Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT157 S3 Q12 ExplanationColumnist: Vagrancy laws are supposed

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Logical Reasoning question.

TopicsFlaw

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Stimulus

Columnist: Vagrancy laws are supposed to reduce criminal activity, but they don’t. Making vagrancy illegal means transforming many innocuous everyday occurrences into crimes. Thus, while purporting to reduce it.

What this question is testing

Flaw

Conclusion

Vagrancy laws increase crime. Take that, law and order.

Evidence

Making vagrancy illegal turns previously legal everyday behaviors into crimes.

Evaluate

Well, technically, yes — if you make sitting on a park bench illegal, you have more "crime" in the sense that more people are now breaking the law. But did crime actually increase? The same people are sitting on the same bench doing the same thing. The only thing that changed is the label. The argument treats relabeling as if it were an actual increase in bad behavior.

Goal

Find the answer that calls out the sleight of hand: reclassification is not the same as more crime.

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

The question
12.

The reasoning in the columnist’s argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds

Answer choices, explained

  1. Opposite, if anything2% picked this

    presumes, without providing any justification, that most innocuous everyday occurrences are

    The argument calls these everyday occurrences "innocuous," suggesting they are not harmful. It does not presume they are harmful to society — it says the opposite.

  2. Bad Evidence Match21% picked this

    mistakenly infers, from the claim that vagrancy laws are associated with an increase in many innocuous everyday occurrences, that

    The argument does not claim there is an increase in innocuous everyday occurrences. It says those occurrences are reclassified as crimes. The occurrences themselves may not increase at all — they simply receive a new legal classification. This answer mischaracterizes the evidence.

  3. No Impact6% picked this

    fails to specify what is meant by “innocuous

    The argument does not need to specify what the innocuous occurrences are. The flaw would exist regardless of whether examples were provided. Even if the argument named specific behaviors, it would still conflate reclassification with an actual increase in criminal activity.

  4. Out of Scope9% picked this

    fails to consider the possibility that crime will increase even in the absence

    Whether crime would increase without vagrancy laws is irrelevant to the argument's flaw. The argument focuses on what happens when vagrancy laws are enacted. External factors affecting crime rates independently of vagrancy laws do not address the internal logical problem of conflating reclassification with an actual increase in crime.

  5. Correct62% picked this

    does not adequately distinguish between an increase in criminal activity and the reclassification of certain

    Why this is right

    This answer identifies the argument's core flaw. The argument uses "increase crime" in the conclusion without distinguishing between two very different meanings: (1) an actual increase in harmful criminal activity, and (2) the reclassification of previously legal behaviors as crimes. The evidence supports only meaning (2) — more things are now labeled as crimes — but the conclusion seems to claim meaning (1) — that there is more actual criminal activity. By failing to make this distinction, the argument equivocates on what "increase crime" means.

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

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