8.2. CRIME

8.2. CRIME

8.2.1

Reading

Read the text and answer the questions below.

The next twenty-four hours will see in Britain record two murders, ten rapes, 50 sexual assaults, 50 assaults causing grievous bodily harm, 113 muggings and other robberies, 2,800 burglaries, and 1,200 car thefts. Yet these figures – part of an annual total of about five million recorded crimes – represent only the tip of an iceberg. And that is not all. Each of the three quarters of this year for which figures have already been published showed a rise of about 14 per cent on the same period 12 months before. This is a big disappointment for policymakers, because in the last two years the recorded crime rate actually fell.

The public’s understanding of crime is not impressive, however. A recent survey found two-thirds of the population believe that 50 per cent of crimes and violent offences are against the person. The true figure is 6 per cent. Small wonder, perhaps, that a government committee claimed fear of crime to be as great a problem as crime itself.

The elderly, for example, fear crime the most, especially violent crime, although they are least likely to become victims (the most dangerous age of all is under one year old with 28 homicide victims per million babies. People of 70 are far less likely to be murder victims than any adult group, with only eight victims per million. Only children aged 5-15 are safer).

According to an international survey published last year, Britain’s crime rate is lower than the European average and lower than that of Holland, Germany, Canada and Australia. About 18 per cent of Britons were victims of crime last year. In Canada 28 per cent had experienced a crime, in Holland 26 per cent and in Germany 22 per cent. At the other end of the scale Switzerland (15.6 per cent) and Finland (15.9 per cent) had low overall victim rates. But safest of all was Northern Ireland: there only 15 per cent of the population experienced a crime.

The US appeared to live up to its reputation for lawlessness overall, with 28.8 per cent of the population having been a victim of a crime. America’s murder rate makes ours seem infinitesimal. Nearly twice as many murders (1,051) were committed in the city of New York in the first six months of last year as in England and Wales.

But nobody in England is complacent. A computer study of every person born in a certain month in 1953 revealed that by the age of 30, one in three men had been convicted of crime. One in sixteen had been in prison. One in eight born in 1953 who had been convicted of an offence had committed a crime of violence by the age of 20. For those born in 1963, this proportion has risen to one in five.

What are the causes of criminal behaviour?
What should be done about these causes?
Does crime influence your everyday life?
In what way are people in our city / republic affected by the criminal situation?

8.2.2

Word Form

Complete the table.

crime	definition	criminal	verb
murder		murderer
shoplifting	stealing something from a shop
burglary			burgle
smuggling	taking something illegally into another country
arson			set fire to
kidnapping		kidnapper
terrorism
blackmail			blackmail
drug-trafficking		drug-trafficker
forgery			forge
assault	physical attack on another person
pickpocketing
mugging			mug

Word Choice

What is the difference between the verbs

steal and rob? Put the right form of either

of them in the sentences below.

Last night an armed gang … the post office. They … £2,000.
My handbag … at the theatre yesterday.
Every year large numbers of banks … .
Jane … of the opportunity to stand for president.
Some drug users … from their families to finance their habit.
The company director … pensioners of millions.
Sean has a long history of … cars.
Someone … his passport while he was asleep.

Collocation

Complete the chart by ticking the objects

that go with the verbs:

	bank	house	warehouse	watch	old lady	car	bank manager
steal
rob
break into
burgle
mug

D Match the adjectives in column A with the nouns

in column B.

1. vicious

2. brutal

3. cold-blooded

4. common

5. habitual

6. petty

a. murder

b. criminal

c. offender

d. crime

8.2.3

Definition

Here are some more crimes and offences.

Explain, define and give examples of

the offences listed below.

B Which of the above would or could involve the following?

1. counterfeit money

2. pornography

3. hostages

4. a ransom

5. heroin

6. a traitor

7. state secrets

8. contraband

9. a store detective

Metaphor / Idiom

Put the words murder, robbery and steal

in the blanks. Explain the meaning of

the fixed phrases.

