Self-study
Columnist: Support Vagrancy laws are supposed to reduce criminal activity, but they don't. ██████ ████████ ███████ █████ ████████████ ████ █████████ ████████ ███████████ ████ ███████ █████ ████████ ████ ████████ █████ █████ ██████████ ██ ██████ ███
Summarize Argument
The columnist argues that vagrancy laws increase crime, even though they allegedly reduce crime. As support, the columnist says that making vagrancy illegal turns many routine behaviors into crimes.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The premises and conclusion talk about crime in two different ways. The premises talk about increasing the types of things that are classified as crime; the conclusion talks about the rate of criminal activity.
It is a flaw to assume that the rate of criminal activity will increase based on the fact that there is an increase in the types of things that are classified as crimes.
12.
The reasoning in the columnist's ████████ ██ ████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ████████
a
presumes, without providing ███ ██████████████ ████ ████ █████████ ████████ ███████████ ███ ███████ ██ ███████
This is descriptively inaccurate; the argument does not make this assumption. The argument does not make any claim about the quantity of innocuous everyday occurrences that are harmful.
b
mistakenly infers, from ███ █████ ████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ████ ██ ████████ ██ ████ █████████ ████████ ████████████ ████ ████████ ████ █████ ████ ████████
This is descriptively inaccurate. The argument doesn’t claim that vagrancy laws are associated with an increase in innocuous everyday occurrences. Instead, the argument says that vagrancy laws mean that these everyday occurrences are now classified as crimes.
c
fails to specify ████ ██ █████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ████████████
While the argument does not specify the meaning of “innocuous everyday occurrences,” this is not the flaw. Even if these occurrences were defined, the argument would still have the flaw mentioned above.
d
fails to consider ███ ███████████ ████ █████ ████ ████████ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ████████ ████
While the argument does fail to consider this possibility, it’s not relevant to the argument. The argument is about the impacts of vagrancy laws; an increase in crime rates in the absence of vagrancy laws is beyond the scope of the argument.
e
does not adequately ███████████ ███████ ██ ████████ ██ ████████ ████████ ███ ███ ████████████████ ██ ███████ ███████████ ██ ██████
This is the flaw. The premises and conclusion talk about two different things: the premise discusses reclassification of certain occurrences as crimes, while the conclusion makes a claim about an increase in criminal activity.