IELTS Vocabulary: Juvenile Crime in 2024
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IELTS vocabulary. Hello there. In today's tutorial we are diving into the specific topic of juvenile crime and society. Now why do I keep going off on these very niche, very specific topics? Well the idea is that

A lot of students suffer from their mind going blank and it's usually when they hit quite unique topics such as pollution in the ocean, microplastics, mobile phone use, juvenile crime and society. So in this tutorial we're going to look at the vocabulary you need to get around a band 7 or higher.

We're also going to look at various positions and the positions are necessary for you to build, to write an effective task to essay because first comes ideas and then from those ideas you've got to form them into positions and then from positions you've got to develop them into cohesive arguments delivered in a coherent paragraph.

And that's partly what we're going to do today as well as looking at modal verbs for speculation and deduction. So it's quite a packed tutorial as per normal. We're also going to have a quick look at some examples.

Speaking part three model answers where you'll be able to hear a lot of the vocabulary in its natural environment which is the optimum way to learn the vocabulary rather than in just brutal lists. Before we get started let me very briefly tell you who I am. My name is Ben Worthington. I've been helping students with IELTS for

A very long time. A very long time. Since 2011. Can you believe it?

And it all started because I was a general English tutor and I had students coming to me asking for help with IELTS. I really honestly had no idea. So I started out asking other tutors, asking experts, recording those tutorials. Then I released a PDF. Then I turned it into a course and we were doing essay corrections. And then fast forward to today and we've got our AI course.

essay checking app, how time flies. Oh my word. And soon, very soon, we'll be, not relaunching, we'll be launching our AI IELTS speaking web app and offering you the whole package. How amazing is that? So go to ieltspodcast.com and you can find out more about that.

The essay checking tool is completely free and it's an insanely fast way to improve. Grab a pen, take notes when you're writing. You're more likely to remember this information. At the bare minimum, just make notes in your phone. That's fine as well, obviously. Let's jump into it. Juvenile crime and society.

So what does juvenile crime even mean? Well, it refers to crimes committed by young people, usually around 16 and under, or even 18 and under, because in the UK law, in the UK system at least, around 18, you are treated as an adult. So let's just explore some different things

perspectives, some different positions. Before we get into that, let me just very briefly give you a two-minute grammar lesson about the grammar we're going to cover. We're going to look at modal verbs such as might, could, should, and must. And these allow us to speculate about the past, present, or future.

or even to make deductions based on evidence or even a lack of evidence and these are quite handy because when we use a new grammar structure it just helps us gain even more points for the grammatical range and accuracy score so let's have a look at some positions which you could take when you are faced with an argument about criminal punishments for

under 18s. Youth offenders can be rehabilitated more easily than adults. Some great vocabulary there. Youth offenders. Rehabilitated. Now, if you listen to the previous class or one that I did a while back, we've got the verb rehabilitated. So, from rehabilitate, we can have

the noun rehabilitation which is the act or process of rehabilitating we can have another noun meaning rehabilitator sorry meaning a person or thing that rehabilitates we can have the adjective rehabilitative relating to or designed for rehabilitation and then we've got the prefixes and suffixes

so we have RE at the beginning which means again or back it's already had the prefix added and then we've got the suffixes which we've just covered to make the nouns the ION and the OR and the IVE for the adjective so

Go back to the tutorial about microplastics just to hear more about that mini lesson about how to expand your vocabulary using the root of the word.

Let's get back to it. So positions. Early intervention can prevent future crimes. These are all positions and then from these positions we can say because, explain why and then give an example and then wrap up the paragraph and we've got a beautiful body paragraph. We can even give a few reasons, then develop one, then give an example and then wrap it up. Let's carry on.

A focus on rehabilitation promotes a more humane justice system. Community programs can redirect negative energies into positive outcomes. Engaging youths in community services can enhance their social responsibility. Rehabilitative approaches can reduce the long-term cost of crime to society. As you know,

Personally, I'd probably go with that last position. For example, my position is that I'm in favor of rehabilitative approaches because they can reduce the long-term cost of crime to society. And now I can talk about the costs. When we're talking about the costs, we've got a very versatile argument that can be applied to a lot of situations.

about climate change, about government regulations, about public transportation, about higher education. If we make it into a cost argument, we can use the same vocabulary, the same similar arguments again and again. The cost for the government, for example, the cost for a company. We can use the same vocabulary. Anyway,

Final position, youth courts can provide peer accountability, which may be more impactful. Probably wouldn't go with that last argument because it makes, you've got to explain what youth courts are and then you've got to explain why it would be more accountable and it's kind of a long-winded way

of... it's a complicated argument and as you know I'm a big fan of simple arguments because they're easier to communicate and at the end of the day this is a language exam what is language? language is communication let's go to some other positions

some severe youth crimes may go unpunished due to lenient juvenile laws so these positions would be against rehabilitation regarding juvenile crime just sort of like the flip side victims of youth crimes might feel justice has not been served

public perception of juvenile justice might be too lenient might be of too lenient sorry repeat offenders could perceive leniency as an opportunity to re-offend so there's some great vocabulary here we're using repeat offenders youth crimes lenient and again with lenient we could expand that with leniency

Next position, a lack of severe consequences or the lack of severe consequences might not deter future crimes. Another beautiful verb there, deter. What I like about that position though is that we've got the negative verb which is lack which is extremely useful. In our online course, we've got a whole tutorial about using negative verbs instead of negative constructions

so as to reduce the amount of words in our sentence to make it more concise, more succinct, which just makes it easier to read. This is a higher level skill. When I'm teaching students and I'm teaching lack and other negative verbs, it means that we've moved beyond corrections and we've gone to improvements, which is just an incredibly

enjoyable experience from a teacher's point of view. Final position. Dependency on community programs might not be a sustainable solution in all regions. That would need developing. It's not crystal clear. Sorry, last one. I lied last time. Last one. An over-reliance on rehabilitation might overlook the need for punishment in certain areas. Again, it's quite a long-winded argument. And as you heard,

me say a few minutes ago i'm a bigger fan of simple arguments that are simple to explain simple to communicate and this way we don't get ourselves in a mess topic specific vocabulary collocations hopefully you'll have heard a few you'll have picked out a few already juvenile delinquency rehabilitation program community service criminal behavior legal consequences

diversion initiative don't like that one rehabilitative justice I love that one crime prevention repeat offenders now as I said if you're aiming for a band 7 this is the kind of vocabulary you need to be comfortable with let's have a look at some model sentences the juvenile delinquency rates

Amazing. Could decrease significantly with the implementation of more community service programs. Community service. That's a great one as well. All of these model sentences are using the grammar point we mentioned before. Just basically using modal verbs. Rehabilitation programs might be more effective if they are tailored to individual needs.

Peer accountability may play a crucial role in altering criminal behavior. As I said, I'm not a big fan of peer accountability. If you're wondering what it means, well, it's obviously not the most common sort of like program because I'm not even aware of it.

But anyway, I'm not saying I'm an expert. I'm just a general layman, just a general human being. And I have to guess, I have to deduce that it would mean that you've got a group of 15-year-olds and they're all accountable to each other. So I like, okay, this week I won't commit any crimes. And then they meet the next week and say, oops, I robbed a shop. I'm sorry. And everyone's disappointed with them. It's kind of, yeah, you don't really want to be in a position to be explaining things.

something such as peer accountability next one legal consequences that's a great phrase legal consequences should modal verb legal consequences should be clearly communicated to act as a deterrent for potential repeat offenders deterrent I would get so excited if students send me an essay with the word deterrent in it's one of those like higher level C2 level phrases

which band 7, 8 or 9 student will be using a diversion next sentence a diversion initiative could be the key to reducing rates of juvenile delinquency another reason why modal verbs are pretty handy as you've just heard is because we're hedging if I'd have said a diversion initiative is the key to reducing rates of juvenile delinquency I've made a sweeping generalization here

But if I said could, I've introduced an element of uncertainty, a tiny opportunity for doubt, which is the academic way of writing. We're not using sweeping generalizations. We're hedging. Again, there's a full tutorial all about hedging, which is another feature of academic writing. If you've gone for a band seven or higher, you definitely need this. We've got a whole tutorial on it.

