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| successive | последующий, последовательный |
| probation | условный срок |
| plea | заявление (суду) |
| shrewd | умный, хитрый |
| infuse | приводить к |
| arraignment | привлечение к суду |
| an irresolvable conflict in personality | неразрешимый личностный конфликт |
| to banish | высылать, прогонять |
| a pool of jurors | резерв присяжных |
| latitude | свобода |
| ludicrous | нелепый, смехотворный |
| malleability | податливость |
| calumny | клевета |
| to solicit | приставать (к мужчине) |
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 makes court appearances frustrating?
2. In what way can a shrewd defendant infuse delay into the disposition of his case?
3. In what cases will the court appoint counsel to represent a defendant?
4. What kind of juror does a lawyer really want?
5. Lawyers are afforded very broad latitude in asking questions, aren’t they?
6. What techniques can an unscrupulous lawyer employ to embarrass a witness and why?
Task 5. Agree or disagree with the following statements. Agreement or disagreement should be followed by some comment
1. More than 15 percent of all criminal indictments are disposed of by jury trial.
2. A shrewd defendant can infuse massive delay into the disposition of his case.
3. The judge never gives the new attorney any time to prepare for the case.
4. The victim is excluded from the courtroom during jury selection.
5. What is taking so long is jury selection.
6. Every lawyer really wants a fair and impartial juror.
7. Only a few honest and truthful victims of crimes have faced outrageous calumny at the hands of a cross-examiner.
Task 6. Compose the questions. Use the following words and word combinations from the text:
Jury trial, proceed to trial, to hire a lawyer, trial day, to appoint counsel, to prepare for the case, a pool of qualified jurors, broad latitude, to face, direct examination, to engage in, to do justice
Task 7. Explain in English what the words and word combinations mean. Use them in your own sentences
Frustrating, to plead guilty, probation, to discharge someone, an irresolvable conflict, dutifully, to wonder, a felony, hypothetical situation, to be biased in one’sfavor, to be ignorant of, interminable, direct examination, to cross-examine, outrageous calumny, the heart of the matter
Task 8. Practice the speech patterns given below. Make up two sentences of your own on each pattern
1. There are many occasions where a victim will call the prosecutor's office to ask when he is supposed to come back to court. "The case has already been concluded," he 'll be told. He will likely be banished during all the evidentiary proceedings except his own testimony.
2. The defendant states that he is having trouble getting enough money to hire a lawyer and needs two more weeks. The suspect had difficulty trying to prove his alibi. The jury had hard time reaching a verdict.
3. I saw that type of questioning happen in the case of a rape victim. I saw another jury acquit a man who took a gun from his car, walked up the front steps of a house, and fired a bullet through the screen door, into the victim's heart.
4. Because the story is brief, direct examination consumes but a few minutes. It took him but a few days to complete all formalities.
5. After all, no lawyer really wants a fair and impartial juror. He wants one strongly biased in his favor. The road comes from the south and meets the one from Merryland. He gave the best seats to the ones who arrived first.
6. He sits and wonders what can be taking so long? Depending upon the lawyers involved, the process can take a day or longer. The courts didn't take long to decide that the law could cover any constitutional right.
Task 9. Make the summary of the text. Use the key words and word combinations
Text 4
Task 1. Answer the questions:
1. Why is the judiciary system not always effective in punishing criminals?
2. What is “presumptions of innocence”?
3. Why do some judges regularly impose some jail time for every felony?
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)
"Not Guilty.” Why? After all is said and done, after what is often an outrageous stream of perjury, the jury retires and the victim waits, again, for them to reach a verdict. He may be shocked to hear it is, " Not guilty. "
I remember a case involving a man who, after being ejected from a nightclub, shot a security guard in the back. He was identified by several people, including an eyewitness, and the gun was in his possession when he was arrested. The ballistics test established that the fatal bullet was fired from his gun. His defense — amnesia. The verdict — guilty of a misdemeanor.
I saw another jury acquit a man who took a gun from his car, walked up the front steps of a house, and fired a bullet through the screen door, into the victim's heart. The defense — self-defense.
How are such incredible miscarriages of justice possible?
