环球教育 http://www.ielts.com.cn 2005年3月28日

Crime is without doubt a huge problem in every country in the world. There are certain countries, cities, towns and districts where the crime rate is extremely high and such places are very dangerous places to be. Without doubt these areas desperately need new government policies and a shift in actions by the police to remedy a desperate situation. These places tend to be areas of high unemployment and poverty. If the focus were placed on finding and creating jobs in these places the crime problem would improve. Instead governments go for easy options such as increasing the lengths of prison sentences. This treats the results of crime, not it’s causes.

Nevertheless, such places are few and far between. The vast majority of places in the world are perfectly safe places to live. People who are afraid to leave their homes do so largely for two reasons. Firstly, they were unfortunate enough to be victim of a crime. Secondly, and most importantly, they hear about crime everywhere: TV, radio, papers. In some areas crime stories take up a huge percentage of news. If you hear about crime all the time, you begin to believe its everywhere. This is simply not the case.

Crime has been around since man first appeared on earth and will continue to be here till we leave. Of course there are measures governments could take to improve the situation but they can’t eradicate crime. What measures should be taken depend on ones political opinions.