Passage - General Questions

[Administrator]

Passage Discussion

Passage A

The author of passage A seeks to explain why law enforcement agencies sometimes decline to
prosecute violators—a practice known as “discretionary nonenforcement.”

Paragraph One: The author describes a phenomenon whereby law enforcement agencies
decline to prosecute certain violators, and promises to clarify the reasons for
this in the next paragraph.

Paragraph Two: This paragraph explains why discretionary nonenforcement is a common
practice. Laws tend to be overinclusive rather than underinclusive, because
the more precisely lawmakers try to describe the forbidden conduct, the
more loopholes they tend to create. Imposing overinclusive laws to the letter,
however, risks the punishment of innocent people and carries heavy social
costs. The technique of discretionary nonenforcement functions as an ad-hoc
solution to this quandary: it reduces the costs of overinclusion by allowing law
enforcement agencies to prosecute violators selectively.

Paragraph Three: The final paragraph introduces a potential problem with the technique of
discretionary nonenforcement: “capricious enforcement.” Such enforcement
occurs when the agency deviates from enforcing the intended regulation, and
focuses instead on areas of conduct inadvertently brought within the scope
of the rule. The author concedes that such a practice exists, but argues that
legislative oversight can minimize its effects.

Passage B

Passage B describes the problem of overdue water bills, criticizes a proposed solution, and offers an
alternative solution.

Paragraph One: The first paragraph describes the problem of overdue water bills and outlines
the steps city officials are planning to take in order to solve it. Their plan is to
selectively shut off the water to a few wealthy residents in order to make an
example of them, thus motivating others to pay their own bills.

Paragraph Two: The second paragraph presents an alternative solution: attach a lien to the
property owned by water delinquents. The author argues that such an approach
is better than the alternative because it facilitates the collection of money and
provides a powerful incentive for property owners to pay their water bills on
time.

Paragraph Three: The final paragraph explains why the alternative solution cannot be
implemented: a loophole in the law prohibits debts other than taxes from being
subject to liens. To remedy the situation, the author proposes changing the law.

Passage Similarities and Differences

Each passage describes a problem inherent in the enforcement of certain laws, and each argues for a
particular solution to that problem. Passage A provides the conceptual framework for understanding
why overinclusive laws exist, and explains how the cost of overinclusion can be minimized through
discretionary nonenforcement. Passage B, on the other hand, describes a instance of discretionary
enforcement, and argues that the solution lies in changing the law.

While the two passages have similar topics, their function and tone differ dramatically. Where
passage A describes an abstract problem in theoretical terms, passage B describes a concrete problem
and argues for a practical solution. The tone of passage A is academic, rather than polemic, and its
author seems to trust agencies’ discretion in enforcing the intended regulations. By contrast, the
author of passage B is an outspoken critic of the city officials, with little trust in their discretionary
power to enforce the regulations in question. In passage B, government discretion is the problem, not
the solution.