English fo MP student book

UNIT 6

CRIME AND SOCIETY – CHILD ABUSE

The topic “Child Abuse” is an extremely sensitive and delicate issue. As a police officer, concerned with legal and social circumstances, you should know about the realities of this sad topic, both in your own country and elsewhere. Although, many of the texts and activities seem to focus on language, the serious nature of the subject underlies everything. Please keep this in mind and remember the human misery and suffering which is involved.

Discussion points

What is the status of children in Romania?

How serious is the issue of “street children”?

How do you view the issue of “institutionalised children”?

Is it a European issue or a national issue?

Read the text and comment on the issues raised.

Refugee Children in Britain

According to Amnesty International, around 100,000 children who have escaped from war, torture and intolerance are living in Europe, separated from their parents. For example, around three thousand arrived in Britain in 2000. Responsibility for the care of refugee children living alone lies with social services departments. The children are covered by the Children Act (as are UK-born children) in which according to Section 20, the local authority has a “duty to safeguard and promote the safety of the child”. The child is “fostered” or accommodated in a children’s home and checks are kept on the child even after the 18th birthday. But for separated refugee children, Section 20 of the Act is not applied (although it could be and is applied by some local authorities). Instead, Section 17 covers the status of separated children and only obliges the authority to house the children in bed-and-breakfast hotels, with little support from social services.

It is very difficult for these children to provide any evidence of age, risk of persecution or personal danger and the Home Office still considers it necessary to “eliminate the incentives which attract unaccompanied children”. The Home Office policy is to prevent them from settling in UK but suggests that “where there is no prospect of safe return, exceptional leave to stay may be granted to unaccompanied children for 4 years or until their 18th birthday.” The Home Office seeks to “enforce the removal of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who have been refused asylum and who have no other basis to stay in the UK when they reach 18”.

As Amnesty International comments: “It becomes clear why these children are almost never granted refugee status – at 18 anyone can be deported, under 18 there are impossible protective measures which have to be met before a child can be returned.”

1.What are the main concerns of the British government?

2.Are these children any less entitled to protection because they are “refugees”?

3.Should Britain be seeking European assistance in trying to solve these problems or is it an exclusively British one?

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LANGUAGE INFORMATION BOX

COLLOCATIONS

A collocation is a co-occurrence of two or sometimes three words.

Collocations are very common in both general and specialist domains of language. Sometimes collocations become like idioms or even cliches, as in “public conveniences” (old-fashioned euphemism for “toilets”!), “bed and breakfast” (a form of accommodation for guests offered in Britain), or “high and dry” (a fairly common way of expressing the idea of being “stranded” or “isolated”). In police and justice domains for example,

“ethnic” collocates frequently with “minorities”. The sad collocation “ethnic cleansing” is of fairly recent origin. The word “foster” collocates with “child”, “home”, “parents” and has its own British point of reference to mean “ children being temporarily cared for by adults other than their parents but not adopted by them”.

Another form of collocation may occur where there is a relationship between two words joined by “and” or “or” - “law and order”; “abuse or neglect”, “drink or drugs”.

The collocation may be very genre-specific. “foster home”, for example, will occur mainly in discussions on social welfare ( a collocation!),

institutionalised children (another collocation!) or “Children in Need”

(another collocation) although it might come into the discussion on, for example, values in modern society, social psychology and behaviour, parent:child relationships etc.

¾ Activity 1

Decide on appropriate collocations

THERE MAY BE SEVERAL POSSIBLE COLLOCATIONS WITH SOME ITEMS

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¾ Activity 2

Read the text and complete the exercises.

Father Who Left Baby Faces Jail

by Jeanette Oldham

# Exercise 1 Rephrasing

Rephrase the underlined sections using a word or phrase from the text

A.He is likely to be punished by imprisonment. He _______________ jail

He _______________ a jail term.

B.A member of the public contacted the police because she thought there was danger. She _____________________ the alarm.

C.The father wrongly believed everything would be all right, leaving his son in the car. He didn’t think this ______________________________

D.Except for this incident, there is no indication that the family neglected or abused the child There does not appear to be any evidence that the child ______________________

___________________________________________________________________.

E.The counsel for the prosecution, Mr Ray Osborne, summed up his case by praising the action of Ms.Watkinson.

Mr Ray Osborne, __________________, praised Ms.Watkinson’s action.

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# Exercise 2 Prepositional Use

Put in the correct preposition

A.He was very impatient _______ start the meeting.

