1. Think of answers to these questions:

Lecture: Causes of crime.

1. Think of answers to these questions:

a) Why do people commit crimes?

b) What are the most common crimes nowadays?

c) Which groups of people are more likely to be victims of crime?

2. Match the given collocations with their meanings.

1) Crime rate

2) Income inequality

3) Unemployment rate

4) Crime prevention

5) To commit a crime

6) Death penalty

7) Crime reduction

8) Harsh penalty

a) Legal punishment by death usually for a serious crime

b) The number of people who are unemployed

c) A serious punishment for breaking a rule or law

d) The number of crimes that people commit

e) a situation when there are fewer crimes committed

f) measures that are taken to stop crimes from happening

g) to do something illegal or morally wrong (e.g. steal something)

h) a great divide between the rich and the poor in a particular country

3. Look at these quotations about crime. Which of them do you agree or disagree with? Give your reasons. Try to use the vocabulary items from ex 2.

a) The most effective way to reduce the crime rate is to first deal with the social issues, such as poverty and income inequality, that encourage crime.

b) The only way to prevent crime is to give out harsh penalties as a deterrent.

c) The main causes of crime are simple: drugs and alcohol. Stop people from taking these, and crime levels will fall dramatically.

d) We need more resources in order to reduce crime: police, TV cameras and surveillance of people.

4. Listen to the lecture. What does the lecturer offer to do to reduce the crime rate?

5. What does the lecturer think about these points? What evidence does he provide to support his view? Take notes about the given points.

a) Effectiveness of harsher punishment

b) Effectiveness of more police

c) Effectiveness of social programs

d) Effectiveness of dealing with income inequality

6. Complete the summary of the lecture. Write one or two words in each gap.

One of the issues that sociology looks at is crime (1) ___. Most politicians argue that more police and harsher penalties can reduce the (2) ___ ___. But statistics shows that countries with serious (3) ____ tend to have a high rate of violent crime. Some studies have shown that introducing social changes can have a stronger effect on crime than other solutions. The UK Audit Commission states that these social policies will be less (4) ___ than putting people through the justice system. Support for parents in troubled families, educational and (5)___ ____ programmes are examples of such social policies. Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett believe that (6) __ __ causes many poor people to commit crimes. It happens because people have fewer opportunities and resort to crime. The research suggests that expensive solutions are not very (7) ___ in dealing with crime, but most politicians don’t realize it yet.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04