Ex. 31 A Read the text and comment on the use of various kinds of punishments.

Types of Punishment

The judge inflicts punishment that he or she feels will best serve both the offender and society. Laws may provide a maximum and a minimum sentence according to the crime involved.

In Britain about 80 per cent of offenders are punished with a fine. In the USA in 2001, for instance, 42 percent of all criminal offenders (excluding motoring offenders) were fined. A fine is often the punishment for a misdemeanour. But a fine and a prison sentence can be the penalty for a major crime. People who cannot pay a fine are usually ordered to serve a prison sentence. The maximum fine that can be imposed by a court in England and Wales is normally £ 5 000. When fixing the amount of a fine, courts are required to reflect the seriousness of the offence and to take into account the financial circumstances of the offender.

The courts may also order an offender to pay compensation for personal injury, loss or damage resulting from an offence.

Other financial penalties include seizure and sale of the offender's property or seizure of any funds he may have in a bank or savings account.

The judge may put a convicted offender on probation to protect the individual from the harmful effects of being imprisoned with experienced criminals. A lawbreaker who is on probation remains free but must follow certain rules. A court probation order in Britain can last between six months and three years. A probation officer assigned by the court supervises the individual's conduct. An offender may have to report weekly for the first three months, then fortnightly and, if all is going well, every three to four weeks. A probationer who violates any of the rules of his or her probation may be sent to prison.

Offenders aged 16 or over may, with their consent, be given community service orders, which punishes them by making them do work and give something back to the community. The court may order between 40 and 240 hours’ unpaid service to be completed within 12 months. Examples of work done include decorating the houses of elderly or disabled people and building playgrounds. In England and Wales the court may make an order combining community service and probation.

A custodial sentence is the most severe sentence available to the courts in many countries and can be imposed only when the offence is so serious that only such a sentence would be appropriate, or when it there is a need to protect the public from sexual or violent offender. The length of the sentence must reflect the seriousness of the offence. There is a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment for murder throughout Britain. Life imprisonment is the maximum penalty for a number of serious offences such as robbery, rape, arson and manslaughter. A sentence may be served in a mass cell or in solitary confinement.

If a court decides that an offence deserves custodial sentence of not more than two years, the sentence may be suspended for a period of 1 to 2 years if exceptional circumstances justify the suspension. If the offender commits another imprisonable offence during the period of suspension, the court may order the suspended service to be served in addition to any punishment imposed for the second offence.

Capital punishment (death penalty) is punishment by death for committing a major crime. In the mid-1990's, 38 states of the United States had laws that allowed the death penalty carried out by electrocution, gassing, hanging or lethal injection. In the USA most executions have resulted from convictions for murder. The death penalty has also been imposed for such serious crimes as armed robbery, kidnapping, rape, and treason. The death penalty in Britain remains on the statute book for the offences of treason, piracy with violence and some other offences. It has, however, not been used for any of these offences since 1946. Many other countries, including most European and Latin American nations, have abolished the death penalty since 1900. Canada did so in 1976. In the early 1990's, the United States was the only Western industrialized nation where executions still took place.

B Match the beginnings and the ending of the following phrases and translate them into Russian: