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"They're all cutthroats!"

God alone knows what goes on in the minds and souls of these people. They have no one to confide in except a fellow inmate or prison guards. Under such conditions, even the simple job of making mittens in a workshop comes as a blessing: At least they can exchange a few words with a new person. But on the whole repentance or impenitence is the convict's own business: no one else cares about that. However, a local priest does come over sometimes. Recently, an envoy from the Patriarchate paid a visit but left minutes after he started hearing confessions, yelling: "They're all cutthroats to a man!" True, journalists, mostly foreign, have been showing interest of late.

Predisposition to Crime

We walk along the corridors of a maximum security wing for lifers. Heavy metal doors with peep holes for the guards. Each door has a card with the convict's name, photo, and a brief description of the crime with an entry headed "Inclined to...": "attack guards," "run away," and even "take hostages." But most often it reads: "inclined to commit suicide."

"I cannot take any more. It's better to die," convict Knyazev says, wearily surveying his cell. Several months ago, Knyazev appealed to the president to have his death sentence carried out. This is uncommon: usually, in their letters to all judicial authorities, including the European Court of Human Rights, convicts plead for mercy. They normally talk about their wish to die only with journalists, to arouse compassion. And here, suddenly, a petition for death...

"You see, I grew up in an orphanage and 1 never had anything 1 could call my own," Knyazev explains, "Here too, everything in this cell - the bed, the stool, the clothes - belongs to the state. I have only my life to dispose of but they do not let me dispose even of my life."

Knyazev has a point: At Institution OE-265/5 suicide constitutes a serious violation of standing regulations; a suicide attempt is fraught with a spell in the cooler. However, most inmates display a striking ability to hold on. Some even try to escape. The easiest way of doing that is through a special hospital in the town of Belozersk where lifers are taken for surgery. During a course of treatment, one Neudachin sentenced for killing a taxi driver was preparing to take his doctors hostage. Luckily, the guards soon caught on. As a result, Neudachin was put on trial again, getting another seven years in addition to his life sentence.

A Living Robot Factory

Although Neudachin's is a special case (it is virtually impossible to escape from the island - what with an alarm system, barbed wire, 10 police dogs, and the water around), prison officers are always ready for an emergency. "The most difficult part is that eventually you start looking on the convicts not as criminals but as ordinary people - your acquaintances," Sr. Lt. Smirnov says, "But they can go off the rails at any moment."

All precautions provided for understanding regulations are taken without fail: inmates may only leave their cells handcuffed: when going to a bath-house or to work, there must be two guards per inmate or three guards for two inmates. Yet even the most ingenious security system cannot make up for the fact that lifers are

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entirely unprepared to lead a normal life. And although the Criminal Code proclaims correction and social rehabilitation of convicts as the chief aim of our penitentiary system, in reality the Code does not give them a chance. In the United States, the psychopath who attacked and wounded Ronald Reagan in 1983 now spends most of his time at large, gradually adapting to society from which he was shut off for nearly 20 years. But inmates at Institution OE-265/5 are slowly turning into robots who can only carry out orders and respond to nightsticks and the barking of dogs.

The colony administration is not to blame.Quite the contrary. Col. Ro-zov, who has been with the Interior Ministry for 30 years, tries, at his own risk, to bring at least a modicum of humanity into the convicts' life. Inmate Ganin has become a painter: His paintings - mainly landscapes with churches on a river bank - grace the walls of every building in the colony. Former death-row inmates periodically take part in amateur shows:

Mikhail Bukharov, 28, writes fairly good poetry and plays the guitar. On August 23, the colony had "open house" with relatives coming to visit inmates in the general security section. Yet nothing the prison officials do can make up for the inherent inhumanity of the system.

Today the colony is expanding: A new section for lifers is being built while the existing facilities are being enlarged. This is only natural. Now that capital punishment has been all but abolished life sentence is increasingly common. Laws are becoming more humane. True, everyone knows that inmates at Institution OE265/5 had their death sentences commuted to life not only out of altruism but, above all, because Russia had joined the Council of Europe. At the same time government officials and lawmakers in Moscow sought to make the convicts' life as unbearable as possible. Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov made no secret of his intention to institute penal servitude in Russia so that convicts would "every minute pray to God for death." The prison rules for lifers, whereby they are to get less than one gram of tea leaves a day, seem to have been written by Seleznyov's peers. True, this rule is not observed at Institution OE-265/5: there inmates get 30 rubles' worth of food a day - not a bad diet by Vologda standards, with unemployment rife and wages niggardly. It is another matter that an extra slice of bread cannot replace an effective system of measures to adapt "the living robots" to normal life.

On the day we arrived at the colony, there was an emergency: it came to light that two lifers had tamed a pigeon and taught it to carry notes to their buddies in the next wing. Colony officers had to kill the pigeon - in line with standing regulations.

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Task 1.Find the English equivalents for the following words and expressions:

Обнесённый колючей проволокой; исправительная колония; отбывать пожизненный срок; заменить приговор о смертной казни на пожизненное заключение; добросовестно работать; чистый послужной список заключённого; быть освобождённым; наблюдать за психическим состоянием; приговорённый к пожизненному заключению; на свободе; вновь совершить преступление; политика кнута и пряника; при условии; Уголовный кодекс; лишить кого-то чего-то; стимул; выносить унижение; головорезы; раскрыться кому-то; раскаяние; нераскаянность; колония строгого режима; подавать прошение о помиловании; Суд по правам человека; вызвать сострадание; брать кого-то в заложники; пенитенциарная система; распоряжаться своей собственной жизнью; попытка самоубийства; капелька человечности; повсеместная безработица; ничтожная зарплата.

Task 2. Scan through the text and contextualize the following vocabulary

to clamour for the death penalty, to commute death sentence to life imprisonment, topped with barbed wire, penal colony, to work conscientiously, a clean record of a convict, to detest lifers, at liberty, to reoffend, the stick-and-carrot policy, to deprive sb of, an incentive, to endure molestation, cut throats, to confide in, repentance, impenitence, maximum security colony, to appeal to the president, European Court of Human Rights, to arouse compassion, orphanage, to dispose of one's own life, a suicide attempt, to be fraught with, to take someone hostage, handcuffed, Criminal Code, penitentiary system, a modicum of humanity, capital punishment, to institute penal servitude, with unemployment rife and wages niggardly.

Task 3. Points for discussion and tasks to carry out:

1.What is Institution OE-265/5? How would you interpret its location?

2.When can a convict be released? Do you think that a long-term imprisonment can serve good to the convict? Do you share most psychologists' view over prisoners?

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6.Is it natural to try to escape? What is it fraught with for a convict? Re member and describe the episode of escape from literature or cinematography. What is the price for freedom?

7.What 'modicum of humanity' is introduced into the convicts' life?

11.Here's described a certain case of convict Biryukov. Role-play a court sitting. Choose a prosecutor, a solicitor, a witness, Alexander's relative, and a judge. Reconsider the verdict.

12.The article could hardly leave anyone listless. Choose one of the following topics and evolve it into your essay, employing the material of the article:

*Hope

*Crime and Punishment *Never again *Judgment

*Human Right

*Repentance

*Freedom

Text 2

The Death Penalty: Morally Defensible?

By Casey Carmical

The death penalty has faced much oppositions as of late. Can the death penalty possibly be a morally acceptable punishment? A popular bumper sticker says, “ We kill people to show people that killing people is wrong”. The slogan is short, simple, and to the point. But is there really such irony in capital punishment as slogan implies?