- •Государственное образовательное учреждение
- •Courts and trials (topical vocabulary)
- •Set Work
- •I. Study the above given lexical units.
- •II. Give words for the following definitions.
- •III. Translate into English:
- •Crime and punishment
- •Set Work
- •Set Work
- •Set Work
- •I. What would you have done?
- •II. Look at these statements. What do you think about them?
- •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.
- •IV. Compare your list with another student’s. Which of you would be the harsher judge? Which would be the kinder?
- •Thief challenges dose of shame as punishment
- •Set Work
- •Women behind bars
- •Set Work
- •VI. State the idea behind the lines below and enlarge on it.
- •VII. Sum up the key points of the article.
- •VIII. Points for discussion.
- •Justice in los angeles
- •Set Work
- •V. Points for discussion.
- •VI. Sum up the article and single out its main points. Черное плюс белое равняется красному?
- •Set Work
- •I. Think of the best English equivalents of:
- •II. Say what you know about:
- •III. Points for discussion.
- •IV. Comment on the choice of the headline.
- •Set Work
- •VIII. Enlarge on the idea.
- •IX. Points for discussion.
- •X. Role play.
- •Set Work
- •Set Work
- •VI. Give the gist of the article.
- •VII. Points for discussion.
- •Век бы свободы не видать!
- •Set Work
- •Set Work
- •I. Say what is meant by the following words and word combinations. Reproduce the situations in which they were used.
- •II. Find in the article the English for:
- •III. Interpret the lines below.
- •IV. Comment on the author’s choice of the headline and formulate the key idea running through the article.
- •V. Points for discussion.
- •How british burglars pick their victims
- •Set Work
- •I. Master the pronunciation of the words below. Learn and translate them.
- •II. Explain what is meant by:
- •III. Look through the article for the following English equivalents of:
- •IV. State the difference between the words below. Give examples to illustrate their usage.
- •V. Translate the following sentences.
- •VI. Pete (the burglar described in the article) says he is ten stone. How many kilos is it? How many stones do you weigh?
- •VII. Interpret the idea expressed in the lines below.
- •VIII. Points for discussion.
- •A life inside
- •I. Define the following words and word combinations. Reproduce the situations in which they occur.
- •II. Scan the article for the English equivalents of:
- •III. State the difference between the words below. Give examples to illustrate their usage.
- •IV. Explain what is meant by:
- •V. Say whether you agree or disagree with the lines below.
- •Set Work
- •I. Explain the meaning of the words below. Say how they were used in the article.
- •II. Give the English equivalents of the following word combinations:
- •III. Comment on the statements below.
- •IV. Translate the following sentences.
- •V. Points for discussion.
- •VI. Speak about your stand on capital punishment as “the only way to deter criminals”. To back up either of your viewpoints use the key statements.
- •«Палач является в застенок со всеми инструментами» так добивались правды
- •Set Work
- •III. Practise the pronunciation of the words below:
- •IV. Explain what is meant by:
- •V. State the difference between the following words, give examples to illustrate their usage.
- •VI. What other arguments for and against capital punishment can you add to the list?
- •40 Тезисов в осуждение убийцы
- •Set Work
- •Set Work
- •I. Choose the correct meaning according to the passage.
- •II. Give the Russian equivalents of the following vocabulary units:
- •III. Say if the problem of capital punishment has always been vital. Back up your opinion. Как, где и за что казнят
- •Set Work
- •Set Work
- •Set Work
- •Set Work
- •Set Work
- •II. Find in the article the Russian for:
- •III. Say if you share the idea expressed in the sentences below:
- •IV. Explain the difference between:
- •V. Points for discussion.
- •VI. Render the article into English, trying to use as many words under study as you can.
- •VII. Comment on the headline and formulate the author’s message.
- •Inside the new alcatraz
- •Set Work
- •IX. Points for discussion.
- •X. Comment on the headline.
- •XI. Describe a prison for hard-core criminals, as you see it. Смертникам жизнь хуже расстрела
- •Set Work
- •Set Work
- •I. Think of the best English equivalents of:
- •II. Say what you know about:
- •State power and crime
- •Set Work
- •I. Say what is meant by the words and word combinations below:
- •II. Find in the article the English for:
- •III. Say how you understand the lines below and enlarge on the idea.
- •IV. Is it possible to oppose the demoralization of the very fundaments of the life of the nation? What is the general path of the sanitation of public life and the state itself?
