PrepTest 128, Section 3, Question 4
Huang: Most people who commit violent crimes do(92 more words not shown)
The dialogue between Huang and(11 more words not shown)
- Athe best way(12 more words not shown)
- Bpeople who commit(5 more words not shown)
- Cpeople who commit(12 more words not shown)
- Dmandatory sentences will(9 more words not shown)
- Esevere penalties reduce(5 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Huang thinks harsher mandatory sentences are the wrong way to reduce violent crime. Most people who commit these crimes don't carefully consider punishment, and people who don't commit them have no inclination to do so. On that account, changing the threatened punishment has little room to change behavior.
“Most” still means more than half, not necessarily everyone. If 51 out of 100 offenders don't carefully consider punishment, as many as 49 might. That first premise alone wouldn't show that punishment can never matter. We could also ask whether sentences reduce crime by keeping an offender confined, even if they don't change the offender's calculations beforehand. Deterrence and preventing further crimes through confinement are different mechanisms.
Suarez first brings up tax evasion. But Huang was talking about violent crimes. Someone could think penalties deter a person calculating whether to evade taxes while doing little to deter a violent act. The tax example doesn't itself settle Huang's point.
What we’re looking for
Then Suarez returns to the relevant subject: mandatory sentences prevent most people who would otherwise physically harm others from doing so. Now there's a direct conflict with Huang's account. For the disagreement question, look for that conflict about mandatory sentences deterring violent crime. We don't need to decide whose position is better.
Working the answers
- A
Huang favors addressing root causes, but Suarez doesn't say whether that is the best method. Mandatory sentences could help and still be less effective than addressing root causes. Claiming that a method works doesn't rank it first.
- B
Whether someone deserves a punishment is different from whether the punishment prevents crime. Neither speaker takes a clear position on what violent offenders morally deserve.
- C
This is tempting because Huang explicitly describes offenders' thinking. But Suarez doesn't clearly offer the opposite description of people who actually commit violent crimes. Suarez discusses people who would otherwise offend but are stopped by mandatory sentences. Those deterred people need not have the same thought process as the people who go on to commit crimes.
C also leaves out the mandatory-sentence condition that anchors Suarez's claim. We shouldn't turn a prediction about what those sentences prevent into a general claim about how carefully actual offenders consider punishment.
- DCorrect
Suarez explicitly says mandatory sentences prevent most people who would otherwise physically harm others from doing so. Huang's account rejects that picture: offenders generally don't carefully consider punishment, and nonoffenders lack the inclination to offend. Those reasons support Huang's recommendation to address root causes instead. D states the dispute about the deterrent effect of mandatory sentences on potential violent offenders.
- E
Suarez thinks penalties deter tax evasion, but Huang never addresses tax evasion. Huang could agree completely about that nonviolent crime and still reject Suarez's view of violent crime.
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