The answer is that jurors are frequently confused about their function. We (lawyers and judges) cow them with legal talk. The rules of law, which are based upon nothing but common sense and age-tested observations, somehow become a foreign language when delivered amid the solemnity of a trial. Jurors really do not understand that they are simply supposed to find the truth and let their verdict speak the truth. They are so overwhelmed with presumptions of innocence, standards of guiltbeyond a reasonable doubt and the like, that they just do not know what they are supposed to do.
Many criminal cases go awry because jurors are afraid to make a decision. Fearful that they might be inadequate to judge a case, they will wash their hands of the possibility of error by finding not guilty a defendant who plainly should be convicted.
Crime Must Not Pay. Let us suppose, however, that truth about a crime has been determined through trial, and a guilty verdict rendered. At this point, the importance of sound sentencing cannot be overstated. It is perhaps the most significant and most difficult thing a trial judge does.
I have sentenced about 2000 people. I hope that justice was done. I have some idea of the effect of the sentences on myself: I know that the longer I sat, the meaner I grew.
Right now a person who has been through the system and is contemplating a crime probably views things as follows: (1) if I do, it I won't get caught, (2) if I get caught I won't get prosecuted, (3) if I get prosecuted I won't get convicted, (4) if I get convicted I won't go to prison, (5) if I go to prison it won't be for very long.
The fact of the matter is that these assumptions are strongly based on reality. Less than one out of seven burglaries, for example, is "solved by arrest" (which, of course, is not the same thing as conviction and imprisonment). What it means is that six out of seven burglaries are never solved.
Because burglary is a field with specialists, the mathematical probability can be pushed close to a proposition that a man can commit six burglaries before being caught on the seventh. If the court system regularly gives to the first-offender a probated sentence, he can commit six more burglaries while on probation before being caught on the fourteenth. At that time he is likely to go to jail for a few months! Fourteen burglaries at the cost of a few months in jail. That is no cost at all, considering the fruits of the crimes.
Years on the bench punctuated by countless bond forfeitures and probation r evocations have persuaded me that the criminals are winning. While we in the black robes were trying to apply the law in a humane and rehabilitative manner, the thieves and bullies were laughing at us. In all probability, our well-intentioned efforts to provide a "second chance" have encouraged more criminals to commit more crimes.
In my view, the individual before the court for sentencing is important, but it is of greater importance that the public be protected by a sound sentencing policy. I believe this must be a policy that demonstrates, unmistakably, that the cost of crime to the criminal substantially outweighs the benefit of crime.
Now I do not advocate lengthy sentences for property crimes the first time around, but I most vigorously suggest that a community cannot protect itself unless all its judges regularly impose some jail time for every felony, jail time to increase at a geometric rate depending on the number of prior convictions.
Currently, imprisonment is the only thing we have to demonstrate the cost of crime, and we must use it with greater consistency. Granted, the rate of recidivism for people released from prison can be argued as strong proof that c orrectiona l institutions do not correct. But at least prisons shift the locus of crime from innocent people on the street to fellow criminals behind bars.
I believe that without a solid and relatively uniform reaction on the part of the sentencing bench, the criminals are bound to win. Sentencing must prove to the public at large that crime does not pay.
Vocabulary notes
| misdemeanor | мелкое преступление |
| miscarriage | ошибка, несправедливость |
| to cow | запугивать, устрашать |
| to be overwhelmed with | овладевать переполнять (о чувствах) |
| to go awry | сбиться с правильного пути |
| sound sentencing | |
| assumption | предположение, допущение |
| bond forfeiture | подделка облигаций, финансовых обязательств |
| revocation | отмена, аннулирование |
| bullies | хулиган, сутенер |
| conviction | судимость, судебный приговор |
| consistency | логичность, последовательность |
| locus of crime | место преступления |
| at large | в целом, весь |
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 may shock the victim?
2. What are jurors frequently confused about?
3. What do jurors not understand about the rules of law?
4. What are jurors supposed to do?
5. What is the most significant and most difficult thing a trial judge does?
6. What is the mathematical probability for a man who commits burglaries? What are his chances to go to prison?
7. What makes the judge convinced that thecriminals are winning?
8. What must prove to the public at large that crime does not pay?
Task 5. Agree or disagree with the following statements:
