Ideas:

THBT religious studies in public schools should be permitted

THBT schools should abolish written examinations
THBT voting should be made mandatory
THBT advertising using children should be banned.
- Prop:
- Monetization of children
- Parents might use their children as a way to gain money
- Harmful to child’s future
- Embarrassing footage
- Taking them out of school
- Inflated ego
- Negative influence on the child
- Negative role models
- Other children might copy bad behaviour by children in advertisement
- Do the children have any choice in this matter?
- Exploitation of children → Lack of freedom of choice(?)
- Opp:
- Freedom of choice
- People should be given the choice as to whether or not they want to participate
- We are free to do whatever we want
- Potential role model
- Good behaviour exhibited by children could reciprocated by children watching
- Confidence and work experience
THBT capital punishments should be legalised in HK.
- Rehabilitation: Norway → Not necessarily a reliable system → Cultural differences, Societal
systems → HK doesn’t really rehabilitate vs HK has rehabilitation system
- Prisoners on good behaviour can be released, however no way of knowing they won’t
recidivate
- Deterrent
- Plea Bargaining
- Closure for family (What about family of criminal)
- Prop:
- Capital punishment as a deterrent for crime
- Ernest van den Haag, a Professor of Jurisprudence at Fordham University who has studied the
question of deterrence closely, wrote: "Even though statistical demonstrations are not conclusive,
and perhaps cannot be, capital punishment is likely to deter more than other punishments
because people fear death more than anything else.
- For instance, a 2003 study by Emory University researchers of data from more than 3,000
counties from 1977 through 1996 found that each execution, on average, resulted in 18 fewer
murders per county.
- In another examination, based on data from all 50 states from 1978 to 1997, Federal
Communications Commission economist Paul Zimmerman demonstrated that each state
execution deters an average of 14 murders annually
- In China, in a culture that is similar to that of Hong Kong
- The Supreme Court has stated that every execution lowers the murder rate
- Good source:
- https://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000983
- Rebuttal
- Murder rates in death penalty states are higher than in non-death penalty states.
In fact, it is up to 46% higher.
- 88% of criminologists believe that the death penalty does not deter crime
- A report released on April 18, 2012, by the prestigious National Research
Council of the National Academies based on a review of more than three
decades of research concluded that studies claiming a deterrent effect on murder
rates from the death penalty are fundamentally flawed. The report concluded:
“The committee concludes that research to date on the effect of capital
punishment on homicide is not informative about whether capital punishment
decreases, increases, or has no effect on homicide rates. Therefore, the
committee recommends that these studies not be used to inform
deliberations requiring judgments about the effect of the death penalty on
homicide.
- The studies do not factor in the effects of noncapital punishments that
may also be imposed.
- The studies use incomplete or implausible models of potential murderers’
perceptions of and response to the use of capital punishment.
- Estimates of the effect of capital punishment are based on statistical
models that make assumptions that are not credible.
- Plea bargaining
- Reduce overcrowding in prisons
- Stanley prison house over 2,000 inmates despite having a capacity of roughly
1,400
- The prison houses long term or life imprisonment
- increased violence, results essentially in an education in further
criminality, and also results in poor health outcomes
- Cost over long term imprisonment
- Only costs about $1,300 to execute an individual using lethal injection
- Life imprisonment means keeping an individual in prison for a very long time
- $30,000 to $60,000 per year to keep an inmate in the U.S.
- This is a large sum of money if you are going to keep them for
decades
- We can assume that this is still a large number in Hong Kong
- Hong Kong jail conditions are better
- Keeps inmates active, with many programs
- Chapter 212 Offenses against the Person Ordinance
- In Hong Kong, murder almost invariably ends with a life sentence
- Capital punishment would drastically decrease the cost
- Reduce overcrowding in prisons
- Stanley prison house over 2,000 inmates despite having a capacity of
roughly 1,400
- The prison houses long term or life imprisonment
- increased violence, results essentially in an education in further
criminality, and also results in poor health outcomes
- Rebuttals:
- Cases involves the death penalty
- Closure/Retribution (What is the meaning of justice?)
- Some people are simply suffering
- Jail is not a good place to live
- 3 phone calls a month
- Reduce overcrowding in prisons
- Stanley prison house over 2,000 inmates despite having a
capacity of roughly 1,400
- The prison houses long term or life imprisonment
- increased violence, results essentially in an education
in further criminality, and also results in poor health
outcomes
- Ex-convict Mr.Chan
 - He said the trouble began when he reported alleged
misconduct by Correctional Services Department
(CSD) officers, such as bullying prisoners, swearing at
them and conniving in unlawful activities by inmates.
He claimed these occurrences are “very common.”
- He alleged that two officers beat him up in a pantry
without a surveillance camera when they found out he
made a complaint against them.
- Complaint system does not work well
- Is it truly justice to subject people to
- Opp:
- The chance of rehabilitation is preferable over the death penalty → Norway
- What gives people the right to kill others?
- Gives people the opportunity to contribute to society
- Making mistakes in the decision-making process
- People might turn out to be innocent
- Decisions made may be affected by race
- Attorney quality

