Day 17 - Task 2
Topic:
Sending people to prison is not effective, and other methods such as community work should be supported instead.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with this view?
Essay:
Prison sentence is arguably the most common form of punishment for more serious offenses, but some people consider this approach to crime ineffective. Instead, they suggest applying other alternatives. In my opinion, serving time in a harsh prison environment may discourage only some people from committing crimes in the future. I believe that the benefits of this punishment do not extend beyond these specific cases, so other types of punishment should be used.
In the past, prison sentence was indeed a powerful tool in the fight against crimes, but in the recent decades, its effectiveness has been diminishing. This trend can be linked to the work of human rights organisations that strive to protect all people regardless of whether they are a law-abiding citizen or a notorious criminal. While criminals of the past feared a wide range of torture techniques used in prison, these have been gradually banned in the recent years, deemed too inhumane to be applied even to serious offenders.
Growing corruption and nepotism reduce the effectiveness of prisons even further, as major criminals will simply use their connections to ensure a comfortable prison time. This means that those who truly harm the society will barely notice the severity of a prison life and will most likely continue committing crimes again. The only people that might be affected by the prison system are small, first-time offenders who are frequently bullied and exploited by their fellow convicts. Such unfairness suggests that prisons are largely rudimentary in our attempts to reduce crime rates, so I think that other measures should be implemented instead.
One potential alternative to prison sentences is community work. I make this choice because under this punishment, criminals would restore the damage that they have caused other people at least partially. Criminals should be assigned simple yet labour-intensive tasks such as planting trees or collecting litter on the street. They might feel compassionate to the life of ordinary menial workers, and experiencing this very feeling is what will teach them an important lesson. It should be noted that we cannot assign more serious jobs to criminals such as those in construction or manufacturing because this can effect the quality of work and eventually put the lives of ordinary people at risk.
Another form of punishment that I would personally want to see implemented is death penalty. Although this may sound extreme, in my opinion, some especially horrible criminals are too dangerous for other people to be left alive. We do not even need to use traditional forms of capital punishment, as there is the new, fairly humane practice of a lethal injection. Some may understandably argue that instead of taking someone’s life and basically becoming a criminal ourselves, we should sentence these serous criminals to life imprisonment. However, this will only cause more damage to the society because life prisoners are maintained on taxpayers’ money, and I do not think that the more heinous ones deserve this.
In conclusion, I agree that prisons have lost their former effectiveness as a means of administrating justice. Because of this, other forms of punishment should be used such as community work and, although extreme, capital punishment.
Word count: 525 words
Time spent: 38 minutes
Topic:
Sending people to prison is not effective, and other methods such as community work should be supported instead.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with this view?
Essay:
Prison sentence is arguably the most common form of punishment for more serious offenses, but some people consider this approach to crime ineffective. Instead, they suggest applying other alternatives. In my opinion, serving time in a harsh prison environment may discourage only some people from committing crimes in the future. I believe that the benefits of this punishment do not extend beyond these specific cases, so other types of punishment should be used.
In the past, prison sentence was indeed a powerful tool in the fight against crimes, but in the recent decades, its effectiveness has been diminishing. This trend can be linked to the work of human rights organisations that strive to protect all people regardless of whether they are a law-abiding citizen or a notorious criminal. While criminals of the past feared a wide range of torture techniques used in prison, these have been gradually banned in the recent years, deemed too inhumane to be applied even to serious offenders.
Growing corruption and nepotism reduce the effectiveness of prisons even further, as major criminals will simply use their connections to ensure a comfortable prison time. This means that those who truly harm the society will barely notice the severity of a prison life and will most likely continue committing crimes again. The only people that might be affected by the prison system are small, first-time offenders who are frequently bullied and exploited by their fellow convicts. Such unfairness suggests that prisons are largely rudimentary in our attempts to reduce crime rates, so I think that other measures should be implemented instead.
One potential alternative to prison sentences is community work. I make this choice because under this punishment, criminals would restore the damage that they have caused other people at least partially. Criminals should be assigned simple yet labour-intensive tasks such as planting trees or collecting litter on the street. They might feel compassionate to the life of ordinary menial workers, and experiencing this very feeling is what will teach them an important lesson. It should be noted that we cannot assign more serious jobs to criminals such as those in construction or manufacturing because this can effect the quality of work and eventually put the lives of ordinary people at risk.
Another form of punishment that I would personally want to see implemented is death penalty. Although this may sound extreme, in my opinion, some especially horrible criminals are too dangerous for other people to be left alive. We do not even need to use traditional forms of capital punishment, as there is the new, fairly humane practice of a lethal injection. Some may understandably argue that instead of taking someone’s life and basically becoming a criminal ourselves, we should sentence these serous criminals to life imprisonment. However, this will only cause more damage to the society because life prisoners are maintained on taxpayers’ money, and I do not think that the more heinous ones deserve this.
In conclusion, I agree that prisons have lost their former effectiveness as a means of administrating justice. Because of this, other forms of punishment should be used such as community work and, although extreme, capital punishment.
Word count: 525 words
Time spent: 38 minutes