Thief Challenges Dose of shame as punishment

ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОЕ ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЕ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ

ВЫСШЕГО ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНОГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ

«ЛИПЕЦКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ»

Л.М. Кузнецова, Ж.Л. Ширяева

IS A CRIME CRACKDOWN A CHALLENGE OF THE TIME?

Липецк – 2007

УДК-43 (071.1) Печатается по решению

ББК 81.432.1 - 923 редакционно-издательского

Совета ЛГПУ

Is a Crime Crackdown a Challenge of the Time? Пособие для студентов старших курсов английского отделения факультета иностранных языков. – Липецк, ЛГПУ, 2007 – 348с.

Пособие представляет собой комплекс текстов и упражнений, ориентированных на решение целого ряда задач: совершенствование лексических навыков и параллельное развитие речевых умений по обсуждаемой проблеме, развитие навыка успешной передачи текста на другой язык, а также учебных умений самостоятельной работы, контроля и самоконтроля, работы со справочной литературой и др. Предназначено для студентов старших курсов английского отделения факультета иностранных языков.

Составители: доц. Л.М. Кузнецова,

ст. пр. Ж.Л. Ширяева

Рецензент: к.ф.н., доц. Барышев Н.В.

© Липецкий государственный педагогический университет

Липецк – 2007

CONTENTS

Part I. Crime and Punishment

Courts and Trials (Topical Vocabulary) 6

Crime and Punishment. Patrick Richmond. 9

Английские любители «клубнички» в париках. Джон Дарнтон. 14

Justice? 17

Thief Challenges Dose of Shame as Punishment. Richard Willing. 22

Тебя посадят – а ты не воруй. Дмитрий Стёгов. 26

Women Behind Bars. Jim Collins. 29

Justice in Los Angeles. John Brandon. 33

Черное плюс белое равняется красному? Станислав Кучер. 37

Violence Can Do Nothing to Diminish Race Prejudice. James Stains. 44

You Think You Have Been Arrested and Being Held in Jail Unfairly. From the book We the People. 50

Murder on Their Minds. Susannah Meadows. 52

Век бы свободы не видать! Ольга Дмитриева. 56

A Little Too Much Reality. Marc Peyser, Suzanne Smalley. 59

How British Burglars Pick Their Victims. Robert Chesshyre. 61

A Life Inside. Erwin James. 68

Part II. Capital Punishment.

Capital Punishment is the Only Way to Deter Criminals. 73

Так добивались правды. Олег Герчиков. 78

The Hangman’s Rope. Nick Parkers. 82

40 тезисов в осуждение убийцы. Michael Weller. 84

Capital Punishment. 91

Как, где и за что казнят. Александр Лаврин. 93

The History of Capital Punishment. Jane Davillire. 95

Казнить нельзя помиловать. Наталья Шеховцова. 101

The Clang of the Gate. Alfred Klimt. 105

«Человека от тюрьмы защищать надо». Лариса Каллиома. 108

Inside the New Alcatraz. Peter Annin. 119

Смертникам жизнь хуже расстрела. Александр Евтушенко. 125

От Шварца – негру. Карен Бреслау, Антон Черменский. 129

Part III. Modern Crime.

State Power and Crime. Vladimir Guliyev. 137

Какие законы нам не указ. Владимир Римский. 143

The Holocaust in the Dock. Michael Hirsh. 151

The Making of a Suicide Bomber. Robert Pape. 155

Terrorist Infiltrations. David Gates. 163

Hacking for Dollars. Adam Piore. 167

‘Netbangers,’ Beware. Daren Briscoe. 177

Internet как инструмент совершения

киберпреступлений. Людмила Горошко. 182

Spyware Hits Business. R.M. Schneiderman. 184

Mobile Phone Crime Blitz Launched. Steve Hope. 191

Talking Tough on Piracy. Kevin Platt. 194

The Gentleman Thief. Tracy McNicoll, Christopher Dickey. 197

Part IV. Drugs and Crime.

