Variant 6

1. Translate the text: Classification of crimes.

A crime may be defined as a public wrong whose commission will result in criminal proceedings, which may in turn result in the punishment of the wrongdoer. Тhеrе are various ways in which crimes may be classified. Of these we may notice three.

The old classification of crimes involves treasons (the most se­rious offences of all), felonies (more serious crimes) and misdemeanors (less serious crimes). The classifying characteristic of a crime is the length of imprisonment associated with it. Typically felonies are acts punishable either by more than one year in prison or by death. Misdemeanors are usually acts punishable by less than a year in prison. Familiar instances of felonies are murder, manslaughter, burglary, conspiracy, fraud, libel, riot, assault. The differences between felonies and misdemeanors are no longer so numerous as they once were. Treason is the capital offence. Misprison of treason means concealing treason and is punishable by imprisonment for life.

From the point of view of procedure criminal offences may be divided into indictable, non-indictable (summary) offences and offences triable other way. Indictable offences are those which may be tried on indictment, i.e. be­fore a judge and jury and, generally speaking, this occurs in relation to the more serious offences, such as murder and armed robbery. Non-indictable offences (petty offences) are only triable summarily, by justices of the peace sitting without a jury and they tend to be the less serious offences, such as many traffic violations. The two groups indictable and non-indictable now overlap to some extent. Some indictable offences may under certain circumstances, be, tried summarily. There are a large number of offences triable summarily or on indictment i.e. offences triable other way. These include offences of deception, theft, bigamy.

In accordance with the modern classification crimes are divided into arrestable and non-arrestable ones. An arrestable offence is any offence for which the sentence is fixed by law (murder) or for which a person, not previously convicted, may be sentenced to a term of Imprisonment for five years or more (all offences of theft). Otherwise an offence is a non-arrestable one. The classification of arrestable and non-arreslabie offences is not therefore synonymous with that of felonies and misdemeanors.

Active vocabulary (translate the words):

assault, bigamy, burglary, conspiracy, crime, deception, felony, fraud, housebreaking, imprisonment, indictment, judge, jury, justice of the peace, larceny, libel, manslaughter, misdemeanor, misprison, murder, offence, indictable offence, non-indictable offence, arrestable offence, non-arrestable offence, petty offence, capital offence, perjury, to punish, punishment, rape, riot, theft, treason, to try.

2. Answer the questions:

1. What is the definition of a crime?

2. How many ways of classifying offences do you find in the text?

3. What is the basis for dividing offences into treasons, felonies and misdemeanors?

4. What are the instances of felonies?

5. What are the most conspicuous instances of misdemeanors?

6. Into what classes may all offences be divided from the point of view of procedure?

7. What is the difference between an indictable and a summary offence?

8. What are offences triable other way?

10. May the classification into arrestable and non-arrestable offences replace the one into felonies and misdemeanors?