Politicians come from all sorts of professional backgrounds, from lawyers and chief executive ofcers to actors and

even professional wrestlers. On a few notable occasions, politicians with criminal backgrounds have even been elected. In your opinion, should candidates with a criminal record be allowed to run for ofce? Why or why not? Use specic reasons and examples to support your answer. Name: Ken Hsu 499117124 A healthy country must contain several factors, a stable government, good economy, and hard working citizens. Out of these three factors, having a stable form of government is the most important element. In order to have a government that does every thing in their peoples interest is to have a group of good politicians. Therefore, we can say that politicians symbol how a country represents to the rest of the world. In a democratic country, politicians usually selected by people during elections, whoever has the most votes will have the opportunity to serve the people. Although those candidates come from different background, from lawyers, doctors, to professional athletics or entertainers. From those professions, from time to time we will have some candidates who have some criminal record; people debates about whether we should let

them run our office? In my opinion, all people have the right to enter the election campaign, even he or she has criminal records. First, our society often judge people by his or her profession. Lawyers and doctors usually define success; on the other hand, people who has criminal record symbol failure in their life. The society usually dont want to see those who gat record have power in any ways. They think those people are simply criminals, they done nothing good in their life. However, people should realize not only criminals done bad things, but also lawyers, doctors, those so called good people. For example, Chen Shui-bian, formal Taiwanese president, who involved in scandals, he and his family took so much money from different places during the time when he was in the office. Mr. Chen original profession was lawyer, but in the end, he breaks the laws, and he should know everything about law. Also, every member in his family went to very good schools, but every members of the formal first family has at least something to do with this scandal. Therefore, in this case we can see that crimes not always being done by bad people; sometimes, people like Mr. Chen can does something bad as well. Our society often considers people with criminal record bad people.

However, in my opinion, people can change from time to time. During his or her time in the prison, maybe they change their thought and becoming a better person. After they have done their time and get back to the society, they can really help the society to do something good; and make our society a better place. Like formal South Africa president, Nelson Mandela, lived in the prison for many years. After he got out and eventually won the election and became the new president; he didnt use his power to do whatever he wants, he helps his country though all the discrimination between race in South Africa. Nelson Mandela is a person who can affect many people; all he has to do is open his mouth. But he didnt, he tries his best to unite two races. Thats why we cannot judge a person just from his old record, because even he or she has criminal record, he or she can still has the determination to do good to our society. We shouldnt judge a person from their past, everyone deserve a chance to change. All the people are students of life, we all still learning from our everyday mistakes, no matter whether we are children or adults. In school, when students make mistake, teachers always give students a second chance. Thats what we have to do as well, to give

people second chance to make everything right and help the society. Therefore, in my opinion, giving people a second chance to be a politician to help our country will be a very good idea. Overall, I think letting people has criminal record to be the candidates for election is not always a bad idea. Because I think not only bad people does bad things bad things, but those highly educated people as well. Secondly, maybe those people change during their time; and they decided to do something good for our country. Last, it is very important to give people an opportunity to change. In conclusion, I think it is not necessary a bad idea to have a person who has criminal record as a politician in our government.