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Crime Reduction

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Crime Reduction

by sam2304 » Sun Feb 19, 2012 6:38 pm
Newspaper editorial:
In an attempt to reduce the crime rate, the governor is getting tough on criminals and making prison conditions harsher. Part of this effort has been to deny inmates the access they formerly had to college-level courses. However, this action is clearly counter to the governor's ultimate goal, since after being released form prison, inmates who had taken such courses committed far fewer crimes overall than other inmates.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is unlikely to deter anyone from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed.
B. Former inmates are no more likely to commit crimes than are members of the general population.
C. The group of inmates who chose to take college-level courses were not already less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released.
D. Taking high school level courses in prison has less effect on an inmate's subsequent behavior than taking college-level courses does.
E. The governor's ultimate goal actually is to gain popularity by convincing people that something effective is being done about crime.

Please explain your choice.
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by Mike@Magoosh » Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:51 pm
Hi, there. I'm happy to help with this.

First of all, (B) & (D) are distracter answer choices, completely irrelevant to the argument. Similarly, (E) is probably quite true, but not relevant to the argument.

That leaves (A) and (C).

(C) is an interesting choice.
The author says that the small percentage of prisoners who take college courses are far less likely to commit crimes when released. If taking the college course *caused* them to pursue a crime-free life after prison, then removing access to those courses would increase the likelihood that those folks would commit crimes. First of all, this is a dubious assumption, because the more intelligent & ambitious folks who take these course probably already tend to have the wherewithal to avoid crime after prison, and while taking the courses away from them is an annoyance, it doesn't increase very much the probability of recidivism. Furthermore, whether or not it impacts the recidivism of these folks, keep in mind: this is only a small percentage of the total prison population.

Consider (A).
This is a realistic assumption. This suggests that all the folks out there who *could* commit crimes and have not done so yet are not going to be deterred by the absence of college courses. Consider the polar opposite of this statement (a bit unrealistic, but go with this for a moment) --- suppose the governor cuts prison access to college courses, and it is a major anit-crime deterrent --- suddenly, every anti-social punk out there say, "Gosh, if I can't take college courses while I'm in the slammer, that will detract so much from my potential quality of life behind bars that maybe I shouldn't pursue a life of crime at all!" Well then, the argument of the prompt would be shattered. The person is arguing that removing access to college courses is not helpful and possibly even counterproductive with respect to the small percentage of prisoner who now take those classes. But if putting this restriction in place were a huge deterrent, then it would be a stroke of anti-crime genius on the part of the governor, and criticisms of it would be very much besides the point. ----- The fact that negating this statement reduces the argument to shambles is proof-positive that this is the fundamental assumption of the argument.

Thus, the best answer is A.

Does that make sense?

Here's another hard CR question:

https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/1278

When you submit an answer for that question, it will be followed by a video explanation of the answer.

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Mike :-)
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by StoneBlack » Mon Feb 20, 2012 12:06 am
went with C. Tough one. Didn't understand A at all i think.
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by karthikgmat » Mon Feb 20, 2012 10:20 pm
I had tried applying Negation to the option C .

But not clear how will the negated option will be.

Is it like, The group of inmates who DO NOT chose to take college-level courses were not already less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released. ?

OR

The group of inmates who chose to take college-level courses were already less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released.

If it is later then answer might be C.
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by Mike@Magoosh » Tue Feb 21, 2012 9:16 am
karthikgmat wrote:I had tried applying Negation to the option C .

But not clear how will the negated option will be.

Is it like, The group of inmates who DO NOT chose to take college-level courses were not already less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released. ?

OR

The group of inmates who chose to take college-level courses were already less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released.

If it is later then answer might be C.
Hi, there, karthikgmat,

Option A states: "Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is unlikely to deter anyone from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed." Apart from the specifics of the argument, this statement rings true to me.

Negation of Option A: "Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is likely to deter some people from crimes that they might otherwise have committed." Apart from the specifics of this argument, this statement strikes me as patently ludicrous.

Option C states: "The group of inmates who chose to take college-level courses were not already less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released." Apart from specifics of this argument, this statement strikes me as highly questionable.

Negation of Option C: "The group of inmates who chose to take college-level courses were already less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released." Apart from the specifics of this argument, this statement strikes me as quite plausible.

First of all, one thing to keep in mind: most of the arguments presented on GMAT CR are reasonable, at least from some perspective. The GMAT CR does not give us paper tigers to knock down. Therefore, the assumption of a reasonable argument will be a reasonable statement. Statement A, by itself, is an eminently reasonable statement. Statement C, by itself, is questionable --- I would be far more likely to believe its negation. This, in and of itself, is not a deciding factor, but it's something to keep in mind.

Negation of C: "The group of inmates who chose to take college-level courses were already less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released." If this is true --if the more mature and more intelligent inmates who gravitate toward college courses are relatively immune to recidivism --- then it does call into question the piece of evidence the author cites. The author's argument, though, his big point is: the college course cuts will not help to fight crime. If these more mature & intelligent inmates weren't going to commit crimes anyway, then they are somewhat besides the point. Even if the negation of C is 100% true, cutting the college courses won't do much to change the crime rate, which is what the author is arguing anyway. Negating C doesn't really call his fundamental argument into question.

Negation of A: "Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is likely to deter some people from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed." This says, cut the college courses, and as a result, fewer would-be criminals commit ctimes -- in other words, crime goes down as a result of cutting the courses. That's the polar opposite of what the author is trying to argue. He is arguing that cutting the courses won't reduce crime, and the negation of A directly contradicts that.

That's why A, rather than C, is the assumption of the argument.

Does that make sense?

Mike :)
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by karthikgmat » Tue Feb 21, 2012 9:56 am
Many Thanks Mike..
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