Unit 14. The purpose of state punishment

Exercise 1: Explain the meaning of the words and expressions from the box. Complete the following text using these words and expressions:

wrongdoer; misdeeds; deterrent; retribution; death penalty; corporal punishment; rehabilitate; reform; barbaric; law-abiding; humane; crime doesn't pay

What is the purpose of punishment? One purpose is obviously to ______1________ the offender, to correct the offender's moral attitudes and anti-social behaviour and to ______2_______ him or her, which means to assist the offender to return to normal life as a useful member of the community.

Punishment can also be seen as a ______3_______ because it warns other people of what will happen if they are tempted to break the law and prevents them from doing so. However, the third purpose of punishment lies, perhaps, in society's desire for _____4______, which basically means revenge. In other words, don't we feel that a _____5________ should suffer for his ______6_______?

The form of punishment should also be considered. On the one hand, some believe that we should "make the punishment fit the crime". Those who steal from others should be deprived of their own property to ensure that criminals are left in no doubt that _____7_____ ________ _________. For those who attack others _____8_____ __________ should be used. Murderers should be subject to the principle "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" and automatically receive the ______9_______.

On the other hand, it is said that such views are unreasonable, cruel and ____10______ and that we should show a more ______11_____ attitude to punishment and try to understand why a person commits a crime and how society has failed to enable him to live a respectable, _____12______ life.

Text 1: Match the following headings with the sections of the text below:

Rehabilitative programs

Psychiatric and case-study methods

Bentham approach

Neoclassical school

Preventive approach

Treatment of criminals

1. Various correctional approaches developed in the wake of causation theories. The old theological and moralistic theories encouraged punishment as retribution by society for evil. This attitude, indeed, still exists. The 19^th-century British jurist and philosopher Jeremy Bentham tried to make the punishment more precisely fit the crime. Bentham believed that pleasure could be measured against pain in all areas of human choice and conduct and that human happiness could be attained through such hedonic calculus. He argued that criminals would be deterred from crime if they knew, specifically, the suffering they would experience if caught. Bentham therefore urged definite, inflexible penalties for each class of crime; the pain of the penalty would outweigh only slightly the pleasure of success in crime; it would exceed it sufficiently to act as a deterrent, but not so much as to amount to wanton cruelty. This so-called calculus of pleasures and pains was based on psychological postulates no longer accepted.

2. The Bentham approach was in part superseded in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries by a movement known as the neoclassical school. This school, rejecting fixed punishments, proposed that sentences vary with the particular circumstances of a crime, such as the age, intellectual level, and emotional state of the offender; the motives and other conditions that may have incited to crime; and the offender's past record and chances of rehabilitation. The influence of the neoclassical school led to the development of such concepts as grades of crime and punishment, indeterminate sentences, and the limited responsibility of young or mentally deficient offenders.

3. At about the same time, the so-called Italian school stressed measures for preventing crime rather than punishing it. Members of this school argued that individuals are shaped by forces beyond their control and therefore cannot be held fully responsible for their crimes. They urged birth control, censorship of pornographic literature, and other actions designed to mitigate the influences contributing to crime. The Italian school has had a lasting influence on the thinking of present-day criminologists.

1. The modern approach to the treatment of criminals owes most to psychiatric and case-study methods. Much continues to be learned from offenders who have been placed on probation or parole and whose behavior, both in and out of prison, has been studied intensively. The contemporary scientific attitude is that criminals are individual personalities and that their rehabilitation can be brought about only through individual treatment. Increased juvenile crime has aroused public concern and has stimulated study of the emotional disturbances that foster delinquency. This growing understanding of delinquency has contributed to the understanding of criminals of all ages.

4. During recent years, crime has been under attack from many directions. The treatment and rehabilitation of criminals has improved in many areas. The emotional problems of convicts have been studied and efforts have been made to help such offenders. Much, however, remains to be done. Parole boards have engaged persons trained in psychology and social work to help convicts on parole or probation adjust to society. Various states have agencies with programs of reform and rehabilitation for both adult and juvenile offenders.

Many communities have initiated concerted attacks on the conditions that breed crime. Criminologists recognize that both adult and juvenile crime stem chiefly from the breakdown of traditional social norms and controls, resulting from industrialization, urbanization, increasing physical and social mobility, and the effects of economic crises and wars. Most criminologists believe that effective crime prevention requires community agencies and programs to provide the guidance and control performed, ideally and traditionally, by the family and by the force of social custom. Although the crime rate has not drastically diminished as a result of these efforts, it is hoped that the extension and improvement of all valid approaches to prevention of crime eventually will reduce its incidence.

Exercise 2: Write down the translation of the sentences from the text above given in bold type.

Exercise 3: Find in the text the English equivalents for the following words and expressions:

1. бессмысленная жестокость

2. досрочное освобождение

3. задержание, арест

4. общественные организации

5. ограниченная ответственность

6. освобождение на поруки

7. порождать преступление

8. преступления, совершенные несовершеннолетними

9. привлекать внимание общественности

10. совет по условно-досрочному освобождению

11. упадок традиционных общественных норм

Exercise 4: Give Russian equivalents for the following general types of punishment. Put them in descending order of severity.

• Capital punishment

• Community service

• Disciplinary training in a detention centre

• Fixed penalty fine

• Life imprisonment

• Probation

• Short-term imprisonment

• Suspended sentence

• Long-term imprisonment

Exercise 5: Study the following list of offences. Rate them on a scale from 1 to 10 (1 is a minor offence, 10 is a very serious crime). They are in no particular order. You don't have to apply your knowledge of existing laws — your own opinion is necessary:

□ driving in excess of the speed limit

□ common assault (e.g. a fight in a disco-club)

□ drinking and driving

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

□ murdering a policeman during a robbery

□ murdering a child

□ causing death by dangerous driving

□ smoking marijuana

□ selling drugs (such as heroin)

□ stealing £1,000 from a bank by fraud

□ stealing £1,000 worth of goods from someone's home

□ rape

□ grievous bodily harm (almost killing someone)

□ shop-lifting

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

□ possession of a gun without a licence

Text 2: Translate the following texts: