The role of prisons should be to punish criminals who have committed serious crimes. Training courses and education offered to prisoners are a waste of taxpayer's money. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
It is true that jails play a vital role in reducing crime ratesplay a vital role to decelerate the crime rates by imposing imprisonment on offenderson the offenders. Several developmental programs are provided to prisonersprovided to the prisoners to improve their social attitudesupgrade their social attitude and transform their mindsetsmind towards positivity. However, many people believe that these activities do not providedraw benefits, rather, they arerather than it is a matter of complete wastevain. HoweverAlthough, I take the opposite view tocontend opposite of the given statement and below Iand in further I will provide several advantages of the current prison systempresent setup of prison.
First of all, it is undeniable thatundeniable that, captivity helps to reduce crimes in society. Nowadays people get apprehensive to embark on any illegalviolated activity. Because the negative impacts of imprisonment are numerous. For instance, this leadslead to loss of social respect and captive’s family passes their days likeas like a terrible nightmare. Additionally, imprisonment developsAdditionally. Imprisonment develops fear and guiltfear, guilt inside criminals' mindscriminals mind, therefore they realise their faults and stay away from further criminalexplicable acts. Sometimes, it is also a perfect way of taking revenge for the victims.
Moreover, in present time many voluntary developmental programs and workshops are ongoing in the prisons of almost all the countries. By getting vocational training, prisoners can expect a better life outside. For example, a thief who steal someone’s belongings, in turn, to get money and food, may not engage in further crime as he has adequate skills and learnings to be employed and thus, lead a respectable life. Various educational programs can motivate and diverse the criminal attitudes towards a better life which is not only benefiting the individual but also deterring crime in the society.
To sum up, jails are one of the important parts of our community which is dealing strongly with the criminals and criminal activity, despite having any trade-off. While the recent addition of educational and developmental training programs are necessary for both individual and community.
Why this response received Band 5.5
The response maintains a clear disagreement with the claim and offers relevant reasons why punishment and rehabilitation can reduce crime. Its main limitation is that ideas are sometimes loosely expressed or only partly developed, while frequent grammatical and collocational errors weaken precision and interrupt the flow. The highest priority is to build each reason through a clear claim-and-explanation sequence, then proofread sentence boundaries, agreement, and word choice.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
A clear opposing position is sustained, with relevant discussion of punishment and the value of vocational and educational programmes.
Develop the rehabilitation argument more fully by explaining exactly how education reduces reoffending and why this justifies taxpayer funding.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response has a recognizable introduction, body progression, and conclusion, but fragments and abrupt links sometimes disrupt the logical flow.
Use complete sentences and clearer claim-to-example connections within each body paragraph instead of relying on isolated linking expressions.
Lexical Resource
There is a reasonable range of topic vocabulary, but frequent inaccurate collocations and word choices reduce naturalness and precision.
Replace awkward combinations such as abstract verb-noun pairings with simpler, established expressions that convey the intended meaning exactly.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Some complex structures are attempted, but frequent errors in sentence boundaries, agreement, articles, and clause construction limit control.
Prioritize complete clause structures and check subject-verb agreement before adding more complex grammatical patterns.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
The role of prisons should be to punish criminals who have committed serious crimes. Training courses and education offered to prisoners are a waste of taxpayer's money. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.