- •V. Sum up the main points of the article. Какие законы нам не указ Почему россияне не верят в законы
- •Set Work
- •I. Think of the best English equivalents of:
- •II. What’s the English for?
- •The holocaust in the dock
- •Set Work
- •VII. Give the gist of the article.
- •VIII. Describe the Swiss-Nazi case and formulate the author’s vision of the problem.
- •IX. How is the Swiss-Nazi case likely to end? What’s the rub? Will justice be done at long last? the making of a suicide bomber
- •Set Work
- •I. Master the pronunciation of the words below. Learn and translate them.
- •II. Explain the meaning of the words below. Say how they were used in the article.
- •III. Look through the article for the English equivalents of:
- •IV. Say what you know about:
- •V. Write out expressions with the word “suicide” and explain what they mean.
- •VI. Say whether you agree or disagree with the following statements and enlarge on them.
- •VII. Points for discussion.
- •VIII. Do a library research on some terrorist organisation and make a short report in class. Terrorist infiltrations
- •Set Work
- •VI. Comment on the author’s choice of the headline and formulate the message.
- •VII. Points for discussion.
- •VIII. Say if you’ve read any of the books mentioned in the article. Do such kinds of books appeal to you? hacking for dollars
- •Set Work
- •I. Learn and practise the pronunciation of the words below. Translate them into Russian.
- •II. Define the computer-related word combinations used in the article. Reproduce the context in which they were used.
- •III. Find in the article the English for:
- •IV. Say what is meant by the words and word combinations below. How were they used in the article?
- •V. State the difference between the words below. Give examples to illustrate their usage.
- •VI. Clarify the idea behind the following lines.
- •VII. Outline the main points of the article and dwell upon each of them.
- •VIII. Points for discussion.
- •IX. Make up a dialogue between two cybercops. Use the words from the article.
- •Set Work
- •I. Learn the pronunciation of the words below. Translate them into Russian.
- •II. Define the words and word combinations below. Say how they were used in the article.
- •III. Scan the article for the English equivalents of:
- •IV. Look through the article for the word combinations with the word “online.” Write them out and explain what they mean.
- •V. Explain what is meant by:
- •VI. Fill in the correct preposition. Check against the text.
- •VII. Say how you understand the following lines.
- •VIII. Points for discussion.
- •Internet как инструмент совершения киберпреступлений
- •Set Work
- •I. Render the above given article into English.
- •II. Points for discussion.
- •Spyware hits business
- •Set Work
- •I. Master the pronunciation of the words below. Learn and translate them.
- •II. Explain what is meant by:
- •III. Look through the article for the English equivalents of:
- •IV. What do the following abbreviations stand for:
- •V. State the difference between the words below. Give examples to illustrate their usage.
- •VI. Add some more words to the given string.
- •VII. Fill in the correct prepositions. Check against the text.
- •VIII. Interpret the lines below.
- •IX. Points for discussion.
- •Mobile phone crime blitz launched
- •Set Work
- •Set Work
- •VI. Sum up the key points of the article.
- •VII. Points for discussion.
- •The gentleman thief
- •Set Work
- •Drugs and crime
- •Set Work
- •I. Transcribe and learn the following words:
- •II. Find out and say what is meant by:
- •III. Say what you know about the units of weight mentioned in the article. In what connections were they used?
- •IV. Reveal the difference between:
- •V. Say how you understand:
- •VI. Learn the pronunciation of the following deadly drugs.
- •VII. Give English equivalents for:
- •VIII. Answer the following questions.
- •IX. Translate the following sentences into English.
- •Наркотикам – бой…и герл
- •Set Work
- •Set Work
- •I. Define the words and word combinations below. Reproduce situations in which they occur in the article.
- •II. Look through the article for the following English equivalents:
- •III. Specify the meaning of the prefix over-. Write out the examples with this prefix from the article and explain their meaning. Think of some other examples and dwell upon them.
- •IV. Say how you understand the given lines.
- •V. Points for discussion.
- •Тяга к наркотикам ничуть не ослабла
- •Set Work
- •Set Work
- •I. Say what is meant by the following vocabulary units and in what connection they are used in the article.
- •Вам марихуаны? пожалуйста!
- •Set Work
- •Set Work
- •V. What addictive substances are mentioned in the article? In what ways are they consumed by addicts?
- •VI. Explain how you understand the following phrases:
- •VII. State the difference between the words below. Give examples to illustrate their usage.
- •VIII. Interpret the idea expressed in the given lines.
- •IX. Give the gist of the article and formulate its key idea.
- •X. Comment on the headline.
- •XI. Points for discussion.
- •A shot of sanity
- •Set Work
- •VIII. Give the gist of the article and say what you think of the idea put forward by the author.
- •IX. Points for discussion.
- •Cocaine cartel smashed
- •Set Work
- •I. Think of the best English variant to say:
- •Set Work
- •Set Work
- •I. Supply the English equivalents for the following words and word combinations:
- •Set Work
- •Set Work
- •I. What answers to the above questions does the article offer?
- •II. Scan the article for the English equivalents of the Russian words below and learn them.
- •III. Explain what is meant by:
- •IV. Make up a dialogue (based on the words from task II) between two criminologists.
- •V. Points for discussion.
- •I. Render the below article into English.
- •II. Say whether you share the author’s thesis. How it all starts inside your brain
- •Set Work
- •I. Master the pronunciation of the words below. Learn and translate them.
- •II. Define the following words and word combinations below. Reproduce the situations in which they occur.
- •III. Scan the article for the English equivalents of:
- •IV. Explain what the following abbreviations stand for.
- •V. State the difference between the words below. Give examples to illustrate their usage.
- •VI. Explain how you understand:
- •VII. Say what you know about:
- •VIII. Find in the article the evidence to support the following statements.
- •IX. Points for discussion.
- •Агрессивное поведение запрограммировано еще при рождении преступник разрушает сам себя
- •Set Work
- •VI. Sum up the main points of the article and say if you share the journalist’s stand.
- •VII. Points for discussion.
- •1. Is society or are people to blame for different misdemeanors and felonies? 2. How can people be made less aggressive? of criminals and ceos
- •Set Work
- •V. Interpret the lines below.
- •VI. Say what you know about:
- •VII. Sum up the key points of the article and formulate the author’s thesis.
- •VIII. Comment on the choice of the headline.
- •IX. Points for discussion.
- •Set Work
- •VI. Do you agree that:
- •VII. Sum up the key points of the article.
- •VIII. Points for discussion.
- •Death penalty
- •Убийство должно караться смертью!
- •Cops and robbers (and drug pushers and murderers…)
- •I. Read the following article to find out:
- •Computer hacking – high-tech crime
- •II. Find words or phrases in the text which mean the same as:
- •III. Now complete these statements by choosing the answer which you think fits best.
- •Vocabulary Tests
- •I. Crime. Put each of the following words and phrases into its correct place in the passage below.
- •II. Law breakers. Give the name of the defined law breaker.
- •III. Law breakers. Match the criminal with the definition.
- •IV. Law breakers. Choose the right answer.
- •V. Law breakers. Choose the correct answer.
- •VI. Law breakers. By moving vertically or horizontally (forwards or backwards) find twelve kinds of criminal.
- •VII. Police. Choose the right answer.
- •VIII. Trial. If you commit a crime you may be:
- •IX. Trial. Choose the right answer.
- •X. Trial. Choose the right answer.
- •XI. Punishment. Match each punishment with its description.
- •XII. Punishment. Choose the right answer.
- •XIII. Punishment. Put each of the following words and phrases into its correct place in the passage below.
- •Trial by Jury
- •XIV. Crime and punishment. Choose the right answer.
- •XV. Crime and punishment. Choose the word or phrase that best keeps the meaning of the original sentence if it is substituted for the capitalized word.
- •Vocabulary Test
- •Фантастический процесc
- •Set Work
- •Твое имя в грязи
- •Methods and measures
- •Третье место за воровство
- •Is a crime crackdown a challenge of the time?
- •Государственное образовательное учреждение высшего профессионального образования «Липецкий государственный педагогический университет»
- •398020 Г. Липецк, ул. Ленина, 42
Set Work
I. Think of the best English equivalents of:
помиловать, популярный преступник, осужденный, присутствовать при казни, камера смертников, зачитать кому-л. смертный приговор, смертник, получить смертельную инъекцию, отклонить прошение о помиловании, отсрочить исполнение приговора, осудить кого-л. за убийство, признать себя виновным, провести жизнь за решеткой, раскаяться, хладнокровный преступник, заменить смертную казнь пожизненным заключением, жестокие убийства, сохранить кому-л. жизнь, противники смертной казни, главарь банды, расследование гангстерских преступлений, прокуратура, сотрудничать со следствием, выдать имена членов банды, стукач, подзащитный, правозащитник.
