GMAT Essays (AWA)

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 says that after Spartanburg, under Police Commissioner Draco, began jailing people for committing petty crimes, the criminals understood lawlessness would be punishable. Thus, there was a 20% decline in violent crimes in the city. The author says that Barchester should crackdown on petty crimes to reduce the number of crimes in the city.
Though this argument has some merits, it is not airtight. For instance, the argument only talks of a decrease in the number of violent crimes and gives no data for the rate of change of non-violent crimes, such as robbery. So, it is possible that while there has been a decline in the number of violent crimes, the overall crime rate has increased.
Moreover, it is not clear that the decline in the number of violent crimes was a result of the crackdown on petty crimes, it may have been a result of some other factor. Further, the conditions in Barchester may be vastly different from those in Spartanburg, and thus, the same result may not be possible to achieve. For instance, it is possible that people in Barchester do not indulge in petty crimes anyway, thus, it wouldn't matter if such a crackdown takes place.