Drugs and Crime. Patrick Chauvels. 202

Наркотикам – бой…и герл. Анна Абрамова. 214

Problem Addictions. Daniel Griffiths. 218

Тяга к наркотикам ничуть не ослабла. Джозеф Б.Тристер. 223

Judge Proposes Drug Court to Sober Up Abusers. Shantée Woodards. 227

Вам марихуаны? Пожалуйста! Диана Ким. 228

The Hell of Addiction. Geoffrey Cowley. 232

A Shot of Sanity. Karen Wright. 239

Cocaine Cartel Smashed. Jeff Choy. 245

В России 2 000 000 наркоманов. Алина Дутлаева. 250

A Worry for Ravers. Mary Carmichael. 254

Clubbers at Risk in Craze for New DIY Drugs. Jane Crane. 257

Наркомафия впрыскивает в науку «бабки». Эвелина Азаева. 260

A Dose of Discord. Igor Ryabov. 265

Part V. Genetics and Crime.

Are Criminals Made or Born? Richard J. Herrnstein, James Q. Wilson. 270 У преступников с мозгами не в порядке. Peter Carmichael. 277

How It All Starts Inside Your Brain. Sharon Begley. 278

Преступник разрушает сам себя. Игорь Алексеев. 285

Of Criminals and CEOs. Tara Pepper. 292

The Bionic Man. William Underhill. 298

Supplement. 303

Part I. Crime and Punishment.

COURTS AND TRIALS

(topical vocabulary)

1. Courts: trial courts, common pleas courts, municipal and county courts, mayor courts, courts of claims, courts of appeals, the State Supreme Court.

2. Cases: lawsuit, civil cases, criminal cases, framed-up cases.

3. Offences: felony, misdemeanor, murder, manslaughter, homicide, rape, assault, arson, robbery, burglary, theft/larceny, kidnapping, embezzlement, bribery, forgery, fraud, swindling, perjury, slander, blackmail, abuse of power, disorderly conduct, speeding, petty offence, house-breaking, shoplifting, mugging, contempt of court, subpoena.

4. Participants of the legal procedure: 1) parties to a lawsuit: claimant/plaintiff (in a civil case); state (criminal case); defendant, offender (first/repeat); attorney for the plaintiff (in a civil case); prosecutor (criminal); attorney for defence; 2) jury, Grand jury, to serve on a jury, to swear the jury, to convene; 3) witness – a credible witness; 4) a probation officer; 5) bailiff.

5. Legal procedure: to file a complaint/a countercomplaint, to answer/challenge the complaint; to notify the defendant of the lawsuit; to issue sb a summons; to issue a warrant of arrest (a search warrant); to indict sb for felony; to bring lawsuit; to take legal actions; to bring the case to court; to bring criminal prosecution; to make an opening statement; the prosecution/state; the defence; to examine a witness – direct examination, cross-examination; to present evidence (direct, circumstantial, relevant, material, incompetent, irrelevant, admissible, inadmissible, corroborative, irrefutable, presumptive, documentary); to register (to rule out, to sustain) an objection; circumstances (aggravating, circumstantial, extenuating); to detain a person, detention; to go before the court.

6. Penalties or sentences: bail; to release sb on bail, to bring in (to return, to give) a verdict of guilty/not guilty; actual incarceration; a jail sentence; a penitentiary term – a term of imprisonment (life, from 25 years to a few months imprisonment); probation, to be on probation, shock probation; parole, shock parole, Parole Board, to release sb on parole, to be eligible for parole; to place an offender on probation, to grant probation/parole; to send sb to a penitentiary/jail; to impose a sentence on sb; to serve sentences (consecutively, concurrently); to throw a reasonable doubt on the case; hard labour; manual labour.

7. A court-room: the judge’s bench, the jury box; the dock, the witness’ stand/box; the public gallery.

Set Work

I. Study the above given lexical units.

II. Give words for the following definitions.

· Money left with a court of law so that a prisoner can be set free until he is tried;

· the letting out of a prisoner before the official period of the imprisonment has ended on condition s/he behaved well;

· an act of stealing articles of a value below a certain account;

· a thief who enters the house during the day;

· a group of people representing the person bringing a criminal charge against sb in court;

· robbing with violence in a public place;

· evidence which is too strong to be disapproved;

· a case in which an innocent person appears guilty of a crime by means of carefully planned but untrue statements;

· a person who makes a false copy of sth;

· order allowing the police to take certain actions;

· a group of 23 people chosen to consider acts about sb who is charged with a crime and to decide whether a trial is necessary;

· murder;

· indirect evidence;

· a serious crime;

· to stay in prison for several offences, serving a different prison term for each of them;

· the crime of killing a person illegally but not intentionally;

· a lie told on purpose in a court of law;

· matter brought to a court of law for decision by a private person, not by the police or the state;

· evidence based on a reasonable belief;

· allowing certain law-breakers not to go to prison, if they behave well and report regularly to a probation officer;

· a light crime;

· a person whose job is to watch, advise and help law-breakers who are on probation;

· imprisoning;

· a person who brings a charge against sb;

· work done with hand-held tools.

