Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Easy

PT108 S4 P2 Q9 Explanation

Juvenile Delinquency

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Reading Comprehension question.

TopicsAuthor OpinionLaw

Keep going in LSAT Lab

  • Save & drill this skill — build targeted practice sets from questions like this one

  • Video walkthroughs — watch every question solved step by step

  • 81 official LSATs — as questions, timed sections & full-length tests

Start practicing free

Free to start

Full official LSAT questions are available through LawHub. This page provides LSAT Lab's explanation, strategy, and review tools without republishing the full official question.

Passage

Much of mainstream thinking concerning juvenile delinquency in Canada and the United States is based on the assumption that if uncorrected it automatically leads to adult crime and should thus be severely punished, usually by some form of incarceration, before it becomes an ingrained behavior pattern. While there is some connection between its extreme their research suggests that the best form of law enforcement intervention might be none.

The criminologists' unwillingness to attempt to articulate a policy also stems from their failure­—perhaps mirroring that of law enforcement—to distinguish sufficiently between what the young adults themselves think of as criminal behavior and what they consider merely "fun" even while acknowledging that it is illegal. Many of the subjects of the criminologists' rather than routinely imposing incarceration, may be the most effective form of rehabilitation for young offenders.

The problem of juvenile delinquency certainly ought to be dealt with, but the question is one of approach. The conventional wisdom has held that it is essential to make youthful offenders understand that their actions are absolutely impermissible, even if this requires incarceration. However, we do not need to remove delinquents from and it can be achieved without either inflicting incarceration or allowing young offenders to escape penalty.

What this question is testing

Author Opinion

Topic

The author is asking: what should we do with kids who break the law? Lock them up, ignore them, or something else?

Framework

Problem-Solution. The author lays out two extreme positions and argues for a middle path.

Main Point

The simpler version: locking up young offenders may actually make things worse, but ignoring them entirely is also no good. The author thinks there's a third option — make them face real consequences (return what they stole, apologize) without sending them to jail. That can work as rehabilitation.

P1: Two extremes

The conventional view says lock kids up before they become career criminals. But research suggests jail might actually keep them on the criminal track. Taken all the way, that research even hints we should do nothing — which the criminologists won't say out loud.

P2: Why most kids stop on their own

Young people don't even think of themselves as criminals — they call their delinquency "fun." When the system labels them as criminals, they may start to see themselves that way. Most kids who escape detection just stop misbehaving by 18 anyway, and almost none of them say it's because they were scared of getting caught. So letting kids grow up without the criminal label is itself a form of rehabilitation.

P3: The author's middle path

Don't incarcerate, but don't let them off either. The shoplifter returns the merchandise and apologizes. The goal is to get kids to internalize society's values by the time they're grown — and you can do that without locking them up.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
9.

The author's opinion about the work of the criminologists discussed in the first paragraph can most accurately be described by which

Answer choices

  1. Contradicted: advocate right policies1% picked this

    They advocate the right policies despite errors in

    This is attractive because of its mixed positive / negative structure, but it's got the wrong details. The author thinks something like, "They advocate an important consideration, but they don't have a good way to translate that into policy".

  2. Contradicted: advocacy of policies1% picked this

    Their advocacy of mistaken policies has led them to distort their

    This answer, like (A), suggests that the criminologists have proposed policies. The author seems to be saying, to the contrary, that while they're sentiment seems correct, no one knows where to go with that when it comes to creating policy informed by that view. There's definitely no accusation of "distorting their research findings".

  3. Contradicted: advocate policies11% picked this

    Their research findings are useful, but they advocate policies that are

    This answer, like (A) and (B), suggests that the criminologists have proposed policies. The author seems to be saying, to the contrary, that while they're sentiment seems correct, no one knows where to go with that when it comes to creating policy informed by that view. This answer is saying that the (non-existent) policies these criminologists advocate contradict (are incompatible with) their research findings.

  4. Correct84% picked this

    Their research findings are useful, but they have failed to draw any policy

    Why this is right

    This seems like our best match for our Support Sentence: This is an interesting point (the research findings are useful) but a difficult one to translate into policy (failed to draw any policy conclusions from them).

    Skill tested: Author Opinion · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

  5. Contradicted: advocate policies3% picked this

    The errors in their research findings have led them to advocate

    This answer, like (A), (B), and (C), suggests that the criminologists have proposed policies. The author seems to be saying, to the contrary, that while they're sentiment seems correct, no one knows where to go with that when it comes to creating policy informed by that view. There's also no accusation of "errors in their research findings".

Continue the review in LSAT Lab

Save this question, watch the video walkthrough, and drill similar questions in your LSAT Lab account.

Save and practice this skill
LSAT Lab

Turn this review into a targeted study plan.

Save this question, drill more like it, watch the video walkthrough, and track your progress in your LSAT Lab account.

Start practicing free