Premise: Reducing the officers from traffic enforcement will be counterproductive because some serious crimes can be stopped before by the traffic police officers.
We need to strengthen this. Option C tells us that the people committing serious crimes pay no heed to traffic laws and thus can be nabbed by the officers. If the number of traffic police officers are reduced, then there are less chances that such people would be caught.
Option A just talks about violent confrontation, but it does not tell why the move of reducing officers will be counter productive.

Does this help?

Criminals, while committing crimes, use cars.
Traffic police can search when stopping a car for a traffic violation. They might find evidence of serious crime during search.

So, do not reassign traffic policemen to serious crime.

The argument depends on traffic policemen being able to find serious crime while carrying out their duty as traffic policemen. The argument will not make a lot of sense if those carrying out serious crime do not break traffic rules. Then they will not be stopped and searched and hence the argument falls apart.

What strengthens the argument? If something tells us that serious criminals often break traffic rules so they would be stopped for traffic offences. Then a search would be carried out and evidence found.

(C) Those willing to break the law to commit serious crimes are often in committing such crimes unwilling to observe what they regard as the lesser constraints of traffic law.
This tells us that criminals often break traffic rules while carrying out crime. Then it makes it more likely that traffic police will stop them.
So the argument makes sense that we shouldn't reassign traffic policemen to serious crime.

(A) An officer who stops a car containing evidence of the commission of a serious crime risks a violent confrontation, even if the vehicle was stopped only for a traffic violation.

Violent confrontation is irrelevant.

(B) When the public becomes aware that traffic enforcement has lessened, it typically becomes lax in obeying traffic rules.

We need a connect between traffic rule breaking and serious crime.

(D) The offenders committing serious crimes who would be caught because of traffic violations are not the same group of individuals as those who would be caught if the arresting officers were reassigned from traffic enforcement.

It doesn't matter whether the same individuals will be caught. Some kind of serious criminals will be caught.

(E) The great majority of persons who are stopped by officers for traffic violations are not guilty of any serious crimes.

Irrelevant whether the majority of people stopped will be serious criminals or a small fraction. We need to see how many criminals will be stopped.

Answer (C)
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Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument given?

A. A single incident can't be taken as an example
B. We have to focus, here we are dealing with criminals, not public!
C. Strengthens the argument given
D. It distracts by saying there are two types of criminals caught, followed by description of their crimes.
E. Again far away from the topic, mostly deals with public.

Conclusion: Reducing Traffic enforcement is counter productive.
Premise: Criminals tend to use cars when committing serious crimes.

Assumption: Criminals using cars can be quickly detected.

Something which supports this assumption will strengthen the arguments.

Here is the Official explanation.

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First , as for any CR problem lets break down the problem :

Conclusion : Shifting of Traffic officers to work on serious crimes would not prove fruitful.
Premise : Police force needs more officers to work on serious crimes and police officials from Traffic enforcement are being shifted for this cause. Why -> because traffic officials can catch Traffic violators and search for evidence of serious crimes in the car.

One should always pre-think some sort of answer before moving on to the answer choices.
In this case what can one pre-think ??
Pre-thinking - Evidence that shows that traffic police officers actually catch criminals who have committed serious crimes.

A An officer who stops a car containing evidence of the commission of a serious crime risks a violent confrontation, even if the vehicle was stopped only for a traffic violation. -> This if any weakens our conclusion as if traffic police officers risk violent confrontation then they actually would actually be discouraged to search vehicles.
B When the public becomes aware that traffic enforcement has lessened, it typically becomes lax in obeying traffic rules. -> This option choice does not affect our conclusion. It does not talk about serious crimes in any way.
C Those willing to break the law to commit serious crimes are often in committing such crimes unwilling to observe what they regard as the lesser constraints of traffic law. -> Correct -> Because this actually gives evidence that Traffic police officials would actually search these cars which have serious crime offenders.
D The offenders committing serious crimes who would be caught because of traffic violations are not the same group of individuals as those who would be caught if the arresting officers were reassigned from traffic enforcement. -> The question that we need to answer is that whether reassigning Traffic police officers to crime department would actually increase or decrease the number of criminals caught. This option choice does not help answer that in any way and hence is incorrect.
E The great majority of persons who are stopped by officers for traffic violations are not guilty of any serious crimes. -> This option choice again does not help answer the conclusion in any way as explained in option choice D.

Hope this helps !!!!

We have to strengthen the fact that transferring police officials from Traffic police to work on serious crimes will not be helpful in catching more criminals who have committed serious crimes.
Now option choice D talks about two different set of people does not help increase our belief that if the officers are transferred then would it result it catching more or fewer serious crime offenders.
This is the reason this answer choice is incorrect.

Hope this helps !!!

guys, I still don't get why choice D is wrong. Doen't the answer imply that more offenders of serious crimes will be caught if police officials will not be reassigned? Can someone please help me out,this question is pretty frustrating.
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but doesn't D say that since the group of serious criminals is different between the ones that are driving and not driving, clearly eliminating traffic cops would create a situation where those serious criminals that are driving are not caught - thus, there would be less criminals caught BECAUSE the traffic cops were reassigned....

