Greenhut, 2017).
Military-style policing: A federal government program provides surplus military
equipment to local police departments, often leading to excessive use of force. Jona-
than Mummolo, professor of politics at Princeton University, writes that “the routine
use of militarized police tactics by local agencies threatens to increase the historic
tensions between marginalized groups and the state, with no detectable public safe-
ty benefit” (Mummolo, 2018).
Police use of facial recognition software: Barry Friedman, professor of law at New
York University, worries that citizen privacy is increasing violated by modern po-
lice tactics: “In the new policing, departments across the country are ramping up to
employ automatic license plate readers and facial recognition software – and soon
enough drones – to be able to track us everywhere we go” (Friedman, 2017, p. 18).
Limiting the use of police in schools: Dominique Gilliard, director of the Do Jus-
tice Initiative, writes that “SROs [School Resource Officers] exaggerate how school
misbehavior is interpreted, leading to juvenile mischief being treated as a criminal
offense. This approach to school discipline results in unnecessary arrests” (Gilliard,
2018, p. 88).

CASES PROPOSING REFORM OF SENTENCING

Abolishing capital punishment: Opponents of capital punishment point to the
risk of killing innocent persons, the inherent inhumanity of the practice, the excessive
costs and the failure of the death penalty to serve any deterrence purpose.
Abolishing the use of mandatory minimum sentencing: Natasha Frost, professor
of criminology at Northeastern University, writing in the 2018 book, Decarcerating
America: From Mass Punishment to Public Health, argues that “mandatory sentences
need to be eliminated and not just for drug offenses, but for all offenses, including
violent offenses” (Frost, 2018, p. 30).
Drug decriminalization or sentencing to drug courts or drug treatment: Greg Ber-
man, director of the Center for Court Intervention, is an advocate for increased use of
drug courts: “Drug courts are perhaps the most well-researched intervention in the
history of American criminal justice reform, including multiple randomized controlled
trials. A national study underwritten by the U.S. Department of Justice found reduced
drug use and crime among drug court participants when compared to defendants

44
who went through regular case processing. Drug court participants were one-third
less likely to report drug use eighteen months after admission to the program. And
they were responsible for less than half as many criminal acts as the comparison
group” (Berman, 2018, p. 107).
Changing the practice of sentencing juveniles to adult prisons: Cara Drinan, pro-
fessor of law at Catholic University, describes the injustice inherent in sending ju-
veniles into adult prisons: “There is a ‘prototype’ for a victim of prison rape, and a
young inmate in an adult prison meets every aspect of it: they are young, physically
diminutive, new to the facility and immature. In a 1984 expose about youth in adult
prisons, a corrections officer stated that the chance of a young man avoiding rape in
prison was ‘almost zero’” (Drinan, 2018, p. 76).
Limiting the use of plea bargains: Miko Wilford, professor of psychology at the
University of Massachusetts at Lowell, writes that “the current plea bargaining system
allows for too many innocent defendants to plead guilty. A prosecutor has the ability,
regardless of the amount of evidence, to throw anything and everything at the wall
in the hope that something ‘sticks’ – that is, leads to a conviction” (Wilford, 2019, p.
144).

45
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 APPENDIX A: CRIMINAL JUSTICE TOPIC TERMS
Accreditation: A process by which police departments are assessed in terms of stan-
dards of competency and professionalism. Accreditation typically involves a rig-
orous process of self-study followed by external review by an accreditation team
made up of an official body of organizations. The Commission on Accreditation for
Law Enforcement Agencies is the standard accrediting body.
Affirmative Action: Programs that are intended to prevent discrimination in present
hiring and promotion practices and to actively promote proportional representa-
tion and equitable opportunity.
Alford Plea: From North Carolina v. Alford (1970); this refers to a guilty plea that al-
lows the defendant to maintain innocence, notwithstanding evidence that might
convince a judge or jury to convict.
Arrest: The act of depriving a person of his or her liberty by legal authority, done for
the purposes of interrogation or criminal prosecution.
Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR): Technology that uses optical character
recognition to read the license plates on vehicles.
Battery: Harmful or offensive body contact between two people, such as when an
officer applies any force to an individual without justification.
Bench Trial: a trial in which the judge serves as the fact-finder and determines guilt
or innocence in criminal cases.
Blind/Double-Blind Procedure: An identification procedure in which the officials ad-
ministering the lineup are unaware of the suspect’s identity.
Body-Worn Cameras (BWC): Cameras worn by police to record their interactions with
citizens, ostensibly to increase police accountability.
Brady v. Maryland: A 1963 Supreme Court case concerning the prosecutor’s obliga-
tion to disclose to the defense material exculpatory evidence; a prosecutor’s failure
to do so is referred to as a “Brady violation.”
Broken-Windows Theory of Policing: A theory which posits that officers should pay
more attention to minor infractions such as public drunkenness and vagrancy. At-
tention to these minor violations may ease citizen fears and deter more serious
crime from occurring.
Capital Charge: A charged crime for which the death penalty is a possible punish-
ment.
Carroll Doctrine: Provides for warrantless searches of motor vehicles if the vehicle is
in fact mobile and if there is probable cause. This doctrine was established by the
Supreme Court Case, Carroll v. United States (1925).
CCTV: Closed-circuit television.
Certiorari: A writ or order by which an appellate court exercises its discretion to re-
view a case that was previously decided by a lower court.
Chain of Custody: The chronological documentation that shows the seizure, custody,
control, transfer, analysis and disposition of physical or electronic evidence.

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Civil Asset Forfeiture: A process in which law enforcement officers take assets from
persons suspected of involvement with crime or illegal activity without necessarily
charging the owners with wrongdoing.
Civilian Review Board: Group of citizens charged with investigating allegations of
police misconduct.
Code of Silence (Blue Wall): Protective, supportive and shared attitudes, values, un-
derstandings and views of the world associated with the police society.
Cognitive Bias: Systematic errors in human judgment and decision-making that de-
rive from subconscious mental processes; includes confirmation and disconfirma-
tion biases.
Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA): National com-
mission that accredits police agencies, public safety training academies and public
safety communication centers based on established standards and a process of
self-study and on-site review.
Community Policing (COP): A mode of policing that is highly responsive to the iden-
tities and needs of the communities that a department serves. Among other things,
community-oriented policing (or simply community policing) is characterized by
philosophies and programs that promote ongoing police-community interaction,
strong community partnerships and a broad view of police responsibilities.
Conducted Energy Devices (CEDs): Weapons designed to disrupt a subject’s central
nervous system through the use of electrical energy (for example, the Taser).
Confirmation Bias: The subconscious tendency to interpret new evidence in such a
way as to confirm one’s pre-existing beliefs.
Consent Decree: The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, often
simply called the Crime Bill, established the power for the U.S. Justice Department
(DOJ) to scrutinize the practices of local police departments to determine whether
the practices are properly protecting the civil rights of citizens. If the DOJ finds
reasons to believe that a police department is in a crisis with regards to tactics, it
will initiate investigations. If there is substantial evidence of systematic abuse, the
DOJ then begins the process of negotiating an agreement with the police depart-
ment, city officials and those communities directly impacted by the abuse. Once
the agreement is solidified, it then goes before a federal judge for approval and a
federal monitor is assigned to oversee the reform process. To date, there are now
fifteen total cities with federal oversight in the way of consent decrees. The Trump
administration Justice Department has, however, essentially abandoned enforce-
ment of consent decrees.
Counterterrorism: Policing that aims to protect citizens from terrorist attacks. Coun-
terterrorism activities must take into account the particular motivations and tools
of terrorists and require new forms of cooperation between local police and fed-
eral agencies. Many current counterterrorism policies are controversial because of
their effects on individual freedom.
Crime Control Act of 1990: Comprehensive federal crime legislation that led to the
development of the COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) program and
the hiring of an additional 100,000 police officers.