III. Translate into English:

1. В случае со сфабрикованными судебными делами установить правосудие очень сложно. 2. Какую уголовную ответственность несут шантажисты? 3. Во время судебного процесса истец упал в обморок. 4. Чтобы успешно оспорить поданное на вас заявление в суд, необходима помощь компетентного адвоката. 5. Что происходит после того, как человек, которого вызывают в суд по повестке, не является в указанный день и час? 6. Вождение машины в нетрезвом состоянии – серьезное правонарушение. 7. Все больше и больше людей подвергаются нападениям на улице из-за сотовых телефонов. 8. Главный свидетель настаивал, что подсудимый невиновен. 9. Люди, отбывающие наказание в тюрьме, могут быть освобождены досрочно за хорошее поведение. 10. Расхититель казенных денег был приговорен к 7 годам лишения свободы. 11. Присяжные выносят вердикт, а судья – приговор. 12. Лжесвидетельство преследуется по закону. 13. Расследование ведет опытный инспектор. 14. Косвенное обвинение, предъявленное Джексону, не было доказано на суде. 15. Лучше спасти виновного, чем приговорить осужденного, не так ли? 16. Прежде чем дать показания в суде, свидетель принимает присягу. 17. Суду были предоставлены неопровержимые улики. 18. У судов общих обжалований очень много работы. 19. Иск гражданки Ивановой не был удовлетворен. 20. Наказание за мелкое правонарушение, как правило, – штраф определенного размера. 21. Тяжкое уголовное преступление является серьезным правонарушением. 22. Любой ли преступник может быть освобожден под залог? 23. Он получил пожизненное заключение за похищение детей. 24. Фальшивомонетчик был пойман с поличным и задержан. 25. Судебный исполнитель заявил, что адвокат со стороны обвинения выказал неуважение к суду.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Britain needs fewer prisons, not more

Britain locks up more of its people than any other country in Western Europe: 145 out of every 100,000 compared with France’s 88 (though a fraction of America’s 738). Sentences have got tougher, with longer stints in prison for pettier offences. Crime is, broadly, falling. Yet the British have less confidence in their government’s ability to crack down on violence and crime than the French, Germans, Italians, Spanish or Americans, an Ipsos-MORI poll revealed last week.

For that, thank a run of bad news which has Britons reeling from headline to headline. If one were to believe the tabloids, paedophiles are rampaging through the schools and undeported foreign felons through the countryside. A string of crimes by convicts on early release culminated in a particularly sad and nasty sexual assault on a three-year-old girl, which came before the courts this month.

Carefully stoked by the press, popular passions are running high against everyone involved with the administration of justice. One home secretary (the minister in charge of prisons, the police and immigration) got the boot in May. His successor, John Reid, is busily putting the boot into everyone else, lambasting judges for being soft on crime and scaring the daylights out of his department. The Tories are demanding more prisons. Meanwhile, Tony Blair was due on June 23^rd to urge a new balance between the rights of offenders and those of victims in favour of the latter.

Right question, wrong answer

Mr. Blair is right to ask whether society’s interests are best served by the status quo. The criminal justice system requires a degree of public trust that at the moment is lacking. This is a chance not for lock-‘em-up posturing, but for a dispassionate look at how to make the administration of justice more effective. Start with one simple fact behind most of the headlines: Britain’s prisons are bursting at the seams.

At current rates of sentencing, the inspector of prisons warns, jails will be full by September. This matters: the shunting of prisoners from pillar to post by harried staff is undermining efforts to return offenders to society in a state fit to stay there. They lose touch with their families; they leave courses and drug-detox programmes; wardens they knew lose track on them. Two out of three re-offend within two years of release. If politicians and judges, egged on by the press, insist on locking people up for longer, it will get worse.

