UDEE Critical Thinking and Analysis 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A report states: 'Most burglaries in the district occur between midnight and 4 AM.' An officer concludes: 'If I patrol more during those hours, I will eliminate burglaries.' What error in reasoning has the officer made?
- Affirming the consequent
- Overstating the effect of a single intervention based on partial data (Correct answer)
- Denying the antecedent
- Circular reasoning
Correct answer: Overstating the effect of a single intervention based on partial data
Concluding that increased patrol will eliminate (not just reduce) burglaries overstates what the statistical pattern can support.
Question 2: An analyst reviewing incident reports notices that calls for service spike every Friday evening. Which step is MOST important before concluding this is a meaningful trend?
- Immediately increase staffing every Friday
- Verify that Friday data was not selectively recorded or logged differently than other days (Correct answer)
- Notify command staff of the pattern and recommend a policy change
- Compare this precinct's data to the national average
Correct answer: Verify that Friday data was not selectively recorded or logged differently than other days
Before treating a pattern as meaningful, an analyst must rule out data artifacts — such as inconsistent logging practices — that could create a false pattern.
Question 3: Which of the following best describes 'deductive reasoning' as applied in law enforcement?
- Drawing a specific conclusion that must be true if the general premises are true (Correct answer)
- Forming a general rule from many specific observations
- Making a judgment based on intuition and experience
- Estimating outcomes based on statistical probability
Correct answer: Drawing a specific conclusion that must be true if the general premises are true
Deductive reasoning moves from general premises to a specific conclusion that is necessarily true if the premises hold.
Question 4: A sergeant tells officers: 'Whenever there is graffiti on a block, vandalism increases by 40% the following week.' Officer Reyes removes all graffiti from a block on Monday. Based on the sergeant's statement alone, what can be concluded for the following week?
- Vandalism on that block will drop by 40%
- The absence of graffiti removes one risk factor, but no specific outcome is guaranteed by the stated rule (Correct answer)
- Vandalism will remain the same because graffiti is not the only cause
- The sergeant's statement is too vague to apply
Correct answer: The absence of graffiti removes one risk factor, but no specific outcome is guaranteed by the stated rule
The rule states that graffiti predicts a vandalism increase; it does not state that removing graffiti guarantees a decrease.
Question 5: A crime analyst presents data showing that neighborhoods with higher unemployment have higher theft rates. A commander concludes: 'Unemployment causes theft.' What is wrong with this conclusion?
- The data is too large a sample to be useful
- Correlation between two variables does not establish a causal relationship (Correct answer)
- Theft and unemployment are unrelated variables
- The conclusion is valid if the analyst is credentialed
Correct answer: Correlation between two variables does not establish a causal relationship
Correlation shows two variables move together but cannot by itself prove that one causes the other.
Question 6: During a use-of-force review, a panel must evaluate whether an officer's decision was reasonable. The MOST appropriate standard for critical analysis is to judge the decision based on:
- What the officer knew after the incident was fully resolved
- Information and circumstances reasonably available to the officer at the moment of the decision (Correct answer)
- The worst possible outcome that could have occurred
- The opinion of the highest-ranking officer present
Correct answer: Information and circumstances reasonably available to the officer at the moment of the decision
Decisions must be evaluated against what was reasonably known at the time they were made, not with the benefit of hindsight.
Question 7: An officer reads the following: 'All licensed firearms must be registered. This weapon is registered. Therefore, this weapon is a licensed firearm.' Is this argument valid?
- Yes, the conclusion follows logically from the premises
- No, the argument commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent (Correct answer)
- Yes, because registration proves licensing in all cases
- No, because the premises are factually incorrect
Correct answer: No, the argument commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent
The argument assumes that if registration implies licensing, then registration proves licensing — this reverses the conditional and is a formal fallacy.
UDEE Critical Thinking and Analysis 5
A report states: 'Most burglaries in the district occur between midnight and 4 AM.' An officer concludes: 'If I patrol more during those hours, I will eliminate burglaries.' What error in reasoning has the officer made?