AQ/Pang Chin Wang/10S403

In passage 1, the writer states that in countries where the income gap is wider, there is a higher percentage of crimes committed. When people have little or no money for survival, it might cause them to be desperate enough to commit crimes in order to obtain food and water. However, this is not completely true as people are brought up with different cultures.Some might have been brought up to be people of integrity while others grow up with principles that they follow. As a result, even when these people are desperate for money, they will not go against their conscience in order to obtain them. For example, children in Singapore are taught the importance of moral values and good character. In addition, the consequences of criminals are also greatly emphasized by the country's education system as children go to school in order to cultivate good character among the students. As a result, Singapore has been able to maintain a low crime rate in its country. Therefore, even though there might be a issue of income inequality, a nation will not experience an issue of criminal violence if their citizens are conscious of its consequences and are raised with good moral values. However, the author is also true such that cases of criminal violence are exceptionally high in countries with an issue of income inequality. This may be caused as a result of countries with a large immigration intake which usually bring about problems regarding illegal immigration. This is because when a country has a large number of illegal immigrants, these immigrants are usually unable to get normal jobs such as clerks and cashiers because of their status. Hence, getting a job for them is difficult but if they do get a job, they would usually be paid only a meager sum as compared to locals. This would cause many of them to have financial problems and as a result, many result to crimes in order to get money for survival. For example, the United States which is experiencing an issue of income inequality is also facing a problem of high crime rate. It has many cases of homicides and robberies yearly committed by illegal immigrants. Therefore, this point is not applicable to my society.

In passage 2, the author states that riots mostly occur in destitute communities. Such communities suffer extreme poverty whereby they do not have enough food and have difficulties with their finances. Moreover, they are unable to receive an education when young and therefore many of them are unemployed and have to find other means to support their families and themselves. As a result, many people living in such communities gather and form gang in order to ensure their own survival as people with similar backgrounds often try to take advantage of them. However, this is not applicable to Singapore as people with financial difficulties are provided aid from the government and so it would be least possible that they would start a riot as they are provided essential necessities.