One of the most common negative positions on this year’s criminal justice reform topic is the abolition kritik, an argument that rejects the legitimacy of the carceral state writ large. In these debates, the negative does not defend the status quo; they defend more radical change than the plan proposed by the affirmative.

This form of negation can be confusing. Most beginning debaters are taught that an important difference between the affirmative and negative is their relationship to the status quo: the affirmative rejects it by proposing a change in policy, and the negative either defends it or proposes a different (but competitive) policy change.