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Minorities vs Non-minorities

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Minorities vs Non-minorities

by reply2spg » Fri Aug 13, 2010 10:14 am
Minorities were five times as likely as non-minorities to be stopped by the police in 1992. Once stopped, however, they were no more likely to actually be arrested. The police have compounded the problem by loading information on these people into its permanent database, which is one of the first stops for investigating actual crimes. Innocent individuals become a permanent focus of the police because of their ethnic background.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly undermines the argument above?

(a) Policed stopped nine times more total people in 1992 than in previous years.
(b) Innocent people listed on the database are highly unlikely to be arrested for actual crimes.
(c) The database has been instrumental in the capture of several important criminals.
(d) The minority population is much larger than the non-minority population.
(e) Not everyone stopped by police is entered into the database.
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by uwhusky » Fri Aug 13, 2010 10:19 am
POE says D for me, and it seems logical that D will work by challenging the stat used to make the conclusion.
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by reply2spg » Fri Aug 13, 2010 10:33 am
What is wrong with C?
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by uwhusky » Fri Aug 13, 2010 10:50 am
C is irrelevant.

The conclusion is this:

"Innocent individuals become a permanent focus of the police because of their ethnic background."

Whether the database has been instrumental in the capture of several important criminals is not relevant to the conclusion.
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by beatthegmatinsept » Fri Aug 13, 2010 10:55 am
D too. C says nothing about minorities or non-minorties.
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by uwhusky » Fri Aug 13, 2010 11:01 am
This might be an interesting concept to discuss for non-Americans, but in the US, "minority" is more of a socially constructed term referencing non-Caucasians. So in this case, "minority" doesn't mean lower percentage of population, and therefore D says that if minority population is 5x of non-minority population, then statistically minority is 5x as likely as non-minority to be stopped.

Btw, I doubt this kind of question would appear on GMAT...it's a bit too controversial.
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by reply2spg » Fri Aug 13, 2010 11:25 am
Thanks but why I choose C is because. Police are building data base. What if using that DB they monitor crime and that way Innocent individuals will not become permenant focus of the police

What wrong I am thinking?
uwhusky wrote:This might be an interesting concept to discuss for non-Americans, but in the US, "minority" is more of a socially constructed term referencing non-Caucasians. So in this case, "minority" doesn't mean lower percentage of population, and therefore D says that if minority population is 5x of non-minority population, then statistically minority is 5x as likely as non-minority to be stopped.

Btw, I doubt this kind of question would appear on GMAT...it's a bit too controversial.
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by beatthegmatinsept » Fri Aug 13, 2010 11:28 am
I agree with Uwhusky. Validates why D is the best ans.
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by uwhusky » Fri Aug 13, 2010 5:21 pm
Police are building data base. What if using that DB they monitor crime and that way Innocent individuals will not become permenant focus of the police
Can you provide more details on how you established above assumption?
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by reply2spg » Fri Aug 13, 2010 7:29 pm
Here is my thinking

Premise - Minorities were five times as likely as non-minorities to be stopped by the police in 1992. Once stopped they were no more likely to actually be arrested.
The police have compounded the problem by loading information on these people into its permanent database,
This database is one of the first stops for investigating actual crimes.

Conclusion - Therefore, innocent individuals become a permanent focus of the police because of their ethnic background

My Assumption - this database will help police to keep focus on the minority. However, this database will not be used properly and therefore; innocent individuals become a permanent focus of the police because of their ethnic background

I tried to weaken the assumption 'that database will not be used properly'. What is wrong I am doing? Still confused
uwhusky wrote:
Police are building data base. What if using that DB they monitor crime and that way Innocent individuals will not become permenant focus of the police
Can you provide more details on how you established above assumption?
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by debmalya_dutta » Fri Aug 13, 2010 8:46 pm
What's the OA ? My pick is C but everyone seems to agree with D

The argument is that the police is entering too many names from the minority pop and so innocent people has hassled. I think C proves that the entering of names into the database has it plus points because they have helped in capturing of serveral criminals. So this proves that entering name intko the database has an important plus point and hence weakens the argument
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by reply2spg » Fri Aug 13, 2010 8:55 pm
OA is D
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by uwhusky » Fri Aug 13, 2010 11:02 pm
My Assumption - this database will help police to keep focus on the minority. However, this database will not be used properly and therefore; innocent individuals become a permanent focus of the police because of their ethnic background
I don't think I follow what you are saying here.

The argument here is that there is a vicious cycle, minority gets entered into the database, minority gets stopped because of the database. The conclusion is that "innocent individuals" are being targeted because they're minority.

Whether this database is effective in capturing the criminals is irrelevant, because the focus here is "minority" and they are "unfairly targeted".
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