Crime is one of the most common topics in IELTS Writing Task 2. You may be asked whether longer prison sentences reduce crime, whether itās better to punish offenders or rehabilitate them, why teenagers break the law and who should deal with it: the police, schools or families. In Speaking Part 3, the examiner may ask whether your city is safe and how to keep young people away from crime.
The trap in this topic is the word for crime itself. Learners often reach for criminality, but when native speakers write about crime in a city, they usually write crime or the crime rate: Crime has risen, The crime rate has fallen. The same goes for ādoingā a crime (you commit one, you donāt make or do it) and giving someone five years (a court sentences them, it doesnāt judge them). You know every word on its own; the mistake happens when you put them together.
So below you wonāt find isolated āimpressiveā words. Youāll find 27 ready-to-use collocations in four subtopics, the typical mistakes people make with them, and an example of how LetsWords gives feedback on a sentence youāve written. Youāll find the other exam topics in our collection of IELTS vocabulary by topic.
Crime and law: words and collocations
Crimes and crime rates
| Expression | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| commit a crime | to do something illegal | Many people who commit a crime for the first time are under twenty-five. |
| petty crime | minor crimes such as shoplifting | Petty crime such as shoplifting often goes unreported. |
| violent crime | crimes that involve physical harm | Violent crime attracts far more media attention than fraud. |
| the crime rate | how much crime there is in a place | When the crime rate rises, residents stop feeling safe in their own streets. |
| youth crime | crime committed by young people | Youth crime is often linked to boredom and a lack of local facilities. |
| turn to crime | to start committing crimes | Teenagers with no education or work are more likely to turn to crime. |
| get away with it | to avoid punishment for something wrong | If offenders believe they can get away with it, fines will not stop them. |
The police and the courts
| Expression | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| break the law | to do something illegal | Even people who break the law deserve a fair trial. |
| enforce the law | to make sure people obey the law | The police cannot enforce the law effectively without public trust. |
| law enforcement | the police and other agencies that enforce the law | Cuts to law enforcement can leave whole districts unprotected. |
| be convicted of | to be found guilty of a crime in court | People convicted of minor offences should not lose the right to work. |
| stand trial | to be tried in court | Politicians accused of corruption must stand trial like anyone else. |
| be sentenced to | to be given a punishment by a court | He was sentenced to two years in prison for fraud. |
| serve a sentence | to spend the required time in prison | Many prisoners serve their sentences without any education or training. |
Punishment and rehabilitation
| Expression | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| a harsh punishment | a very severe punishment | Harsh punishments may satisfy the public but rarely change behaviour. |
| act as a deterrent | to discourage people from doing something | Long prison terms are supposed to act as a deterrent to potential offenders. |
| the death penalty | punishment by death | Opponents of the death penalty point out that courts can make mistakes. |
| community service | unpaid work in the community instead of prison | For first-time offenders, community service is often more useful than prison. |
| rehabilitate offenders | to help offenders return to a normal, law-abiding life | Prisons should rehabilitate offenders, not simply keep them away from society. |
| reoffend | to commit another crime | Prisoners who learn a trade are less likely to reoffend. |
| a repeat offender | someone who keeps committing crimes | Judges usually give repeat offenders longer sentences. |
| a criminal record | an official record of a personās past crimes | A criminal record can make it almost impossible to find a job. |
Causes and prevention
| Expression | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| tackle crime | to deal with crime | Tackling crime requires cooperation between schools, families and the police. |
| address the root causes | to deal with the deeper reasons for a problem | Longer sentences do not address the root causes of crime, such as poverty. |
| crime prevention | measures that stop crime from happening | Crime prevention is far cheaper than keeping someone in prison for years. |
| crack down on | to take strong action against | The city decided to crack down on street drug dealing. |
| peer pressure | pressure from people of your own age | Peer pressure can push teenagers into shoplifting or vandalism. |
Common mistakes
The crime rate has raised in recent years.
The crime rate has risen in recent years.
A figure goes up by itself: rise (has risen). When you make something go up, itās raise (raise taxes).
The court judged him to five years in prison.
The court sentenced him to five years in prison.
The verb for a prison term is sentence to. Judge means āto form an opinionā or āto decide a caseā, and it doesnāt combine with a term of years.
Young offenders should not be sent to the prison for minor crimes.
