Vocabulary notes

to depress crime	понизить уровень преступности
to plummet	резко снизиться
to bang up	запереть
correlation	соотношение
estimate	оценка
intangibles	нечто неуловимое, нематериальное
bargain	выгодная сделка, покупка
to stand trial	предстать перед судом
small-time	мелкий
repeat offender	рецидивист,
awash with	зд. полный
recession-proof	защита от экономического спада

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. Is this sensible to bang up for life anyone who has ever committed a crime?

2. Is there any correlation between crime rates and imprisonment rates?

3. Does prison effectively reduce the level of crime?

4. What makes prison look a bargain?

5. What is a currently popular alternative to prison?

6. What ques­tions do get-tough policies raise?

7. Is the system getting the bad guys and why?

8. What way to reduce violence is backed up by the author?

9. What lobbies support the prison system?

Task 5. Read the statements. Agree or disagree with them. Agreement or disagreement should be followed by some comment

1. Putting more people in prison lowers the overall level of crime by taking criminals out of circulation.

2. There is no correlation between crime rates and imprisonment rates.

3. Prison effectively reduces the level of crime.

4. Tough-sentencing laws are a reaction to a high crime rates.

5. The get-tough policies are misfiring.

6. Jails are big business.

Task 6. Ask the questions to which the following statements are the answers:

1. A small number of young men commit a disproportionately large number of crimes.

2. The overall level of crime can be lowered by taking criminals out of circulation.

3. Tough-sentencing laws might be a reaction to a high crime rates.

4. One often-used estimate calculates the annual costs of crime at $450 billion.

5. Its annual bill is $35 billion.

6. The criminal-justice system, including police and courts, costs $100 billion.

7. These courts are better than prisons at discouraging re-offending.

8. Many of the repeat offenders are addicts financing their habit through drug dealing or burglary.

9. America's problem is violence.

10. The way to reduce violence is to re­strict access to guns.

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

To take criminals out of circulation, to depress crime, trivial crime, sophisticated analysis, cost-benefit argument, to monetize, drugs court, small dealing, the conclusive evidence, efficacy, innocent-until-proven-guilty model of justice, to misfire, addicts, to lobby, the ups and downs, the cold war

.

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

1. Locking up this particular group might depress crime a lot. Putting a lot of people in prison, they believe, can achieve a long-term reversal of rising crime. Dumping politically charged disputes on the judiciary dissipates our respect for the courts as institutions above the hurly-burly of politics. Sentencing must prove to the public at large that crime does not pay.

2. If you banged up for life anyone who had ever committed a crime, however trivial, crime would plummet. If everyone told the truth, juries would be required in but a tiny fraction of cases and a main cause of trial delays would be removed.

3. 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. I do not think that these sentences protect the public sufficiently. Nor do they deter the professional, career criminals for whom a short spell in prison has become an acceptable occupational hazard.

4. The system is not getting the bad guys. What it is getting is a great many drug-taking, drug-dealing, small-time thieves. What is taking so long is jury selection. What it means is that six out of seven burglaries are never solved

5. Conservatives argue that most people in prison are either vio­lent or repeat offenders. They say, he is supposed to earn either life sentence or capital punishment for the first-degree murder.

6. Tough-sentencing laws might be a reaction to a high crime rates as much as a way of bringing it down. 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 risk of getting caught is a major consideration for criminals too.

7. Around 100,000 people go to prison for the 6m-odd violent crimes committed a year. She’s 30-odd, as far as I know. The price is $500-odd and it’s quite reasonable.

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