1st Prop
2nd Prop
3rd Prop

1st Opp
2nd Opp
3rd Opp

Reminder of what they do

Process:
- Definitions → Justify definitions
- Substantives + Justification
- Signposting
 - Argument + Examples/Analogies + Elaboration on points
- Rebuttals → How to rebut and having to deal with them
- Clashes, and how not to rebut

Plan:
- Introduce ourselves (Who we are, what we are here to do)
- How to approach a motion
- Introduce motion
- THBT capital punishment should be legalized in Hong Kong
- Differences between THBT and THW
- The model (We are not going to bother about it for now)
- For THBT, only justify why, not how
- Before going in depth, ask what they remember
- Roles of each speaker
- Briefly discuss the motion
- How should each side approach the motion?
- What are they trying to prove? (Burden of proof)
- Straightforward for this debate
- Definitions
- What do we need to define?
- Why do we need to define?
- Activity:
- Have each group come up with a set of definitions
- Three per group, randomizer.org
- We define it ourselves
- Justify (How to justify?)
- What do the definitions mean for the debate
- Opposition side and definitions
- What is squirrelling?
- Substantives (Prop side)
- Activity:
- Groups of three, discuss what the substantives could be
- We go around helping them one group at a time (asking what
they’ve got, “checking” progress)
- Helps them begin to critically think about motion instead of just
listening
- Briefly go over the substantives again
- How do we go about supporting our substantives?
- The Theory?
- The logic behind the argument
 - Examples
- How to use examples
- Introduce
- Link
- How does it support your side → Why your side is right
- Analogies (Do not talk about this unless asked about/if someone does it in
debate)
- Tell them what they are
- Point out that you can make these up as a hypothetical situation to
illustrate a point
- Rebuttals
- Rebuttals are tools for attacking the opponent
- If the opponent makes a mistake, talk about it
- If you don’t point it out, you don’t get points
- Leaps/Faults in logic
- How to incorporate your rebuttals into the speech
- Beginning of speech
- POIs
- Third speaker speech
- Clashes
- What are clashes?
- The clashes themselves are points that both sides have argued back and
forth
- Found in engagement → Rebuttals and response are good ways to find
them
- Why do we do clashes?
- As a form of comparative analysis
- To show how our points our right and their points are wrong
- How are we supposed to do clashes
- Name the clashes
- What did they say?
- Why they are wrong
- What did we say?
- Why we are right
- Our side won this point/clash
- Effect on entire motion i.e., therefore, because we win clash,
we win debate
- How do people do them wrong?
- Misidentification
- Due to lack of engagement, there could be no clashes
 - MUST NOT BE THE MOTION
- Some people name the clashes, but end up doing a second speaker
speech
- Some people say they’re going to rebut as third speaker, and end up
rebutting the whole speech/ rebut early, repeats stuff during clashes
- Second motion/Summarising activity

Namelist:

Name Class Email

Kenny Yuan 7B kenny.yuan17@sec-ycis-hk.com

Darren Wu 7D darren.wu17@sec.ycis-hk.com

NGAI Lok Sze Lucille 8E lokszelucille.ngai17@sec.ycis-

hk.com

Edwin He 9E edwin.he15@sec.ycis-hk.com

Viola Ho 7B viola.ho17@sec.ycis-hk.com

Song Muran, Moon 7C moon.song17@sec.ycis-hk.com

Sophia Cuthbert 9C sophia.cuthbert15@sec.ycis-

hk.com

LIN Yan Hei Grace 9C grace.lin15@sec.ycis-hk.com

Tang Xuanhan Nicole 7E nicole.tang17@sec.ycis-hk.com

Travis Li 9C travisli101@gmail.com

Armaan Shahid 7C armaan.shahid17@sec.ycis-

hk.com

Mechina Wang 9A mechina.wang15@sec.ycis-

hk.com
Peggy Chan 9A peggy.chan15@sec.ycis-hk.com

Sophie Lau 9C sophie.lau15@sec.ycis-hk.com

Sheila Yu 9B sheila.yu17@sec.ycis-hk.com

Groupings:
- Group 1
- Sophia, Travis, Armaan
- Group 2

- Group 3
- Kenny, Viola, Lucille, Darren
- Group 4
- Peggy, Grace, Sheila
- Group 5
- Edwin, Mechina, Sophie