The flaw in your reasoning is this.. You're not considering the fact that the officers reassigned could catch more number of criminals than the number of criminals who would go free (if the officers are reassigned). Therefore we can not definitely say 'there would be less criminals caught BECAUSE the traffic cops were reassigned'.
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C is the correct choice - This suggests that people committing serious crimes often commit traffic violations as well, increasing the likelihood that traffic enforcement officers will stop to search their cars and find evidence of those crimes.
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C states clearly that the criminals committing serious crimes will ignore the traffic rules and get caught.
So strengthening the Stimulus that states moving people from traffic into the crime branch is not a viable option.

hence, Answer choice C strengthens.

A An officer who stops a car containing evidence of the commission of a serious crime risks a violent confrontation, even if the vehicle was stopped only for a traffic violation. Incorrect - Shell game answer
B When the public becomes aware that traffic enforcement has lessened, it typically becomes lax in obeying traffic rules. Incorrect - Out of scope
C Those willing to break the law to commit serious crimes are often in committing such crimes unwilling to observe what they regard as the lesser constraints of traffic law. Correct - When cause (crime) occurs, effect (traffic rule violation) occurs
D The offenders committing serious crimes who would be caught because of traffic violations are not the same group of individuals as those who would be caught if the arresting officers were reassigned from traffic enforcement. Incorrect - Opposite Ans.
E The great majority of persons who are stopped by officers for traffic violations are not guilty of any serious crimes. Incorrect - Out of scope

Reducing traffic enforcement to focus on solving serious crimes would be counterproductive because:-
Thinking: We need to find out why is it not a good idea to move Police Officers from Traffic Dept to Serious Crimes.
Option: Number of offenders committing serious crimes caught would reduce as a result of above mentioned action
Evidence1: Criminals engaging in SC tend to use Cars
Evidence2: Officers which stop cars can find evidence related to SC

A An officer who stops a car containing evidence of the commission of a serious crime risks a violent confrontation, even if the vehicle was stopped only for a traffic violation.
Irrelevant

B When the public becomes aware that traffic enforcement has lessened, it typically becomes lax in obeying traffic rules.
Irrelevant

C Those willing to break the law to commit serious crimes are often in committing such crimes unwilling to observe what they regard as the lesser constraints of traffic law.
Strengthens Evidence 1

D The offenders committing serious crimes who would be caught because of traffic violations are not the same group of individuals as those who would be caught if the arresting officers were reassigned from traffic enforcement.
2 groups
g1: SC Offenders caught due to traffic violations
g2: SC Offenders caught due to increased capacity of serious crimes unit
G2 does not include those caught due to traffic violations. But this option does not tell us whether absolute number of offenders committing serious crimes reduces or increases.

E The great majority of persons who are stopped by officers for traffic violations are not guilty of any serious crimes.
Different target group

mike - Could you please explain option C :unwilling to observe what they regard as the lesser constraints of traffic law:

Hi siddy,

I'll give it a try

I broke down the sentence (option C) into three parts-

1. Those willing to break the law to commit serious crimes = People committing serious crimes
2. are often in committing such crimes = when they are committing these serious crimes
3. unwilling to observe what they regard as the lesser constraints of traffic law = they do not observe the traffic laws (so they break traffic laws too) and think that breaking traffic laws is a lesser limiting factor than committing serious crimes.

Combining the meaning of the three parts- When people commit serious crimes, they also break traffic laws and they think that breaking traffic laws is a lesser constraint than committing serious crimes.

I hope this helps.

Aiena.

Conclusion: Reducing the traffic enforcement is not going to help because criminals often use cars when engaged in the commission of serious crimes and the presence of the officials can make a significant difference.

Any idea that might go against the notion of the conclusion can be eliminated. Also, we have to protect the assumption that this argument has. The assumption is that the traffic police is capable of identifying those criminals and is willing to take action.

With this idea A can be eliminated because if the officer risks the violent confrontation he may be discouraged to take such action. That means there is still a lingering question of his capability and willingness to take action.
B talks about public, which we are not interested in.
D is out of scope because it doesn’t help in reinforcing the idea that reducing the traffic enforcement is not going to help.
E This options weaken the argument by saying that traffic police may not be needed at those places.

C is our answer. This strengthens the idea that reducing the traffic enforcement is not going to help because if these offenders of serious crimes consider traffic law as lesser constraints, they will be committing more such crimes of breaking the traffic laws and hence the traffic police will be needed at the time of the crime to catch them red handed.

This is an awesome question. The argument would work only when the people who commit serious crimes make traffic violations and get caught by the traffic cops. Otherwise these people go unnoticed by traffic cops then reassigning cops to a different job will be a good option. The only option that supports this narrative is option C. Hence the right answer.

We need to look for an answer that is connecting traffic violation and serious crimes. remember "the italian job 2003". if a traffic cop would have present at all those stops, all those crimes would not have been committed. but its a movie, any thing can happen. Point is that many people will think about committing a crime if traffic policeman is standing at every stop. option C is on same lines.

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