In the recommendation from the President of the Amberg Chamber of Commerce, it is concluded that high intensity lighting significantly reduces vandalism. To support the argument, the author states that last October, the city of Belleville installed high intensity lights and the vandalism declined almost immediately. The author also discusses the implementation police patrols in Amberg and how they were ineffective in reducing vandalism. This argument may sound cogent on the surface but when reading deeper, there are many questions that arise when considering the argument.
First of all, the author presumes, without evidence, that the high intensity lighting is the cause for the decline of vandalism in Belleville last October. Does the vandalism stay low even through the summer in Belleville? It is possible that the high intensity lighting can discourage vandalism, however, the vandalism could have also decreased due to the time of year. If the city is in the northern hemisphere, October is a time where the temperatures start to drop and become colder. It is possible that vandals vandalize most in the summer when it is warm outside and less when it becomes cold outside. This question needs to be answered in order to rule out weather as a possible factor in vandalism rates.
Second of all, are the cities of Belleville and Amburg comparable? The author is assuming that installing the high intensity lights in Amburg will provide the same results in regard to vandalism. However, it is very possible that the city of Amburg has a higher crime rate than the city of Belleville. It is also possible that the people in the city of Amberg are more artistic and vandalism is a part of the culture while in Belleville, it is a more conservative city and vandalism is not a common or acceptable part of their culture. If this scenario is true, this would dramatically weaken the persuasiveness of the authors argument.
In conclusion, it is possible that high intensity light can reduce rates of vandalism, however, the argument, as it stands now, is flawed and there need to be more evidence given in order to more accurately evaluate the conclusion. Thus, the author needs to provide additional evidence regarding the statistics of vandalism in Belleville year round, the overall crime rates of both cities, and the attitudes on vandalism in both cities.