II. Say what you know about:
Hollywood, Texas’s cocktail, the “Cripples”, Venice Beach, Nobel’s prize, the MTV;
Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Timothy Macway, the Pope, Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela, Snoop Doggy, Jemmy Fox, Jessie Jackson, Russell Crow, Tucky Williams, Richard Drayfooth.
III. Find in the article the Russian for:
an overburdened room, hangout, to mastermind an explosion, muscleman, to refuse to be mollified, biceps, to build one’s body, tension, to hit sb.
IV. Say how you interpret the headline of the article.
V. Render the above article into English.
VI. Points for discussion.
Was justice done in William’s case or was an innocent person executed in California?
Why wasn’t the man granted clemency? Was it because the state’s governor didn’t want to disappoint his electorate or were there any other reasons?
Would you show mercy to your acquaintance who happened to become a gangster if you were in a position to do so?
What’s the right penalty for crime lords?
As is known, Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger used to be actors before they went into politics. Do you think a former actor is quite able to become a savvy politician?
Part III. Modern Crime.
State power and crime
There is no use complaining of a lack of respect for the law in some citizens if the state itself is essentially criminal
Much has been said, and very convincingly too, about the criminalization of contemporary Russian state, i.e., about corruption among the bureaucracy and the corps of deputies on all levels. The first address of the President of Russia after the adoption of the Constitution of 1993 contains the admission that corruption “penetrated the state machinery” (1994). That is certainly true, but it is not the whole truth. What is much more terrible is that the state itself, as organized public power, as a corporation of professional managers and mechanism for maintaining public order became a source of violation of law and of limitation of human and civil rights and freedoms and, in a number of spheres, also an incubator of criminal offences and persons committing them.
Two twins: state power and crime
When a state, whose Constitution has declared it social and law-governed, i.e., serving society and citizens, guaranteeing their freedoms and rights and acting strictly in the framework of law, tramples upon this law, violating its own legislation and civil rights, it is described as a law-violating state. However, when a state is not only unable to resist criminal lawlessness by minimizing it at least, but engenders lawlessness and crime, not as individual cases but en masse, then such a state must be considered criminal.
It is wrong to believe that antisocial and illegal actions by state power, its representatives and structures both in the capital and in the provinces, are engendered by the evil will of individual state servants or appear as if from nothing. The present Russian state is corroded by heavy diseases of the whole society, by the crisis of its transition from one state to another and, lastly, by its heredity: social, moral and psychological – by genetic diseases of the social organism itself.
Added to it must be the indisputable fact that the historically unprecedented task of overcoming the all-pervading heritage of the totalitarian regime, the most prolonged, inhumane and powerful in the entire contemporary history, fell to the lot of the present state power, no matter if it is good or bad. Violation of human and civil rights (more than that: the denial of such rights) both in prerevolutionary and Soviet times and especially during “proletarian dictatorship,” was a specific feature of Russian society. It is impossible to make a leap into the kingdom of freedom and law (freedom can only be legal freedom in civilized society) overnight, or in “500 days” or even over five years. Especially because a considerable part of society grasps on outlived economic and administrative institutions by inertia.
At the same time, explanation is not justification, and it does not relieve state power and its representatives of responsibility for erroneous decisions of national importance and for concrete infringements of law, committed by state power and its representatives.
It is especially dramatic that state power not even fails to cope with the criminal outrage adequately, not only condones it to a large extent, but also engenders certain kinds of infringement of law and some categories of criminal offences.
Lawlessness as the basic law
What is really dangerous is not that bureaucrats take bribes, although this is bad enough too. Socially dangerous is the anti-social, consequently, anti-legal orientation of a number of state functions. As violation of rights (first of all, of subjective human and civil rights) was passed of as observance of socialist (proletarian, revolutionary, Soviet) legality under socialism, so now the slogan of law-governed state made a constitutional postulate is objectively (independently of its positive orientation and the good-will of those who worked out the Constitution of the Russian Federation and republics and statutes of regions) used to conceal the orgy of lawlessness in the country.
