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The proposal to hire ten new police officers in Middletown is quite foolish. There is sufficient funding to pay the salaries of the new officers, but not the salaries of additional court and prison employees to process the increased caseload of arrests and convictions that new officers usually generate.
Which of the following, if true, will most seriously weaken the conclusion drawn above?
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| The proposal to hire ten new police officers in Middletown is quite foolish. |
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| There is sufficient funding to pay the salaries of the new officers, but not the salaries of additional court and prison employees to process the increased caseload of arrests and convictions that new officers usually generate. |
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The argument starts with a strong conclusion that hiring police officers is foolish, then immediately provides the reasoning. The flow is: conclusion first, then supporting evidence about budget constraints and consequences.
Hiring ten new police officers in Middletown is a foolish proposal.
The argument uses a practical constraint premise to support the conclusion. The logic is: if you hire more police, you'll get more arrests, but you can't afford to process those arrests properly, so hiring more police doesn't make sense.
Weaken - We need to find information that reduces our belief in the conclusion that hiring 10 new police officers is foolish
The author makes a specific claim about funding availability (sufficient for police salaries but not for court/prison staff) and assumes a causal relationship (more officers → more arrests → need more staff to process cases)
To weaken this argument, we need to find scenarios that challenge the logic connecting the premises to the conclusion. The author assumes that hiring more officers will definitely create problems due to insufficient funding for additional court/prison staff. We can weaken this by showing situations where this assumed problem wouldn't occur or where the benefits outweigh the concerns.
'Studies had shown that an increase in city's police force does not necessarily reduce crime.' This choice actually supports the author's position rather than weakening it. If more police don't reduce crime, then we'd still have the same crime levels but with more officers to make arrests, potentially leading to even more arrests per crime committed. This makes the budget problem for court and prison staff even worse, strengthening the argument that hiring more officers is foolish.
'When one major city increased its police force by 19% last year, there were 40% more arrests and 13% more convictions.' This choice provides concrete evidence that supports the author's premise. It shows that more police officers do indeed lead to more arrests and convictions, which would require more court and prison staff to process. This strengthens rather than weakens the author's argument about the budget constraints.
'If funding for the new police officers' salaries is approved, support for other city services will have to be reduced during the next fiscal year.' This choice introduces additional budget problems beyond what the author mentioned, making the financial situation even worse. Rather than weakening the conclusion that hiring officers is foolish, this gives us another reason why the proposal is problematic.
'In most US cities, not all arrests result in convictions, and not all convictions result in prison terms.' While this might suggest that the processing burden could be somewhat less than expected, it doesn't eliminate the core problem. We still need court staff to process arrests (even if they don't lead to convictions) and some convictions will still require prison staff. This doesn't adequately address the budget constraint issue the author raises.
'Middletown's ratio of police officers to citizens has reached a level at which an increase in the number of officers will have a deterrent effect on crime.' This is the correct answer because it fundamentally challenges the author's assumption. If more officers deter crime, then crime rates will decrease, leading to fewer arrests and convictions, not more. This eliminates the author's main concern about needing additional court and prison staff to handle increased caseloads. In fact, the budget problem the author worries about might not materialize at all if crime deterrence reduces the workload on the justice system.