Young offenders should not be sent to prison for minor crimes.
When you mean prison as a punishment, thereās no article: go to prison, be in prison, just like go to school. With the, you mean a specific building: visit the prison.
Criminals should be punished more hardly.
Criminals should be punished more severely.
Hardly means āalmost notā, so the sentence says the opposite of what you meant. For āmore strictlyā, use more severely or more harshly.
How LetsWords explains mistakes like these
While youāre reading the table, every word looks familiar. The mistakes appear when you write something yourself. Hereās what one task looks like in LetsWords.
Youāre reviewing commit a crime. LetsWords shows you its meaning in your native language, you recall the English expression and write a sentence about youth crime:
Teenagers make crimes because they are boring and have nothing to do after school.
The feedback, which LetsWords gives in your native language, points out two mistakes:
- make crimes ā commit crimes: the verb that goes with crime is commit; make and do donāt collocate with it;
- boring ā bored: bored describes how someone feels; boring describes what makes other people feel that way, so they are boring says the teenagers themselves are dull.
Teenagers commit crimes because they are bored and have nothing to do after school.
A few days later, the expression comes back in review, and you use it in a different situation, for example in a Speaking answer about safety in your city. Thatās how a collocation on a list becomes one you can recall and use without mistakes.
Start practising with feedback on your mistakes
When you sign up, you choose IELTS as your goal and your level, and LetsWords picks the right practice for you. You can try the feedback before you pay.
Using these collocations in Writing Task 2
A task in the exam style:
In many countries, governments spend more on prisons than on programmes for young people. Some argue that this money would reduce crime more effectively if it were invested in education and job training for teenagers. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
A sample paragraph:
Investing in young people is likely to reduce crime more effectively than building new prisons. Many teenagers who turn to crime have no qualifications, no work and nothing to do, so programmes that offer training address the root causes of the problem. Prisons, by contrast, often make matters worse: young people who serve a sentence alongside experienced criminals frequently reoffend after release, and a criminal record then closes the door to legal employment. A long prison sentence may act as a deterrent to some, but a place on a training course gives a teenager a reason not to break the law in the first place. Spending on youth programmes is therefore a form of crime prevention, not a reward for bad behaviour.
Why the paragraph works. The first sentence answers the question straight away, which is what Task Response needs. Each highlighted collocation moves the argument forward: the cause (turn to crime), the solution (address the root causes) and what goes wrong in prison (serve a sentence, reoffend, a criminal record). The counterargument is acknowledged with mayā¦ but and answered immediately. There are no rare words here: Lexical Resource rewards precision and appropriateness, not difficulty.
Using them in Speaking
A Part 3 question: Why do you think some young people get involved in crime?
I think itās mostly about opportunities, or the lack of them. In areas with high unemployment, some teenagers simply see no future, and peer pressure does the rest: if your friends are shoplifting, itās hard to say no. And if they get away with it the first time, it quickly becomes a habit. So Iād say crime prevention should start with schools and youth clubs, not with the police.
In Speaking, conversational phrases (does the rest, Iād say) fit naturally, while the topic vocabulary stays precise.
Practise for free
- break the law: do something illegal;
- break the rules: disobey rules;
- get away with: avoid punishment;
- rob vs steal: which verb takes the person and which takes the thing;
- hard vs hardly: with effort or almost not;
- catch red-handed: catch someone in the act;
- take steps: take action to deal with a problem.
From the list to real use
Knowing that a court sentences someone rather than judges them isnāt enough: in the exam, what earns marks is a collocation you recall yourself and use without a word-for-word translation. Move from the list to real use with LetsWords: practise with the IELTS collection for your level and add collocations from this page to a collection, for example rehabilitate offenders or address the root causes. You recall each expression from its meaning, write a sentence with it, and LetsWords points out the mistake and explains it in your native language (Russian, Korean or Vietnamese), while spaced repetition brings the expression back until it feels natural. Then put the vocabulary to work in a full text: the IELTS Writing section has Task 2 prompts on Crime and law, about prison sentences and rehabilitation, petty crime and CCTV, and every full answer gets detailed feedback on all four criteria. When you sign up, you answer a few questions about your goal and level, and LetsWords picks your practice; you can try the feedback before you pay. For vocabulary on other topics, see our IELTS vocabulary by topic.