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Criminal Laws: Laws concerned with the relationship between the individual and the
government, especially in the areas of public safety and order (driving licenses,
theft, rape and murder), as distinct from civil laws.
Cybercrime: Computer crime, involving the computer as a target, the computer as a
tool for the commission of a crime, or the computer as incidental to the crime itself.
Daubert Test/Factors: From Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1993), one
standard used to determine the admissibility of expert testimony; charges judges
to serve as gatekeepers and evaluate several factors before admitting expert tes-
timony.
Deadly Force: Level of force capable of killing a person; used to incapacitate a sus-
pect who presents an immediate and potentially deadly threat to an officer or
other person.
Deescalation: Techniques that involve the use of communication and tactics designed
to provide officers with time when dealing with combative suspects, the mentally
ill or distraught persons.
Deinstitutionalization: Because the practice of committing people with serious psy-
chiatric illness to mental hospitals was deemed unfair and inhumane, patients were
released to underfunded community-based and outpatient services. Consequent-
ly, more people with serious mental health issues are “on the street” and have
become a police problem.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS): Federal agency responsible for a unified
national effort to secure the country and preserve freedom; Immigration and Cus-
toms Enforcement (ICE) is the DHS agency assigned to the policing of immigrants.
Depolicing: Phenomenon where, in the wake of a lawsuit, officers may feel the need
to engage in fewer interactions with the public, particularly officer-initiated en-
counters. Officers rationalize this as a normal response to what they feel is an
unjust situation and rationalize that their own likelihood of being named as a de-
fendant in a lawsuit decreases if they interact with fewer citizens.
Differential Police Response (DPR): Differential response programs classify incoming
calls according to their degree of seriousness and base the type of action police take
on that classification. Such programs can decrease costs and increase efficiency.
Discovery: In a criminal case, the process involving the prosecutor’s sharing or reveal-
ing evidence to the defense prior to trial; the defense sometimes has a reciprocal
obligation to reveal evidence within its possession to the prosecutor.
Discrimination: Treating people differently because of their race, gender, religion or
national origin; involves behavior that, in its negative form, excludes all members
of a certain group from some rights, opportunities or privileges.
DNA: Deoxyribonucleic acid; the hereditary material in the nucleus of most cells, that
can be identified through the testing of biological material.
Drones: Aircraft without a human pilot on board controlled either by computers or
remotely by an operator on the ground or in another vehicle.
Drug Courts: Judicially supervised court dockets that provide a sentencing alternative
of treatment combined with supervision for people living with serious substance
use and mental health disorders.
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Drylabbing: Fabricating results for laboratory tests that were not conducted.
Error Rate: the rate at which innocent people are convicted, or the proportion of all
convictions that involve innocent persons; estimates generally fall between 1-5%.
Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA): Wiretapping regulation that protects
email, pagers and cell phone calls.
Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment: Applies to the police in that it
prevents both the federal government and all states from denying the protection
of the law to any group of persons by making arbitrary, unreasonable distinctions
based on race, religion, gender, national origin and so on.
Evidence-Based Policing: A method of policing guided by evidence that shows cer-
tain practices to be the most effective and efficient.
Excessive Use of Force: Also referred to as police brutality, this form of malfeasance
pertains to situations in which officers overextend their legal authority by using
excessive force to arrest or coerce information from individuals with whom they
interact during the course of their duties.
Exclusionary Rule: Refers to a legal remedy created by the Supreme Court as a re-
sponse to evidence obtained in conflict with the Constitution of the United States
where such evidence may not be introduced at criminal trial to determine guilt.
While numerous Supreme Court cases have contributed to the establishment of
the exclusionary rule, the key case was Mapp v. Ohio (1961).
Extralegal Police Aggression: Acts committed by a police officer that are intended
to injure someone physically or psychologically with no legitimate police function.
Federalism: A form of government in which some powers are exercised by the na-
tional government, while many others are delegated to state and local units of
government.
Felony: A more serious criminal offense (above misdemeanors), including most vio-
lent offenses, that are usually punishable by a year or more of imprisonment.
Ferguson Effect: The theory that policing practices have changed in the wake of the
shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, where beat officers are backing
off proactive policing and not getting out of their squad cars as often, which has
emboldened criminals and fueled other social unrest, which has in turn led to a
spike in violent crime.
Fleeing-Felon Rule: Common law doctrine authorizing the use of deadly force to cap-
ture an escaped felon or someone hastening from the scene of a suspected grave
crime; overturned by the Garner v. Tennessee (1985) decision of the U.S. Supreme
Court.
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA): Specifies that the purpose of electronic
surveillance must be to obtain intelligence in the United States on foreign powers
(such as enemy agents or spies) or individuals connected to international terrorist
groups.
Forensic Evidence: Evidence obtained through the use of scientific methods and
techniques for use in court.

55
Fruit of the Poisonous Tree Doctrine: An extension of the exclusionary rule, which
indicates that not only evidence seized improperly must be excluded from criminal
court, but also any additional evidence seized after that police action.
Frye Test: The Supreme Court decision, Frye v. United States (1923), established a stan-
dard used to determine the admissibility of expert testimony; it requires the scien-
tific technique to be generally accepted within the relevant scientific community.
Garrity Interview: Compelled testimony for internal (administrative) investigations; a
routine practice not protected by the Fifth Amendment, such testimony cannot nor-
mally be used in a criminal proceeding. This procedure was clarified by the Supreme
Court case, Garrity v. New Jersey (1967). The Court ruled that a police officer could
be compelled to testify under threat of losing his or her job, but that such a require-
ment would provide immunity from criminal prosecution based upon the testimony.
Gideon v. Wainwright: A 1963 case in which the Supreme Court ruled that defendants
charged with a felony and who cannot afford an attorney have the right to be rep-
resented at trial by court-appointed counsel.
Good-Faith Doctrine: Involves searches conducted with a warrant and states that
when a police officer acting in good faith obtains a warrant, conducts a search and
seizes evidence, that evidence will not be excluded from court proceedings even if
the warrant is later invalidated.
Grass Eaters: Term coined by the Knapp Commission to refer to officers who engage
in minor acts of corrupt practices (acceptance of gratuities, etc) and passively ac-
cept the wrongdoings of other officers.
Habeas Corpus: Latin for, “you have the body,” allows an incarcerated person to chal-
lenge a criminal conviction or sentence on the grounds that he or she is being held
in violation of the United States Constitution or the laws or treaties of the United
States, typically filed in federal court after all state remedies have been exhausted.
Highway Patrol: A state police force whose duties are generally limited to enforcing
traffic laws and dealing with accidents on state roads and highways.
Hot-Pursuit Exception: A common exception to warrant requirements. Police may
follow a felon or otherwise dangerous criminal into a place typically protected by
the Fourth Amendment, such as a home, or may cross jurisdictional boundaries.
Hot pursuits must be based on probable cause and the gravity of the offense must
be taken into consideration. Once in a constitutionally protected area, the officer
may search for the suspect and for weapons or evidence, but once the suspect is
found, the search must cease.
Implicit Bias: Unconscious attitudes or stereotypes that influence an individual’s be-
liefs, understanding and actions.
Incentivized Informant: A person who agrees to provide information in a criminal
case in exchange for some type of promised benefit or other incentive.
Ineffective Assistance of Counsel: Representation by a criminal defense lawyer that
falls below constitutionally acceptable standards.
Innocence Project: A non-profit organization founded in 1992 that works to secure
exonerations through post-conviction DNA testing and advocates for criminal jus-
tice reform.

