Q14 - A judicial system that tries

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Weaken

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Speedy trials/punishment create an effective deterrent to violent crime.
Evidence: Long trials with legal shenanigans make criminals feel less threatened. But if they think being caught means swift punishment, they'll be deterred from breaking the law.

Answer Anticipation:
This is a weird argument to scrutinize, because it's almost circular. You have a premise that says "if potential violent criminals know being caught means prompt punishment, you'll have deterrence" and a conclusion that says "a judicial system that provides prompt punishment will give you deterrence." This might be a rare case in which they undermine the "truth" of a premise by suggesting that it's usually not feasible to have a speedy trial and prompt punishment. Or they might just be testing the assumption that "in such a judicial system, potentially violent criminals WOULD KNOW that being caught means prompt punishment." Just because our system would punish them promptly doesn't tell us that potential criminals would be aware of that (and thus detered).

Correct Answer:
A

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) This weakens. It basically unravels the plausiblity of deterrence. You can only be deterred if you are considering an action in advance and weighing the pros and cons.

(B) Innocence doesn't matter here. At no point did the author promise this system would be fair to the innocent. We're only evaluating whether it would actually serve as a deterrent to the otherwise-guilty.

(C) First-time, second-time, who cares? This doesn't speak to whether this system would deter.

(D) No one is disputing that. We're only talking about how speedy the trial would be.

(E) This strengthens, by showing an example of (Cause, Effect) going hand in hand.

Takeaway/Pattern: The correct answer may feel unusual here, because it really counters a premise in addition to the conclusion. But when a premise is an opinion (as it is here, since it's a speculative prediction), you may see the test undermine its validity. The broader pattern here is the idea that the argument is selling a Plan to Achieve a Goal (or a Solution to a Problem). When we evaluate author's who are selling us on a Means to an End, we're only trying to evaluate whether that Means would actually result in that End. We typically pick it apart by bringing up feasibility concerns (like A), incentive concerns (violent criminals don't care what happens to them after the crime is committed, they only care about the satisfaction of committing the crime) or a potential backfire (a different version of this same argument weakened by saying that violent criminals commit crimes because they get a thrill from how risky it is, so increasing the risks would only increase their thrill).

#officialexplanation

[mchuynh]

I was left with A and B and I picked B which is the wrong answer. I understand how A can weaken the argument, but what's wrong with B?

Is it out of scope because it mentions about suspects first arrested? Thanks!

[aileenann]

Hey there!

In this question we're trying to weaken the stimulus as much as we can. A key thing to realize is that there can be more than one answer choice that weakens the argument, so it's never enough on an S/W question to find something that does what you want - you want to find the best answer choice, and sometimes that will involve a judgment call between two options.

But let's take a look at (B) specifically. Remember to take it in the context of the argument core, which in this case is simply that fast punishment will especially scare violent criminals therefore a fast judicial system is an effective deterrent to violent crime. So the concern mostly seems to be with scaring off violent criminals from committing crime. (B) doesn't really get at that - (B) only gets at the fact that the system could be unfair. But the wording of our conclusion isn't concerned with fairness. It's only concerned with effectiveness. Therefore, innocence and guilty are not necessarily relevant. So you're right - (B) is out of scope and isn't a very good weakener at all.

I hope this helps. Any chance you could write out for us why the correct answer (A) is a good weakener?

[mchuynh]

Thanks!

I think the assumption here is that most of the violent crimes are somewhat planned. Hence, if they know that being caught means prompt punishment, they will hesitate to break the law.

According to A, violent crime is not planned. If violent crime is not planned, then would they still hesitate to break the law?

Probably not- which weakens the argument

[alinanny]

Thanks!

I think the assumption here is that most of the violent crimes are somewhat planned. Hence, if they know that being caught means prompt punishment, they will hesitate to break the law.

According to A, violent crime is not planned. If violent crime is not planned, then would they still hesitate to break the law?

Probably not- which weakens the argument

Thanks for this.
My line of thought was something like: If a person commits a violent crime without thinking then a strong/prompt punishment is not going to be in their mind mind until after the crime was commited. So it won't be of help to deter them.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Great work guys! You've got it.

[nflamel69]

Could it also be that fact that B addresses all suspects while the conclusion is about violent criminals? So this wouldn't weaken it say if only 10 percent of overall crime is violent crimes, therefore that one-fourth could belong to non-violent crimes?

[stol1989]

Hi, thank you for discussion.
Having trouble with "A" and "B"; specifically I am confused with "Know" part.
If potential violent criminals know that being caught means prompt punishment --> Hesitate to break the law

I will try to describe my reasoning in case if someone will try to correct my thoughts:

A) It is in the nature of violent crime that it is not premeditated.

"A" doesn't weaken argument directly and requires assumption - If violent crime is not premeditated-->less chances that criminals' knowledge about the punishment will deter them.

If we combine this AC with stimulus it will look like this - If potential violent criminals know that being caught means prompt punishment they will not necessarily hesitate to break the law.

But I don't feel OK to make such a big assumption. In my opinion we can't derive assumption "If violent crime is not premeditated-->less chances that criminals' knowledge about the punishment will deter them" from common sense. This kind of correlation should be based on statistical data rather than on conjectures.

B) Many violent crimes are committed by first-time offenders

First-time offenders don't have direct experience with judicial system, therefore first-time offenders have one more reason not to know about prompt punishment. I see trouble with "Many" but considering other AC this is the best AC I see.

Am I missing something? Please help!

[logicfiend]

This question has warped my brain a little bit. I think you need to think about this way:

We know from stim the author believes: If they know about swift punishment, they will hesitate to break the law.

A) It is in the nature of violent crime that it is not premeditated.

What is premeditation? You plan, you consider, you have time to have doubts. Instead, this answer choice says that violent crime usually happens on a whim or in a moment of passion.

Logically, if violent crime is taking place when an individual is not in a correct state of mind to be parsing through their decisions and considering the consequences, yes, we can determine that swift punishment will NOT deter them. They are not thinking about punishment at all. The very small and reasonable assumption required for this answer choice is that premeditation means that you're not thinking about the consequences after the crime, which is a logical assumption to make.

I choose (B), here's why I think it's wrong: I choose it under the assumption that there is a portion of people who are caught that are innocent. So obviously, swift punishment wouldn't have deterred them from committing a crime, they're not guilty in the first place! But what about the other 3/4 of criminals? Could it work on them? This AC does not weaken the stim because it prompts an entirely new set of considerations.

To the last poster's question: (C) makes even more assumptions—why does someone being a first time offender mean they don't know about the punishment of their actions?

[ganbayou]

Is C wrong because whether they are first time offenders or not is not the issue?
(it's not related to the core)
Thanks,

[rinagoldfield]

Great discussion. I’ll address all of the answer choices, since no one above has done that yet.

Argument core:

Swift judicial system means prompt punishment, potential violent offenders will know this
-->
Potential violent offenders will hesitate to break law + swift judicial system will deter violent crime

(A) Weakens because it suggests that offenders will not hesitate, since their crimes occur in the heat of moment.
(B) Is neutral vis-à-vis the argument. This answer choice might suggest that innocent people will fear the judicial system. However, the argument concerns whether criminals fear the judicial system. This answer choice might also suggest that a swift judicial system isn’t so scary to criminals, since the first arrestees are innocent people. However, a swift justice system could just as quickly release the innocent person and capture the right offender. This choice ultimately does not impact the argument.
(C) Is out of scope, since it concerns first-time offenders. The argument concerns violent offenders, who may or may not be first-time offenders.
(D) Is out of scope; the argument isn’t about rights.
(E) Supports the argument! We want to weaken.