I could __________ a steak.
He screamed blue _________ when I told him.
Honestly, because he’s so charming he can get away with ________.
It was absolute ________ trying to push the car.
You must be joking! I’m not going to pay that much for it. It’s daylight _______.
She _______ the show. The rest of us were virtually ignored.

8.2.4

Meaning

Read the extracts and find words and

phrases that mean:

people who saw something / the crime
seized with the power of the law
nasty and cruel
search
tested for the amount of alcohol
less important and serious
someone who is thought to have done it
information that may help the police discover something
arrested for going too fast
someone who breaks the law frequently
signs, indications
officials in the police force (list them in order of seniority)

BICYCLE COP SPEAKS OUT

man held in pub robbery

The woman in charge of investigating bicycle thefts in the city has become impatient with the criminals who make her life difficult. ’This kind of petty crime is really annoying,’ says Constable Merrington. ‘It inconveniences a lot of people …’

The police have arrested a man in connection with the ‘Three Horseshoes’ pub robbery. ‘There were a number of clues which led us to the suspect,’ said Chief Inspector Locke, in charge of the operation. ‘The man we have arrested is a habitual offender and we are confident that he is the man we were looking for.’

doc stopped by city police

Mary Edwards, a surgeon at the City’s biggest hospital, was booked for speeding and then breathalysed, a police spokesman said last night.

POLICE BAFFLED IN HILLSIDE KILLING

The police still have no leads in their hunt for the killer of the young hitchhiker whose body was found three days ago at the foot of Sunbury Hill. ‘We are appealing for witnesses to come forward,’ said Superintendent Jones, ‘this was a particularly brutal murder and …’

8.2.5

Comprehension

Read the following headlines from a selection

of newspapers. Match each one to the most

appropriate extract.

LITTLE CAESARS BLAMED FOR TERRORIZING NORTHUMBRIA

Houdini Kid Does It Again

It’s time to Crack down on Crime Babies

A. A government report on the increase in crime amongst juveniles has made recommendations to schools and parents to supervise children more carefully, especially during holidays and after school. The report suggests that many children are left to their own devices at these times and some find themselves involved in illegal or dangerous activities. It recently came to light that a group of children from a primary school had tied up a seven-year-old boy in his bedroom and proceeded to ransack the house. The report also recommends that it is time the police got tough with the parents of youngsters who break the law.

B. For the third time this year, a ten-year-old child in the care of the local authority has absconded from a secure unit by wriggling under an electrified fence. The child, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was placed in a secure unit in Northumbria after running away from children’s home on six occasions over the last two years. A spokesperson for the authority told a news conference that there was no satisfactory way of detaining children against their will other than sending them to adult prisons.

C. A gang of children aged between six and eleven have been accused of making the lives of old-age pensioners a misery. Residents in housing estates on the outskirts of Newcastle and Sunderland have complained that gangs of young children have been tormenting the old folk by throwing rubbish in their gardens, banging on their doors and windows at night and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Northumbrian District Council has announced plans to send police into the area to talk to parents and teachers in a bid to stop further escalation of the problem.

8.2.6

Reading

Read through the article and say if you think

the title is appropriate.

Little Joey’s Lost Childhood

One day last summer, when Joey has been arrested yet again for yet another burglary, his solicitor went down to the police station to see him. He sat down opposite him in the interview room, sighed and asked him straight: ‘Joey, why do you do it?’

And Joey looked straight back and told him, ‘I dunno. I gotta buy fags, drink. There’s drugs and things. I gotta girl. It’s money you know …’ Joey shrugged, like any man with weight on his mind. Joey was then eleven years old.

Soon afterwards, he became famous when, in October last year, he was locked away in a secure unit outside Leeds where he was three years younger than any other inmate, so young that his incarceration required the personal authority of the Home Secretary. As he was led away from court, he hurled insults at the press and then disappeared in a cloud of publicity.

