Vocabulary
Crimes, courts and punishment, for one of the hardest Task 2 topics. With a practice exercise.
IELTS vocabulary for crime and law is worth preparing because the topic is difficult without it. Task 2 asks whether prison works, whether punishment should be harsher, and what causes crime, and candidates without the vocabulary end up repeating criminal and prison throughout.
The vocabulary is also precise in ways that catch people. An offender is not a victim, a sentence is not a charge, and being arrested is not the same as being convicted.
The words
Six groups. The distinctions in the first two are where marks are lost.
A minor offence — a small crime, usually punished by a fine.
A serious offence — punishable by imprisonment.
Misdemeanour and felony are American terms for the same distinction.
Petty crime — small-scale, such as shoplifting.
An offender — someone who commits a crime.
A defendant — the person on trial.
A victim — the person harmed by the crime.
An inmate — someone in prison. Confusing offender and victim is a precision error examiners notice.
To arrest — to take into custody.
To charge — to formally accuse.
To prosecute — to bring a case to court.
To convict — to find guilty.
To acquit — to find not guilty. These are stages, not synonyms.
A custodial sentence — time in prison.
A suspended sentence — a prison term that is not served unless the person offends again.
Community service — unpaid work as a punishment.
A fine — a financial penalty.
Capital punishment — the death penalty.
Deterrent — something that discourages crime.
Rehabilitation — helping an offender return to normal life.
Reoffending — committing another crime after release.
Crime rate — how much crime occurs in a place.
You commit a crime, serve a sentence, impose a fine, tackle crime, act as a deterrent, and reduce reoffending rates.
Method
Six distinctions worth learning properly.
Criminal is not wrong, but offender is the term used in policy discussion and reads as more precise.
Being arrested means taken into custody. Being convicted means found guilty in court. Using them interchangeably is a factual error, not just a language one.
A charge is the accusation. A sentence is the punishment. They come at opposite ends of the process.
Most Task 2 questions on punishment turn on whether it deters. Having the word ready shapes the whole essay.
If harsher punishment is one side, rehabilitation is usually the other. Preparing both gives you a balanced essay.
Task 2 assesses argument, not indignation. Strong feeling without support scores lower than measured reasoning.
Practice
Choose the word that fits.
Several options in each question are real legal terms used correctly elsewhere.
The test is whether you know which stage of the process, or which person, the sentence is describing.
1A prison term that is not served unless the person offends again is a ______ sentence.
Suspended. A custodial sentence is time actually served in prison, which is the opposite arrangement.
2The person harmed by a crime is the ______.
Victim. Calling offenders victims is a precision error that examiners mark, and it appears in real candidate scripts.
3To be found guilty in court is to be ______.
Convicted. Arrested means taken into custody, charged means formally accused, and prosecuted means brought to court. All four are different stages.
4Something that discourages people from committing crime is a ______.
Deterrent. This is the central word in most Task 2 questions about punishment, so it is worth having ready.
5Which is the natural pairing?
Commit a crime. You also serve a sentence and impose a fine. Wrong pairings are noticed even when every word is real.
6Committing another crime after release is called ______.
Reoffending. Reoffending rates are the standard evidence in arguments about whether prison works, so the word carries a lot of an essay.
Arrested, charged, prosecuted, convicted. They happen in that order, and using the wrong one is a factual error as well as a vocabulary one.
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Choosing from options is easier than producing the right term in an essay written under time.
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Yes. Whether prison works, whether punishment should be harsher, and what causes crime are all standard Task 2 questions.
Charged means formally accused. Convicted means found guilty in court. They are different stages, and using them interchangeably is a factual error.
Both are correct, but offender is the term used in policy discussion and reads as more precise in a formal essay.
Something that discourages people from committing crime. It is the central concept in most Task 2 questions about punishment.
No. You are assessed on your English. General knowledge is enough, and specific legal claims are better avoided.
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Using offender where you meant victim is the kind of error that reads as fluent and marks as imprecise, and you will not catch it yourself.
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