56
Intelligence-Led Policing (ILP): Operational strategy to reduce crime where crime
analysis and criminal intelligence are used to guide police activities and priorities.
Meat Eaters: Term coined by the Knapp Commission to describe officers who engage
widely in corrupt and unlawful practices during the performance of their duties.
“Meet and Plead” Disposition: Refers to a situation in which a case is resolved at the
first court hearing, with little or no preparation by the defense attorney.
Miranda Warnings: Based on Fifth Amendment privilege from self-incrimination,
police must take appropriate safeguards to ensure that a defendant’s rights are
not violated during arrest. Specifically, police must advise defendants that (1) they
have the right to remain silent, (2) any statement made may be used against the
defendant in court, (3) the defendant has the right to have an attorney present
during questioning and (4) if a defendant cannot afford an attorney, then the state
will appoint one prior to questioning. The defendant must intelligently and volun-
tarily waive these rights prior to questioning. These requirements were established
as a result of the Supreme Court Decision, Miranda v. Arizona (1966).
Misdemeanors: lower-level criminal offenses (below felonies) that make up the ma-
jority of cases processed by the justice system.
Money Laundering: Attempts to disguise the original source of monies, normally
through illegal means and infuse said monies into the legitimate marketplace.
National Commission on Forensic Science: Created in 2013 by the U.S. Department
of Justice and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology; it included a
variety of stakeholders who examined problems related to forensic science and
made recommendations for reform.
National Registry of Exonerations (NRE): A project founded in 2012 that provides
information about wrongful convictions and exonerations in the United States; cur-
rently, the largest collection of known exonerations.
National Security Letters (NSLs): Written demands from the FBI that compel Internet
service providers, credit companies, financial institutions and others to hand over
confidential records about their customers (such as subscriber information, phone
numbers, email addresses and websites visited).
Open-Fields Doctrine: A search doctrine indicating that items in open fields are not
protected by the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable searches
and seizures, so they can properly be taken by an officer without a warrant or prob-
able cause. This doctrine was established by the Supreme Court Decision, Hester v.
United States (1925) and slightly modified by Katz v. United States (1967).
Plain View Doctrine: The principle that what police discover during the performance
of their normal duties can be seized. For example, if a police officer stops a person
who committed a traffic violation and the officer sees illegal items in the back seat
of the car, that contraband is in plain view and can be legally seized.
Plea Bargain: A method of resolving criminal cases outside of trial; generally involves
an agreement between the prosecution and defense in which the defendant pleads
guilty or no contest, and the prosecutor agrees to reduce charges and/or the rec-
ommended sentence.

57
Police Brutality: Excessive force, including violence, that does not support a legiti-
mate police function.
Post-Conviction Review/Relief: Generally refers to challenges of a conviction or sen-
tence based on matters not reflected in the trial record, and thus not considered
on direct appeal.
Predictive Policing: A form of policing that uses data analysis to respond to crime
more quickly and anticipate its “when and where” so that police can engage in
preventative and preemptive practices.
Pretextual Stops: Officers stopping a suspect for a minor violation with the goal of
eliciting another, more serious violation.
Prisoner’s Dilemma: a decision-making scenario in which two suspects are separated,
questioned independently and each told that the other is implicating them in the
crime.
Privatization: Trend in which public police are increasingly replaced or augmented by
privately employed security forces. Privatization raises questions about racial and
economic inequality.
Probable Cause: A general standard of proof that involves an evaluation of objective
observations and an assessment of the totality of the circumstances to determine
the legality of an arrest.
Problem-Oriented Policing: Encourages officers to take a holistic approach, working
with other citizens and other agency representatives to find long-term solutions to
a variety of recurrent problems.
Procedural Error: An error of process or procedure made in a court case, such as the
denial of a fair hearing or an irregularity in the manner of enforcing a substantive
legal right; a procedural error may be grounds for reversing a conviction but does
not necessarily mean that a factual error has occurred or that a defendant has been
wrongfully convicted.
Public Defender Offices: Government-financed offices in which criminal defense at-
torneys provide legal representation to indigents.
Pulling Levers Policing: An innovation that focuses attention on a small number of
chronic offenders responsible for a large share of the crime problems.
Quality-of-Life Policing: Police strategy that targets the reduction of physical and
social dis-order so that community members will work together to promote neigh-
borhood safety and concomitantly reduce crime.
Racial Profiling: When race is used as the sole or primary factor influencing officers’
decisions, particularly within the context of traffic stops.
Reactive Policing: Reactive police work is characterized by police responses to inci-
dents when assistance is specifically requested by citizens.
Reasonable Suspicion: Suspicion based on objective facts and logical conclusions
that a crime has been or is about to be committed, based on the circumstances at
hand.

58
Record Expungement: The process of sealing an arrest and conviction record so as to
make it inaccessible to the public and allow the exoneree to lawfully report that he
or she has not been convicted of a crime.
Restorative Justice: Seeks not retribution (punishment) but, rather, restitution to re-
pair the damage of crime as much as possible and to restore the victim, the com-
munity and the offender.
RICO Act: Federal legislation enacted in 1970 that allows prosecutors to go after the
organization rather than individuals; defines racketeering in a broad manner and
makes it a crime to belong to an organization involved in a pattern of racketeering
Rotten-Apple Theory of Corruption: The idea that corruption is limited to a small
number of officers who were probably dishonest prior to their employment. The
term stems from the metaphor that a few rotten apples will spoil the barrel; in oth-
er words, a few bad officers can spoil a department.
SARA Model: A 4-step problem-solving or problem-oriented policing process that
includes Scanning, Analysis, Response and Assessment.
Sentinel Events Initiative: An initiative undertaken by the National Institute of Justice,
designed to review undesirable outcomes in criminal justice, including wrongful
convictions and study them in a non-blaming fashion to determine why they oc-
curred and what can be done to prevent future injustices.
Solution-Oriented Policing (SOP): Focuses on the fact that some police-communi-
ty issues are best addressed through the development of unique approaches or
thinking outside the box.
Stop and Frisk: Practice where an officer may stop a person, temporarily depriving
him or her of freedom of movement, if the officer has reasonable suspicion that
the person is involved in a crime. Furthermore, the officer may frisk the person if
there is reasonable suspicion to believe the citizen is armed and poses a threat to
the officer for the duration of the stop.
Substantive laws: Criminal laws that identify behavior and punishment; distinct from
procedural laws.
Taser: Electroshock weapon that uses electrical current to disrupt voluntary control
of muscles.
Terrorism-Oriented Policing: Adds new duties to those already assumed by the police
in an attempt to detect and prevent terrorist acts.
Terry Stop: This procedure allows the police to briefly detain a person based on rea-
sonable suspicion of involvement in criminal activity. Reasonable suspicion is a
lower standard than probable cause which is needed for arrest. When police stop
and search a pedestrian, this is commonly known as a stop and frisk. The term,
“Terry Stop,” derives from the Supreme Court decision, Terry v. Ohio (1968).
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV): A drone used by select departments nationwide for
purposes of search and rescue and disaster assessment.
USA PATRIOT Act: Federal legislation passed in 2002 that represented a major reor-
ganization of national security agencies; it created the Department of Homeland
Security, which conducts services previously handled by various other organiza-
tions.
59
Vigilantes: Members of a voluntary band who organize to respond to real or imag-
ined threats to their safety; to protect their lives, property or power or to seek
revenge.
Wade Trilogy: Three Supreme Court cases (United States v. Wade, Gilbert v. Califor-
nia and Stovall v. Denno) that decided important constitutional issues related to
in-person eyewitness identification procedures.
Warrant: An order in writing, issued by a judicial authority, authorizing a police officer
to take specific actions
White-Collar Crime: Illegal or unethical acts that violate the fiduciary responsibility
of public trust by an individual or organization, usually during the course of le-
gitimate occupational activity, by persons of high or respectable social status for
personal or organizational gain.