He became a caricature – ‘the Artful Dodger’, ‘Britain’s most notorious young crook’, ‘Crime baby’, ‘the Houdini Kid’. He made all the papers. Soon his case was being used as ammunition in a sustained assault which has seen the Home Secretary, the Police Federation, the Daily Express and various Chief Constables campaigning to lock up more children.

They pointed not only to Joey but to a rash of other adolescent delinquents: the eleven-year-old brother and sister whose attempted arrest caused a riot at a wedding party; the six ‘Little Caesars’ from Northumbria who were blamed for 550 offences; the thirteen-year-old armed robber from Cheshire. Their solution was simple: these children had to be punished; the courts needed more powers to put them behind bars.

Joey grew up with his father, Gerry, a Southern Irish labourer who has not worked regularly for years; and his mother, Maureen, also Irish and barely literate, who was only eighteen when she married Gerry, fifteen years her senior. The neighbours remember Joey playing with his go-cart in the street, running around with his two smaller brothers, banging on the door to scrounge cigarettes for Gerry. They say he was a nice kid. They remember him skiving off school, too, and thieving, but they don’t remember it well. Almost everybody’s kids skive off school, and a lot of them go thieving.

Gerry says he’s not too sure when Joey first broke the law. He thinks he stole some crisps for dinner when he was four. In Gerry’s family there has often been trouble with the law: petty crimes, handling, the occasional fight, a succession of brothers and uncles behind bars.

By the time he was 10, thieving was the only game Joey knew. He had 35 arrests behind him and the social workers decided he had to be locked up. They had tried taking him into care but he had simply walked out of the homes where they put him, so, in December 1990, he was sent to the secure unit at East Moor outside Leeds.

He liked it there. Everyone at East Moor agrees that Joey liked it. It is not like a prison: there are no peaked caps or truncheons. It is more like a school with extra keys. Tucked away there, far from the mean crescents of the housing estate, he was a child again. He played with Lego. He practised joined-up writing. He woke up feeling ill in the night and cried on the principal’s shoulder.

Joey is due to be released from the secure unit in February. Everyone who has dealt with him is sure that he will go straight back to his old ways. They say they have given up on him. They have two options: lock him up or let him go. Everyone in social services knows the danger of locking up a child: it breaks up the family, it stigmatizes the child, it floats him in a pool with older criminals.

Yet letting him go is no better, not when it means returning to the battered streets of the city. Joey is not the only child like this. Every English city has them. Joey just happens to be the famous one. He’s bright and he’s brave and the psychiatrists agree he is not disturbed. He is, by nature, anxious to please. In the secure unit now, he conforms with everything around him.

If you throw a child into the sea, it will drown. If you throw it into an English ghetto, it will grow up like Joey.

Comprehension

Answer the following multiple-choice questions:

1. Joey became famous because

a. he had committed so many burglaries.

b. he was always being arrested.

c. he was the youngest inmate in the secure unit.

d. he swore at the press photographers.

2. How did the Home Secretary and the police respond to the rise in juvenile crime?

a. They wanted to see more young criminals put in prison.

b. They believed that there should be a return to corporal punishment.

c. They thought that the courts had too much power.

d. They thought that the police force should be strengthened.

3. What can the neighbours recall about Joey?

a. He smoked cigarettes.

b. He was a bully.

c. He started stealing when he was four.

d. He played truant from school.

4. Why was it decided that Joey should go to a secure unit?

a. He refused to give up thieving.

b. He kept running away from the homes.

c. He behaved better in a secure unit.

d. He was too old for the children’s home.

5. What does the writer think is the main cause of Joey’s behaviour?

a. He is a victim of his own circumstances.

b. He is unable to sort himself out.

c. He has been forced to behave in an anti-social way.

d. He has been badly treated by the police.

Meaning

Find words or phrases in the text which are

similar in meaning to the words in italics.

