Paul Skiermont, University of Kentucky

1996 - The Shock, The Shame, The Horror: Juvenile Crime

This year's high school debate topic introduces some interesting issues regarding federal solutions to the juvenile crime epidemic--or does it? Even a cursory look into the juvenile crime topic will demonstrate to an interested observer that much of the literature advocates solutions at the state and local level. Policy solutions generated at the federal level are more limited. In fact, a quick browse through the federalism section of this year's Debater's Research Guide shows that there is a great deal written about which level of government should act in the area of juvenile crime. The debate that exists in the policy arena about which level of government should act will inevitably be replicated in the debate world in the form of the states counterplan. This article will defend the plan-inclusive nature of the states counterplan through a general defense of the plan-inclusive counterplan, using the states counterplan on this year's juvenile crime topic as illustration of its legitimacy. Other theoretical questions surrounding the states counterplan such as fiat and topicality are addressed in Roger Solt's article in this handbook.

It seems that in recent years the plan-inclusive counterplan has been more frequently employed as a negative strategy at both the college and high school level. A plan-inclusive counterplan (PIC, an acronym I use here for typing sake, not one that should be used as shorthand in a debate round) can be defined as an alternative plan introduced by the negative that uses part of the affirmative's plan and excludes some part of it to generate a net benefit. In other words, the counterplan is competitive because doing the entire plan would not be as good (in terms of advantages and disadvantages) as doing only part of the affirmative plan. Different labels have been used to describe this type of counterplan, such as: partially plan inclusive, plan-inclusive, and exclusionary. The difference is purely semantic--all of these counterplans seek to adopt a part of the affirmative plan while excluding a different part.

The easiest way to conceptualize a plan-inclusive counterplan is to envision an affirmative that has two distinct mandates. An affirmative may argue that to reduce juvenile crime the federal government should establish boot camps and issue school vouchers. A negative could employ a PIC by only establishing boot camps instead of doing boot camps and vouchers. In order to execute this strategy, the negative must demonstrate that providing school vouchers is worse than not providing them. This is would typically be accomplished using a disadvantage or case turn linked off the excluded component of the plan. The PIC which only implements boot camps enables the negative to capture all of the advantages that stem from boot camps. At the same time, it allows the negative to scale the debate down to vouchers good vs. vouchers bad. There is no denying that PICs help the negative, the question is whether or not they can be theoretically justified. We will return to that question later.

Given the definition of PICs advanced above, it should be relatively clear as to why the states counterplan is plan inclusive. Typically, the states counterplan will mandate that the 50 states adopt the action the plan takes, without having the federal government act. There are several disadvantages that the negative could argue are unique to federal action that acting through the states would avoid. Arguments that are unique to federal action include: federalism, separation of powers, Clinton, and federal spending. These disadvantages provide ample ground for the negative to generate a net benefit that makes the counterplan better than the plan. Although this counterplan uses a different agent than the affirmative, it takes the same action as the plan, hence it is plan-inclusive. In fact, all agent counterplans that do the mandates of the plan but employ a different agent can be considered plan-inclusive. Should the negative be allowed to "steal" part of the affirmative plan and use it for themselves? This question has generated a controversial debate among theorists in recent years.

There are several arguments that can be advanced to justify adding the PIC to the negative arsenal. One of these arguments rests on the notion of competitive equity. It is no secret that the affirmative has a tremendous advantage in this game we play called debate. The affirmative bias is demonstrated by the lopsided percentage of affirmative wins at tournaments throughout the country in college and high school. It should not be surprising that affirmatives win more on average. The affirmative has a tremendous research advantage that starts at the very beginning of the year and continues as the topic evolves. At the start of the year, affirmatives have virtually unlimited prep time to select a small area of a very broad resolution to thoroughly explore. When the negative arrives at the first tournament of the year, there may be 50 or 60 different affirmatives to deal with. In many cases the has been researching a case for months before the negative gets their first opportunity to even hear the case. This research advantage multiplies as the year progresses as more and more affirmatives are added to the "case list." Affirmatives snatch up even more of a competitive advantage by springing new cases on unsuspecting negatives. If the affirmative chooses to forego the new case option, they get to refine their old one upon -hearing negative strategies tournament after tournament. If the negative team does not refine their strategy constantly, they may be shocked to hear the 2AC stand up and turn all of the arguments that beat the case only a few weeks earlier. As the case list grows, the old cases are neglected to the negative's peril, creating a fairly overwhelming burden on the negative. Unless we are willing to give up every waking moment for the "quest for cards," I suggest we revitalize the power of the counterplan and let negatives become crafty "thieves" of affirmative mandates.