Crime prevention programs must focus on early education about legal consequences. Beautiful. The effectiveness of rehabilitative justice might depend on the availability of adequate resources. Again, hedged. Young offenders could hedge. Young offenders could benefit significantly from rehabilitation programs focused on skill development. That's a great one.

we've got the whole argument laid out the whole position laid out in one sentence now we say these skills could include job preparation or training to enter the workforce one such example is in Norway whereby young offenders I wouldn't use young offenders but I'd say juveniles accused juveniles who have committed crimes

are not sent to jail but are enrolled in courses to improve employability these courses include skills such as IT development, woodworking, so on and so forth and this is a very solid argument now as to why rehabilitation programs

could be better than jails for example assuming that would be the question let's have a quick look at some speaking part three questions and model answers why do you think juvenile crime occurs have you ever thought about that

This is the value you get from listening to IELTS podcast because I'm going to do the thinking for you. I've never really thought seriously thought about why juvenile crime occurs.

I never really seriously thought about it before this tutorial but what I'm going to I guessed but this is my answer juvenile delinquency often stems from a complex mix of societal familial and personal factors a great example of parallelism there we have societal familial and personal factors we don't have

Juvenile delinquency often stems from a complex mix of factors in society and other things such as family issues going on at home,

and the personality of the individual because that sentence is all janky a new word a developer taught me the other week it's all janky it's all over the place it doesn't flow there's no pattern there whereas if we say complex mix of one societal two familial and three personal factors it flows we've got that stylistic element

Let's carry on with the sentence. I got a bit distracted there. My parallelism. Young individuals might turn to crime due to a lack of guidance, peer pressure or economic necessity. Again, quite a decent little sentence. Effective crime prevention strategies must therefore be multifaceted. Great little verb there. Multifaceted addressing these underlying issues directly.

Super. Next question. Should the legal system treat juvenile offenders differently from adult offenders? That's the question we get in speaking. Yes, definitely. Juvenile offenders should be treated differently. The primary goal with youths should be rehabilitation rather than punishment. Their age and development stage offer a greater potential for reform.

which rehabilitative justice programs can nurture? Wow, you can pull off an answer like that, you're getting a band nine. What role can schools play in preventing juvenile crime? Schools can play a pivotal role in crime prevention. That's a great answer, isn't it?

I often see what role do festivals play in your society, for example. If we can introduce pivotal in our answers, just like when we hear a question about should, well, starting with should, and we can say, started off with absolutely should.

then we're on to the right track. I've explained in previous tutorials why starting an answer like that is a good idea. Anyway, schools can play a pivotal role in crime prevention by providing education and support before any criminal behavior develops. They should offer counseling services, social skills education, and extracurricular activities to engage students positively. Final question.

Is juvenile crime common in your country? While not extremely common, great way to start a sentence there with a comparative conjunction, juvenile crime does occur and varies by region. Effective community service programs and legal consequences that are well publicized might help mitigate these offenses.

Again, as I said, mitigates always a useful verb as is multifaceted and as we just learned, pivotal, the adjective pivotal. Schools can play a pivotal role in crime prevention. Right, that's it for today's tutorial. If you are stuck...

At 6.5, if you're stuck and frustrated with IELTS, then I strongly recommend you go to IELTSpodcast.com, sign up to our newsletter. You'll get tutorials on how to use our AI Essay Checker. You'll get tutorials like this fresh in your inbox every week. And it's just a great place to start if you're struggling and you need help and you're just desperate to get past that 6.5 threshold.

Have a great day. Thank you for listening. And I wish you all the best in your IELTS preparation, in your IELTS exam as well. Take care.