Some people argue that parents of children who break the law should be punished in some way, because they are responsible for their children’s actions. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
It is argued that parents should be held responsible or even punished for crimes committed by their childrenresponsible or even punished for crimes committed by their children. While juvenile delinquency may be due to parents’ failure to raise their childrenfailure in raising their children, I believe that teenage lawbreakers should take full responsibilitytake all accountability for their offenses.
More often than not, children’s anti-social behaviors could be traced back to a dysfunctional family with abusive parents, divorced parents or parents who put too much academic pressure on their children. These situations share one common feature:These generally share one feature in common which is a lack of attention to children’s emotional needscare toward children’s emotions. Because of such unhappy childhoodsDue to this unhappy childhood, children become more vulnerable to cognitive distortion; they tend to think more negatively, feel worthless, and consider antisocial behavioursocial offenses a way to prove their worth to the world. Indeed, statistics indicateagree that many juvenile offenders have experienced emotional crises due to their broken families, which can lead to antisocial attitudeswhich leads to their anti-social attitudes. As several causes of offences committed by children stem fromseveral roots of evils committed by children are from parents’ failure to raise their kids with love, parents should be partly accountable for their children’s offenceschildren’s illegal behaviors.
Nevertheless, I insist that the lawbreakers themselves, not their parents, should be punished to ensure a justice system based on fairness and criminal deterrence. Firstly, it is unjust for offenders to escape legal punishment and continue their normal lives despite harming society. Punishment is to let them understand the price for their actions, and could vary, depending on the seriousness of the behavior. Secondly, the threat of being punished would reduce the likelihood ofdeter the risk of other teenagers committingteenages’ committing anti-social behaviors. This couldwill make society a safer and more peaceful place.
In conclusion, although parents play a part in their children’s wrongdoings, they should not take mostmajor or all responsibility for that. Juvenile lawbreakers should be punishedIt is suggested to punish juvenile lawbreakers as a way to ensure a just legal system and reduce the risk of future offendingalleviate the risk of potential criminals.
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response presents a coherent position and uses a clear two-part structure to explain parental influence and the case for punishing young offenders. Its main limitation is that the first body paragraph establishes parental responsibility without fully addressing whether parents themselves should be punished, creating some tension with the stated position. The priority is to answer the precise punishment question directly and support that stance with consistently aligned reasoning.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response gives a generally clear stance and relevant reasoning, but it only indirectly addresses whether parents should actually be punished.
State the exact extent of disagreement and explain directly why parental contribution to delinquency does or does not justify punishment.
Coherence and Cohesion
The argument is organised into clear stages and progresses coherently, though the shift from parental responsibility to offender punishment creates some tension.
Frame the first body paragraph explicitly as a concession and link it more directly to the rejection of parental punishment.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is varied and often effective, but recurring imprecise collocations and word forms reduce lexical control.
Replace strained expressions such as statistics agreeing, deterring a risk, and potential criminals with precise legal and causal language.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The essay uses varied complex structures with generally good control, despite several errors in reference, word forms, and impersonal constructions.
Review pronoun reference and constructions after suggest, deter, and possessive forms to remove the remaining grammatical awkwardness.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Some people argue that parents of children who break the law should be punished in some way, because they are responsible for their children’s actions. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.