1.8. Authorities: customs and police

Task 1. Study the given material and learn the vocabulary units you have been unfamiliar with.

1. Entering and leaving: customs

   On arrival in most countries as a foreigner you have to show your passport, a landing card1 and often a customs declaration form2. You may need a visa and a vaccination certificate3, depending on the entry restrictions4. Customs carry out spot checks / random checks5 on people's luggage. They use sniffer dogs6 to search for drugs and explosives. In most cases, you have to clear customs7 at the port of entry8. Genuine refugees may try to seek political asylum9. Customs officers also look out for illegal immigrants, some of whom may be economic migrants10.

   form with your personal details and date of arrival form showing how much money and what goods you are carrying paper proving you have had the necessary health injections rules about who can enter a country and for how long checks done without warning specially trained dogs who can smell drugs and bombs take your bags through customs the port or airport where you first enter a country permission to stay in another country to avoid political persecution back home people who try to enter from poorer countries just to get work

2. Police, traffic wardens, etc.

Look at this extract from an information leaflet for students coming to study and live in an English-speaking country. Note the collocations.

For some traffic offences1 you have to pay a fixed penalty2, and this may be an on- the-spot fine3. Parking tickets4 for illegal parking are issued by police and/or traffic wardens. If there has been an accident, the police may ask drivers to take a breathalyser5 test and to make a statement6 at a police station. Police have limited stop-and-search7 powers. Surveillance cameras8 operate in many public areas. A police officer cannot normally enter your home against your wishes without a search warrant9.

offence is a formal word for an illegal action fixed sum payable for a particular offence fine payable at the time and place that you commit the offence papers placed on driver's windscreens fining them for illegal parking an instrument which you blow into that shows if you have consumed alcohol recently say what happened and sign a copy of it power to stop people and search them in the street cameras that record everything that happens official permission from a judge or magistrate to search your house

3. Other types of policing

Name	Definition
security forces	often a name for the army and police together enforcing the law
plain clothes / undercover police	police who do not wear uniform
paramilitary police	police who are more like soldiers than civilian police officers
drug squad	police specially trained to fight the illegal drug trade
anti-corruption squad	police specially trained to discover and fight bribery/corruption

Task 2. Rewrite these sentences using phrases and collocations from A (Task 1) instead of the underlined words.

1. You'll have to show a paper proving that you have had injections for tropical diseases when you enter the country.

2. People entering from war-torn countries often ask for permission to stay to avoid political oppression in their own country.

3. You have to take your baggage through customs if you arrive on an international flight at San Francisco airport, even if you are flying on within the USA.

4. You have to fill in a paper saying how much money you're bringing into the country before going through customs control.

5. Some of the people were people who were poor and travelling hoping to find jobs, rather than genuine political refugees.

6. Passenger to airline cabin attendant: Could you give me one of those papers for filling in my passport number and personal details before we arrive, please?

7. At the airport the security guards had those special dogs that can smell drugs.

8. You'll need a visa; the rules about who can enter the country are very strict.

9. You have to fill in the city where you first entered the country in this box here.

Task 3. Give possible reasons for the circumstances in which the police might do the following (based on your own country or your own experience). Some of the things are not in Task 1. Guess their meaning or use a dictionary if necessary.

carry out spot checks on lorries charge someone with drink-driving tap someone's telephone use their powers of stop and search carry out a surveillance operation on someone's house

set up a roadblock publish a photofit picture ask you to make a statement

Task 4. What do we call...

1. a police officer who does not wear uniform?

2. a police force that are more like soldiers than police officers?

3. police officers engaged in combating bribery in public institutions?

4. the official paper you sometimes find stuck on your windscreen when you park illegally?

5. the police unit that fights against the illegal drug trade?

6. the police and army considered as a single body?

 VOCABULARY PRACTICE