"The city council in Smithville has recommended making changes to police procedures to improve the visibility of the police force. These changes include hiring more police officers, budgeting more funds for police overtime, and directing officers to patrol significantly more often on foot rather than in their patrol cars. These improvements in visibility would significantly lower the crime rate in Smithville and make its citizens feel safer.
The author concludes that by increasing the visibility of the police force in areas where citizens reside will reduce the crime rate significantly is a logical assumption at first glance. However, the author relies on unsupported assumptions and also provides no clear evidence on how he plans to tackle each of them.
First of all, hiring more police officers does not necessarily mean crime rates will decrease. They might be able to cover more area without doubt, but seeing so many officers on the street can be more stressful and alarming for citizens rather than making them feel safe. With the Black Lives Movement, police officers have been under scrutiny by the public more than ever. Now instead of feeling pride at the amount of officers responded to a situation, citizens look at the perpetrator and his or her skin color instead. The author needs to break down what exactly would he do with more police officers on duty. This leads to questioning the assumption that visibility of the police force would decrease crime rate at all.
Secondly, the author assumes that budgeting to pay the police over time will inspire them to work longer and harder where instead might have the opposite affect on them. Being outside forty hours a week is no easy task, so asking officers to work overtime will not only cause lethargy, but also decrease their alertness on the job which is more dangerous than letting them take the break they deserve. Psychology Today reports that a work week of 30 to 40 hours is sufficient and anything more can cause more mental harm than do good.
Furthermore, I find it difficult to understand how seeing an officer in uniform would be much better than seeing the red and blue lights on a vehicle. Not only does this take away from the speed at which the police can catch criminals, but it also exposes them to more danger of being hurt by criminals or other moving vehicles. According to last years statistical report, 52% of walkers and bikers were killed by head on vehicle collisions. Taking away vehicles from officers is doing more harm than good.
In conclusion, the assumptions made by the author needs more evidence to back it up. If these changes were to be made, crime rates would increase rather than decrease and I am sure the citizens of the town would have something to say about that.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 406 350
No. of Characters: 1895 1500
No. of Different Words: 216 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.489 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.667 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.346 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 121 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 81 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 60 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 31 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.882 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.858 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.647 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.34 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.572 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.147 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 155, Rule ID: AFFECT_EFFECT[1]
Message: Did you mean 'effect'?
Suggestion: effect
...r where instead might have the opposite affect on them. Being outside forty hours a week ...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, furthermore, however, if, look, second, secondly, so, in conclusion, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 19.6327345309 71% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 14.0 12.9520958084 108% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 16.3942115768 37% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1942.0 2260.96107784 86% => OK
No of words: 406.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.78325123153 5.12650576532 93% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.48881294772 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.4014361497 2.78398813304 86% => OK
Unique words: 217.0 204.123752495 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.534482758621 0.468620217663 114% => OK
syllable_count: 610.2 705.55239521 86% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 42.9106257156 57.8364921388 74% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.235294118 119.503703932 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.8823529412 23.324526521 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.82352941176 5.70786347227 102% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.269413265096 0.218282227539 123% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0938544814859 0.0743258471296 126% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0655756443075 0.0701772020484 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.138254055799 0.128457276422 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0860060358083 0.0628817314937 137% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.0 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 48.3550499002 117% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 12.197005988 91% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.74 12.5979740519 85% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.69 8.32208582834 92% => OK
difficult_words: 75.0 98.500998004 76% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 13.5 12.3882235529 109% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.