60
 APPENDIX B: CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM LEGISLATION
In the 116th session of Congress, hundreds of pieces of legislation have pro-
posed various ways to reform the criminal justice system. The bills listed in this ap-
pendix offer a representative sampling of the proposals dealing with reforming fo-
rensic science, policing and sentencing. In each case, descriptive paragraphs and
complete texts of the legislation are available at www.congress.gov.
Alaska Tribal Public Safety Empowerment Act. S.2616 – 116th Congress. Sen. Mur-
kowski, Lisa [R-AK] (Introduced 10/16/2019). This bill would empower tribes in
Alaska to exercise the special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction on a pilot
basis. Among domestic violence victims in Alaska, Native women are over-repre-
sented by 250 percent, yet one in three communities in rural Alaska have no local
law enforcement.
Antitrust Criminal Penalty Enhancement and Reform Permanent Extension Act.
S.3377 – 116th Congress. Sen. Graham, Lindsey [R-SC] (Introduced 03/03/2020).
The purpose of this Act, and the amendments made by this Act, is to strength-
en public and private antitrust enforcement by providing incentives for antitrust
violators to cooperate fully with government prosecutors and private litigants
through the repeal of the sunset provision of the Antitrust Criminal Penalty En-
hancement and Reform Act of 2004.
Back the Blue Act of 2019. S.1480 – 116th Congress. Sen. Cornyn, John [R-TX] (In-
troduced 05/15/2019). This bill proposes to strengthen laws to protect police
officers: Creates a new federal crime for killing, attempting to kill or conspiring
to kill a federal judge, federal law enforcement officer or federally funded public
safety officer. The offender would be subject to the death penalty and a manda-
tory minimum sentence of 30 years if death results; the offender would otherwise
face a minimum sentence of 10 years. Creates a new federal crime for assaulting
a federally funded law enforcement officer with escalating penalties, including
mandatory minimums, based on the extent of any injury and the use of a danger-
ous weapon. However, no prosecution can be commenced absent certification by
the Attorney General that prosecution is appropriate. Creates a new federal crime
for interstate flight from justice to avoid prosecution for killing, attempting to kill
or conspiring to kill a federal judge, federal law enforcement officer or federally
funded public safety officer. The offender would be subject to a mandatory min-
imum sentence of 10 years for this offense.
BADGES for Native Communities Act. S.1853 – 116th Congress. Sen. Udall, Tom [D-
NM] (Introduced 06/13/2019). BADGES is the acronym for the Bridging Agency
Data Gaps and Ensuring Safety for Native Communities Act. The Attorney Gen-
eral shall ensure that— (A) tribal law enforcement officials that meet applicable
Federal or State requirements shall be permitted access to national crime infor-
mation databases; (B) technical assistance and training is provided to Bureau
of Indian Affairs and tribal law enforcement agencies to gain access to, and the
ability to use and input information into, the National Crime Information Center
and other national crime information databases pursuant to section 534 of title
28, United States Code and (C) the Federal Bureau of Investigation coordinates
with the Office of Justice Services to ensure tribal law enforcement agencies are
assigned appropriate credentials or ORI numbers for uniform crime reporting
purposes.

61
Bail Fairness Act of 2019. H.R.2233 – 116th Congress. Rep. Davis, Danny K. [D-IL-
7] (Introduced 04/10/2019). This bill allows a state or local government to use
Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program funds for bail fairness
programs. The term “bail fairness program” means a program that (1) does not
impose monetary conditions of release on a person arrested for a misdemeanor,
and (2) dismisses criminal charges against an offender who completes a pre-trial
diversion program. Any criminal charges filed against an offender may be dis-
missed if— (A) the offender qualifies for and satisfactorily completes a state-au-
thorized mental health diversion program; (B) the offender qualifies for and satis-
factorily completes a state-authorized drug/alcohol abuse diversion program; (C)
the offender qualifies for and satisfactorily completes a state-authorized commu-
nity service diversion program or (D) the offender qualifies for and satisfactorily
completes any other state-authorized diversion program that is appropriate to
the age of the offender and the offense charged.
Bridging Agency Data Gaps and Ensuring Safety for Native Communities Act. H.R.4289
– 116th Congress. Rep. Haaland, Debra A. [D-NM-1] (Introduced 09/11/2019). The
Attorney General, acting through the Director of the National Institute of Justice,
shall appoint one or more Tribal liaisons for the National Missing and Uniden-
tified Persons System. The duties of a Tribal liaison appointed under subsection
shall include coordinating the reporting of information relating to missing per-
sons cases of interest to Indian tribes and unidentified remains cases of interest
to Indian tribes; consulting and coordinating with Indian tribes and relevant tribal
organizations to address the reporting, documentation and tracking of missing
persons cases of interest to Indian tribes and unidentified remains cases of inter-
est to Indian tribes; developing working relationships, and maintaining commu-
nication, with Indian tribes and relevant tribal organizations; providing technical
assistance and training to Indian tribes and relevant tribal organizations, victim
service advocates, medical examiners and tribal justice officials regarding – the
gathering and reporting of information to the National Missing and Unidentified
Persons System and working with non-Tribal law enforcement agencies to ensure
all missing persons cases of interest to Indian tribes and unidentified remains
cases of interest to Indian tribes are reported to the National Missing and Un-
identified Persons System.
Calling for the resignation and disbarment of United States Attorney General William
P. Barr, and for other purposes. H.Res.757 – 116th Congress. Rep. Rush, Bobby L.
[D-IL-1] (Introduced 12/10/2019). Resolved, That the House of Representatives—
(1) condemns United States Attorney General William P. Barr for his despicable
comments and actions; (2) calls on United States Attorney General William P. Barr
to resign; (3) calls on the Virginia State Bar to remove United States Attorney
General William P. Barr from its rolls; (4) calls on the New York State Bar Associ-
ation to remove United States Attorney General William P. Barr from its rolls; (5)
calls on the District of Columbia Bar to remove United States Attorney General
William P. Barr from its rolls; (6) reaffirms support for the diversity of the United
States and (7) reaffirms, in the strongest terms, its support for and commitment
to the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Child Trafficking Victims Protection and Welfare Act. H.R.3729 – 116th Congress.
Rep. Roybal-Allard, Lucille [D-CA-40] (Introduced 07/11/2019). The Child Traf-
ficking Victims Protection and Welfare Act requires CBP to consult with experts
62
 in child welfare, development and health; develop guidelines for the treatment
of children in its custody and require licensed child welfare professionals to be
available at certain ports of entry or Border Patrol stations. Such experts will
be able to identify victims of trafficking and ensure they receive adequate care
while in CBP custody. The bill would require all children in CBP custody to be
provided with basic necessities, including a safe, sanitary and climate-appropri-
ate living environment, adequate nutrition, potable water, educational materials
and recreational activities. The CTVPWA also includes a number of provisions to
prevent family separation and to assist the Departments of Homeland Security
and Health and Human Services in reuniting separated families.
Combating Deceptive Immigration Enforcement Practices Act of 2019. H.R.3498 –
116th Congress. Rep. Velazquez, Nydia M. [D-NY-7] (Introduced 06/26/2019).
This bill bars immigration officers or agents of the Department of Homeland Se-
curity from wearing clothing, accessories or other items bearing the word police
while performing duties under the immigration laws.
Combating Military Sexual Assault Act. S.1495 – 116th Congress. Sen. McSally, Mar-
tha [R-AZ] (Introduced 05/15/2019). Ensure military judges have similar author-
ity as civilian judges with relation to pre-trial issues; mandate the development
of a plan to form a DoD-wide data management system to better share and
track information on criminal cases, including normalizing data so that each mil-
itary service is tracking the same data in the same way to ease data sharing and
tracking; direct the services to create and report on processes for the immediate
collaboration at the start of an investigation by Special Victim Investigation and
Prosecution (SVIP) teams in order to streamline efforts; mandate that the DoD
develop a process to track that Military Protection Orders are shared with civilian
authorities; increase capabilities for investigators to meet increasing demand for
digital evidence processing and improve the timeliness of investigations.
Courtney Wild Crime Victims’ Rights Reform Act of 2019. H.R.4729 – 116th Congress.
Rep. Speier, Jackie [D-CA-14] (Introduced 10/17/2019). The Crime Victims’ Rights
Reform Act, named for one of the sexual assault victims of Jeffrey Epstein, would
do the following: Clarify that victims of federal crimes have the right to confer
with the Government and be informed about key pre-charging developments in
a case, such as plea bargains, non-prosecution agreements and referrals to state
and local law enforcement; Increase the ability for victims to assert and protect
their rights in court proceedings by expanding victims’ right to appeal, allowing
victims to challenge proceedings when they weren’t given proper notice, allowing
victims independently to bring civil actions to recover restitution from offenders
and providing attorneys’ fees for successful litigation against the Government, as
is standard for civil-rights litigation; Require that victims be heard in court when
their rights are violated and provide courts discretion to award other just and
appropriate relief, including rescinding non-prosecution or deferred prosecution
agreements; Build a stronger victim-focused administrative process within DOJ
led by a new and authoritative National Coordinator for Victims’ Rights, includ-
ing enforceable disciplinary sanctions and compensatory awards for egregious
violations of victims’ CVRA rights; Facilitate more private advocacy for victims by
reauthorizing victim legal assistance grants that have lapsed and authorizing a
grant for a national resource center on crime victims’ rights.