How to fix things? Building more prisons is the obvious answer. Labour has already added thousands of new places, and both main parties talk of adding more. But Britain’s jails always fill up, no matter how many there are. And new cells cost about £100,000 ($184,000) apiece. A better answer than banging more people up inside is to strengthen facilities to deal with them outside.

What prisons are for

Jailing offenders is supposed to do four things. It satisfies society’s legitimate desire to smite evildoers (though advocates of restorative justice may favour community work or fines). It deters potential offenders (though many crimes are committed on impulse, or when drunk or drugged). It protects the public by taking dangerous offenders out of circulation. And it provides an opportunity to change the way offenders will think and act on their release.

These last two – incarceration and rehabilitation – are often cast as competitors in the tussle for scarce resources. In fact they should be seen as complementary. Society is protected in the short run when offenders are locked up, and in the long run when they are reformed. Violent and dangerous criminals belong behind bars. But many others end up in prison for want of anywhere else to go. What about them?

Many mentally ill criminals would be more easily reclaimed in facilities other than catch-all prisons, though prison drug programmes are in fact quite successful. So would many women prisoners, who tend to show violence only to themselves and elsewhere thrive in smaller detention centres close to home. Halfway houses are a plausible place for non-violent offenders of both sexes on short sentences or nearing the end of their time. Those in touch with their families are less likely to re-offend, and so are those who have jobs to go to when they leave. Non-custodial community sentences have yet to prove their worth; the rate of recidivism seems disappointingly close to that of people who serve prison terms. But those figures may change as the approach becomes more common and new cohorts of offenders affect the statistics.

These suggestions are not new. The Home Office itself has espoused many of them, only to drag feet in their implementation or be swamped by sheer numbers. Of course there are risks in diverting offenders to less secure facilities; some will run off and make headlines. But the risk of keeping increasing numbers under lock and key, to emerge later skilled only in tougher sorts of crime, is greater. It was a Tory home secretary who said, a decade and a half ago, that “prison is an expensive way to make bad people worse.” Not much has changed.

Patrick Richmond

/ The Economist, June 24^th, 2006/

Set Work

I. Practise the pronunciation of the words:

a convict to deter

a warden incarceration

legitimate recidivism

restorative cohorts.

to espouse

II. Explain what the following terms related to crime and punishment mean and provide their Russian equivalents:

to lock up

petty offence

convicts on early release

the administration of justice

to serve sb’s interests

drug-detox programmes

to re-offend

to smite evildoers

restorative justice

to take offenders out of circulation

catch-all prisons

III. Explain the difference between:

to compare with – to compare to;

statistics + Vpl. – statistics + Vsg.

IV. Define the meaning of the phrasal verbs and use them in examples of your own.

To crack down on sth

to egg on

to fill up

to end up

to run off

to bang up

V. Scan the article for the English equivalents of the following lexical units:

быть уволенным; отвечать интересам; трещать по швам; терять связь с (семьями); на небольшой период времени; отсиживать срок; умышленно затягивать что-л.; вызвать сенсацию.

VI. Say if you agree with the following and back up your statements.

1. If politicians and judges, egged on by the press, insist for locking people up for longer, it will get worse.

2. A better answer than banging more people up inside is to strengthen facilities to deal with them outside.

3. Society is protected in the short run when offenders are locked up, and in the long run when they are reformed.

4. Those in touch with their families are less likely to re-offend.

5. “Prison is an expensive way to make bad people worse.”

VII. Speak on the issue touched upon in the article.

VIII. Give a 12-sentence summary of the article.

АНГЛИЙСКИЕ ЛЮБИТЕЛИ «КЛУБНИЧКИ» В ПАРИКАХ

Лондон – Даже людей, привыкших к странностям, которые изрекают личности в париках, заправляющие в английских судах, замечания судьи Старфорта Хилла в Королевском суде Винчестера заставили призадуматься.

Судья Хилл разбирал дело молодого человека, признавшегося в изнасиловании девочки, за которой ему поручили присмотреть в отсутствие родителей, когда ему было 18, а ей 8 лет. Отпуская отделавшегося двухлетним условным сроком преступника, судья так пояснил свой приговор: «Полученная мною информация привела меня к заключению, что и потерпевшая далеко не ангел».

Судья, которому 71 год, намекнул, что девочка активно проявляла себя в «сексуальных сборищах». По словам родителей девочки, «сборище» оказалось всего-навсего наивной игрой в «докторов и медсестер».

