[IELTS Writing Task 2] Giving judges the access to past police record of a defendant

Should a jury be given past criminal record?

Topic: Under British and Australian laws a jury in a criminal case has no access to info about the defendant's past criminal record. This protects the person who is being accused of the crime. Some lawyers have suggested that this practice should be changed and that a jury should be given all past facts before the reach their decision about the case. Do you agree or disagree?

Having access to past police record is an effective approach for the judges to make decisions on criminal cases. In my opinion, I agree that the court has a right to consider thoroughly a defendant's previous convictions. This essay will look at how it benefits investigating process and making final judgments.

Firstly, the criminal case will be effectively solved if a jury sees through the offender. Reading the documents in previous cases, a jury could have more considerable insight about an individual's behavior which is under control of his personality and psychological state. According to some researches, juries could successfully convinced the defendants to plead guilty in 68% cases after reviewing the past records. Clearly, prior convictions could be substantial evidence about current crimes.

Secondly, considering all past information helps the judges to reach reasonable conclusion. Based on the changing process of a offender, if he showed repentance and desire to redeem the faults, a jury would accept his plea offer to reduce the penalty and vice versa. Moreover, taking DUI (driving under the influence) case as an example, a judge may enhance a sentence if a defendant has a prior conviction for the same type of offence on his past record. Thus, juries should use criminal records as a tool to administer punishment.

In conclusion, I think the authority ought to change the policy that the juries could approach the problem from another angle by past documents in order to come up with sufficient solutions for the situation. Lawyers would also take advantage of it to support their defence.

... juries could successfully convinced the defendants
that's just a small mistake
moreover, your ideals about dividing the body of the essay and giving examples seem to be reasonable
in my opinion, if you gave a more detail example with more obvious source in the second graph, you could get a better score

Tran, the essay will fail due to the prompt deviation that you created in the paraphrased paragraph. You were right to offer your agreement with the given topic for discussion. However, the reasoning paragraphs were supposed to support your claims. You were not supposed to change the discussion slant from:

Original: Do you agree or disagree?
Yours: This essay will look at how it benefits investigating process and making final judgments.

Your TA score will be a 4, which means that you only offered a partially correct response to the prompt instructions. 4 is not a passing score. Added to the grammar and other problems of the essay discussion and it be difficult for you to achieve a passing score with this essay. Always double check the prompt discussion instruction as you write the essay. Spend time towards the end reviewing your response, making sure that you did not deviate from the prompt nor under develop your discussion. It is easier to fix an under developed response than it is to correct a prompt deviation because that normally requires rewriting the whole essay to properly align with the prompt instructions.

I suppose the sentence "This essay will look at how it benefits investigating process and making final judgments." is the outline part?
I have learnt that the introduction should have at least 3 sentences: General Background, Thesis statement and Outline sentence. Can you explain more clearly for me and suggest other ways to not deviate :(

Thank you!

Tran, I find that my students find it easier to create a paraphrase when they have 4 instead of 3 sentences to rewrite in their prompt paraphrase. My students use the following outline to create their restatements:

1. Topic Sentence: Under British and Australian laws a jury in a criminal case has no access to info about the defendant's past criminal record.

2. Reasoning Sentence: This protects the person who is being accused of the crime.
3. Thesis Statement: Some lawyers have suggested that this practice should be changed and that a jury should be given all past facts before the reach their decision about the case.

4. Discussion Instruction: Do you agree or disagree?

Once you have properly identified and outlined the different parts of the discussion, you will be able to properly rephrase or reword the presentation like this:

1. Topic Sentence: British and Australian criminal rules prevent undue influence on the jury by not letting them know the criminal has prior offenses.
2. Reasoning Sentence: This is to shield the suspect from the jurors prejudging the accused.
3. Thesis Statement: Law practitioners believe that this practice must be ended and the jury must be informed of the past criminal record of the accused prior to deciding the case.

4. I disagree / agree with this opinion for specific reasons.

Do you see how outlining your paraphrase per section could make it easier for you to create your own restatement of the topic? It is much easier to create a Task 2 essay when you first outline all the discussion points, then build on the actual presentation in paragraph form. The outline helps you to not deviate from the original presentation.