American law in the twentieth century

TASK 1. Study the text below, making sure you fully comprehend it. Where appropriate, consult English-Russian dictionaries and/or other references & source books on law.

Criminal justice

In the nineteenth century, criminal justice was as local as local could be. It was primarily a matter for the cities and towns, secondarily for the states, hardly at all for the federal government. There were federal crimes – a murder on an army post; smuggling; making moonshine liquor – but basically, it was the states and local governments that caught and prosecuted people who broke the law, who committed arson, or robbery, forged checks, or assaulted somebody with a deadly weapon. Until the 1890s, the federal government did not even have a prison it could call its own; it lodged the federal prisoners in state prisons, and paid their rooms and board.

The situation changed in the twentieth century. As the federal government grew in size, and as the federal statute books grew along with it, a whole new array of federal crimes came into existence. Income tax evasion or fraud was one of these – a crime that obviously did not exist before the income tax law was passed. Every regulatory law created a new federal crime: violating the food and drug law, or stock fraud under the SEC law, or killing a black-footed ferret, under the Endangered Species Act. Earlier in the century, the Prohibition Amendment and the Volstead Act (1919) filled the jails with bootleggers and other violators. People often sneer at Prohibition, and call it a dead letter; but it was a most lively dead letter in many ways. In 1924, 22 000 prohibition cases were pending in the federal courts. The Dyer Act (1919) made it a crime to transport a stolen car across state lines. It underscored the point that crime itself had become less local; that it too had much more mobility.

In the age of radio, and then television, people’s attention focused more and more on Washington, on the national government. Particularly after the New Deal era (1930s), people expected Washington, not the states, to solve big problems. Crime control remained local; but politically it became more federalized. An early sign of this was the so-called Lindbergh Act. In March 1932, a terrible crime horrified the country: the kidnap and murder of Charles Lindbergh’s baby – the child of one of the greatest national heroes. Bruno Hauptmann paid with his life for his crime. And Congress passed a law making it federal crime to cross state lines with anybody unlawfully seized, decoyed, kidnapped, abducted, or carried away and held for ransom.

From the 1950s on, crime and crime policy became more and more of a national issue. First, there was a great national alarm over juvenile delinquency. Then came a panic over crime in the streets. In 1965 Congress passed a Law Enforcement Assistance Act, and launched a federal war on crime. Under President Richard Nixon, there was the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act. Essentially, there were laws that made grants to local police forces, and in other ways simply supported crime control at the level of the states and cities. These federal programs did not, in fact, federalize crime control. But they did focus attention on the central government. Candidates for president, like candidates for the office of sheriff of some county in Texas or Pennsylvania, have argued for the last thirty years or so that they could do better than their rival in fighting the epidemic of crime.

The drug laws were an especially fertile source of federal criminals. These laws are still actively filling the federal prisons. Congress established a Drug Enforcement Administration in 1973; its budget was well over $ 1 billion in the late 1990s. In the state courts in 1996 there were almost 350 000 felony convictions for drug offenses. The federal government was also spending billions fighting drugs in other countries – working with Mexican drug authorities, patrolling the seas to keep out smugglers of drugs.

TASK 2. Answer the following questions:

1) What was criminal justice in the nineteenth century like?

2) Why did the situation change in the twentieth century?

3) Why did people expect Washington to solve big problems?

4) What is the significance of Lindbergh Act?

5) Did crime and crime policy become more and more of a national issue in 1950s? Why?

TASK 3. Find in the text above the English equivalents for the following words and expressions.

контрабанда; преследовать в судебном порядке; подделывать документы; совершить нападение; заключенный; уклонение от уплаты налогов; мошенничество; торговец контрабандными, в нарушение закона, спиртными напитками; находящийся на рассмотрении; незаконно; налагать арест, задерживать; заманивать в ловушку; насильно увозить другое лицо; делинквентность несовершеннолетних.

TASK 4. Complete the following table:

Crime	Criminal	Criminal Act
	bootlegger
		to kidnap
tax evasion
		to violate
	fraudster
smuggling
assault

TASK 5. Study the text below, making sure you fully comprehend it. Where appropriate, consult English-Russian dictionaries and/or other references & source books on law.