PrepTest 141

Incorrect. The argument concerns itself with the overall crime rate, not the crime rate in each individual area. Since the argument doesn't care if crime went down in certain areas as long as it increased overall, this answer is out of scope—especially since it's about "reported" crimes and not actual crimes.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
An increase in the prison population and spending on prisons coincided with no significant reduction in crime rate, so jailing people doesn't reduce crime.

Answer Anticipation:
This argument falls into a common pattern related to correlation/causation jumps—it states that a given change (increase in prison population/spending) isn't correlated with an expected outcome (less crime), so the supposed cause must not be a factor in causing that outcome. However, just showing that there wasn't less crime doesn't show that the supposed cause doesn't work—since that cause could have lowered crime against what it would have been otherwise.

In this argument, it's possible crime rates would have increased without the increase in imprisonment. In order to reach an anti-causal conclusion, it has to be shown that the cause didn't change things against what it would have been without the cause, not that the overall rate didn't lower. The correct answer should highlight this.

Answer Explanation:
The argument infers that a certain action didn't have a given effect because there hasn't been a change in the rate of something (crime). However, it doesn't compare that rate to what it would have been without the given change—putting more people in prison. Without that comparison, it's possible that the increased imprisonment rate did, in fact, lower crime compared to what it would have been otherwise.

Key Takeaway:
This stimulus features a common pattern of flawed reasoning on the LSAT. When an argument concludes that a certain supposed cause didn't lead to a given effect, there's a good chance it's doing so based on comparing the level of the effect to other areas or to itself in the past. Instead, it needs to be compared to what it would have been without the change—otherwise, the change may have worked to slow down an increase that would have been even greater without it.

Incorrect. The stimulus is about the crime rate and the percentage of the population in prison. Since it's always dealing with percentages/rates and doesn't jump to amounts, this answer highlighting a potential percent to amount jump is out of scope.

Incorrect. The conclusion is just about the effectiveness of imprisonment, not the relative effectiveness of it, so it doesn't make any assumptions about other methods for reducing crime.

Incorrect. If anything, the argument establishes that this isn't true, since the percentage of the population in prison has changed when the crime rate hasn't.