GMAT Essays (AWA)

I am reading a book from 800 score which is good, this is my first shot at an AWA(Arguement). please rate

ESSAY QUESTION:
The following appeared as part of a campaign statement for Velazquez, who is seeking election as alderman in the town of Barchester:

"Under Police Commissioner Draco, the city of Spartanburg began jailing people for committing petty crimes such as littering, shoplifting, and spraying graffiti. Criminals in Spartanburg must have understood that lawlessness would no longer be tolerated, because the following year Spartanburg saw a 20% drop in violent crimes such as homicide. Our town should learn from Commissioner Draco's success, and begin a large-scale crackdown on petty crime."

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.

YOUR RESPONSE:
The author here is being too extreme in his judgment about commissioner Draco. His conclusion is based just on the mere fact that conviction of people would lead to direct reduction of lawlessness in any town. It can be strongly argued that adopting Draco's method directly will not be effective in conquering every towns' law issues.

There are several other factor's that may have affected the reduction of crimes in Spartanburg's. In fact talking about the conviction of petty prisoners can not be linked to reduction in crimes. It might be a case that the government of Spartanburg started making provisions for additional employments that actually led to the reduction of petty crimes.

It is also to be brought to notice here that there are other things which can deter people from indulging in petty crimes such as educating them about the pros and cons of it. For example, some people especially in the teenage group indulge in shoplifting just for fun and thrill. Going to a level of convicting these people might sound a good idea but what poor effects this would have on the future of our youth is debatable. So there can be other methods such as educating the youth about these things.

Besides, an extreme conman hardly cares about whether the cops are implementing new law and orders, all they are concerned about is their selfish motto and increased desire for things. Nevertheless, can we cannot establish a relationship between petty crimes to the reduction of heinous crimes such as homicide. A person committing homicide is generally motivated by much external factors such as relationship stresses and family issues.


The conclusion of the argument gives us positives as well as negatives. It may be a case that the crime rate may be directly proportionate to the conviction of the culprits. However we cannot overlook the fact that other factors need to be addressed along with adopting the measure suggested by the author here. The other factors in the improvement may be the congress intervention to create new employment opportunities which would influence people to stay away from petty crimes or the education of people morally deterring them from committing a crime.