IELTS Writing- Jury should not be given the past criminal records of a defendant

I am preparing for IELTS exam. Can someone please go through the essay and give me some feedback?

Question- Under British and Australian laws a jury in a criminal case has no access to information about the defendants' 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 the past facts before they reach their decision about the case. Do you agree or disagree?

The concept of access to any required information is widely becoming common. There are individuals working alone and as well as in groups around the world to make information available to the public. But, what sort of information should be made available, and even if its made available, who can access them are at present turns out to be point of concern. The debate on whether a jury in a criminal case should have the access to the past criminal records of the defendant is a good question to ponder about. I strongly believe that the past criminal records should not be made accessible to a jury as this information can be manipulated in a case which can lead innocent people to jails.

It is a human tendency to judge people based on their past actions. In the case of a convict, if the persona has got any criminal history, the jury can use this information to claim that the defendant has actually done a crime. This type of usage of of information can manipulate the way a judge sees the case of a person. Having been involved in a criminal activity does not mean that the person is responsible for all the other crime scenarios he happens to be a part of. Therefore, considering the human psychology to label criminals as criminals always, this information should not be made available.

Furthermore, a defendant can also be a person who was innocent but was jailed because of the lack of evidence. Also, it can be a person, who once was involved in criminal activities but later became a good human being. When criminal records of these individuals are made available to a jury, the jury can use it as a back up evidence to put innocent people behind bars Thus, the history of a defendant should not be made available to a jury.

Considering the aftermath of making past criminal records of a defendant available to jury, it is highly recommended to not provide the information. In a lot of cases, giving any sort of focus to the past activities of a person, doe snot prove them to be guilty of an incident.

Hi benny,your essay is quite good,well organised.however second paragraph is not sounds complete,other then that I felt its a good essay.

These sentences does not refer to anything of your topic. In the introduction you should introduce topic to the reader. Therefore keeping alignment with your topic is very very important . Otherwise your writing would be felt as out of topic :(

My suggestion;
The need for the jury to have access to information about the defendants' past criminal record is becoming a concern these days. .... now the reader understands you are talking about information that a jury requires... As a tip for this task, I suggest you to catch the idea from your prompt itself. Do not copy it for your first sentence, but you can re-phrase it and use it :)


.... jury does not claim, but decides. The lawyers claim :)


.... good argument :)
My suggestion;
The jury may be carried away by such information and also can have their decision influenced by them although the defendant's past criminal activities have no bearing on the case at all.

You have good arguments . With practice you can aim to go for a good score. Try to improve your essay structure more :)