Philosophy & Ethics in Crime, Law, Punishment and Justice [P4C Philosophy Lesson]

This ‘Fun Philosophy Lesson’ is focused on philosophical and ethical issues that relate to law, crime, policing, and the criminal justice system and is ideal teachers working with students aged 8-16!

This interactive multi-use learning session is useful as a part of your school’s P4C work and is of particular interest to teachers of PSHE, Ethics, Citizenship & Law it focuses on a wide range of topics such as:

The nature of laws
The causes of crime
How we should respond to crime
Capital & corporal Punishment
The role of the police in society
The rights of criminals
 
We’ve aimed to cover as many issues as possible when it comes to finding engaging philosophical and ethical issues for young learners to debate and discuss in relation to law, crime, policing, justice, and the criminal justice system!

The big question asked in this session is “What is the best way to deal with criminal offenders?”. Using a variety of engaging activities students will discuss and debate a wide range of other philosophical and ethical questions such as:

What is the fundamental purpose of laws?
Why do different countries have different laws?
To what extent are prisons an effective punishment?
Why do some people commit crimes whilst others do not? and
To what extent is poverty the main driver of crime?
 
Students will also analyse and evaluate an eclectic mix of philosophical and ethical claims such as:

“Some criminals should be executed for their crimes”
“Some of the laws in our country need to be changed”
“It would be ideal if 100% of crimes were identified and their culprits punished”
“Prisons are the best way to punish those who break the law”
“Those who commit violence should be punished with violence” (corporal punishment)
 
This session uses our unique format for philosophy teaching resources and features an integrated menu that allows teachers to select from a variety of starter, main, plenary, assessment and end-of-lesson reflection activities. With a massive selection of activities designed to trigger philosophical discussions, debates and reflections: you can re-use the resource numerous times with the same group. For teachers wishing to run ‘P4C’ (Philosophy for Children) sessions these resources are ideal!

The file is a non-editable PowerPoint Show: no planning or preparation is required, just run the file and the intuitive menu system will make delivering a powerful philosophy session very easy!