1. Jurors are frequently confused about their function.
2. The rules of law are based upon nothing but tradition and age-tested observations.
3. Jurors understand that they are simply supposed to find the truth.
4. Sentencing is perhaps the most significant and most difficult thing a trial judge does.
5. A man can commit a lot of burglaries before being caught.
6. Well-intentioned efforts to provide a "second chance" have encouraged more criminals to rehabilitate.
7. Judges should impose some jail time for every felony.
Task 6. Ask the questions to which the following statements are the answers:
1. He was identified by several people, including an eyewitness.
2. His defense was amnesia.
3. The verdict was guilty of a misdemeanor.
4. He has sentenced about 2000 people.
5. Less than one out of seven burglaries is "solved by arrest".
6. Jurors just do not know what they are supposed to do.
7. Burglary is a field with specialists.
8. That is no cost at all, considering the fruits of the crimes.
Task 7. Explain in English what the words and word combinations mean. Use them in your own sentences
To reach a verdict, to be ejected from, an eyewitness, amnesia, to be confused about, to cow somebody with, common sense, to go awry, to wash their hands of, to overstate, to contemplate, the first-offender, a probated sentence, countless, prior convictions, recidivism, correctional institutions, the sentencing bench
Task 8. Practice the speech patterns given below. Make up two sentences of your own on each pattern
1. He may be shocked to hear, " Not guilty. " The victim was surprised to see the offender get away with a probation sentence. The witness was shocked to hear the lawyer’s insinuations.
2. I remember a case involving a man who, after being ejected from a nightclub, shot a security guard in the back. Because burglary is a field with specialists, the mathematical probability can be pushed close to a proposition that a man can commit six burglaries before being caught on the seventh. He can commit six more burglaries while on probation before being caught on the fourteenth.
3. Fearful that they might be inadequate to judge a case, they will wash their hands of the possibility of error by finding not guilty a defendant who plainly should be convicted.
4. They are so overwhelmed with presumptions of innocence, standards of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and the like, that they just do not know what they are supposed to do. There now are so many courts and so many decisions that no one can keep them all straight.
5. Right now a person who has been through the system and is contemplating a crime probably views things as follows: (1) if I do, it I won't get caught, (2) if I get caught I won't get prosecuted, (3) if I get prosecuted I won't get convicted, (4) if I get convicted I won't go to prison, (5) if I go t o prison it won't be for very long.
6. In my view, the individual before the court for sentencing is important, but it is of greater importance that the public be protected by a sound sentencing policy.. That is why I proposed that all those convicted of a second serious sexual or violent crime automatically get a life sentence.
Some of whom asked that their names be disguised or not used.
Task 9. Make the summary of the text. Use the key words and word combinations
UNIT 2 Rendering
Text 1
Task 1. Read the text. Make sure you know all the words in bold type. Render the text into English.
22 февраля 1990 года правительство Англии опубликовало «Хартию жертв преступлений». С тех пор во всем цивилизованном и демократическом мире отмечают день поддержки жертв преступлений. Проблема социальной реабилитации жертв преступлений начала волновать сообщество в конце прошлого века. В сентябре 1985 года седьмой конгресс ООН по предупреждению преступности и обращению с правонарушителями утвердил Декларацию основных принципов правосудия для жертв преступления и злоупотребления властью. 29 ноября 1985 года Генеральная Ассамблея ООН приняла эту декларацию, впервые разработав универсальные принципы поддержки и защиты жертв преступлений и злоупотреблений властью.
Сейчас в ряде стран приняты и действуют законы, направленные на защиту пострадавших от криминальных действий, их социальную реабилитацию, компенсацию материального и морального ущерба. В мире действует до 200 программ помощи потерпевшим от преступлений. Начиная от программ помощи потерпевшим от сексуального насилия и заканчивая муниципальными службами уборщиков мест совершения преступлений и слесарей, бесплатно вставляющих замки и ремонтирующих входные двери при квартирной краже. Такие программы реально помогают людям справиться со стрессом, выйти из кризиса, наконец, попросту оказывают материальную помощь и моральную поддержку.
Text 2
Task 1. Read the text. Make sure you know all the words in bold type. Render the text into English.
