You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The chart below shows the figures for imprisonment in five countries between 1930 and 1980.
Write a report for a university, lecturer describing the information shown below.
You should write at least 150 words.
Sample answer:
The table shows that the figures for imprisonment in the five countries mentioned indicate no overall pattern of increase or decrease. In fact there is considerable fluctuation from country to country.
In Great Britain the numbers in prison have increased steadily from 30 000 in 1930 to 80,000 in 1980. On the other hand in Australia, and particularly in New Zealand the numbers fell markedly from 1930 to 1940. Since then they have increased gradually, apart from in 1980 when the numbers in prison in New Zealand fell by about 30,000 from the 1970 total. Canada is the only country in which the numbers in prison have decreased over the period 1930 to 1980, although there have been fluctuations in this trend. The figures for the United States indicate the greatest number of prisoners compared to the other four countries but population size needs to be taken into account in this analysis. The prison population in the United States increased rapidly from 1970 to 1980 and this must be a worrying trend.
