25. Reading

“Creative justice”

1. What do you think would be an appropriate punishment for …?

1. A woman who abandoned some kittens in a forest

2. People caught speeding in a residential area

3. A man who was caught carrying a loaded gun in the street

4. Some teenagers who vandalized a school bus

5. Noisy neighbours who play rock music very loudly at all hours

2. Read the first four paragraphs of the article. What sentence did Judge Cicconetti give these people? Why? Do you think these sentences would be more effective than yours?

3. Read through the questions below. Then read the whole article to find the information.

1. The judge

What was his early life like? How successful has he been professionally?

2. The punishments

Which three creative punishments get the offenders to learn from a personal experience? Which two punishments get them to do something for other people?

3. The reasons behind his system

What inspired his system of creative punishments? Why does he think they are better than conventional punishments? What evidence does he have that the punishments are successful?

4. What do you think of his system/ Would you like to have a judge like Cicconetti in your town?

5. Speaking. In groups, decide on creative punishments for these crimes or offences.

• An arsonist who sets fire to a local beauty spot, for example, a forest.

• A 15-year-old who is caught drinking and smoking

• Someone who parks illegally causing major traffic delays.

• A group of teenagers who paint graffiti all over walls in a small town.

• A couple whose dogs bark incessantly and bother the neighbours.

• A young person who creates a computer virus [ʹvaiərəs] which infects thousands of computers.

Making the punishment fit the crime

• Mike Cicconetti, a US judge with a difference

1. When Michelle Murray was arrested for abandoning some kittens in the forest, she expected to get a fine or a short prison sentence. Instead she was sentenced to spend the night in the same cold, dark forest. In the end it was so cold that she had to spend three hours in the woods, but Judge Mike Cicconetti had made his point. He wanted the 26-year-old Ohio housewife to feel the same pain and suffering as the animals she had abandoned, many of which later died.

2. Judge Cicconetti’s unusual ruling was just the latest example of his unique brand of “creative justice” which has won him national acclaim. He was elected unopposed to serve another six years in Lake County, Ohio last month, and this year won the presidency of the American Judges Association.

3. Cicconetti allows offenders to choose between jail, and an alternative “creative” sentence.

For example, people accused of speeding are offered a choice between having their licence suspended for 90 days, or having it suspended for a shorter period and spending one day working as a school crossing guard. The judge says that offenders who spend a day helping school children across the street never appear in his courtroom for speeding again.

4. The judge also sent a man who was caught with a loaded gun to the mortuary to view dead bodies and ordered teenagers who let down tyres on school buses to organize a picnic for primary school children. He has ordered noisy neighbours to spend a day of silence in the woods, or to listen to classical music instead of rock.

5. Cicconetti attributes his unusual approach to his tough family background. He was the oldest of nine children and had to work part-time collecting rubbish to pay his way through college. He studied law at night school. “I didn’t go to a prestigious law firm,” he says, “I had to get to where I am the hard way. It makes you understand what the working man has to go through, and why some of them commit crimes. I want to give people a positive lesson, not a negative one.”

6. A drawer in his cramped office in the Painesville Municipal Courthouse is full of thank-you letters from both victims and criminals. “Some people will say that my punishments are cruel or unusual,” the judge said. “OK, it’s a little bit of embarrassment and humiliation. But when you have people fulfilling these sentences, you are doing it for them and the victims and the community. And above all, I can remember only two people who have been sentenced to alternative punishments and who have reoffended.”

Cramped – стеснённый, стиснутый