Следует отметить то обстоятельство, что после совершения преступления, чаще всего внимание общественности сосредоточивается на преступнике. Вместе с тем о жертве и ее близких, которым в результате преступления причиняется вред, забывают. Общество занимает в отношении потерпевшего различные позиции - сожаление, недоверие, а подчас и злорадство. Лица из ближайшего окружения потерпевшего нередко стараются избегать общения с ним. Иногда потерпевший сталкивается с открытой агрессивностью по отношению к себе. Прибегая к его помощи, органы уголовного преследования решают главным образом свои служебные задачи. Не учитывается то, что после преступления жертва находится в состоянии острых психических и социальных переживаний и потому нуждается в повышенном внимании и заботе. Ставя вопрос о конституционных правах обвиняемых и осужденных преступников, мало кто говорит о нарушении конституционных прав жертвы преступлений.
Самый серьезный вред наносится жертвам насильственных преступлений и проявляется в психическом, социальном и моральном плане. Жертвы грабежа, разбойного нападения, изнасилования, похищения, захвата в качестве заложников переживают очень глубокий психический шок. При первом осознании понесенного ущерба у жертвы преступления наблюдаются симптомы, обнаруживаемые у людей, которым приходится столкнуться с неожиданной и тяжелой в моральном отношении потерей. У потерпевших развиваются апатия, депрессия, упадок духа, случаются приступы гнева. Исчезает уважение к себе.
Text 3
Task 1. Read the text. Make sure you know all the words in bold type. Render the text into English.
Преступления против собственности
Данный вид преступлений составляет основную массу преступлений, совершаемых в США. Удельный вес данных преступлений составляет ежегодно до 90%.
Кража (larceny). Особенностью данного состава преступления по американскому законодательству является чрезмерно широкое понимание предмета хищения. Сюда в законах отнесены не только движимое и недвижимое имущество, но и такие специфические явления как вода, газ, электричество. В последние годы различные виды посягательств на собственность в законодательных актах США объединяются в единое понятие хищения (theft). Специфическим видом хищения в американском законодательстве традиционно являлась кража автомобиля (vehicle theft). И хотя многие кодексы штатов восприняли рекомендацию Примерного УК об отнесении кражи автомобиля к обычной краже, американская статистика упорно отражает эту разновидность хищений в отдельной графе. Последние 40 лет удельный вес краж автотранспорта среди всех краж стабильно составляет 16-17% (1,1 – 1,2 млн.).
Ограбление. Одной из особенностей уголовного законодательства США по сравнению с российским является отсутствие четкого различия между “грабежом” и “разбоем”. Там используется собирательное понятие – robbery, которое в дальнейшем мы будем именовать “ограблением”. Под ограблением в американском законодательстве традиционно понимается хищение имущества, совершаемое непосредственно у потерпевшего или в его присутствии путем насилия или внушения страха. Потерпевший должен воспринимать угрозу как достаточно серьезную для его жизни или здоровья.
Берглэри. Данный вид преступления существует лишь в странах англо-американского права. Это – довольно распространенное преступное деяние. Его доля в общей массе преступлений против собственности в 2000 г. в США составила 21%, что в пять раз больше по сравнению с ограблением. В настоящее время состав этого преступления образует совокупность следующих признаков: незаконное проникновение в “обитаемое помещение”; как правило, в ночное время; с намерением совершить преступление.
Квалифицированный вид образует деяние, совершаемое в ночное время (“от тридцати минут после захода солнца до тридцати минут перед восходом солнца”) или если при совершении посягательства виновный “с целью, заведомо или по опрометчивости” причиняет потерпевшему телесное повреждение (покушается на его причинение) или если виновный вооружен “ взрывчатыми веществами или смертоносным оружием ”.
Text 4
Task 1. Read the text. Make sure you know all the words in bold type. Render the text into English
Конституция требует, что для признания подсудимого виновным инстанция, устанавливающая факты, будь то присяжные или судья, должна определить, что обвинение доказало каждый элемент преступления вне всяких обоснованных сомнений. (beyond reasonable doubt)
Обе стороны имеют право вызывать собственных свидетелей и доставлять в суд свидетелей, которые не приходят добровольно. Адвокаты подвергают своих свидетелей прямому допросу, а свидетелей другой стороны - перекрестному допросу. Судья, но не присяжные, может задавать свидетелям вопросы, однако в рамках американской состязательной системы практически все вопросы задают адвокаты, а судья выполняет функции беспристрастного посредника. Свидетель может отказаться давать показания, если он полагает, что эти показания могут навлечь вину на него. Обвинение может предоставить свидетелю иммунитет, а затем заставить свидетеля отвечать на каждый вопрос. (Защита не имеет таких полномочий.) Иммунитет распространяется на любое преступление, в котором признается свидетель, а также на любое преступление, которое следователи раскроют в результате свидетельских показаний на условиях иммунитета. Приговор выносится судьей после слушаний по вынесению приговора.
