People commit crime because of selfish reasons. Do you agree?

How do people define crime? Some might define crime as an act of offence towards the
morality of humans. Others might regard crime as an act that harms the universal human
rights. In my perspectives, I think that crime is an offence made towards the law. Therefore,
why do people still commit crimes? Some crimes were committed because of hatred,
hardships and even because of the people they loved. All in all, I do agree that people
commit crimes because of selfish reasons. I am saying so based on several reasons.
My first reason to agree with the statement is that people commit crimes because of greed.
Greed is ones desire to have more than what one already has. We can look at greed using
different perspectives. One of them is of a poverty-stricken person whose only desire is to fill
up his hungry stomach. Since he was born in poverty, it would be nearly impossible for him
to pay for his food. So, in order to fill up his stomach, he decided to steal, for instance, a
piece of bread from a nearby bakery shop. This is a kind of greed that is used to fullfill ones
basic needs, like to kill the dying hunger.
However, there is another perspective that can be used to view upon greed. It is the
wanting to lead a luxurious life or even to own something that is beyond ones financial
budget. For example, a person of moderate income would like to own an expensive plasma
television which the price is beyond his budget. However, his greed prompts him to own
that item by either stealing money to purchase it or to steal the item itself. When the person
get caught by any law enforcer, the person will be charged in court for committing a crime.
To steal to fulfill ones desire to own an item which one understands that it is beyond his
financial budget is committing a crime by the cause of greed. This, in my view, shows that
people commit crimes for selfish reason.
Next, people commit crimes because of hatred. Why are there hatred within people? The
root of hatred might be caused by peer influence or environmental sway or even being
envious towards others wealth and prosperity. One of the crimes that was committed by the
cause of hatred was the Nazis genocide. That was Adolf Hitlers policy to literally eliminate
the Jews throughout Europe. Many Jews had been sent to concentration camps in order to
be sentenced to death, and many Jews died during that period of Nazis administration.
The common question is, why did Adolf Hitler commit genocide on the Jews? It was said
that Hitlers hatred towards the Jews began when his letter of application had been rejected
by the famous Art Academy in Venice, that was controlled by wealthy Jews. Hitler was
probably rejected because Hitler himself was not a Jew. Probably having felt discriminated,
when Adolf Hitler headed the Nazis party, this hatred led him to formulate a policy to
eliminate the Jews throughout Europe, once and for all. In reference to Hitlers case, I think

that it can be justified that people commit crime because of selfish reasons like ones hatred
towards another person or race.
Third of all, people commit crimes because of ignorance. An ignorant person is said to be a
person having blind and stubborn determination. For instance, they insisted on being
correct at all times, without any knowledge that what they had actually done was wrong by
the side of law. The most prominent example was the war waged by the government of the
United States of America towards Afghanistan following the incident of 9/11, which was
when terrorists attacked the World Trade Centre in New York in two air crafts. As claimed
by George Washington Bush, former president of the United States of America, after the
9/11 attack, the surest way to avoid attacks on our people is to engage the enemy where he
lives and plans. We are fighting Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on
our streets, in our own cities. Consequently, the government of the United States of
America had declared war with the country that had been suspected to house the major
terrorist who instigated the 9/11 incident, Osama Bin Laden. They then sent troops to
savage Afghanistan, bombing the residences of Afghanistan, thus killing thousands and
thousands of innocent lives there.
From my point of view, the government of the United States of America was actually
committing a crime as the mass killing of Iraqi citizens for something they are not
responsible of is a crime. Furthermore, to champion on a revenge as what the Americans
were trying to do for the killing in 9/11 is an ignorant act. The Americans might have been
ignorant of the real truth and had been misguided by their anger into believing that Osama
Bin Laden was the actual culprit for the 9/11 incident. In short, the government of the
United States of America committed a crime because of ignorance. And by this, they are
actually committing a crime out of a selfish reason.
In conclusion, based on what have been discussed, it is true that people commit crimes for
selfish reasons. I hope that people will realize that whatever crimes that they had
committed, it is more for selfish reasons. In order to stop this cycle of violence from
recurring, they should avoid committing themselves to crime activities, thus ensuring the
world to be a safer place to live in for future generations.
Written by,
Chin Ri Andrew (H4T6), Penang Matriculation College 2011/12

Question:
Living away from parents is different from living with them. Give your opinion by
providing relevant examples. Write your essay in about 300-350 words.
Where is he now? Is he in a good condition? It has been almost two months your
brother has not come home. These are the common phrases that have always been said by
my mother. Working as an army officer makes my brother always living far away from my
parents. Without a doubt, I can say that living away from parents strengthen
relationships, brings about less problems, and we can train ourselves to be
independent.
First, relationships between parents and sons or daughters will be stronger.
When we live far away from them, they will always think of us. The phrase Miss you a lot
will always stick in their hearts. I think it is normal for us that if we bump into someone we
always see everyday, in our mind we would think that we would bump into him or her again
tomorrow and thus we will not miss him or her. However, if we live far from parents, it will be
different. They will think of us, miss us and visit us whenever they have some free time. Not
only that, we will call them or they will call us whenever they feel like talking to us. We also
will sometimes spend more time chatting with them on the phone than when we are at
home. As a result of this, our relationship with them will become stronger and closer.
Secondly, if we live far from our parents, more problems can be avoided. Our
parents will rarely be angry at us as they do not know about our activities and behaviour. It
is not that we are trying to hide our bad attitude but sometimes parents are very strict in
imposing rules or living up to a tradition or cultural need. As an example, a young Malay girl
might not be allowed to sing in the kitchen at her home when it is actually something that
can be done almost anywhere. Moreover, when living far from parents, they will think twice
to scold us if we did anything wrong as we only stay with them for a short time and they
might not want to spoil our holidays with them. Thus, many problems can therefore be
avoided if we do not live with them.
Finally, living far from parents will make us more independent. House chores
such as washing clothes and cooking will have to be done ourselves. Other than that, we
also will need to solve any problem we have ourselves. We will not be totally dependent on
our parents. If we depend too much on out parents, we might be spoilt. What will happen
then if they leave this world? Are you going to go with them or create problems for other
people as you want to be treated like how you are treated by your parents? So, living far
from parents will make us more independent as we have to rely on ourselves more to carry
out chores and to solve problems.

In a nutshell, living away from parents has more advantages as it leads us to

train ourselves to stand on our two feet. We will have our own lives and will be responsible
people. We will also not drag our parents into our problems and let them enjoy their lives in
their golden age.