Naturally, the powers of the state are not unlimited, nevertheless it is within its power to localize and cushion the consequences of the processes resulting from the logic of the extinction of socialist values and principles, as well as negative manifestations of the spontaneously appearing market and competition. Or at least not to aggravate them. Evidently, political, economic and personal freedoms which are appearing an a country which knew neither civil society nor civilized laws and individual freedom, cannot fail to engender lawlessness, individual, collective or state and administrative. It is the latter that encourages the legislation vacuum and is encouraged by it in turn: firstly, thanks to controversial laws and, secondly, due to political collisions between the central and regional authorities. Which means that the state and state power, responsible for legislation, fail to cope with their duties.
There are manifestations of the state’s criminogenic effect on society also outside the effective sphere of these factors. This concerns the state’s criminal role in its tax, social, law-enforcement and normative legal activities. In other words, its criminogenic nature has been programmed on the political level, publicly and officially. As well as on economic, when state structures act as a light-fingered entrepreneurs.
Taxes and levies reaching 95 percent of the profit of enterprises with various forms of property ownership not only throttle production and entrepreneurship – they directly engender criminal fiscal avoidance. In the meantime, according to contemporary tax legislation of civilized states, taxes must be of a reasonable and sparing size and stimulating nature.
The ineffectiveness of the state institutions of social control and human rights protection (courts of justice, the court of arbitration and rights protecting organizations), their poverty and vulnerability provoke the spread of arbitrary “regulation and control” in the form of criminal settlings of accounts, forcible recovery of debts, armed self-protection and retaliation carried out by non-state structures with the use of illegal means.
The state reacts indifferently or languidly to the formation and activities of unofficial illegal armed groups of criminal political nature. Right-radical assault groups are outlawed, but enjoy connivance and even patronizing of the “servants of law” (who in a number of cases merge with them). Retired “law-enforcers” join them eagerly. The decree on fighting political extremism is sabotaged. The state in the person of the army regularly supplies criminal and criminal political groups with weapons and equipment both in the form of formally prosecuted but practically uncontrolled activities of servicemen (embezzlement and sale of army property) and officially, in the form of the transference of weapons to the governments and “authorities” of warring sides in hot spots of the former USSR (and outside it too). True, the latter was more widely practiced when the CIS was being formed.
The stepdaughter of the budget
Similarly to social and cultural policy, the defence of rank-and-file citizens is carried out in conformity with the vestigial principle and the law-enforcing policy of the state and budget assignments. In any case, the legal sphere was and remains a stepdaughter of the state budget, while the guard of top state officials is ensured in a cynical priority order. Russian citizens remain unprotected both against street bandits and deception by financial pyramids.
The penitentiary system is in a wild inhumane state; it is the hotbed of crime and criminal corrosion of society. Even remand detainees are kept in worse conditions than animals in the zoo.
This is criminal privatization of state power as such, corruption on all the levels of the state mechanism.
The transparency of Russia’s borders attracts transnational criminal structures smuggling in drugs, weapons and so on. The wrongly interpreted principle of transparency of borders leaves the country unprotected against international criminal groups.
Efforts made by the authorities to check the tide of crime by strengthening law-enforcing structures are not supported by the corresponding measures to improve the work of these structures, especially at the selection of invited personnel and the purge of the already employed. What is being done in this direction is insufficient. What is worse, mass corruption has involved a number of structures: traffic police, tax and especially customs services. The most terrible thing is that a number of special police services have developed contempt for civil rights; violence against those detained, suspected, arrested and convicted is widespread. Law-enforcing bodies have largely become repressive bodies violating law.
Many experts believe that the system of the Ministry of the Interior has acquired the features of a largest criminal syndicate which has merged with criminal business and which violates the rights of rank-and-file citizens daily. Which does not, of course, imply the wholesale criminalization of all the staff who include also many honest people too.
Thus the share of “official” and “semi-official” criminal world in the totality of the Russian gangland prevails over “unofficial”: street and everyday crime (if not numerically, then at least as to its social danger and the destructive effect on society). Although possibly debatable, this thesis is not ungrounded.
To sum up: the criminal “perestroika” of civil society, the criminalization and criminogenic nature of state power is the most dangerous challenge to the country’s reforming and updating. The demoralization of the very fundamentals of the life of the nation, of its present and future, is taking place. Is it possible to oppose it effectively? And if it is, what is the general path to the sanitation of public life and the state itself? Because individual measures taken for this purpose are ineffective. However, it may be the subject-matter of a special publication.
Vladimir Guliyev
/New Times, February, 1997/