UNIT 3 Discussion Points
Task 1. Discuss the following points with your fellow students:
1. A trial is a lottery
2. Where there is no dispute as to the fact, juries should not be necessary.
3. Courts are orderly, dignified, deliberate, and impartial.
4. Massive delay a shrewd defendant can infuse into the disposition of his case.
5. No lawyer really wants a fair and impartial juror.
Task 2. Give a short newspaper review on:
Difficulties a judge faces
Difficulties a victim encounters when he/she comes to court
Weaknesses of jury trial
Remember that your interview should appeal to the interests of the interested readers. It can be neutral, emotional, and descriptive. Prove your point of view.
Task 3. Work in pairs. Discuss any of judiciary problems of today. You may speak about:
burden of proof
presumption of innocence
massive delays in case hearing
unscrupulous lawyer
manipulative defendents and so on.
One of the students is supposed to introduce a subject of mutual interest; the other student disagrees or agrees with his partner’s point of view.
Task 4. Speak on the topic: “Judge’s work is challenging and rewarding because…”
Task 6. Team work. Case Study: The following situations are based on real cases from the federal courts. Consider the arguments, then decide how you would rule. Compare your answers with actual case results.
Mrs. Smith was only slightly interested when her son, a high-school senior, told her he was taking a new course in transcendental meditation. But her curiosity was aroused when she found him chanting and burning incense in his bedroom.
Questioned, her son reported that he was being taught about the search for the ultimate reality of intelligence and bliss.
"Why, that's religion," Mrs. Smith fumed. "And they certainly can't teach that in public school." She sued to stop the course.
"This is not a class in religion," said the school-board lawyer. "It's only a course in philosophy." Would you allow the high school to teach transcendental meditation?
CHAPTER 3. How Americans Cope With Crime
UNIT 1. Giving the summary of the text
Text 1
Task 1. Answer the questions:
1. Is there much crime in the area where you live?
2. Do you worry about personal safety when away from home?
3. Do you know or use any means of protecting yourself?
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)
One of every four households in the United States suffered property crime last year. One household of every 20 reported a mugging, robbery or other assault. This year 37 percent of Americans believe that there is more crime in the area where they live than there was a year ago. The result: many Americans are changing the way they live their lives.
• Since his home was burglarized, Michael Roth of Pontiac, Mich., has installed a steel-reinforced front door. When he goes out, he leaves the lights on and radio playing.
• With street robberies on the increase in her area, Endia London will not leave her New York City apartment house, even to buy groceries, unless her husband drives her in the car.
• Disturbed by the number of rapes reported, some women have given up jogging, and are taking karate lessons as a means of protecting themselves. They also carry Mace and police whistles in their handbags.
A Reader's Digest/Gallup Survey, based on in-person interviews with 1555 representative Americans 18 years of age and over (some of whom asked that their names be disguised or not used), presents a portrait of a nation afraid, with the fear cutting across geographical boundaries, ethnic divisions, income levels, age groups, sex, and marital status. While only one of five men worries about personal safety when away from home during the day, the figure soars to 33 percent of women. Particularly worried are those people who reside in central cities (36 percent) where crime rates are highest, persons with family incomes below $13,000 (32 percent), and blacks (45 percent).
Although the low-cost housing project where Miguel Guillen lives is only a block from Manhattan's elegant Lincoln Center, residents hesitate to push their way through the throng of pot-smoking youths loitering around the entrance, and are even more afraid to ride the elevators alone. "If anybody harms my wife or children," Guillen swears, "I'll go for his life."
Harold Knuth of Sheboygan, Wis., carries only the change in his pockets and no credit cards when he leaves the house, making his purchases by check. Johnny York of East Cleveland, Ohio, thinks this is a mistake. "If the criminals don't find a few bills on you," he says, "they're liable to cut you up just to teach you a lesson."
Vocabulary notes
| a steel-reinforced door | стальная дверь |
| Mace | баллончик с газом |
| to disguise | зд. изменять |
| marital status | семейное положение |
| to soar | взлетать |
| the throng | толпа |
| to smoke pot | курить марихуану |
| to loiter | слоняться без дела |
| to swear | клясться |
| the change | мелочь |
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 main idea of this passage?