Замечание судьи вызвало общее возмущение, настолько сильное, что прокурор передал дело на рассмотрение в Апелляционный суд. Но это отнюдь не единственный случай судебной ошибки в системе, руководимой преимущественно пожилыми людьми.

Столетняя процедура

Четырьмя месяцами раньше судья, разбирающий дело пятнадцатилетнего подростка, изнасиловавшего в лесу школьницу, проявил неслыханную оригинальность в вынесенном им приговоре: он присудил подростка к трем годам условно и обязал его заплатить жертве 750 долларов в виде компенсации. «Это даст ей возможность хорошо провести каникулы, чтобы преодолеть последствия травмы», - сказал он.

Этот приговор также был послан на пересмотр и отменен, а подросток получил два года тюрьмы.

Но тот факт, что существует возможность апеллировать и исправлять ошибки судей, когда они выносят мягкие приговоры насильникам и женоубийцам или отпускают замечания в расистском духе, не привел к прекращению ширящейся кампании за изменения в установленной сто лет назад процедуре избрания судей.

Большинство судей назначаются лордом-канцлером из числа барристеров (адвокатов), хотя недавно солиситоры также получили возможность возвыситься до судейского кресла. Солиситоры – это юристы, дающие советы своим клиентам, представляющие их в судах низшей инстанции и подготавливающие дела для барристеров, выступающих на процессах в судах высшей инстанции. Первый солиситор получил такое назначение только недавно.

«Все это происходит в обстановке большой секретности, - сказал Дэвид Робертсон, член Коллегии адвокатов, организации барристеров. – Лорд-канцлер выясняет мнения ведущих судей и спрашивает: кто из адвокатов произвел на вас большее впечатление?»

Неудивительно, что наиболее впечатляющими считаются те, кто более всего походят на самих судей. Барристеры с левыми взглядами заносились в черные списки. Преимущества имели те, кто окончил Оксфорд и Кембридж. До 1972 года кандидаты могли быть исключены по причине развода или «чрезмерного увлечения спортивными интересами», иными словами, азартными играми.

«Во всей этой системе слишком много секретности, слишком много случайного, - говорит лорд Уильямс, пэр-лейборист, ранее возглавлявший Коллегию адвокатов. – Как только вы начинаете свою деятельность, на вас заводят секретное досье. Вы не знаете, что в нем, откуда берется материал. Вы даже не знаете, о вас ли идет речь».

Клуб стариков

В результате подобного механизма назначений, судебная иерархия представляет собой клуб стариков, объединенных старыми связями. Среди 10 судей палаты лордов нет ни женщин, ни людей с темным цветом кожи, а в числе 29 членов Апелляционного суда только одна женщина и ни одного цветного.

Среди 85 членов Верховного суда, разбирающего важные уголовные и гражданские дела, 5 женщин и ни одного темнокожего. В шести Выездных судах 493 судьи, из которых 27 женщин и трое темнокожих. Из 827 рикордеров (мировых судей) 40 женщин и 10 темнокожих.

Критики существующей системы отбора указывают на тот факт, что британское общество становится все более многонациональным. Люди с темным цветом кожи составляют в нем сейчас 5 процентов населения по сравнению с 2 процентами в 1966 году и сосредоточены, в основном, в больших городах. Они включают иммигрантов с Индийского субконтинента, из стран Карибского бассейна и Восточной Азии, а также их потомков.

Один судья дал человеку два года условно за сексуальное надругательство над его падчерицей, поскольку беременность его жены «притупила ее потребности и создала значительные проблемы для здорового молодого человека».

Критики требуют, чтобы судей избирала Комиссия по судебным назначениям, состоящая не только из юристов, но и из представителей общественности.

Джон Дарнтон

/ New York Times, авг. 17-30, 1993/

Set Work

I. Render the above article into English and comment on its headline.

II. Think of the best English variants of:

разбирать ч-либо дело, двухлетний условный срок, приговор, потерпевшая, судебный парик, вызвать общее возмущение, передать дело на рассмотрение в Апелляционный суд, судебная ошибка, отменить приговор, мягкий приговор, обязать подсудимого выплатить жертве деньги в виде компенсации, назначить судью, суд высшей инстанции, занести в черный список, завести досье на к-либо, мировой судья, сексуальное надругательство, юрист.

