Vocabulary notes

eligible for	имеющий право, подходящий
parole	досрочное освобождение
re­morseful	раскаивающийся, полный раскаяния
to engender	порождать
to soar	повышаться, увеличиваться (стремительно)
to matter	иметь значение
rever­sal	изменение направления
to mature	созреть, доводить до полного развития
rife	частый, распространенный
to account for	объяснять

Task 3. Read the text again and make sure you know all underlined parts of the text. Give their Russian equivalents

Task 4. Answer the following questions:

1. What is the purpose of "truth in sentencing" laws?

2. Who engendered America's crime panic?

3. Why is the prison popu­lation going up?

4. What is a popular misconception about prisons?

5. In what way do drugs influence crime figures?

6. What factors really account for much of the changing pattern of crime?

Task 5. Agree or disagree with the following statements. Prove your point by giving arguments:

1. Truth-in-sentenc­ing laws require the criminal to spend his entire sentence in prison.

2. "Truth in sentencing" makes it possible to discriminate between people who seem genuinely remorseful and the more dangerous types.

3. The number of those sentenced for drugs has risen sharply.

4. The prison popu­lation is going down. The crime figures are go­ing up.

5. Young men commit by far and away the smallest number of crimes.

6. Drugs are always in fashion.

7. A combination of demographic and changes in the prison population accounts for much of the changing pattern of crime.

Task 6. Compose the questions. Use the following words and phrases from the text:

To spend sentence in prison, to feel cheated, to serve the whole of the sentence, crime figures, to achieve, single explanation, to get into the business, market share, homicide, to go in and out of fashion, to loosen the connection between

Task 7. Explain in English what the words and word combinations mean. Use them in your own sentences

truth-in-sentencing, to discriminate be­tween, genuinely remorseful, non-violent drug offenders, «Prison works», a long-term reversal, demographics, to compete murderously, the stuff, rife competition , by far and away

.

Task 8. Practice the speech patterns given below. Make up two sentences of your own on each pattern

1. Such laws require the criminal to spend most of his sentence in prison, rather than making him eligible for parole. A combination of demographic and social explanations, rather than changes in the prison population, seems to account for much of the changing pattern of crime. People charged with possession or small dealing may opt to go through a drugs-treatment program rather than stand trial.

2. There is much to be said for a system that does not leave the public feel­ing cheated. As government has tried to regulate more aspects of human life, there is more and more to sue about.

3. Between 1980 and now, the proportion of those sentenced to prison for non-violent property crimes has remained about the same (two-fifths). The number of those sentenced for drugs has soared (from one-tenth to over one-third). Increasingly, those polled are taking measures to protect themselves against thieves.

4. Non-vio­lent crime still matters. It doesn’t matter what he says, no one will listen to him. You’ve got a good alibi, and nothing else matters.

5. Crime might have fallen anyway. And so what, you might ask? There might still be a justification for putting more people in prison.

6. It is right and proper that the system should be seek­ing to minimize all crime. The opposing parties sought to make peace and work out some settlement.

Task 9. Make the summary of the text. Use the key words and word combinations

Text 4

Task 1. Answer the questions:

1. Could the overall level of crime be lowered by imprisoning more and more criminals?

2. Could such intangibles like pain and suffer­ing be monetized?

3. What is the most effective way to reduce violence?

Task 2. Read the text to get the main idea paying special attention to the underlined parts of the text (key words and word combinations)

That said, there might still be a justification for putting more people in prison: if by do­ing so you lowered the overall level of crime by taking criminals out of circulation. Indeed, if a small number of young men commit a disproportionately large number of crimes, then locking up this particular group might depress crime a lot. Of course, the proposition is self-evidently true. If you banged up for life anyone who had ever committed a crime, however trivial, crime would plummet. But the question is: is this sensible, even if it does work?

Looking across the states’ different crime rates and imprisonment rates, there is no correlation between the two. True, you would not necessarily expect one: states are different and tough-sentencing laws might be a reaction to a high crime rates as much as a way of bringing it down. But more sophisticated analyses confirm there is no link.

And, just as there is no convincing argument that prison effectively reduces the level of crime, nor does there seem to be a convincing cost-benefit argument in favor of prison. One often-used estimate, which monetizes intangibles like pain and suffer­ing, calculates the annual costs of crime at $450 billion. This makes prison look a bargain: its annual bill is $35 billion, while the criminal-justice system, including police and courts, costs $100 billion. But if you calculate the costs of crime on the basis of physical damage — hospital bills or the cost of replacing stolen goods — the figure comes out at a mere $18 billion a year. The moral is that, while the cost of crime must be high, no one has any real idea what it is.

What you can say is that, out of the range of options for deal­ing with criminals, prison is among the most expensive. One currently popular alternative is the "drugs court". Under this sys­tem, people charged with possession or small dealing may opt to go through a drugs-treatment program rather than stand trial. Treat­ment costs $3,500-15,000 a year, depending on whether it is residential or not; prison costs $22,000. There is also some evidence that these courts are better than prisons at discouraging re-offending, though, since they are relatively new, the evidence is not conclusive.

Of course, get-tough policies raise ques­tions other than that of efficacy. One is moral. Is it right to lock somebody up for life for stealing a pizza? Another is racial. These concerns have not, it seems, made much of an impact on public opin­ion. According to Mr. Dilulio, "Americans have lost interest in the Anglo-Saxon, innocent-until-proven-guilty model of justice. They want to get the bad guys."

Yet even by this measure, the get-tough policies are misfiring. Around 100,000 people go to prison for the 6m-odd violent crimes committed a year. The system is not getting the bad guys. What it is getting is a great many drug-taking, drug-dealing, small-time thieves. Conservatives argue that most people in prison are either vio­lent or repeat offenders. True, but many of the repeat offenders are addicts financing their habit through drug dealing or burglary.

America is awash with aca­demics, judges, commissioners and policemen who know and study crime. Almost all of research doubts the efficacy of what is going on in criminal justice, and fears for the consequences. Almost all the pro­fessionals agree that America's problem is violence, and that the way to reduce violence is to re­strict access to guns. And on this — though the point is rarely noticed — the public agrees: 62%, according to a recent Gallup poll, favor stricter gun control.

American crime policy seems to have become an area where the arguments ad­mittedly often complex and finely balanced take second place to the lobbying power of special-interest groups. The effectiveness of one, the National Rifle Associa­tion, has been well documented. A less familiar one is the prison-building lobby.

Prisons have been likened to the defense industry as a government subsidy to the white working class. For areas hit by the end of the cold war, and by the ups and downs of agriculture, prisons provide attractively recession-proof employment. As the flier for the American Jail Association last year said, "Jails are BIG BUSINESS". Towns compete to get them.