It is an irrefutable fact that an exponential increase in the crime rate has been noticed in various parts of the world. Many people say that providing adequate education to criminals in prison would be the best solution, and others oppose this view. However, I believe educating them would not be the single best solution. In the following paragraphs, I explain both sides and give information to support my statement with relevant examples.
To begin with, despite educating criminals in prison there are several underlying social issues such as family backgrounds, poverty and unemployment that could encourage an offender to recommit crime. Therefore, the circumstances of a person play a major role in preventing someone from committing any crime. Furthermore, social acceptance could also be helpful. To be more precise, many people do not like to socialize with offenders and hire them because of their crime history. As a result, criminals often have to face rejection from society because of which they may again indulge themselves in the criminal activities.
On the other hand, people who say that education would be the best way to reduce crime want to emphasize that many offences happen due to the lack of basic skills, education and knowledge among criminals. Making them literate and help them in acquiring new skills would be more profitable that they could use in earning their livelihood after releasing from jail. To cite an example, a person can learn mechanical or constructional skills while one is imprison, and later on utilize them in earning money to bear basic expenses of daily life. Therefore, education can help in reducing crime rate to some extent.
To summarise, although literacy could be significant for criminals to earn money, eliminating other external factors such as changing people’s perspectives towards criminals and preventing them to reoffend any crime would be more beneficial. Evaluate the task according to IELTS criteria and provide scores