Amy looked as if she had a lot to worry about.
The prison staff found it difficult to keep the prisoners in their cells.
The young man’s imprisonment in a small, windowless cell was cruel and unnecessary.
Kevin has been breaking the law all his life; he’s a criminal and nothing is going to change him.
Most people would prefer to see convicted criminals in jail rather than doing community service.
When the prison governor stopped the prisoners from watching TV, they went on the rampage, causing hundreds of pounds worth of damage.
Many people commit minor offences when they are young.
I don’t think he’s likely to improve – we have no hope for him.

8.2.7

Vocabulary

Read the following texts and match the

words in bold to the definitions below.

Text A

Hi Ralph,

Sorry we didn’t get to see each other while I was in town, but my day didn’t quite go according to plan!

I started by 1) bolting down my breakfast, as I wanted to leave early to avoid the traffic. By 8.00 I was 2) bombing along the M4 until I got stopped for speeding by a police officer. I started to explain but he 3) butted in, saying, ‘The speed limit 4) applies to everyone, you know.’ Luckily, he 5) let me off with a warning.

When I eventually got to town my adventure really began. Anyway, when you’ve read this clipping from ‘The Evening Star’, I’m sure you’ll forgive me for not calling you.

See you next time!

Dominic

a. interrupt somebody

b. be relevant to somebody / something

c. eat something very quickly

d. excuse somebody from punishment

e. travel very fast

Text B

Nicholas Forbes (43), who is wanted for armed robbery and has been 1) on the run from the police for several weeks, was apprehended outside a supermarket in Long Street yesterday.

Forbes was attempting to 2) dispose of a bag in a rubbish bin when a police officer approached him. Forbes sprinted off, with the officer in hot pursuit, and bystander Dominic Clarke (23) joined the chase. Onlookers 3) cheered Clarke on as he quickly 4) gained on Forbes and wrestled him on the ground.

A crowd of shoppers 5) congregated around the struggling men and Forbes was arrested. A police spokesman praised Clarke’s bravery but urged the public not to tackle dangerous criminals themselves. ‘Such matters are best left in the hands of the police,’ he said.

a. gather round somebody / something in a large group

b. throw something away

c. try to avoid being captured by somebody

d. get nearer to somebody / something one is chasing

e. give somebody loud encouragement

Word Choice

Fill in each gap with a suitable expression.

Two teenagers convicted yesterday on a charge of car theft should be 1) ______ with a suspended sentence in view of their age, their lawyer argued.

Andrew McWade and Peter Duncan, both 17, were already 2) ______ the police in connection with another crime when they stole the car. The stolen vehicle was spotted by the driver of a police patrol car, who immediately gave chase. Realizing that the patrol car was 3) ______ them, the youths attempted to 4) ______ evidence linking them to both crimes, but were soon arrested.

Prosecution lawyer insisted that, given the circumstances of the crime, normal grounds for a reduction in punishment did not 5) ______ the two accused. Sentence will be passed today.

Rephrase

Replace each word / phrase in bold with

a suitable expression, using the correct

tense / form.

Tourists gathered round the statue as the guide began to talk about its finer points.
Most accidents on this motorway are caused by drivers who travel fast with no regard for road safety.
The crowd gave the runners loud encouragement as they approached the finishing line.
I was running late, so I had to eat my lunch quickly and rush off.
I’d have liked to ask a question, but I didn’t want to interrupt while he was talking.

8.2.8

Preparation

Gang Violence. Discuss your answers to the

following questions:

Do gangs exist in our country?
What methods are used to control teenage criminals?
Why do you think teenagers join gangs?

Vocabulary

Give a synonym or your own definition

of the words in italics:

Gangs won’t normally allow girls to join them, so they tend to be exclusively male.
People will instinctively duck and cover themselves when a gun is fired in their direction.
Gang members will sometimes identify with a pimp, not because he works with prostitutes, but because he makes a lot of money.
In order to identify which gang a member belongs to, certain signals are used to represent his affiliation.
Gangs use a much more severe method of fighting than the traditional punch in the nose.
Gang members are considered to be insensitive because they feel so little remorse after they’ve hurt someone.
The money brought in from crime is often the only source of livelihood for gang members.
People living in cities are forming more and more block clubs to provide protection for their communities.
One of the least dangerous crimes committed by gangs is the drawing of graffiti on public property.