63
Criminal Antitrust Anti-Retaliation Act of 2019. S.2258 – 116th Congress. Sen. Grass-
ley, Chuck [R-IA] (Introduced 07/24/2019). This bill prohibits employers from re-
taliating against certain employees who report criminal antitrust violations to
the federal government. Among other things, the bill sets forth provisions that
authorize an employee to seek relief by filing a complaint with the Department of
Labor or to bring an action in U.S. district court if the individual alleges discharge
or other discrimination by an employer who violates the prohibition against re-
taliation.
Deterring Undue Enforcement by Protecting Rights Of Citizens from Excessive Search-
es and Seizures Act of 2019. H.R.2835 – 116th Congress. Rep. Sensenbrenner, F.
James, Jr. [R-WI-5] (Introduced 05/17/2019). The DUE PROCESS Act builds upon
changes made in the 2000 Civil Action Forfeiture Reform Act by increasing trans-
parency in the civil asset forfeiture process, adding protections for innocent prop-
erty owners and implementing additional protections to ensure property owners
have the opportunity to contest seizures. The legislation also improves the notice
that the government must give property owners and makes it easier for them to
be heard by a judge. Additionally, the DUE PROCESS Act entitles property owners
to an initial hearing, where they can retrieve confiscated property immediately if
it was not seized according to the law. It increases the availability of attorney fees
for innocent owners, and places a higher burden of proof on the government.
Ending Too Big to Jail Act. S.1005 – 116th Congress. Sen. Warren, Elizabeth [D-MA]
(Introduced 04/03/2019). This bill proposes to establish a permanent investiga-
tive unit for financial crimes: The bill creates an investigative unit within the Trea-
sury Department that is focused exclusively on investigating crime within finan-
cial institutions and conducting material loss reviews after institutions fail. The bill
reconstitutes the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program
(SIGTARP) as the Special Inspector General for Financial Institution Crime (SIGFIC)
and expands its jurisdiction so that it can use its specialized skills and exper-
tise, relationships with financial regulators and law enforcement agencies and
cross-jurisdictional view of the whole financial industry to investigate and help
prosecute financial crimes.
Equal Protection of Unaccompanied Minors Act. H.R.574 – 116th Congress. Rep.
Meadows, Mark [R-NC-11] (Introduced 01/15/2019). This bill amends rules for
the treatment of unaccompanied alien children and asylum-seeking families, and
for detaining and removal of various types of aliens. The bill requires the Depart-
ment of Homeland Security (DHS) to return an inadmissible unaccompanied child
to the child’s country of nationality or last habitual residence, where currently
DHS has discretion to do so. Interviews with unaccompanied alien children shall
be conducted by those with specialized training for interviewing child trafficking
victims. Before placing an alien child with an individual, the Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS) shall provide DHS with various information, including
the individual’s immigration status and contact information. DHS shall initiate
removal proceedings if the individual is unlawfully present in the United States.
Under the bill, unaccompanied alien children in DHS or HHS custody shall have
access to counsel in legal proceedings, where currently such children shall have
counsel. DHS shall have authority to extend the detention periods for various
categories of removable aliens. The bill also expands the definitions of various
types of crimes, such as those related to explosive materials, that are aggravated
64
 felonies or crimes of violence for immigration purposes. Aliens associated with
criminal gangs shall be inadmissible to the United States and deportable. The bill
directs DHS, the Department of Justice and HHS to maintain facilities for housing
asylum applicants and their children, and increases the number of immigration
judges and Board of Immigration Appeals attorneys and necessary support staff.
Fair Chance Act. H.R.1076 – 116th Congress. Rep. Cummings, Elijah E. [D-MD-7]
(Introduced 02/07/2019). The Fair Chance Act will “Ban the Box” and prohibit
the federal government and federal contractors from asking about the criminal
history of job applicants early on in the hiring process. The Act will: Prevent the
federal government – including the executive, legislative and judicial branches
– from requesting criminal history information from applicants until they reach
the conditional offer stage. Prohibit federal contractors from requesting crimi-
nal history information from candidates for positions within the scope of federal
contracts until the conditional offer stage. Include important exceptions for posi-
tions related to law enforcement and national security duties, positions requiring
access to classified information and positions for which access to criminal history
information before the conditional offer stage is required by law. This bill was in-
corporated into the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 that
was signed into law by President Donald Trump on December 20, 2019.
Fair Chance at Housing Act of 2018. H.R.3685 – 116th Congress. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez,
Alexandria [D-NY-14] (Introduced 07/10/2019). The Fair Chance at Housing Act
of 2019 would do the following: Ban “no-fault” policies, which allow an entire
family to be evicted for criminal activity by a guest of a household member even
without the knowledge of anyone in the household; Raise the standards of evi-
dence to be used by public housing authorities (PHAs) and owners and require a
holistic consideration of all mitigating circumstances when making screening or
eviction determinations based on criminal activity; Ensure that tenants who are
evicted for criminal activity and applicants who are denied admission for criminal
activity are given adequate written notice of the reasons for the decision, and the
opportunity to present mitigating evidence or appeal a decision.
Families, Not Facilities Act of 2019. S.388 – 116th Congress. Sen. Harris, Kamala D.
[D-CA] (Introduced 02/07/2019). This bill amends provisions related to the safety
of minor aliens that enter the United States unaccompanied by a guardian. When
placing an unaccompanied alien child with a proposed custodian, the Depart-
ment of Homeland Security (DHS) shall not consider the custodian’s immigration
status. DHS shall not use certain information obtained for placing a child with a
custodian to apprehend, detain or deport certain individuals, including the child,
proposed sponsor or a person living with the sponsor. The Office of Refugee Set-
tlement shall provide services for unaccompanied alien children after they have
been released, to help them transition into their communities and to connect
them with legal representation. Money appropriated to the U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) for FY2019 shall be redirected to fund such services.
Other money appropriated for ICE shall be redirected to various programs to in-
vestigate and prevent child trafficking. This bill also establishes the Office of Refu-
gee Resettlement Advisory Committee on Shelters for Unaccompanied Alien Chil-
dren. The advisory committee may conduct unannounced inspections of Office
of Refugee Settlement shelters that hold unaccompanied alien children and shall
issue reports on its investigations and recommendations regarding the shelters.
65
Federal Police Camera and Accountability Act of 2019. H.R.3364 – 116th Congress.
Rep. Norton, Eleanor Holmes [D-DC-At Large] (Introduced 06/19/2019). This bill
establishes requirements for federal law enforcement officers in uniform to wear
body cameras and for federal law enforcement agencies to install video cameras
in patrol cars.
Grand Jury Reform Act of 2020. H.R.5779 – 116th Congress. Sen. Hoeven, John [R-
ND] (Introduced 01/24/2019). This bill conditions a state or local government’s
receipt of funds under the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant pro-
gram on the state’s compliance with certain requirements following an incident
involving the use of deadly force by a local law enforcement officer that results
in a person’s death. Specifically, the governor must appoint a special prosecutor
to present evidence before a judge to determine whether probable cause exists
to criminally charge the law enforcement officer. The hearing must be open to
the public.
Gun Violence Prevention and Community Safety Act of 2020. S.3254 – 116th Con-
gress. Sen. Warren, Elizabeth [D-MA] (Introduced 02/05/2020). The Gun Violence
Prevention and Community Safety Act would do the following: Create a federal
gun licensing system and require a federal or state-issued firearms license to
purchase or own a gun, and establish a grant program to help states set up their
own systems; Require universal background checks, close legal loopholes that al-
low individuals to skirt background check requirements, and require background
check denials to be reported to law enforcement; Keep guns out of the wrong
hands by banning individuals who present safety risks from buying guns, estab-
lishing Extreme Risk Protection Order systems, and cracking down on gun theft;
Ensure that guns are used and stored responsibly by raising the minimum age for
all gun or ammunition purchases to 21, establishing a 7-day waiting period for
the purchase of all guns, strengthening gun storage laws and banning guns on all
school campuses; Keep weapons of war off our streets by banning military-style
assault weapons, lethal gun accessories and untraceable and undetectable fire-
arms; Crack down on gun trafficking by banning bulk gun purchases and estab-
lishing a new law to specifically ban gun trafficking
Immigration Detainer Enforcement Act of 2019. H.R.4948 – 116th Congress. Rep.
Bishop, Dan [R-NC-9] (Introduced 10/31/2019). Gives explicit authority to the ar-
resting Federal, State, tribal or local law enforcement agency to maintain custody
of an illegal immigrant for a period not to exceed 48 hours to permit assumption
of custody by the DHS, upon the issuance of a detainer. Allows the federal gov-
ernment to enter into agreements with the arresting law enforcement agency
to indemnify these agencies against wrongful detention claims by third parties
which resulted from a detainer issued without reason to believe the individual is
a removable illegal immigrant. Indemnification will not extend to claims relating
to negligence or willful misconduct. Makes jurisdictions ineligible for reimburse-
ment of detention costs if they are certified by the DHS Secretary as being incom-
pliant with ICE. Jurisdictions that are deemed incompliant by the DHS Secretary
will not receive priority when being considered for funding from the Edward By-
rne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program and when benefitting from the
1033 and 1122 programs.

