犯罪（Crime / Law）佔 Task 2 約 9%。題目表面上問「該不該重判」，骨子裡問的是國家與個人的關係——處罰、改造、預防、權利之間怎麼取捨。
五種子題
| 子題 | 典型提問 | |-----------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 嚴罰 vs 改造 | Should serious criminals receive longer sentences or rehabilitation? | | 少年犯罪 | At what age should young offenders be treated as adults? | | 預防犯罪 | Is poverty the main cause of crime? | | 死刑 | Should capital punishment be abolished worldwide? | | 公共監控與公民自由 | Do CCTV cameras make society safer, or too invasive? |
四個萬用論點
萬用論點 1：Deterrence vs rehabilitation 威懾 vs 改造
適用：量刑、少年司法、累犯。
核心邏輯：多數研究顯示，再犯率對監禁長度幾乎不敏感，但對教育 / 就業輔導敏感。
The evidence on deterrence is considerably weaker than public intuition suggests. Multiple longitudinal studies across Scandinavia and North America have shown that recidivism rates depend far more on access to education and employment during and after custody than on the length of the sentence itself. In other words, longer prison terms primarily satisfy a desire for retribution rather than reduce future offending.
萬用論點 2：Root causes 根源因素
適用：少年犯罪、貧窮、毒品、幫派。
Treating crime purely as a matter of moral failure ignores the conditions from which it consistently emerges: concentrated poverty, unstable housing, fragmented family structures and chronically under-resourced schools. Countries that address these upstream conditions — Finland being a notable example — report lower crime rates without relying on harsher penalties.
萬用論點 3：Rights vs safety trade-off 權利 vs 安全取捨
適用：監控、搜查權、反恐法、網路隱私。
Expanding surveillance powers in the name of public safety involves an unavoidable trade-off with civil liberties. A society may accept some reduction in privacy in exchange for security, but the exchange must be transparent, proportionate, and subject to independent oversight — conditions that are rarely met when such powers are introduced in response to a crisis.
萬用論點 4：Proportionality 比例原則
適用：量刑、少年、累犯、初犯。
A fundamental principle of justice is proportionality: punishment should match the gravity of the offence and the circumstances of the offender. Mandatory-minimum sentencing, while politically popular, often violates this principle by treating first-time and repeat offenders identically, producing outcomes that many judges themselves describe as manifestly unjust.
台灣考生常見誤區
台灣考生寫犯罪題的最大問題是立場太極端——要嘛「罪犯就該重判」，要嘛「每個人都該被原諒」。Band 7 的關鍵是承認對立陣營的合理性，再給出有條件的結論。另外，criminal 這個字不要無差別濫用——按情境換成 offender, perpetrator, convicted person, young offender，評分員會注意到。
主題詞彙
| 中文 | 英文 | |---------------|---------------------------------------------------| | 犯罪者 | offender / perpetrator | | 少年犯 | juvenile offender | | 累犯率 | recidivism / reoffending rate | | 改造 | rehabilitation | | 威懾 | deterrence | | 量刑 | sentencing | | 緩刑 | probation / suspended sentence | | 司法系統 | the justice / judicial system | | 刑事司法 | criminal justice | | 監獄超收 | prison overcrowding | | 修復式正義 | restorative justice | | 根源因素 | root causes | | 公民自由 | civil liberties | | 過度監控 | mass surveillance | | 比例原則 | proportionality |
範例段落（嚴罰 vs 改造）
Advocates of longer sentences typically appeal to common-sense deterrence: if potential offenders know the penalties are severe, they will think twice. Yet decades of comparative data undermine this intuition. Norway, where the average sentence length is roughly a third of that in the United States, reports one of the lowest recidivism rates in the developed world — around 20%, compared to nearly 70% in some American states. The decisive factor is not the harshness of the punishment but the quality of rehabilitation offered during it.
為什麼 Band 7：對比明確（Norway vs US）、具體數字、intuition 這類抽象名詞、undermine this intuition 是 academic register。
快速練習
題目：Some people believe that the main purpose of prison should be to punish, while others think it should be to rehabilitate. Discuss both views and give your opinion.
試寫 §4 結論（60-70 字）。挑戰：不要只說「兩者都重要」——明確偏向一方，用一個具體國家或數字作為支撐。