III. State the difference between:

lawyer – barrister – solicitor – counsel – attorney.

IV. What types of courts are mentioned in the article? Say what you know about them.

V. Points for discussion.

1. Do you think it’s time for the British to overhaul the old-age system of appointing judges?

2. What kind of changes should be made?

3. Are British judges really turning into “a club of the elderly”?

JUSTICE?

‘The punishment should fit the crime.’

National and local newspapers regularly print accounts of legal cases, and quite often the stories they choose are ones in which the punishment does not appear to fit the crime. It is easy to read a paragraph about a criminal case and to become outraged at the sentence passed by a judge. We have to remember that the short paragraph sums up a complicated legal case which might have taken hours, days or even weeks of court time, and that the judge knew a lot more about the case than the casual newspaper reader. However, sentences and penalties vary widely from one court to another. As every football fan knows, referees make mistakes, and the referee is much more likely to be mistaken when his decision goes against one’s own team.

Here are some examples of crimes, and the penalties chosen by particular judges. Read through them and try to answer these questions.

Was justice done?

If you had been the judge, would you have given a different sentence?

Would you have chosen a lighter sentence, or a more severe one?

How would you have felt if you had been the defendant?

If you had been the judges, what other facts and circumstances would you have wanted to know?

Manslaughter

(the act of killing someone, unlawfully, but not intentionally)

In 1981 Marianne Bachmeir, from Lubeck, West Germany, was in court watching the trial of Klaus Grabowski, who had murdered her 7-year-old daughter. Grabowski had a history of attacking children. During the trial, Frau Bachmeir pulled a Beretta 22 pistol from her handbag and fired eight bullets, six of which hit Grabowski, killing him. The defence said she had bought the pistol with the intention of committing suicide, but when she saw Grabowski in court she drew the pistol and pulled the trigger. She was found not guilty of murder, but was given six years imprisonment for manslaughter. West German newspapers reflected the opinion f millions of Germans that she should have been freed, calling her ‘the avenging mother’.

Murder

In 1952 two youths in Mitcham, London decided to rob a dairy. They were Christopher Craig, aged 16 and Derek William Bentley, 19. During the robbery they were disturbed by Sidney Miles, a policeman. Craig produced a gun and killed the policeman. At that time Britain still had the death penalty for certain types of murder, including murder during a robbery. Because Craig was under 18, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Bentley who had never touched the gun, was over 18. He was hanged in 1953. The case was quoted by opponents of capital punishment, which was abolished in 1965.

Assault

In 1976 a drunk walked into a supermarket. When the manager asked him to leave, the drunk assaulted him, knocking out a tooth. A policeman who arrived and tried to stop the fight had his jaw broken. The drunk was fined £10.

Shop-lifting

In June 1980 Lady Isabel Barnett, a well-known TV personality was convicted of stealing a tin of tuna fish and a carton of cream, total value 87p, from a small shop. The case was given enormous publicity. She was fined £75 and had to pay £200 towards the cost of the case. A few days later she killed herself.

Fraud

This is an example of a civil case rather than a criminal one. A man had taken out an insurance policy of £100,000 on his life. The policy was due to expire at 3 o’clock on a certain day. The man was in serious financial difficulties, and at 2.30 on the expiry day he consulted his solicitor. He then went out and called a taxi. He asked the driver to make a note of the time, 2.50. He then shot himself. Suicide used not to cancel an insurance policy automatically. (It does nowadays.) The company refused to pay the man’s wife, and the courts supported them.

Set Work

I. What would you have done?

If

I

‘d had hadn’t had not

done that   been there

I

‘d would wouldn’t would not

‘ve   have

done this.   been there.

II. Look at these statements. What do you think about them?

1. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.

2. Judge not – lest you be judged.

3. Certain criminals – sex murderers, terrorists and so on, deserve to die.

4. Justice is nothing, unless it is tempered with mercy.

5. Everyone deserves a second chance.

6. If the state kills someone, then it admits there are circumstances where killing is justified. Having admitted that, it is then in no position to condemn murder.

III. Look at this list of ‘crimes’. Try and rate each crime on a scale from 1-10. (1 is a minor misdemeanor, 10 is a very serious crime.) They are in no order.

