UNIVERSITY OF GHANA (All rights reserved) SECOND SEMESTER, 2022/2023 UGRC 110: ACADEMIC WRITING I ASSIGNMENT ONE Read the passage below carefully and answer the questions that follow it. "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars" is a quote by the famous leader, Martin Luther King Jr., which underscores the need to resort to less violent ways of reacting to or solving problems. Determining what constitutes the best form of punishment for high crimes is a subject that has enjoyed cogent debates since time immemorial. There appears to be no end in sight for such debates as, in recent times, there have been public discussions about whether capital punishment or life imprisonment is the more effective way to punish those who commit grievous crimes such as murder, treason and rape. Different individuals and groups have taken varying stances and given various reasons for their options. However, what appears to hold sway in contemporary times is the view that life imprisonment, rather than capital punishment, is the most effective way to punish people for perpetrating such crimes. As Martin Luther King Jr. (quoted in the opening sentence) asserts, using violence to correct violence is futile by all standards and sends out a conflicting notion about violence to people. Paramount among the arguments advanced in support of life imprisonment as a better alternative to death sentence is the utilitarian view that there is more use for life than death — a standpoint that respects the sanctity of life and its prospects for betterment. As declared by Laini Taylor, “As long as you are alive, there is always a chance that things will get better.” It does not matter how grave a crime is, the perpetrator must be given a chance to live and learn from his or her mistakes. While in prison, hardened criminals go through rehabilitation processes that gradually change their ways of thinking and their actions in general. A research report by Bush (2016), a co-developer of a prison treatment programme for Red Onion State Prison, a US prison that held very notorious criminals, reveals that introducing an effective treatment programme changed many of these criminals' lifestyle for the better and some later became responsible and productive citizens, leading to a 68 percent reduction in the number of inmates and 91 percent decrease in inmate grievances at Red Onion. Some researchers have argued that keeping these criminals alive puts a strain on public purse but, in actual fact, while in prison, these convicts also serve as a useful and ready source of labour to the state. Besides this, the modern methods of killing them have been proved to be equally costly. Taking their lives merely because they committed heinous crimes, which may even include taking the life of others, is no more than an act of retribution, and as Mahatma Gandhi rightly puts it, "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind." There is, therefore, enough reason to conclude that life imprisonment is a more effective way to punish people who commit grievous crimes because it is more beneficial. 1. Describe how information has been organised in the introductory paragraph of the essay above. Be sure to comment on the opening of the paragraph and clearly state, in your own words as far as possible, the writer’s main argument. 2. a. Analyse and describe the structure of the second paragraph (beginning Paramount among the arguments advanced in support of life imprisonment as a better alternative to death sentence is the utilitarian view …). b. In addition to this, identify the strategies that have been employed to develop the controlling idea in the paragraph. c. Describe how the discussion in the paragraph has been closed.
