Of every 100 burglar alarms police answer, 99 are false alarms. This situation causes an enormous and dangerous drain on increasingly scarce public resources. Each false alarm wastes an average of 45 minutes of police time. As a result police are consistently taken away from responding to other legitimate calls for service, and a disproportionate share of police service goes to alarm system users, who are mostly businesses and affluent homeowners. However, burglar alarm systems, unlike car alarm systems, are effective in deterring burglaries, so the only acceptable solution is to fine burglar alarm system owners the cost of 45 minutes of police time for each false alarm their systems generate.
On the basis of the premises advanced, which one of the following principles, if established, would provide the most justification for the concluding recommendation?
(A) No segment of a community should be permitted to engage in a practice that has been shown to result in a disproportionate share of police service being devoted to that segment of the community.
(B) When public resources are in short supply, any individual who wants special services from public agencies such as police and fire departments should be required to pay for those services if he or she can afford to do so.
(C) Police departments are not justified in improving service to one segment of the community at the expense of other segments of the community unless doing so reduces the crime level throughout the entire area served.
(D) Anyone who directly benefits from a service provided by public employees should be required to reimburse the general public fund an amount equivalent to the average cost of providing that service.
(E) If receipt of a service results in the waste of scarce public resources and people with other legitimate needs are disadvantaged in consequence, the recipient of that service should compensate the public for the resources wasted.
Source: LSAT
Same passage with different question:
LINK(A) No. As Question 20 established, the arguer does not want to banish burglar alarms, just require that their owners compensate the public for the loss of police time in responding to false alarms.
(B) No. The arguer merely wants burglar alarm owners to reimburse the public for the police costs of responding to false alarms, not legitimate alarms.
(C) No. There is no mention in the passage of reducing the crime level throughout an area.
(D) No. The arguer merely wants burglar alarm owners to reimburse the public for the police costs of responding to false alarms, not legitimate alarms.