66
Justice in Forensic Algorithms Act of 2019. H.R.4368 – 116th Congress. Rep. Takano,
Mark [D-CA-41] (Introduced 09/17/2019). Not later than 1 year after the date
of enactment of this Act, the Director of the National Institute of Standards and
Technology shall establish a program to provide for creation and maintenance of
standards for the development and use of computational forensic software, to be
known as the Computational Forensic Algorithm Standards, consistent with the
following: Standards shall include an assessment for the potential for disparate
impact, on the basis of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender and other
demographic features, in the development and use of the computational forensic
software.
Law Enforcement Inclusion Act of 2019. H.R.4168 – 116th Congress. Rep. Lewis, John
[D-GA-5] (Introduced 08/06/2019). This bill would amend the Omnibus Crime
Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to provide that COPS grant funds may be
used to hire and train new, additional career law enforcement officers who are
residents of the communities they serve.
Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act of 2019. S.3063 – 116th Congress. Sen.
Cardin, Benjamin L. [D-MD] (Introduced 12/17/2019). The Attorney General shall
adopt policies and procedures to partner with law enforcement accreditation
organizations, professional law enforcement associations, labor organizations,
community-based organizations and professional civilian oversight organiza-
tions to continue the development of further accreditation standards consistent
with paragraph (2) and to encourage the pursuit of accreditation of Federal,
State, local and tribal law enforcement agencies by certified law enforcement
accreditation organizations. Juvenile Justice And School Safety: The development
of uniform standards on juvenile justice and school safety, including standards
relating to interaction and communication with juveniles, physical contact, use
of lethal and nonlethal force, notification of a parent or guardian, interviews and
questioning, custodial interrogation, audio and video recording, conditions of
custody, alternatives to arrest, referral to child protection agencies and removal
from school grounds or campus.
Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act of 2019. H.R.3884 –
116th Congress. Rep. Nadler, Jerrold [D-NY-10] (Introduced 07/23/2019). The act
would remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act and tax cannabis
products at 5 percent to establish trust funds for various purposes. The legisla-
tion prohibits the denial of any federal public benefits, like housing, on the basis
of cannabis use and states that use or possession of marijuana would have no ad-
verse impact under immigration laws. According to USA Today, “The trust funds
the Act would create include the Community Reinvestment Grant, which would
provide funding for services such as job training, re-entry services and legal aid;
the Cannabis Opportunity Grant, which would provide funds to assist small busi-
nesses in the pot industry and the Equitable Licensing Grant, which minimizes
barriers to gain access to marijuana licensing and employment for those most
impacted by the so-called war on drugs.” The act would also establish a Can-
nabis Justice Office within the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs,
responsible for administering the grants.
Military Justice Improvement Act of 2019. S.1789 – 116th Congress. Sen. Gillibrand,
Kirsten E. [D-NY] (Introduced 06/11/2019). The Military Justice Improvement Act

67
 would do the following: Grant the authority to send criminal charges to trial (dis-
position authority) to designated judge advocates (military lawyers) in the rank
of O-6 or higher who possess significant criminal justice experience; ensure that
judge advocates vested with disposition authority would be outside the chain
of command of the accused; exercise professional prosecutorial judgment when
deciding whether to proceed to court martial; render decisions to proceed to trial
free from conflicts of interest.
National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2019. S.2434 – 116th Congress. Sen.
Peters, Gary C. [D-MI] (Introduced 08/01/2019). This bill establishes the National
Criminal Justice Commission. The commission must conduct a comprehensive
review of the criminal justice system; make recommendations for criminal justice
reform and disseminate findings and guidance to the federal government and to
state, local and tribal governments. Not later than 18 months after the date of the
first meeting of the Commission, the Commission shall submit to the President
and Congress recommendations for changes in Federal oversight, policies, prac-
tices and laws designed to prevent, deter and reduce crime and violence, reduce
recidivism, improve cost-effectiveness and ensure the interests of justice at every
step of the criminal justice system.
Next Step Act of 2019. S.697 – 116th Congress. Sen. Booker, Cory A. [D-NJ] (Intro-
duced 03/07/2019). The Next Step Act would: Reduce harsh mandatory mini-
mums for nonviolent drug offenses: the 20-year mandatory minimum would be
reduced to 10 years, the 10-year mandatory minimum would be reduced to 5
years, and the 5-year mandatory minimum would be reduced to 2 years; Elimi-
nate the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences (currently it is
18:1); End the federal prohibition on marijuana, expunge records and reinvest in
the communities most harmed by the War on Drugs; “Ban the Box” by prohib-
iting federal employers and contractors from asking a job applicant about their
criminal history until the final stages of the interview process, so that formerly
incarcerated individuals get a fairer, more objective shot at finding meaningful
employment; Removing barriers for people with criminal convictions to receiving
an occupational license for jobs, such as hair dressers and taxi drivers; Reinstate
the right to vote in federal elections for formerly incarcerated individuals (blacks
are more than four times as likely than whites to have their voting rights revoked
because of a criminal conviction); Create a federal pathway to sealing the records
of nonviolent drug offenses for adults and automatically sealing (and in some
cases expunging) juvenile records; Ensure that anyone released from federal pris-
on receives meaningful assistance in obtaining a photo-ID, birth certificate, social
security card or work authorization documents; Improve the ability of those be-
hind bars to stay in touch with loved ones, by banning the practice of charging
exorbitant rates for phone calls (upwards of $400-$500 per month) and ensuring
authorities take into consideration where someone’s kids are located when plac-
ing them in a federal facility, a circumstance that acutely impacts women since
there are far fewer women’s prisons than men’s prison’ Provide better training for
law enforcement officers in implicit racial bias, de-escalation and use-of-force;
Ban racial and religious profiling; Improve the reporting of police use-of-force
incidents (currently the Department of Justice is required to report use-of-force
statistics to Congress, but states and local law enforcement agencies are not
required to pass that information on to federal authorities, creating a significant
68
 gap in data that could be used to improve policies and training).
No Sanctuary for Criminals Act of 2019. H.R.1928 – 116th Congress. Rep. Reschen-
thaler, Guy [R-PA-14] (Introduced 03/27/2019)This bill bars any government en-
tity or individual from prohibiting or restricting a government entity, official or
other personnel from (1) complying with immigration laws, (2) cooperating with
immigration enforcement, (3) making inquiries to an individual to obtain immi-
gration-related information or (4) complying with immigration-related informa-
tional inquiries from federal law enforcement entities. States or local entities that
fail to comply with such a bar shall be ineligible for certain federal funds and
grants for at least one year. (Such provisions expand on current provisions bar-
ring a government entity or official from prohibiting or restricting a government
entity or official from exchanging certain information with federal immigration
officials.) The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may issue a detainer as
to an individual in federal or state custody if DHS has probable cause to believe
the individual is an inadmissible or deportable alien. (Currently, the statute allows
immigration officials to issue a detainer for an individual who has been arrested
for violating a controlled substance-related law if such officials have reason to
believe the individual is violating immigration laws. Current DHS policy allows for
the issuance of detainers in other situations as well, though this policy has been
called into question by a federal district court, and this bill would provide statuto-
ry authority for the current policy.) A victim of a felony (or certain close relatives)
for which an alien has been convicted and sentenced for at least one year may
sue each state or local government entity or official if the defendant (1) refused
to honor an immigration-law related detainer and released the alien from cus-
tody prior to the crime or (2) has a policy of not complying certain immigration
enforcement-related laws.
Police Exercising Absolute Care With Everyone Act of 2019. H.R.4359 – 116th Congress.
Rep. Khanna, Ro [D-CA-17] (Introduced 09/17/2019). The PEACE Act would only
permit lethal force by federal officers when necessary to prevent loss of life and
serious bodily injury. Additionally, it would only permit less-than-lethal force when
necessary. This act also directs the Attorney General to create guidance on the
use of lethal force and less-than-lethal force on vulnerable populations including
pregnant women, young people, elderly people, people with disabilities and oth-
ers. It also limits states and localities from receiving Byrne JAG funds for the years in
which their use of force by police statutes are dissimilar to that outlined in the bill.
Police Training and Independent Review Act of 2019. S.1938 – 116th Congress. Sen.
Duckworth, Tammy [D-IL] (Introduced 06/20/2019). This bill would provide finan-
cial incentives for jurisdictions who utilize one of the following procedures for
investigating police incidents involving deadly force: The use of an independent
agency, civilian review board or outside law enforcement department, such as
the State Police, responsible for independently investigating and prosecuting all
officer use of force allegations; the appointment of the State Attorney General or
a special prosecutor overseen by the State Attorney General, responsible for con-
ducting the criminal investigation and prosecution; the use of an independent
prosecutor, who does not reside or work in the same county as the county where
the officer’s use of force was committed.

