PT33.S3.Q14 - Increasing the number of police officers to reduce crime

LSATcantwinLSATcantwin Alum Member Sage ⭐
edited October 2017 in Logical Reasoning 13286 karma

This question tripped me up a bit, not because I didn't understand what I was being asked to do, but because I couldn't really differentiate between some of the answer choices.

Specifically answer choices C, D and E.

(C) Prove that there are factors other than number of police officers that are more important in reducing crime....

(D) Demonstrate that there is no relation between police officers and crime....

(E) Suggest that the number of police officers is not the only influence on the crime rate....

I was able to eliminate answer choice C because it said MORE important, which was not the purpose; however, D and E still trip me up.

I understand that D says number of police and crime rate are not correlated. Which in the stimulus he says;

  • Many major cities have similar ratio of cops to citizen but crime rate diverged widely

Which to me suggests they are not correlated.

I also understand why E can be right. I just think the statistics speak more to D than to E. What am I missing here?

Comments

  • LSATcantwinLSATcantwin Alum Member Sage ⭐
    edited October 2017 13286 karma

    Reading it over I can see that in the first part of the stimulus it says;

    • Many people think that the only way to remedy....but....

    I suppose the phrase "only way" followed by the "but" suggest that there are actually other ways to help the crime rate, other than putting more police out there.

    My issues is that the statistics still show that there is no correlation...but I suppose the PURPOSE of showing no correlation is to show that there are other ways to reduce crime? So the function of the statistic is to show no correlation in order to suggest there are other solutions?

    I'm really struggling here...lol

  • Watermelon OtterWatermelon Otter Alum Member
    edited October 2017 345 karma

    This is a tricky question. Although (A) and (B) aren’t as tough, the differences between (C), (D), and (E) are extremely subtle. I think the key is to recognize just how limited the statistic given actually is. The statistic cited only refers to “many” major cities, not most cities or even all cities. It could very well be possible that there is a strong correlation between officers and crime rate in general for most cities, but that there are still many (read: only some) cities that are outliers. The statistic, properly used, only shows that there is at least one example of two cities that have the same number of officers but have different crime stats, and that consequently number of officers can’t absolutely be the only factor affecting crime.

    With that in mind here’s my take on the latter three answer choices:

    (C): The statistics cited are too narrow for this. If only some cities show no correlation it is still possible that the majority of cities do have a strong correlation. For that reason the limited statistics don’t show anything about the relative general importance between factors affecting crime, and probably aren’t being used for that purpose.

    (D): Again, the statistic given, that only applies to some non-zero number of cities, probably isn’t being used to show absolutely that there is “no relation” between number of officers and crime rate. The statistic just isn’t expansive enough for that purpose because it only applies to certain cities without making any comment on the general trend for all or most cities.

    (E): This seems to be correct because, unlike (C) and (D), it is actually a proper application of the limited statistic given. This shows that number of officers isn’t the only factor that influences crime. If number of officers really was the only factor then there wouldn’t be any cities which had similar officer numbers but divergent crime rates. This answer also makes sense in context because the other people’s argument is that only way to remedy crime is by increasing the number of officers. The statistic rebuts that claim by saying that actually there are some number of cities that have managed to have a lower crime rate than others (wildly divergent crime rates) even with the same number of officers. The result is that police officers can’t be the only factor as long as there is at least a single example of two cities with same number of officers but different crime stats, and that therefore in some cases there are other relevant factors.

  • LSATcantwinLSATcantwin Alum Member Sage ⭐
    13286 karma

    @"Watermelon Otter" said:
    This is a tricky question. Although (A) and (B) aren’t as tough, the differences between (C), (D), and (E) are extremely subtle. I think the key is to recognize just how limited the statistic given actually is. The statistic cited only refers to “many” major cities, not most cities or even all cities. It could very well be possible that there is a strong correlation between officers and crime rate in general for most cities, but that there are still many (read: only some) cities that are outliers. The statistic, properly used, only shows that there is at least one example of two cities that have the same number of officers but have different crime stats, and that consequently number of officers can’t absolutely be the only factor affecting crime.

    With that in mind here’s my take on the latter three answer choices:

    (C): The statistics cited are too narrow for this. If only some cities show no correlation it is still possible that the majority of cities do have a strong correlation. For that reason the limited statistics don’t show anything about the relative general importance between factors affecting crime, and probably aren’t being used for that purpose.

    (D): Again, the statistic given, that only applies to some non-zero number of cities, probably isn’t being used to show absolutely that there is “no relation” between number of officers and crime rate. The statistic just isn’t expansive enough for that purpose because it only applies to certain cities without making any comment on the general trend for all or most cities.

    (E): This seems to be correct because, unlike (C) and (D), it is actually a proper application of the limited statistic given. This shows that number of officers isn’t the only factor that influences crime. If number of officers really was the only factor then there wouldn’t be any cities which had similar officer numbers but divergent crime rates. This answer also makes sense in context because the other people’s argument is that only way to remedy crime is by increasing the number of officers. The statistic rebuts that claim by saying that actually there are some number of cities that have managed to have a lower crime rate than others (wildly divergent crime rates) even with the same number of officers. The result is that police officers can’t be the only factor as long as there is at least a single example of two cities with same number of officers but different crime stats, and that therefore in some cases there are other relevant factors.

    Thank you. My stupid brain does not like to understand that MANY =/= MOST. They even start with the same letter, I think the LSAC planned it that way! lol

    This makes a lot of sense. I need to be really careful of the word many it would seem.

  • Watermelon OtterWatermelon Otter Alum Member
    edited October 2017 345 karma

    @LSATcantwin lol no problem, honestly I'm always baffled (and frustrated) by how I can get fooled by seemingly obvious/trivial tricks by the LSAT. It just goes to show how incredibly subtle the traps can be, and how much practice and understanding is required to beat these traps under time pressure.

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