AWA Essay Review - Request

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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 argument claims Barchester should learn from Commissioner Draco’s success and begin a large-scale crackdown on petty crime. Stated in this way, the argument fails to mention several key factors, on the basis of which it could be evaluated. Therefore, the conclusion of the argument relies on several assumptions with no clear evidence, which ultimately makes the argument weak and unconvincing with a number of flaws.

First, the argument readily assumes that jailing people for committing petty crimes (i.e. littering, shoplifting, and spraying graffiti) led people to understand that lawlessness would no longer be tolerated. However, this statement is a stretch, as there is no proven direct relationship between these two occurrences. For example, schools may have had an increase in budgets and/or provisions this year as compared to the previous year, ultimately leading to more education reforms that may have promoted social awareness, and responsible community citizenship, especially amongst the youth. This example in itself shows how other externalities may be present in certain situations, as seen in the statement above.

Second, the argument claims that because citizens (and/or criminals) now have a better understanding of the law (i.e. petty crimes are no longer tolerated due to the large crackdown), that this phenomenon is primarily responsible for the 20% drop in violent crimes in the city of Spartanburg. However, this is a very weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not demonstrate any correlation between understanding the law and straying away from crimes. Furthermore, this claim also lies on a faulty assumption, as seen in the first point mentioned earlier. To illustrate, one potential reason as to why there is a crime drop is potentially because of a new law in line with gun control, wherein citizens are prohibited to own guns, consequently leading to less crime as there is a decrease in available weapons to the public. If the argument had provided evidence in terms of a direct correlation between committing petty crime leading to understanding the law, and subsequently resulting to doing good acts as opposed to committing violent crimes, then the argument stated would have been a lot more convincing.

Finally, one must ask the question: Would a large-scale crackdown on petty crime ultimately result in a decrease in violent crimes in the city of Barchester? Barchester and Spartanburg are different cities, and discussions on crime are rarely black and white. Without a convincing, and well-found answer to this question, the argument remains based on wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.

In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above-mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts, such as other potential externalities (i.e. new educational reforms, gun bans, and more) that may have been present, as well as potential similarities between the two cities. Furthermore, in order to assess the merits of a certain situation, it is essential to have full knowledge of all the contributing factors. In this particular case however, these factors were not clearly indicated, and thus, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.