Debate Speech: Unemployment is Responsible for Crime in Society

This post is a sample debate speech on whether unemployment is responisble for crime in today’s society. Below is the WAEC/WASSCE English Language past question on which this sample debate speech is based.

You are the main speaker in an inter-school debate on the motion: “The high incidence of unemployment is responsible for the various crimes in today’s society” Write your speech for or against the motion.
WAEC/WASSCE

You can now read this sample debate speech against the motion that “The high incidence of unemployment is responsible for the various crimes in today’s society”.

Please note that I’ve intentionally used the sub-headings to guide you.

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Table of Contents

1 Vocatives/Introduction

Vocatives/Introduction

Mr. Chairman, Panel of Judges, the Headmaster, Guests, Co-debaters, Fellow Students, Ladies and Gentlemen. The motion before the house is “The high incidence of unemployment is responsible for the various crimes in today’s society”. My colleagues and I, on this side, will speak to oppose the motion.

Points to Refute

Please, permit me to quickly correct the erroneous impression created by the last speaker from the other side to the effect that due to lack of jobs people indulge in criminal activities. And, for that matter, if there were employment opportunities crime would not be with us. This assertion is, at best, laughable. It clearly flies in the face of logic. I believe each one of us here is discerning enough to see how porous it is.

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Mr. Chairman, we all here will attest to the fact that developed countries like the United States of America, Germany and Japan, where jobs are in abundance, are experiencing an upsurge in criminal activities. Armed robbery, human trafficking and fraud are the order of the day even in these countries.

Now, let’s come back to our own backyard here in Ghana. Even though certain individuals are gainfully employed they still commit crimes. Have our opponents forgotten so soon the arrest, prosecution and imprisonment of prominent Ghanaian public servants, professional footballers, musicians and politicians for crimes ranging from drug trafficking, fraud and embezzlement to murder? Can we honestly say that unemployment is responsible for these crimes in our society?

To further strengthen my position on this matter, Ladies and Gentlemen, I call on you to consider the rampant embezzlement of state funds for a moment. Let us ask ourselves this one question: can one embezzle state funds while unemployed? Isn’t it those who are employed in top public positions who perpetrate this heinous crime against the state?

Greed

It is obvious that crime in today’s society is a result of greed rather than unemployment. This is why financial crimes involving gainfully employed individuals like managers accountants and cashiers have gained the nickname “white-collar crime”. Indeed, no one can run away from the unimpeachable fact that it is these greedy people, with an insatiable thirst for wealth, who are responsible for most crimes in society. You and i know this truth. These nation-wreckers do not need jobs.

Broken Homes

Mr. Chairman, another major factor responsible for crime in today’s society is the rampant breakdown in marriages. One outcome of a divorce or broken homes is the large army of street children in our towns and cities. These children lack control and guidance from a responsible adult. They have nobody to teach them the norms and values of society. So they grow up to become social misfits. They quickly learn and indulge in such deviant behaviours as pick-pocketing and advance fee fraud (or internet fraud).

Permissive Society

Finally, society as a whole must share in the blame rather than put it all on innocent unemployment. In Ghana today, ill-gotten wealth is worshipped like a deity. Young students who cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered unemployed receive the tacit blessing of their parents and relatives to pursue and acquire money and property through unlawful means. They defraud their unsuspecting victims and murder their fellow human beings in their quest for riches.

Closing Remarks

Mr. Chairman, Panel of Judges, Ladies and gentlemen. Granted, unemployment may force a few misguided individuals to engage in certain felonies in order to survive today’s harsh economic conditions. However, judging by the arguments I have advanced so far, it should be clear to all of us that the common criminal you and I encounter these days is not an unemployed person.

Rather, he or she is a well-dressed individual working in one office or the other. Such a deviant is driven by greed, enabled by society’s fallen moral standards or is a product of a certain broken home. Unemployment has got almost nothing to do with it.

Conclusion

Therefore, the motion that “The high incidence of unemployment is responsible for the various crimes in today’s society” is seriously flawed and cannot stand.

Thank you.

Final thoughts

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