1. driving in excess of the speed limit

2. common assault (e.g. a fight in a discotheque)

3. drinking and driving

4. malicious wounding (e.g. stabbing someone in a fight)

5. murdering a policeman during a robbery

6. murdering a child

7. causing death by dangerous driving

8. smoking marijuana

9. selling drugs (such as heroin)

10. stealing £1,000 from a bank, by fraud

11. stealing £1,000 worth of goods from someone’s home

12. rape

13. grievous bodily harm (almost killing someone)

14. shoplifting

15. stealing £1,000 from a bank, by threatening someone with a gun

16. possession of a gun without a licence.

IV. Compare your list with another student’s. Which of you would be the harsher judge? Which would be the kinder?

V. Penalties – England. In England there are no minimum sentences, except for murder, which carries a penalty of life imprisonment. There are maximum sentences for other crimes. Crimes are first heard by a magistrate who can either pass sentence, or refer the crime to a Crown Court with a judge and jury. Here are maximum sentences for some crimes:

Crime	Magistrates Court	Crown court
Burglary Grievous bodily harm Possession of firearm Possession of cannabis Common assault ‘Going equipped for stealing’ Murder	Fine	Prison	Fine	Prison
£1000 £1000 £1000 £500 £200 £1000	6 months 6 months 6 months 3 months 2 months 6 months	unlimited unlimited unlimited unlimited   unlimited	14 years 5 years 5 years 5 years   3 years
life imprisonment

How do you think these compare with sentences in our country? Remember they are maximum, not average!

THIEF CHALLENGES DOSE OF SHAME AS PUNISHMENT

A mail thief who was sentenced to wear a large sign publicizing his crime will appeal in a case that could have broad implications for so-called shaming punishments.

Shawn Gementera’s appeal is due to be filed by Monday, his lawyer says. If the case is accepted by the San Francisco-based 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, it probably will mark the first time that a full federal appeals court has scrutinized sentences that require convicted criminals to make themselves look foolish in ways befitting the crime.

For instance, one California purse snatcher known for his stealth was ordered in 1976 to wear noisy tap shoes in public. A state rather than a federal court reviewed that case and upheld the punishment.

In Gementera’s case, a federal judge in March 2003 ordered him to stand for eight hours outside a San Francisco post office wearing a two-sided “sandwich board” bearing the words: “I stole mail. This is my punishment.”

His lawyer says judges are overstepping their bounds by adding public humiliation to a criminal sentence.

“If there’s an absence of similar (appeals) cases, it may be because other courts have not seen fit to impose such unlawful and unconstitutional sentences,” says Arthur Wachtel, Gementera’s lawyer.

Gementera, then 24, was charged in May 2001 with pilfering U.S. Treasury checks and other mail from boxes along San Francisco’s Fulton Street. He pleaded guilty to mail theft and was sentenced by federal Judge Vaughn Walker to two months in prison followed by supervised release, which included wearing the embarrassing sign in public for one day.

Walker told him: “You need to be reminded in a very graphic way of exactly what the crime you committed means to society. … (You need) a wake-up call.”

Before Gementera could serve his sentence, he was arrested again for mail theft, convicted and sentenced to two years in prison.

In court papers, Wachtel says that the sandwich board punishment violates federal sentencing law by seeking to “humiliate” rather than “rehabilitate” the mail thief.

He also argues that the sentence amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment,” which is barred by the U.S. Constitution.

Papers filed by the Justice Department, which is defending the sentence, argue that “shame” is the usual result of a criminal conviction and that it can be useful in rehabilitation.

Wearing a sandwich board is “less onerous” than the prison sentence, which Gementera did not appeal, the Justice Department says.

Shaming sentences have increased in popularity since the early 1990s. Most are imposed by local judges for less-serious crimes. They are sometimes called Scarlet Letter punishments, after Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel in which an adulteress is forced to wear a scarlet “A” on her clothes.

· In Maryland, Texas, Georgia and California, shoplifters have been required to stand outside stores with signs announcing their crimes.

· In Escambia County, Fla., and in Ohio, drunken drivers are issued special license plates that identify them to fellow motorists.

· In Houston and Corpus Christi, Texas, convicted sex offenders have been ordered to place signs on their front lawns that warn away children.

· In Pennsylvania last year, the driver of a car that caused a fatal accident was forced to carry a picture of the victim.

Richard Willing

/ USA Today, Aug.18, 2004/

Set Work

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