1. Read and translate the following text. Civil and Criminal Penalties

There are several kinds of punishment available to the courts. In civil cases, the most common punishment is a fine. For criminal offenses fines are also often used when the offense is not a very serious one and when the offender has not been in trouble before. Another kind of punishment available in some countries is community service. This requires the offender to do a certain amount of unpaid work, usually for a social institution such as a hospital. For more serious crimes the usual punishment is imprisonment. Some prison sentences are suspended: the offender is not sent to prison if he keeps out of trouble for a fixed period of time, but if he does offend again both the suspended sentence and any new one will be imposed.

The length of sentences varies from a few days to a lifetime. However, a life sentence may allow the prisoner to be released after a suitably long period if a review (parole) board agrees his detention no longer serves a purpose.

In some countries there is also corporal punishment (physical). In Malaysia, Singapore, Pakistan, Zambia, Zimbabwe, among others, courts may sentence offenders to be caned or whipped. In Saudi Arabia theft and possession of alcohol may be punished by cutting off the offender's hand or foot. The ultimate penalty is death (capital punishment). It is carried out by hanging (Kenya, for example); electrocution, gassing or lethal injection (U.S.); beheading or stoning (Saudi Arabia); or shooting (China). Although most countries still have a death penalty, 35 (including almost every European nation) have abolished it; 18 retain it only for exceptional crimes such as wartime offences; and 27 no longer carry out executions even when a death sentence has been passed. In other words, almost half the countries of the world have ceased to use the death penalty.

2. Match the word on the left with its definition on the right.

1. Penalty	a) to impose a penalty on an offender
2. Probation	b) to set free from restraint, confinement or servitude
3. To punish	c) punishment legally imposed or incurred
4. To release	d) a method of dealing with young offenders by which a sentence is suspended
5. Community service	e) unpaid work for the benefit of the com­munity done by the offender as punish­ment
6. Deterrent	0 to sentence a person convicted to pay a penalty in money
7. To fine	g) anything which impedes or has a ten­dency to prevent
8. Law breaker	h) a person who violates the law

Task III

1. Read and translate the text. The Purpose of State Punishment

What is the purpose of punishment? One purpose is obviously to reform the offender, to correct the offender's moral attitudes and anti-social behaviour and to rehabilitate him or her, which means to assist the offender to return to normal life as a useful member of the community.

Punishment can also be seen as a deterrent because it warns other people of what will happen if they are tempted to break the law and so prevents them from doing so.

However, a third purpose of punishment lies, perhaps, in society's desire for retribution, which basically means revenge. In other words, don't we feel that a wrongdoer should suffer for his misdeeds?

The form of punishment should also be considered. On the one hand, some believe that we should "make the punishment fit the crime". Those who steal from others should be deprived of their own property to ensure that criminals are left in no doubt that crime doesn't pay. For those who attack others corporal punishment should be used. Murderers should be subject to the principle "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" and automatically receive the death penalty.

On the other hand, it is said that such views are unreasonable, cruel and barbaric and that we should show a more humane attitude to punishment

and try to understand why a person commits a crime and how society has failed to enable him to live a respectable, law abiding life.