Police commissioner: Last year our

Answer choices

1. A

   Unclear Impact8% picked this

   Studies of many other cities have shown a correlation between improving economic conditions and

   This type of idea vaguely suggests that the crime rate could be dropping from improving economic conditions. But we were never told that this city has improving economic conditions, so we would be totally speculating whether this answer choice is relevant to this city's crime rate drop.

   8%
2. B

   Unclear Impact13% picked this

   Prior to the enactment of the mandatory sentencing law, judges in the city had for many years already imposed unusually

   This isn't giving us any distinction about last year that would allow us to come up with an Alternate Explanation for the crime drop. But, could we say that this undermines the plausibility of the Author's Story? She's selling us on the idea that a law that mandates jail time for violent criminals was a meaningful change that deterred 15% of violent crime. If this city was already imposing unusually harsh penalties, though, is this mandatory sentencing law even going to be a meaningful change? What criminal would be deterred by a mandatory sentencing law if they're already expecting unusually harsh penalties from local judges? The problem is the vagueness of "unusually harsh penalties for some crimes". Do they include the violent crimes that this mandatory sentencing law addresses? Without knowing, there's no way to judge whether this has any impact.

   13%
3. C

   No Impact2% picked this

   Last year, the city’s overall crime rate decreased by only

   Since the mandatory sentencing law only dealt with violent crime, we're not expecting it to have any effect on overall crime. Given that we know violent crime went down by 15%, if an answer tells us that overall crime went down by 5%, that means that nonviolent crime went down by less than 5% (it may not have gone down at all / it may have even increased). But we really don't care about nonviolent crime.

   2%
4. D

   Strengthens, if anything15% picked this

   At the beginning of last year, the police department’s definition of “violent crime” was broadened to include 2 crimes

   This provides a factor that would lead to an increase in the violent crime statistic. Had this answer said that last year the police department's definition of "violent crime" was narrowed to exclude 2 crimes that were previously called "violent", it could serve as an alternate explanation for the 15% crime rate drop.

   15%
5. E

   Correct62% picked this

   The city enacted a policy 2 years ago requiring that 100 new police officers be hired in each

   Why this is right

   This gives us an Alternate Explanation for the the 15% crime rate drop -- there were 100 new police officers hired last year. This answer sneaks around the constraint that "no other major policy changes were enacted last year" by telling us about a policy change enacted 2 years ago that still has new ramifications last year. This answer, like all Alternate Explanations, involves us using some real world causal common sense. #DefundThePolice notwithstanding, if you asked 10 people on the street whet "adding more police officers could help to decrease the violent crime rate", most would say "of course that could happen".

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

   62%