Logical Reasoning

PT120 · S1 · Q1 While it might be expected

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While it might be expected that those neighborhoods most heavily patrolled by police have the least crime, the statistical evidence overwhelmingly supports the claim that such neighborhoods have the most crime.

Conclusion (this shows that)

The presence of police does not decrease crime in a neighborhood.

Evidence

Statistics show that the neighborhoods with the most crime are also those most heavily patrolled by police.

Evaluate

The evidence presents a correlation: neighborhoods with the most crime also have the most police presence.

LSAT authors usually assume from correlations that one thing causes another. However, here instead of concluding that the presence of police is causing all this crime, the author simply gives us an Anti-Causal conclusion: "clearly, the police presence isn't reducing crime".

Whenever authors present correlations and make causal assumptions, we want to consider two alternate explanations:

1) Reverse Causality (maybe the huge amount of crime came first, and then the police decided to increase their presence there as a result)

2) Third Factor (maybe there's some other reason why this area has the most crime and the most police presence, for example it has the highest population density).

GIVEN THAT these areas with the most cops also have the most crime, HOW CAN WE ARGUE THAT the presence of police does decrease crime?

The classic objection to anti-causal arguments is,

Goal

Let's look for an answer making the anti-causal objection that, , or for an answer making the reverse causality objection that the whole reason we have so many cops in this area is because it was already #1 for crime.

1.

The reasoning in the argument is flawed because the argument

  1. attempts to support its conclusion

    Bad Evidence Match

    The evidence is statistics, nothing relating to emotions. This answer describes one of the 10 famous flaws, Inappropriate Appeal to Emotion.

    0% picked this

  2. fails to consider the possibility

    Bad Objection

    Since this begins with "fails to consider", we evaluate it like a Weaken answer. Would it hurt the author to say, "Hey criminals might commit crimes in more than one neighborhood!" No. First of all, that's a crazy weak idea, but more importantly, it has nothing to do with helping us argue that police presence DOES decrease crime.

    1% picked this

  3. draws a general conclusion from

    Bad Evidence Match

    This answer describes a Sampling Flaw (one of the 10 famous flaws). The evidence here is not a small sample of data. It's a statistic that accounts for all neighborhoods, because in order to talk about the neighborhoods that have the most crime / most police, you need to have records on all neighborhoods. A Sampling Flaw would be more like, "Since increased police presence didn't make a difference in neighborhood X, we can conclude that increased police presence doesn't make a difference anywhere."

    4% picked this

  4. Correct

    fails to consider the possibility

    Why this is right

    Does it weaken the argument if we say, "Hey, author, the police presence is a RESPONSE to the high crime rate"? Yes, because it offers an alternate explanation for why most cops and most crime could be correlated. It's not because cops are useless at thwarting crime; it's because we allocate more police resources to the areas that have the most crime. To put it another way, the author is acting like the presence of police did nothing to stop an area from growing to be #1 in crime. And our objection is, "no, no, no -- the huge police presence wasn't there while it was growing to be #1 in crime. It's there now because we're trying to work on the areas that are #1 in crime."

    Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    94% picked this

  5. takes for granted that public

    Not Assumed

    Since this starts with "takes for granted", we evaluate it like it's Necessary Assumption. Did the author have to assume that we could be using public money in a better way than spending it on "useless" cops? No, not necessarily. If you negate this and say, "Hey, author, there's actually nothing else we could spend money on that would be a better deterrent than police", it doesn't weaken the argument. The author could freely accept that we have no viable way of stopping crime. They could say, "I agree there's no other way to spend money that would be a better deterrent. Unfortunately, cops don't help decrease crime and nothing else we could spend money on helps either." The negation doesn't keep the conclusion from still being a true statement.

    1% picked this

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