Legislator: The recently released crime statistics clearly show that the new laws requiring stiffer punishments for violators have reduced the crime rate  In the areas covered by those laws, the incidence of crime has decreased by one-fourth over the four years since the legislation was enacted  Analyst: The statistics are welcome news, but they do not provide strong evidence that the new laws caused the drop in crime
Many comparable areas that lack such legislation have reported a similar drop in the crime rate during the same period
objecting that the statistics on which the legislator is basing his conclusion are drawn from a time period that is too short to yield a meaningful data sample