69
POWER Act. S.2929 – 116th Congress. Sen. Menendez, Robert [D-NJ] (Introduced
11/21/2019). The “Protect Our Workers from Exploitation and Retaliation Act” or
“POWER Act” would provide protection for immigrant farm workers. U visas for
victims of retaliation: The POWER Act would expand eligibility for a U visa to cer-
tain workers involved in a workplace claim who reasonably fear or have actually
been threatened with force, physical re­straint, serious harm or other abuses. In
addition, the bill expands which law enforcement agencies are able to certify to
include relevant state and local investigative authorities to meet current realities
of workplace abuse. Stay of removal and employment authorization: Workers
who have filed or who are material witnesses in a workplace claim may receive
a stay of re­moval and employment authorization until the work­place claim is re-
solved. This would allow labor law enforcement agencies such as the U.S. Depart-
ment of Labor (DOL) to more effectively prosecute employers who break the law.
Strengthening labor agencies’ investigative powers: In certain situations, DHS
would be required to en­sure that workers detained as part of worksite immigra­
tion enforcement are not removed from the U.S. before an agency investigating
allegations of labor violations has a chance to interview these workers.
Protecting American Lives Act. H.R.2988 – 116th Congress. Rep. Gooden, Lance
[R-TX-5] (Introduced 05/23/2019). This bill proposes to change immigration en-
forcement in the following ways: Clearly defines sanctuary jurisdictions and pro-
hibits sanctuary policies that violate federal law; Prohibits federal law enforce-
ment funds from going to states and cities that do not comply with detainer
requests; Requires state and local jurisdictions to comply with ICE detainers; Pro-
vides protections for law enforcement officers that comply with an ICE detainer in
case they are later sued by an illegal immigrant; Makes it illegal for a state or local
government to fire or discriminate against one of its law enforcement officers
for following federal law; Increases the minimum mandatory prison sentence for
illegal re-entry from two years to five years.
Protecting Communities and Preserving the Second Amendment Act of 2019. S.1519
– 116th Congress. Sen. Grassley, Chuck [R-IA] (Introduced 05/16/2019). This bill
proposes to do the following: Increase federal prosecution of gun violence by
establishing the Nationwide Project Exile Program and establishing a high-level
federal taskforce; Responsibly addresses gun violence by criminalizing straw pur-
chasing of firearms and gun trafficking; Protect the Second Amendment rights
of members of the armed forces; Require the Department of Justice to explain to
Congress why it has or has not been prosecuting gun cases; Place limitations on
operations like Fast and Furious by DOJ; Allow firearms dealers to utilize the NICS
database to for voluntary background checks of employees and allow firearms
dealers to access the FBI’s National Crime Information Center stolen-gun data-
base to ensure that a firearm is not stolen prior to acquisition.
Protecting Sensitive Locations Act. S.2097 – 116th Congress. Sen. Blumenthal, Rich-
ard [D-CT] (Introduced 07/11/2019). This bill prohibits immigration enforcement
actions within 1,000 feet of a sensitive location unless there are exigent circum-
stances or if written prior approval has been obtained from certain officials. Sen-
sitive locations include health care facilities; schools and school bus stops; places
that provide assistance for people such as children, pregnant women and abuse
victims; places that provide disaster or emergency services; places of worship;
courthouses and lawyers’ offices and public assistance offices.
70
Recognizing that the United States Has a Moral Obligation to Meet its Foundational
Promise of Guaranteed Justice for All. H.Res.702 – 116th Congress. Rep. Press-
ley, Ayanna [D-MA-7] (Introduced 11/14/2019). It should be the responsibility
of the Federal Government to make America more free by dramatically reducing
jail, prison and immigration detention populations; make America more equal by
eliminating racial disparities, wealth-based discrimination and corporate profi-
teering; make America more secure by investing in the communities most desta-
bilized by the failed policies of over-policing and mass incarceration and make
America more just and humane by ensuring basic resources needed to feel safe
are equitably provided to all people.
Refugee Protection Act of 2019. S.2936 – 116th Congress. Sen. Leahy, Patrick J. [D-
VT] (Introduced 11/21/2019). This bill proposes to put an end to “asylum ban
2.0,” the Administration’s rule barring asylum for virtually all non-Mexicans ar-
riving at the southern border; allow those denied asylum due to the Administra-
tion’s cruel Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) or asylum bans to reopen their
cases; eliminate the current practice of “metering,” which restricts the number of
asylum seekers permitted to request protection at border; prohibit any criminal
prosecution of asylum seekers for merely crossing the border and ensure that
asylum seekers are not subjected to needless, punitive detention and guarantee
access to counsel for immigrant and asylum-seeking children.
Responsibly Addressing the Marijuana Policy Gap Act of 2019. H.R.1119 – 116th Con-
gress. Rep. Blumenauer, Earl [D-OR-3] (Introduced 02/08/2019). This bill removes
federal restrictions on, and creates new protections for, marijuana-related con-
duct and activities that are authorized by state or tribal law (i.e., state-authorized).
Among other things, the bill does the following: eliminates regulatory controls
and administrative, civil and criminal penalties under the Controlled Substances
Act for state-authorized marijuana-related activities; allows businesses that sell
marijuana in compliance with state or tribal law to claim certain federal tax cred-
its and deductions; eliminates restrictions on print and broadcast advertising of
state-authorized marijuana-related activities; creates protections for depository
institutions that provide financial services to marijuana-related businesses; spec-
ifies that a marijuana-related business is entitled to federal bankruptcy protec-
tions; establishes a process to expunge criminal records related to certain mari-
juana-related convictions; reestablishes federal student aid eligibility for certain
students convicted of a misdemeanor offense for marijuana possession; exempts
real property from civil forfeiture due to state-authorized marijuana-related con-
duct; prohibits the inadmissibility or deportability of aliens for state-authorized
marijuana-related conduct; specifies that drug-related criminal activity, which is
prohibited in federally assisted housing, does not include state-authorized mar-
ijuana-related conduct; establishes a new, separate registration process to facil-
itate medical marijuana research; authorizes health care providers employed by
the Department of Veterans Affairs to recommend participation in state marijua-
na programs and authorizes medical providers through an Indian health program
to make medical recommendations regarding marijuana.
Safeguarding Americans’ Private Records Act of 2020. H.R.5675 – 116th Congress.
Rep. Lofgren, Zoe [D-CA-19] (Introduced 01/24/2020). The bill prohibits the war-
rantless collection of cell site location and GPS information as well as browsing his-
tory and internet search history, and ensures that the government cannot conduct
71
 collection for intelligence purposes that would violate the Fourth Amendment in
the criminal context. The bill eliminates the vague “relevance” standard that was
secretly used to justify bulk collection. It establishes a three-year limitation on
retention of information that is not foreign intelligence or evidence of a crime and
permits the FISA Court to review compliance with minimization procedures.
School Resource Officer Act of 2019. H.R.916 – 116th Congress. Rep. Mitchell, Paul
[R-MI-10] (Introduced 01/30/2019). This bill reauthorizes through FY2023 the
Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program and modifies it to restore
authority to make COPS grants for hiring and rehiring additional career law en-
forcement officers, and to specify that at least 30% of the amount made available
for such grants must be used for school resource officers.
Second Look Act of 2019. S.2146 – 116th Congress. Sen. Booker, Cory A. [D-NJ]
(Introduced 07/17/2019). This bill would allow federal judges to reconsider and
modify a prison sentence that is more than 10 years, if the following conditions
apply: A person has served least 10 years of their sentence and the court finds
that the defendant is not a danger to any person or community; the defendant
presents no credible risk of criminal conduct; the defendant demonstrates a
readiness for reentry and the interests of justice warrant a sentence modification.
Technology in Criminal Justice Act of 2019. H.R.5227 – 116th Congress. Rep. Demings,
Val Butler [D-FL-10] (Introduced 11/21/2019). This bill would establish a new ‘Of-
fice of Digital Law Enforcement’ at the Department of Justice to help law enforce-
ment agencies train and support personnel on how to handle digital evidence; a
new ‘Center of Excellence for Digital Forensics’ to centralize training programs,
technical expertise and legal assistance related to digital evidence; a new ‘Law
Enforcement Technology Support to State and Local Law Enforcement’ program to
help guide DOJ grants to help law enforcement handle digital evidence and a new
‘Technology Policy Advisory Board’ to coordinate between the technology and law
enforcement communities and advise the Attorney General on best practices.
Tribal Law and Order Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2019. S.210 – 116th
Congress. Sen. Hoeven, John [R-ND] (Introduced 01/24/2019). Notwithstanding
any other provision of Federal law, law enforcement officers of any Indian tribe
that has contracted or compacted any or all Federal law enforcement functions
through the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act shall have
the authority to enforce Federal law within the area under the tribe’s jurisdiction,
if the tribal officers involved have completed training that is comparable to that of
an employee of the Office of Justice Services of the Bureau of Indian Affairs who is
providing the same services in Indian country, as determined by the Director of the
Office of Justice Services of the Bureau of Indian Affairs or the Director’s designee.
Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019. S.2920 – 116th Congress. Sen.
Ernst, Joni [R-IA] (Introduced 11/20/2019). Among other things, this bill would
“develop, implement and train on best practices regarding victim-centered ap-
proaches in domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking cases,
including policies addressing the use of bench warrants, body attachments and
material witness warrants for victims who fail to appear; train and maintain a des-
ignated VAWA Officer in State and local law enforcement agencies to coordinate
and support the response to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault
and stalking.”
72
 APPENDIX C: 2019 NFHS TOPIC SELECTION COMMITTEE
This appendix lists the delegates who represented their states at the 2019 Topic Se-
lection Committee Meeting, which met in August of 2019 in Chicago, Illinois. In the
event that more than one delegate is listed per state, the voting delegate is the first
one listed.
Arkansas Colton Gilbert Little Rock, AR
Arkansas Communication and Theatre Arts Association