2. Why are many Americans changing the way they live their lives?
3. What portrait does a Reader's Digest/Gallup Survey present?
4. Who worries about personal safety and why?
5. Where are crime rates highest?
6. What precautions do people take in order to cope with crime?
Task 5. Make up your own questions. Use the following words and word combinations from the text
Property crime, to install a steel-reinforced door, to leave the lights on, on the increase, the number of, in-person interviews, yo be particularly worried, to harm, the change, to cut sb up
Task 6. Explain in English what the words and word combinations mean:
Household, mugging, to burglarize, Mace, to reside in, crime rate, low-cost housing project, elegant, to push one’s way through, to go for, to teach sb a lesson
Task 7. Practice the speech patterns given below. Make up two sentences of your own on each pattern
1. The result: many Americans are changing the way they live their lives.The jurors mustn’t discuss the way the judge disposes of the case. We disapprove of the way she treats her relatives. I don’t like the way she talks about her friends.
2. Endia London will not leave her New York City apartment house, even to buy groceries, unless her husband drives her in the car. He will not give a divorce, he won’t hear of it. I will not leave you whatever you say.
3. Particularly worried are those people who reside in central cities. Especially surprised were the people who have never seen anything of this kind.
4. Residents hesitate to push their way through the throng of pot-smoking youths loitering around the entrance. She hesitated to accept that invitation though the temptation was very strong.
5. A Reader's Digest/Gallup Survey presents a portrait of a nation afraid, with the fear cutting across geographical boundaries, ethnic divisions, income levels, age groups, sex, and marital status.. Local government and private organizations have followed suit, with several states now requiring the number for drivers' licenses, and schools and colleges demanding it for records.
Task 8. Make the summary of the text. Use the key words and word combinations
Text 2
Task 1. Answer the questions:
1. Are you afraid to walk in your own neighborhoods any time?
2. Are you sure your neighbors w ill come to your aid in time of crisis?
3. Do you know what “a siege mentality” means?
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
Thirteen percent of all Americans (31 percent of women living in central cities) are afraid to walk even in their own neighborhoods in daylight, and about half (43 percent of whites and 38 percent of nonwhites) would be afraid to walk the streets at night within a mile of their homes. The figure rises to 76 percent among women living in heavily urbanized areas. Sixteen percent of the people interviewed in the survey admit to being fearful at night even in their homes. (Significantly, however, this figure is unchanged from ten years ago.)
College student Antonelia Catalozzi will leave her house in Providence, R.I., at night only if she is accompanied by friends—"the more, the better," she says. But fear is by no means confined to cities. "People get robbed here too," says Lewis Kimbrell, a resident of a rural area in South Carolina.
"The way of life is vastly different from what it was when I was growing up," says Theresa Thompson, 34, a white woman who was raised in the largely black ghetto of Watts in Los Angeles. "People helped one another then. My family and I never worried about our safety even during the race riots. We knew our neighbors would come to our aid in time of crisis." Now she lives with her husband and children in the relatively affluent suburb of Canoga Park, Calif., but feels she can no longer depend on her neighbors. "They keep their doors locked and blinds down," she says. "I doubt they'd come out even if they heard you screaming."
Fear has created a siege mentality. Public-opinion polls, such as The Figgie Report on Fear of Crime: America Afraid, reveal that nine of ten Americans will not open the doors of their homes until callers have identified themselves and stated their business; six often make a point of dressing plainly to discourage muggers; 60 percent call back after they leave friends' houses to say they got home safely; 46 percent leave lights and radios on when they go out; and 11 percent carry weapons, Mace or other instruments of defense. In a Washington, D.C., poll, crime was ranked above unemployment as the most important problem facing city government.
Are these fears justified? Indeed they are, the Reader's Digest/Gallup Survey indicates. Of every 100 American households, 8 had been broken into during the preceding 12 months, or at least a break-in attempt was made; 12 had money or property stolen from family members; 11 had property vandalized.
Despite the popular impression that older citizens are the favored prey of criminals, our survey found that younger people in the 18-to-24 age bracket suffer the highest rate of victimization (38 percent). The figure falls with each successively older age group, reaching its lowest point (15 percent) among those aged 65 and older.
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