IELTS Writing: Putting criminals in jail

Putting criminals into prisons is not an effective way to deal with them. Instead, education and job training should be offered. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Nowadays, how to handle the criminals is a tough problem that all countries and societies have to face. Whether offering education and job training while putting them in jail remains a controversial issue. I agree with the view that despite of their criminal facts, it is necessary to give them a second chance for their future lives.

First, it is obvious that the reason why many people end up in jail is that they did not receive good education or were born in unfortunate families in their childhood. Anyone who has decent surviving skills and can contribute to the society will not definitely lean forwards committing crimes. Therefore, while in jail, it is probably the best way to provide opportunities to enable these people to obtain jobs in a positive way once they are out.

Moreover, locking prisoners up in jail indicates that numerous social resources have been poured into this non-economic value activities. It certainly does not seem to be made a good use of if the people do not actually get any better. So we should focus on how to make them better citizens with the valuable funds.

That is not to say that we should be too merciful to criminals. These prisoners have caused damages to others and society so that they should be punished severely. But to be honest, they should also have their rights to make a new start after the punishment.

In sum, we need to treat criminals as patients and give them the medicine they need – that is education and job training programmes along with the law punishment. Only by doing so can we ensure that we will live in a safe and healthy environment.

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