B.The child was left in the hot car ________________ the high temperature.

C.The father has been accused _______________ wilful cruelty.

D.He had intended to be absent ______________only a few minutes.

E.The time passed and minutes grew _____________ hours.

F.The off-duty special constable called ____________police officers to attend.

G.The sentence was adjourned ___________ social services’ reports.

H.No child should be exposed ____________ acts of parental cruelty.

I.He pleaded guilty _____________ an act of cruelty.

Decide if the sentences are TRUE, FALSE or NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION

A.The mother was also responsible

B.The father and the other boy were away for several hours.

C.The alarm was raised by a special police officer.

D.The father expressed his regret in court.

E.The father was unemployed.

F.The punishment for this crime is a fine not less than 1000 pounds.

G.He said that he had not intended to abandon the child for a long time.

H.The judge was very severe in administering the punishment.

I.The temperature was over 30 degrees that day.

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A.Find examples of how the text is “journalistic” in structure or composition.

B.Does the reporter tell the case only on the basis of the facts?

C.Find examples of information which is “unspecified” or “vague”

D.How does she describe the “hot day”?

E.How does she describe the difficulties the family was facing?

F.When she writes “… by allowing him to be willfully assaulted, ill-treated, neglected, abandoned or exposed to danger” is she creating these terms herself?

In Text 1 is the language “general English” or “specific English”?

What examples of specialist terminology can you find?

¾ Activity 3

Read the text about a recent extremely shocking case in Britain.

Father and “Evil” Stepmother Guilty of Killing Lauren, 6

The “evil and sadistic” stepmother of six-year-old Lauren Wright was convicted of her killing yesterday, as was the father who “turned a blind eye” to the abuse against her.

A jury at Norwich Crown Court found Tracey Wright, 31, and Craig Wright, 38, guilty of manslaughter and cruelty after a four-week trial. The pair will be sentenced at a later date. Lauren’s emaciated body was covered in 60 bruises and she weighed just over two stones (about 14 kilograms) when she died on May 6 last year. The girl, whose digestive system collapsed after a severe blow to the stomach, died in agony, with “terrible and disgusting” injuries reminiscent of a car crash victim, the court had been told.

Acting Chief Superintendent Martin Wright, who led the police investigation, said: “There will be a significant amount of satisfaction in many quarters that she has been convicted. Her behaviour can only be described as evil and sadistic and our thoughts, of course, will be with Lauren today.”

The Department of Health ruled out a public enquiry after the Norfolk social services chief, David Rogers, said he was writing to Lord Laming, the chairman of the hearings into the death of Victoria Climbie, another child abuse victim, to ask him to consider the case.

I am sure you agree that this a very sad and shocking case

These 3 link headlines were next to the article. What do they suggest?

Discuss the issues involved in such cases.

Tragic tale of a child unwanted from day of her birth

People in a small village don’t want to get involved.

Growing workload blamed for failing children at risk

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What do you think about “corporal punishment” for children by parents? Should it be prohibited by law as in some countries?

What is the nature of corporal punishment in families in Romania? Has the situation improved in recent years?

What are the responsibilities of neighbours, relatives, towards the authorities? When do the authorities intervene in Romania?

¾ Activity 4

In trying to improve your language skills, you should think of vocabulary priorities. These will not be identical for all learners but it is clear that for a police officer, certain terms have more frequent use and occurrence than for non-specialists. Discuss the “location” of the vocabulary items from

the text and headlines. the text?

What would you change?

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# Exercise 7 Grammar: Third Form Conditional

Complete using the correct form of the verbs given to express the circumstances of the two cases. You may select an appropriate MODAL form, add negatives as necessary or use a PASSIVE version.

1.If the window of the car (be open) the baby (die)

__________________________________________________________________

2.If the special constable (call) the police the father (charge) with cruelty.

___________________________________________________________________

3.If the family (have) problems perhaps the father (act) in this cruel manner.

____________________________________________________________________

4.If the father (be) alone (i.e. not with his other son) he (come back) earlier.

____________________________________________________________________

5.If the village people (intervene) the little girl Lauren (save).

____________________________________________________________________

6.If the local social services (be) more observant they (notice) the signs of child abuse.

____________________________________________________________________

7.If the father (care about) his own daughter he (prevent) the stepmother from being so cruel to Lauren.

____________________________________________________________________

8.A public inquiry (hold) if there (be) another child abuse case hearing.