A PIC, especially the states counterplan, allows the negative a fighting chance when they have been caught with their proverbial pants down. There are two main arguments advanced by the affirmative against this appeal for competitive equity. One is that all teams have the same number of affirmative and negative rounds in prelims, and an equal chance for being affirmative in elims, so the affirmative bias does not benefit anyone unequally. Though there is some truth to this argument, it is hardly a principled way in which to resolve theoretical disputes. For the sake of fairness, it seems that debate theory should be developed in a manner which gives both sides an equal shot at winning any given round. While that ideal cannot be achieved absolutely, it is a good goal to strive for, and represents a principled way to resolve theory disputes. The argument that teams have the same number of affirmative rounds is also inconsistent with the argument that PICs unfairly expand negative ground-if sides are equal, who cares if PICs increase negative ground.

A second affirmative argument against competitive equity is that the PIC gives the negative an unfair advantage because negatives can nm the same generic counterplan year after year. The same generic counterplan is usually not applicable year after year. For instance, the states counterplan would have been an ineffective negative tool on the China topic. We do not pick topics that allow state action year after year. Also, the more frequently affirmatives debate the states counterplan, the more they improve against it; thus it is not in the negative's best interest to employ the counterplan every round. The fact that the states counterplan might be applicable may encourage affirmatives to write cases that are unique to federal action. Such a development would narrow the scope of cases the negative has to debate and move the topic closer to its federal wording. Also, the logical extension of this affirmative argument destroys almost all counterplan ground. Almost all counterplans are plan-inclusive in some manner, whether it be the same agent or the some of the same mandates. To eliminate PICs erases many of the negative's options when developing strategies against cases. Finally, the advantage gained by the negative in running the states counterplan is not possibly commensurate with the infinite prep time advantage of the affirmative.

Another core argument in favor of PICs is grounded in the search for the best policy. Allowing counterplans that refine the affirmative plan enables the negative to develop strategies that are sophisticated and highly relevant to the policy discussions in the literature. If affirmatives formulate their plans to be highly strategic in order to avoid negative arguments, a counterplan without the frills created out of fear of certain arguments may be the best policy action to pursue--only the PIC allows that. A good example of this scenario occurred on the college debate topic to curtail the commander-in-chief power of the President. To avoid the most popular generic on the topic, interbranch conflict affirmatives tampered with their plans and had the President propose the curtailment of his own power. One PIC which has been misinterpreted, had the President veto the plan instead of proposing the plan. The key to this strategy was a net benefit to a veto over cooperation that had to be won by the negative. This example demonstrates how the PIC could be crucial for the negative as affirmatives write their plans to avoid negative arguments.

The states counterplan is a highly relevant issue in policy debates about juvenile crime. If the affirmative chooses to adopt some program that is widely advocated in the literature as a state prerogative, the negative should not be stripped of the ability to introduce the most widely advocated manner of adopting a plan just because some affirmative federalized the program to be topical. In this case, the plan-inclusive nature of the states counterplan is its essential attribute and there is no good reason to artificially exclude this option. Why give the affirmative yet another advantage by allowing them to distort the policy process? The wording of this year's topic is a liability to the negative because of its broad nature. It seems entirely fair to make the affirmative liable for the fact that a federal topic was chosen in an area that is broadly seen as a state issue. The plan-inclusive states counterplan thus aids competitive equity and is firmly grounded in the policy literature.

The final offense-oriented justification of the PIC is the already well-established theory of counterplan competition. If the counterplan alone is more net beneficial than a combination of the entire plan plus all or part of the counterplan, then the negative should win because the counterplan is competitive via net benefits. Using this well accepted definition of competition, the PIC is legitimate. When the negative counterplans with a part of the affirmative plan, the only way the affirmative can co-opt the negative counterplan is to sever part of their plan. By excluding part of the plan in the counterplan the negative is saying that the affirmative, in its infinite prep time, could not come up with the best plan. The threat of these counterplans also discourages affirmatives from putting extra mandates in their plans to avoid negative arguments. To allow the affirmative to sever once it has been demonstrated that part of their plan is disadvantageous is to encourage hit and run debate, discourage advocacy, and give the affirmative an insurmountable strategic advantage. Affirmatives could just write big plans and then ditch parts as the negative attacks them-hardly the ideal we are searching for. Since the PIC is competitive, it should be accepted as a legitimate negative argument.

