Discussion

Using the vocabulary and facts from the articles above discuss the following:

• Prison conditions should be decent and austere and prisons should be a punishment.

• Prison facilities provide a calming influence and a powerful incentive to good conduct.

TASK 9. Read the text below and write down a list of problems that prison inmates face:

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights declares that "all persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person". However, in reality all over the world, hundreds of thousands of people are being held in prisons that are: squalid, overcrowded, dilapidated, insanitary, inhumane, unjust, very expensive and ineffective in tackling crime. In many countries, conditions are so bad that prisoners die from malnutrition, diseases, attacks from other prisoners or prison staff, or suicide. Under extremely overcrowded and insanitary conditions, diseases such as tuberculosis and dysentery spread very rapidly, and without medical treatment they may easily be fatal.

At the same time there is a small number of people who present such a danger to the community or to themselves that they need to be detained. However, for most offences, imprisonment is not an effective penalty. Many countries which may have very high prison populations have very high crime rates. This shows that prison is probably not deterring many people from crime. Whilst in prison, the attitudes of minor offenders may harden as they mix with those convicted of more serious crimes. This often leads to minor offenders committing more serious crime after they are released from prison.

Large amounts of money are spent on locking people up, even when prison staff are poorly paid, buildings are not maintained and prisoners are treated inadequately.

In many countries, prison populations have been increasing substantially over recent years. Most prisoners are young, poor, urban men. Locking up this section of the general population for

substantial periods has a destabilising effect on the whole of society in the longer term.

TASK 10. Find in the text above the English equivalents for the following words and expressions:

1. высокий уровень преступности

2. лицо, совершившее малозначительное правонарушение

3. эффективная мера наказания

4. удержать от совершения преступления

5. посадить, 'упрятать' в тюрьму

6. освободить из тюрьмы

TASK 11. Complete the text using the words from the box:

restraint; release date; recidivism; rehabilitate; preventive

Criticism of the present prison system of punishment has

focused mainly on its rehabilitative and functions.

Critics point out that — the commission of another

crime after the offender has served a sentence for the first time — I is high. Thus the system seems ineffective as a cure for, or a

upon, those factors in offenders which may lead to

criminal acts. Furthermore, because there is no way to predict the future behaviour of individuals, the length of sentence and the

may have no relationship to the prison time necessary

to effect a cure in, or , an offender. Many criminologists

insist that there is no adequate body to demonstrate that any punishment, capital punishment included, has a restraining effect on potential criminal behaviour.