California Stephen Goldberg Sacramento, CA

California High School Speech Association

Illinois Susan Knoblauch Bloomington, IL

Illinois High School Association
Other Illinois Representatives:
Craig Anderson
Michael Colletti
Asim Gaffar
Eric Oddo
Linda Oddo
Sara Sanchez
Wayne Tang
Aaron Vinson

Indiana Chris Lowery Chesterton, IN

Indiana High School Forensics Association
Chesterton High School
Other Indiana Representative:
Jeff Stutzman

Iowa Craig Ihnen Des Moines, IA

Iowa High School Speech Association

Kansas Craig Manteuffel Topeka, KS

Kansas State High School Activities Association
Other Kansas Representatives:
Dustin Rimmey
Pam McComas

Louisiana Kasi McCartney Shreveport, LA

Louisiana High School Speech League Caddo Magnet HS
Other Louisiana Representative:
Martha Lepore

Massachusetts Roger Nix Boston, MA

Boston Debate League

Michigan Ruth Kay Beverly Hills, MI

Michigan Interscholastic Forensic Association
Detroit Country Day School

73
Minnesota Cort Sylvester Minneapolis, MN
Minnesota State High School League
Halleland, Lewis, Nilan, Simpkins
Mississippi Darin Maier Ridgeland, MS
Mississippi High School Activities Association
St. Andrew’s Episcopal School

Missouri Matt Good Lee’s Summit, MO

Lee’s Summit West High School
Other Missouri Representative:
Kevin Minch

Oklahoma Bryan Gaston Edmond, OK

Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activities Association

Oregon Jennifer LeSieur Clackamas, OR

Oregon School Activities Association
Clackamas High School
Other Oregon Representative:
Susan McLain

Pennsylvania Colleen Mooney Warminster, PA

Pennsylvania High School Speech League

South Dakota Brooks Bowman Pierre, SD

South Dakota High School Activities Association
Other South Dakota Representatives:
Luke Cumbee
Grace Gill

Texas Jana Riggins Austin, TX

Texas University Interscholastic League
Other Texas Representatives:
Rich Edwards
Nicole Cornish
Andrew Cornish
Clint Adams
Jennifer Adams
Joanna Hickey

Washington Sam Normington Spokane, WA

Washington State Forensics Association
Other Washington Representatives:
Steve Rowe

Wyoming Michael Starks Cheyenne, WY

Wyoming High School Activities Association
Cheyenne East High School

74
NCFL Michael Colletti Chicago, IL

NDCA Aaron Vinson Winnetka, IL

New Trier High School

NSDA Pam McComas Topeka, KS

NAUDL Sara Sanchez Chicago, IL

NFHS James Weaver Indianapolis, IN

75
 AUTHORS OF PAPERS
Darin Maier and Eric Oddo
Election Reform
St. Andrew’s Episcopal School Ridgeland, MS
Mississippi High School Activities Association
Niles West High School Skokie, IL
Illinois High School Association

Stephen Goldberg
Poverty
California High School Speech Association Sacramento, CA

Dustin Rimmey
Climate Change
Topeka High School Topeka, KS

Dustin Rimmey
Critical Infrastructure
Topeka High School Topeka, KS

Ruth Kay
Airline Regulation
Detroit Country Day School Beverly Hills, MI
Michigan Interscholastic Forensic Association
Ruth Kay
Higher Education Reform
Detroit Country Day School Beverly Hills, MI
Michigan Interscholastic Forensic Association

Aaron Vinson
Health Care
New Trier High School Winnetka, IL

Colton Gilbert
Criminal Justice Reform
Arkansas Communication and Theatre Arts Association Little Rock, AR

Andrew and Nicole Cornish

Cybersecurity
Athens High School Athens, TX

Joanna Hickey
Domestic (Commercial) Agriculture
Boling High School Boling, TX
Texas University Interscholastic League

76
 MEMBERS OF THE 2019 WORDING COMMITTEE
Susan McLain (Chair) Glencoe High School Forest Grove, OR

Jana Riggins Texas University Interscholastic League Austin, TX

Pam McComas Topeka High School Topeka, KS

Grace Gill Roosevelt High School Sioux Falls, SD

Darin Maier St. Andrew’s Episcopal School Ridgeland, MS

Chris Lowery Indiana High School Forensics Association Chesterton, IN

Chesterton High School

Nicole Cornish Athens High School Athens, TX

77
 2020 ISSUES OF THE FORENSIC QUARTERLY
Quarterly #1: Background on the Criminal Justice Reform cross-examination debate
topic; offers extensive definition-of-terms section; prepared by Rich Edwards. (April
2020) ($7.00)

Quarterly #2: Extensive, 78-page annotated bibliography on the topic written by

Rich Edwards. (April 2020) ($7.00)

Quarterly #3: Affirmative case analysis on the debate topic developed by Jeff Jar-
man. (June 2020) ($7.00)

Quarterly #4: Alternative methods for developing negative positions on the 2020-
21 debate topic; prepared by Rich Edwards. (June 2020) ($7.00)

Orders for all NFHS Publications must be placed online at:

www.nfhs.com

Contact the NFHS Customer Service Department at

800-776-3462 for questions about the ordering process.

For other NFHS speech and debate resources, see our website at:
www.nfhs.org

Electronic and PDF copies of the Forensic Quarterly

can be ordered at:
www.nfhs.org/nfhs-for-you/speechdebate-
theatredirectors-judges/policy-debate-quarterly