In the realm of the states counterplan, allowing the affirmative to dismiss the counterplan by severing their agent and adopting the states as the actor, is doubly illegitimate. First, the affirmative would arguably be severing to a nontopical agent. Second, the arguments advanced against severability above also apply. With the states counterplan, the negative still has the burden of winning a harm that is unique to federal action that the counterplan avoids.

The best argument against PICs that has not already been discussed is that they trivialize debate by allowing the negative to counterplan to exclude a tiny part of the affirmative plan. The argument is that the sly negative might counterplan with 99% of the affirmative plan and argue that the 1% they exclude has a net benefit. One abuse example would be to fund the plan minus one penny and claim Benjamin Franklin as the net benefit (a penny saved is a penny earned). Upon closer examination, however, this does not appear to be a major liability of the PIC. First of all, I would be very surprised to hear that a negative won a debate on Benjamin Franklin, especially since the amount of solvency one penny gets the affirmative is probably enough to outweigh a cliché-this demonstrates how net benefits can check abusive counterplans. Secondly, who is to say what is trivial and what is not? Many times the affirmative plan is a fairly trivial variation of the status quo. Most link-duck cases fall in this category.

In the area of juvenile crime, the states counterplan is a very distinct alternative from federal action--there is nothing, trivial about it. Also, the affirmative still gets to pick their ground first. This argument is very similar to the infinite prep time rule. If the case is an area where the states may be equally suited to solve the problem then the affirmative was not very strategic about the manner in which they used their huge prep time advantage. To say that the negative should not be able to capitalize on such mistake only overburdens an already highly burdened negative strategist. The bottom line is that the affirmative should be required to defend their whole plan, not only the parts they deem worthy of defending.

For those who fear that every debate will be about the states counterplan, in practice this is rarely the case. On the health insurance topic there was ample room for the states counterplan and it was far from the dominant negative strategy. Some affirmatives picked cases that avoided state solvency and some negatives chose not to employ the strategy. The result was a highly focused topic with a lot of emphasis on solvent federal ideas for health care reform. Given the breadth of the juvenile crime topic some federal focus may be just the thing that negatives need to stay competitive at a research level. The requirement of a net benefit will also prevent the employment of the counterplan in every debate. Some good could also come about even if the states counterplan became dominant. It would encourage highly sophisticated debates about the structure of government, as well as on the net benefits to the counterplan. To say that every debate should only be about the specifics of juvenile crime ignores the reality of the debate game and is an incredibly narrow-minded view about what discussions are valuable.

In sum, this article has attempted to demonstrate the value of the plan-inclusive counterplan through the lens of the states counterplan. While there are many other ways to use PICs, the states counterplan seems to be a highly relevant one in the area of juvenile crime. While the PIC is not some magic elixir that will cure affirmative side bias, it does go a long way towards leveling the playing field. If affirmative action arguments are unappealing to you, then PICs also provide for an in depth debate about specific aspects of affirmative plans, as they place a premium on focusing on the plan. The fact that some affirmatives stake out their ground poorly is no reason to frown on negatives who can write more effective policies that coordinate closely with the plan. The requirement of a net benefit goes a long way towards reducing the abuse potential of these types of counterplans. In the real world when a policy change is evaluated, it is not debated through the eyes of the Malthus DA or other equally ridiculous arguments. They are debated through specific refinements of the plan in a way to improve upon the policy. The alternatives to PICs are super generics that the negative must defend to manage the research load. With the PIC the negative is able to craft refinements of the affirmative plan that increase the germaneness of negative arguments in the debate--to do any less sacrifices policy complexity and competitive equity on the altar of the sacred plan.

***The author wishes to thank Roger Solt, Ross Smith, Judd Kimball, and Adrienne Brovero for their contributions while I was working on this article.