PTC2.S2.Q19 - According to a countrywide tabulation of all crimes reported...

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• 2 Likes

  SSBM1000 Member

  June 2021 edited July 2021 614 karma

  Hello,

  For this question, we are trying to figure out why the crimes reported to local police departments give the impression of a rise in crime, while the independent surveys give an impression that crime has decreased. To address your post, we don't know enough about the independent surveys to conclude what you're saying about them, or really anything that's not in the stimulus.

  As for answer choice E, it's correct because it picks up on an important distinction, which is that not all crimes get reported to local police departments. E picks up on this by pointing out that a much greater proportion of crimes have been reported to local police departments in recent years than 20 years ago. This provides a potential explanation for the difference between the two data sources, as while crime has actually decreased overall, as indicated by the independent surveys, the reason the data from the local police departments indicates a rise in crime is because the local police departments have gotten a higher percentage of crimes reported to them. While it's possible this might not be correct, it at least provides a plausible explanation, hence why E is correct.
• 1 Like

  DontPay4LawSchool Member

  July 2021 edited July 2021 571 karma

  @SSBM1000 said:
  Hello,

  For this question, we are trying to figure out why the crimes reported to local police departments give the impression of a rise in crime, while the independent surveys give an impression that crime has decreased. To address your post, we don't know enough about the independent surveys to conclude what you're saying about them, or really anything that's not in the stimulus.

  As for answer choice E, it's correct because it picks up on an important distinction, which is that not all crimes get reported to local police departments. E picks up on this by pointing out that a much greater proportion of crimes have been reported to local police departments in recent years than 20 years ago. This provides a potential explanation for the difference between the two data sources, as while crime has actually decreased overall, as indicated by the independent surveys, the reason the data from the local police departments indicates a rise in crime is because the local police departments have gotten a higher percentage of crimes reported to them. While it's possible this might not be correct, it at least provides a plausible explanation, hence why E is correct.

  Thank you so much for taking the time to answer so thoroughly! Let me see if I understand this properly.

  The initial part of the stimulus -- now -- looks like this to me:

  (Example)

  In regard to reporting,

  2001 = .5/100,000
  2005 = 1/100,000
  2010 = 2/100,000
  2015 = 4/100,000
  2020 = 8/100,000

  When we look at recent years with independent surveys,

  2021 = .25/100,000

  The latter portion of this example would represent ACTUAL crime proportional to population. The former would represent what has been reported (i.e. =/= to actual crime). Reporting can increase but that does not necessarily constitute an increase in actual crime.

  Let me know if I am interpreting this better now!
• 1 Like

  madman404 Member

  July 2021 21 karma

  I don't believe it's a good idea to be involving numbers in your problem solving method. Time is a luxury, and any kind of setup like this that will increase the mental load of thinking about the problem will serve only to slow you down, right or wrong. Instead, think about the groups involved in this question and the direction of the variable being tracked (known crime rate).

  Going with this approach, we have two groups: local police departments and random citizens. Seeing from the paragraph that local PDs report on crimes reported to them, we know that the direction of PD "perceived crime" statistics will follow the number of police reports given. As the local PDs are reporting increased crime, this means reported crime is going up.

  Meanwhile, from our intuition (and the lack of any information given to the contrary), we assume the random citizen group gets their "perceived crime" variable data from ambient crime levels exclusively, in other words representing the number of reported AND unreported crimes occurring. As their survey indicates a downward trend, we can conclude the total number of crimes is going down or not moving.

  If reported crime is going up compared to total crime, the proportion of reported crimes is increasing. This leads us to E as an answer.
• 1 Like

  SSBM1000 Member

  July 2021 614 karma

  @DontPay4LawSchool said:

  @SSBM1000 said:
  Hello,

  For this question, we are trying to figure out why the crimes reported to local police departments give the impression of a rise in crime, while the independent surveys give an impression that crime has decreased. To address your post, we don't know enough about the independent surveys to conclude what you're saying about them, or really anything that's not in the stimulus.

  As for answer choice E, it's correct because it picks up on an important distinction, which is that not all crimes get reported to local police departments. E picks up on this by pointing out that a much greater proportion of crimes have been reported to local police departments in recent years than 20 years ago. This provides a potential explanation for the difference between the two data sources, as while crime has actually decreased overall, as indicated by the independent surveys, the reason the data from the local police departments indicates a rise in crime is because the local police departments have gotten a higher percentage of crimes reported to them. While it's possible this might not be correct, it at least provides a plausible explanation, hence why E is correct.

  Thank you so much for taking the time to answer so thoroughly! Let me see if I understand this properly.

  The initial part of the stimulus -- now -- looks like this to me:

  (Example)

  In regard to reporting,

  2001 = .5/100,000
  2005 = 1/100,000
  2010 = 2/100,000
  2015 = 4/100,000
  2020 = 8/100,000

  When we look at recent years with independent surveys,

  2021 = .25/100,000

  The latter portion of this example would represent ACTUAL crime proportional to population. The former would represent what has been reported (i.e. =/= to actual crime). Reporting can increase but that does not necessarily constitute an increase in actual crime.

  Let me know if I am interpreting this better now!

  Hello,

  I think you're pretty much spot on. The only thing I would point out is that we don't if the independent surveys are actually the correct representation of the total crime per population, as we know little about them. Other than that, it looks like you're interpreting this question correctly. Please let me know if you have any additional questions, as I would be happy to help.
• DontPay4LawSchool Member

  July 2021 571 karma

  @madman404 said:
  I don't believe it's a good idea to be involving numbers in your problem solving method. Time is a luxury, and any kind of setup like this that will increase the mental load of thinking about the problem will serve only to slow you down, right or wrong. Instead, think about the groups involved in this question and the direction of the variable being tracked (known crime rate).

  Going with this approach, we have two groups: local police departments and random citizens. Seeing from the paragraph that local PDs report on crimes reported to them, we know that the direction of PD "perceived crime" statistics will follow the number of police reports given. As the local PDs are reporting increased crime, this means reported crime is going up.

  Meanwhile, from our intuition (and the lack of any information given to the contrary), we assume the random citizen group gets their "perceived crime" variable data from ambient crime levels exclusively, in other words representing the number of reported AND unreported crimes occurring. As their survey indicates a downward trend, we can conclude the total number of crimes is going down or not moving.

  If reported crime is going up compared to total crime, the proportion of reported crimes is increasing. This leads us to E as an answer.

  I completely agree with not introducing numbers during the exam. It is something that I tend to do during review to break it down. This was a very good explanation as well, thank you!