____________________________________________________________________

9.If social workers (have) such a heavy workload they (be able) to help cases like Lauren’s.

____________________________________________________________________

# Exercise 8 Children in Need

Classifying needs.

Look at the descriptions of the official “need code” categories for Children in Need. Locate the headings for each description.

1. _________________________

Children in need as a result of, or at risk of, abuse or neglect.

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2. ___________________________

Children and their families whose main need for services arises* out of the children’s disabilities or intrinsic condition*.

3. __________________________

Children and their families whose main need for services arises because the capacity of their parents or carers* to care for them is impaired* by disability, illness or mental disorder.

4. ___________________________

Children whose needs arise from living in a family going through a crisis such that parenting* capacity is diminished* and some of the children’s needs are not being adequately met.*

5. ____________________________

Children whose needs arise mainly out of their living in families where the parenting capacity is chronically inadequate.

6. ______________________________

Children and families whose needs for services arise primarily out of their children’s behaviour which impacts* detrimentally* on the community.

7. _______________________________

Children living in families or independently, whose needs arise mainly from being dependant on an income below the standard state entitlements.*

8. ________________________________

Children, whose need for services arises* mainly from having no parents available to provide for them.

Add the items marked with an asterisk * to the appropriate core vocabulary collection.

Listening

This text is taken from an official report, published in England (i.e. not including Scotland, Wales and Ireland) in early 2000. Local authorities, responsible for dealing with the problem of children in need, had been asked to provide statistical data. As you listen, complete the statistical information and other details.

MAIN RESULTS

Numbers of children in need

•There were just under (1)__________________ Children in Need in England in February 2002

•(2) ___________________ of them were “children looked after” and the remaining 317.000 were other Children in Need

•Social Services are providing services for nearly a (3) _______________ Children in Need in a typical week

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• 92% of Children Looked After and 54% of other Children in Need receive a service or have money spent on their behalf in a typical week (either in terms of

(4) ________________________ or in terms of the Local Authority paying for facilities (e.g. accommodation/ residential costs)

Characteristics of Children in Need

•The main need for social service intervention is cases of “abuse and neglect” which account for (5) ______________________ of all Children Looked After and 28% of other Children in Need

•About 12% of the Children in Need population are (6) __________ disabled, and they received (7) _____________ of the gross expenditure on Children in Need

•At least 16% of Children in Need are from (8) __________________ which is about one and a half times the figure for the under 18 population as a whole)

Costs and resources

•Services for Children in Need cost Social Services on average about ₤41 million a week ₤26 million per week on Children Looked After and ₤15 million on other Children in Need.

•About half of these costs are accounted for by regular welfare benefit payments (on residential/ fostering/ adoption costs) for Children Looked After

•The average Child Looked After costs Social Services (9) ₤ ________________

and other Children in Need cost ₤85 per week to maintain.

Activity

•The average Child Looked After receives 4.3 hours per week of service from Social Work staff, either in (10) ________________________

•Other Children in Need receive on average about 2.9 hours per week of staff or centre time

#Exercise 9 Adverbs in Official Texts

Notice the way adverbs are used in official communication and select from these adverbs to complete the sentences. In some sentences, there are several possibilities.

mainly/ primarily /inadequately/ fundamentally unacceptably/ chronically / detrimentally/

A.This need arises _________________ because of parental neglect although there are some other less significant factors.

B.The child must be looked after as he has behaved __________________in the community and at school.

C.The parents both have drinking problems which means they are _____________

prepared to look after the children.

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D. Over a long period of time, the parents have shown themselves to be

_____________________ incapable of looking after their own children.

E.Removing the child from the home environment would impact ______________

on its obvious improvement in behaviour and social responsibility.

F.The social services “Children in Need” report deals ______________ with those children who are in the care of local authorities. There must be many more whose needs are ______________________ met by present social services arrangements.

Notice the way various expressions are used to express quantity or statistical relationships.

Correct the mistake in each sentence (from the section underlined) with an appropriate word from the text.

1.Social services assess the action to be taken to help a child as the need raises.

_________________________________________________________________

2.If a parent is ill or has acute or chronic mental problems, the capacity of that parent is said to

be imperfect.

____________________________________________________________________

3.A child’s anti-social behaviour has an impression on the family, school-life and social surroundings.

____________________________________________________________________

4. The payments which the state (social services) might make to an individual or to a family are called wellbeing payments.

____________________________________________________________________

5. Social services spend a lot of money to mention the needs of children at risk.

____________________________________________________________________

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