Reading Comprehension

PT158 · S1 · P4 · Q23 Criminal Sanctions

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

  • 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

The use of criminal sanctions against corporations is well established, but the practice has recently come under fire from legal theorists who maintain that corporations should be held civilly rather than criminally liable for wrongdoing.

Written Summary below video summary

Topic

Criminal vs. civil sanctions for corporate misdoings (as well as criminal sanctions against the corporation vs. against individuals within it)

Framework

Challenge a Position (she challenges two different positions)

Main Point

Criminal is better than civil, and criminally sanctioning corporations is better than criminally sanctioning individuals at those corporations.

Summary

P1 - Opposing Position #1 (let's use civil, not criminal sanctions)

We get our first Purpose Pivot (but, yet, however, recently) in the 2nd half of the first sentence. This sets the stage for the main topic: should we go after corporate wrongdoing with criminal or civil sanctions?

These legal theorists "maintain / argue / claim" a series of points: Point 1. Furthermore, Point 2. Finally, Point 3.

P2 - Author Challenges that Position (criminal is better)

Since the first paragraph stayed in the voice of the legal theorists, we would anticipate a new view in the 2nd paragraph, and the however tells us that the author is talking now. The author affirms that criminal is the better choice since it's a stronger deterrent, it's more feasible to actually bring a suit to court, and the moral condemnation we want to achieve is better expressed through criminal law.

P3 - Opposing Position #2 (lets do criminal sanctions against individuals, not against the corporation)

These other legal theorists "argue / they maintain / they say" that going after individuals would have a bigger deterrent effect and wouldn't have the risk of harming "innocent bystanders", like shareholders / creditors / employees / consumers, that would come with going after the corporations themselves.

P4 - Author Challenges Position #2 (better to do it against corporation)

Again, a however in the first sentence indicates to us that we're switching back to the Author's Voice. She thinks that targeting corporations is better because it's easier to prosecute a company for wrongdoing than to pin blame on individual employees, and the potential damage that criminal sanctions vs. a corporation can do to that corporation also has a deterrent effect on shareholders and employees.

Going after individuals deters the few wrongdoers from doing bad, but going after corporations means that the whole corporate culture will be motivated to stay on the good path. The author acknowledges that there can be some harmful byproducts of this path but reassures us that they are outweighed by the positives.

23.

It can be inferred from the passage that legal theorists who recommend the use of civil rather than criminal sanctions to combat corporate wrongdoing believe that

  1. corporate criminal liability provides no

    Too Strong

    The civil-sanctions theorists argue that criminal sanctions are disproportionately costly, but not that they provide NO incentive for employees to refrain from wrongdoing. "No incentive" is an absolute claim far stronger than what the passage attributes to this group. This is also talking about whether to go after corporations as a whole or individuals within them, which isn't discussed until paragraph 3 — with a different group of legal theorists. The civil-sanctions advocates in paragraph 2 are making a different argument about cost-efficiency, not about employee incentives.

    11% picked this

  2. there are more procedural protections

    Unsupported Comparison

    These guys would definitely say that criminal has more procedural protections than civil law does, but there's no visible complaint that criminal has more than it should. It's pretty understandable why criminal law (which could put you in jail and rob you of your freedom) has more protections than civil law (which is just after your money).

    7% picked this

  3. censuring wrongdoing is not the

    Out of Support Window

    This comes from the last sentence of paragraph 2, which is when the author is talking. We have no idea what these theorists would say is the main function of criminal law. These guys could happily agree that censuring wrongdoing is the main function of criminal law but believe that "censuring wrongdoing" is the not the main function of issuing civil / criminal sanctions against corporate wrongdoing. Censure = criticize / rebuke / condemn. (In the American government system, impeaching a President is the most dramatic form of condemnation, but they will occasionally settle for a different constitutional action called Censure, which is just a formal declaration that "what you did sucked, President").

    6% picked this

  4. Correct

    the costs inflicted on corporations

    Why this is right

    Modern RC is my nightmare. How do they think they can ask us to pick such unsupported stuff as this? We have to remind ourselves with modern RC sections that they just don't consider it a deal-breaker any more if a correct answer is inadequately supported. An adequately supported answer still beats an inadequately supported one. But on questions such as this one, they seem to give us a bunch of hopeless answers and then expect us to therefore make peace with an answer that at least has the whiff of sounding kinda supported. All we have to go off to support this is that "civil liability is better able to determine appropriate levels of damages than is criminal liability". Does that mean that criminal convictions inflict costs that are too high? Nope. It could just as easily mean that they inflict costs that are too low. Does the fact that civil liability is better at determining damages than criminal liability mean that criminal is getting it wrong in at least 51% (most) cases? Nope. It could be that criminal is only off in 10% of cases, but civil could help us correct those. So there's a lot to hate here. On the issue of too low / too high, we have to use common sense and a little context. The following sentence (beginning with Furthermore) is worried that criminal liability causes a greater loss of reputation, thereby imparting costs that are far higher than that of civil liability. That sentence sort of informs the previous one -- apparently these theorists are worried about imposing a cost that is too high to corporations. Thus, if they're saying civil liability can better determine appropriate damages, we can infer that they would prefer lower damages. As for the "most", there's no way to justify that quantifier. We just have to suck it up and pick this answer, because this answer is the best available.

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

    68% picked this

  5. in most cases civil sanctions

    Contradicted

    In the second sentence of the passage, these theorists say that civil and criminal sanctions both degrade a company's reputation.

    7% picked this

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