Civil and Criminal Penalties

Текст нужно перевести, выписывая незнакомые слова с переводом. Компьютерный и письменный переводы не допускаются!!!

1. There are several kinds of punishment which are available to the courts: fines, compensations, suspended sentences, probation, community service, imprisonment. In civil cases one of the most common types of punishment is a fine, but specific performance and injunctions may also be ordered. Under the criminal procedure, fines are also often used for those criminal offences which are not very serious or 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.

2. 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 offends 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 be shortened after a suitably long period if a parole board agrees his detention no longer serves the purpose.

3. In some countries living conditions in prison are fairly good because it is felt that deprivation of liberty is punishment in itself. Were the penalty too harsh, it would reduce the possibility of the criminal to re-educate and reform himself. In other countries conditions are very bad. Perhaps because of the increase in crime or because of longer sentences of imprisonment, some prison cells have to accommodate far more people than they were built to hold. If there were no such overcrowding, the prisoners would be let out of their cells more than once a day. The United Kingdom and the USA are trying to solve the shortage of space by allowing private companies to open prisons.

4. It is rising concern with social and moral problems associated with the issues of public order, human values and the conflicting needs of community interests and individual rights that has led to a re-assessment of the roles of imprisonment. A major change in the approach to treatment has been the move away from regimes aimed specifically at influencing the attitudes and behavior of prisoners to models based on encouraging the development of social skills and personal resources that will improve the prospects for successful re-socialization.

5. The treatment and rehabilitation of criminals have improved in many areas. Parole boards have engaged persons trained in psychology and social work to help convicts on parole or probation adjust to society. Various countries have agencies with programs of reform and rehabilitation for both adult and juvenile wrong-doers. However, in recent years public attitudes toward crime and punishment have been changing. The public demands that sentences for offenders should be longer and harsher. It has resulted from increasingly serious criminality in the community and has led to the inevitable response of the legal authorities to public anxiety.