Non PT(LR-strengthen) Forum

[Examhacker1]

I'm stuck on this. Do you find this one. Can we discuss a little about choice B

Judge Brown has shown a marked preference over the past decade for sentencing criminals to make amends for their crimes—for example, by apologizing to the victim—rather than sending them to jail. He argues that the rate of recidivism, or the likelihood that the criminal will commit another offense, is only 15% when he does so, while the average rate of recidivism in the country as a whole is above 35%. Judge Brown thus argues that the criminal justice system is most effective when criminals make amends for their crime, rather than serving time.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports Judge Brown’s claim?

A)The majority of the defendants that the judge sees are already repeat offenders who are statistically more likely to continue their offenses.

B)The offenders who went on to commit a crime after making amends were less likely to commit a violent crime than were those who were repeat offenders who served time.

C)Many of the sentenced criminals who made amends were those who expressed to Judge Brown a willingness to do so.

D)Victims of the crimes were happier when the judged sentenced criminals to make amends, rather than when he sentenced them to serve time.

E)A judge in a neighboring district found that, in his jurisdiction, criminals sentenced to make amends committed repeat offenses in 22% of cases.

[BobBoblaw]

I'm going with A.

If judge brown sees many repeat offenders, the recidivism rate should actually be higher than the 35 percent rate for the country as a whole, thus making the 15% rate even more significant.

B is not likely to be correct because it discusses violent crimes, which were not specifically mentioned in the question.

[Law2020hopeful]

A

The problem with B is that the stimulus doesn't differentiate between crime and violent crime. This answer choice does, and therefore we can cross it off (it introduces a new idea into it which we don't want and the right answer choice won't have).

Even if you're not sold by that, it's a most strengthen question. A clearly strengthens more than B because A cites criminals that are already repeat offenders not committing another crime after Brown's sentence. Statistically, they're the ones most likely to repeat and if they aren't because of Brown's sentencing methods, that greatly strengthens the argument because it means his sentencing methods are stopping repeat offenders from repeating again (which is harder than stopping first time offenders from repeating).

[Examhacker1]

Thanks, BobBoblaw and law2020hopeful. This helps clear lot of things.