Incarceration / Imprisonment

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Incarceration is a form of punishment in which the offender is held in custody in either a jail or prison for the length of time imposed by the judge. A sentence of one year or less is served in a local jail.

Community Alternatives

States are allowing judges to impose sentences that do not involve the usual forms of punishment. Sentences can make use of community-based organizations. One form of community alternative sentence is community service. Reserved primarily for non-violent, non-repeat offenders, community service is an alternative to incarceration or probation. A person convicted of a crime is sentenced to perform a specified number of hours of service to the community. The person is assigned to work in a facility in need of volunteer workers. Soup kitchens, public parks, community centers and publicly operated hospitals are some of the facilities in which a person would work for the number of hours set by the judge.

Death Penalty

The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, is used in 34 states for punishment of especially heinous crimes. The method of carrying out a death sentence used most often is lethal injection or electrocution, but the gas chamber, hanging and firing squad have also been utilized.

What do you think should happen to these people? Choose from the list a - i on the right. If you do not like the list, what do you think should happen to them?

1 A man murdered his wife and three children. 2 A student with no money stole a book from a bookshop. 3 A woman sold some drugs to a teenager. 4 Some terrorists attacked a bus and killed 5 people. 5 A woman parked her car and blocked the traffic. 6 A teenager broke some trees in the park. 7 A man who drank too much alcohol drove his car and crashed

a) a fine of £ 100 b) 30 years in prison c) six months in prison d) death e) five years in prison f) in prison for life g) a fine of £ 50 h) must work in a hospital for six months i) must not drive a car for a year

What do you think? Put all the crimes above in a list, from least serious to most serious.

Match the terms with their definition. Give your examples of offence for each type of punishment

1) traffic ticket	a) driving rights are removed for a certain period of time
2) license suspension	b) pay money as punishment for minor/petty crime
3) fine	c) do volunteer work such as teaching children about crime or cleaning up garbage
4) house arrest	d) leaves marks on driving record/involves paying a fine
5) community service	e) spend the rest of one's life in prison with no chance of going back into society
6) jail time	f) spend a certain amount of months or years locked away from society
7) life in prison	g) remain in one's home for a certain period of time

Unit 5 THE NATURE OF POLICE WORK

The police are primarily responsible for the maintenance of public order, prevention and detection of crimes in the state. It also protects the life, liberty and property of the people. The crime is increasing day by day with the increase in the complexity of the civilization.

Hence, the role of the police has become more important than before. Without the police, there would be chaos in the society and the people would live in Hobbesian state of nature in which life would be " solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."

Thus, the police enforce criminal law maintaining law and order and investigating crime. It provides the necessary check against the ambivalence of the human nature. The police play an important role in the administration of justice. In theory, one's safety and liberty depend upon the law and constitution but in practice the laws and judicial decisions are enforced by the police. Thus the police is the saviour of modern civil society.

The myth of police as crime‐ fighters has been conveyed people through television dramas, comic strips, and newspaper articles. It conjures up in one's mind an image of a police officer doing a dangerous job that requires him or her to outshoot, outpunch, and outwit dangerous criminals. For most police, there is little correspondence between this image and reality. In a major metropolitan area (where crime rates are the highest), half of the officers in the local department will not make a felony arrest during a given year. The total annual rate of weapon discharges per hundred police officers is in the range of two to six.

What do the police really do?

Even though we refer to the police as law enforcement officers, the enforcement of criminal law (in other words, investigating crime and apprehending criminals) is only one of several functions that the police perform. The functions of the police include providing basic social services, maintaining order, and controlling crime.

In the area of social service, the police help people who need emergency assistance, whether it is giving first aid or finding lost children. Typically, over 50 percent of the telephone calls to the police requesting assistance involve social service as compared with less than 20 percent relating to crime.

Among the order‐ maintenance activities are traffic control, crowd control, resolving domestic disputes, and moving prostitutes from the streets. The focus of order maintenance is on handling situations to preserve the peace rather than enforcing the letter of the law. The appropriate order‐ maintenance solution may be making an arrest (for example, in case of domestic violence ), but it often consists of some less formal action (for example, getting an illegal panhandler to move on).

In the area of crime control, the police engage in a range of activities, such as patrol and criminal investigation.

Major responsibilities

· To identify criminal offenders and criminal activity and, when appropriate, to apprehend offenders and participate in later court proceedings.

· To reduce the opportunities for the commission of some crimes through preventive patrol and other measures.

· To aid individuals who are in danger of physical harm.

· To protect constitutional guarantees.

· To facilitate the movement of people and vehicles.

· To assist those who cannot care for themselves.

· To resolve conflict.

· To identify problems that are potentially serious law enforcement or government problems.

· To create and maintain a feeling of security in the community.

· To promote and preserve civil order.

· To provide other services on an emergency basis.

Here are some more useful verbs connected with crime and law. Note that many of them have particular prepositions associated with them.

to commit a crime or an offence: to do something illegal

to accuse someone of a crime: to say someone is guilty

to charge someone with (murder): to bring someone to court

to plead guilty or not guilty: to swear in court that one is guilty or otherwise.

to defend/prosecute someone in court: to argue for or against someone in a trial

to pass verdict on an accused person: to decide whether they are guilty or not

to sentence someone to a punishment: what the judge does after a verdict of guilty

to acquit an accused person of a charge: to decide in court that someone is not guilty (the opposite of to convict someone)

to fine someone a sum of money: to punish someone by making them pay

to send someone to prison: to punish someone by putting them in prison

to release someone from prison/jail: to set someone free after a prison sentence

to be tried: to have a case judged in court.

Here are some useful nouns.

trial: the legal process in court whereby an accused person is investigated, or tried, and then found guilty or not guilty

case: a crime that is being investigated

evidence: information used in a court of law to decide whether the accused is guilty or not proof: evidence that shows conclusively whether something is a fact or not verdict: the decision: guilty or not guilty

judge: the person who leads a trial and decides on the sentence

jury: group of twelve citizens who decide whether the accused is guilty or not

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