Definition

Match the word with its definition.

1. exclusively male

2. duck

3. pimp

4. affiliation

5. punch

6. remorse

7. livelihood

8. block club

9. graffiti

a. a way to earn money

b. a neighbourhood group

c. a man who sells sex

d. with only men included

e. bend down quickly to avoid being hit

f. association

g. writing on a wall, bus, or subway car, etc.

h. a blow with the fist of a hand

i. regret for wrongdoing

8.2.9

Listening

Listen to the interview. Each of its 5 parts expresses

a main idea. After a beep, answer the question

for each part. You will have five statements

that make summary of the interview. Compare

your summary with those of other students.

Where is there a large number of gangs in the United States?
How do gangs fight?
Why do kids join gangs?
How do gangs identify themselves to each other?
What solution does Bill Recktenwald propose for controlling gang violence?

Comprehension

Decide whether the statements for each

part are true of false.

Part 1

In 1983, there were at least seventy-five gang murders in Chicago.
Ten per cent of Chicago’s murders are gang murders.
Chicago has fewer than 100 gangs.
Each gang has about 4,000 members.
Gang members are generally less than twenty years old.

Part 2

Gang members …

are male.
are independent.
fight alone.
shoot at people.
kill innocent people.

Part 3

People join gangs because …

they have a strong identity.
gangs make them feel big.
pimp and drug dealers are in gangs.
they want to make money.
they can use drugs and narcotics.

Part 4

Innocent people are victimized because …

hand signals are not understood.
they punch the wrong people in the nose.
gangs are insensitive to someone getting killed.

Part 5

Recktenwald says gangs should be controlled by …

parents.
schools.
the community.
neighbourhood block clubs.

8.2.10

Role Play

Take notes on what gangs are like

and what neighbourhood

watch clubs can do. Key phrases

have been provided for you.

Description of gangs:

a. under age 20

b. individuals afraid to stand alone

c. _________________________

Reason for gangs:

d. _________________________

Gang rituals:

e. __________________________

What neighbourhood watch clubs can do:

f. ___________________________

Situation

The class is divided into two groups. Two

students will prepare the witnesses’ stories.

The others will prepare the interrogation

by the police. Read the situation, choose

roles, and, after a fifteen-minute preparation,

begin the interrogation of witnesses to a crime.

Last night at 10:30 pm, two members of a neighbourhood block club witnessed a theft. They saw two boys break into a car that was parked in the neighbourhood. The boys broke the side window and ran off with the car’s radio and tape deck.

The police were notified by the witnesses. By the time they got to the scene of the crime, the boys were gone.

Two teenage boys, who seem to fit the description given by the witnesses, were found loitering on a corner in the neighbourhood at 11:30 pm. They have been brought to the station.

However, members of the neighbourhood watch club have been known to accuse the wrong people of street crimes, since they are so concerned about the protection of their neighbourhood. Because the police are not sure whether these boys are the ones the witnesses really saw, they have separated the two witnesses to hear each one give his or her own version of the story. The witnesses’ testimony will certainly have a great influence on the future of these two young boys.

Roles

The witnesses

You are witnesses to the crime. You will prepare a detailed account of what happened. You should be able to explain:

a. Where you were

b. Who you were with

c. What the boys were doing

d. What the boys looked like, etc.

The police

You will prepare questions to ask the witnesses. For example:

a. Where were you?

b. Who were you with?

c. What time was it?

d. What did you see?

e. Why were you watching the street corner?

f. How were the boys dressed?

Interrogation Procedure

The police divide into two groups. One group interrogates one witness while the other interrogates the second. These interrogations last three minutes.
Each witness is interrogated by the other group of police for another three minutes. If the police find discrepancies in the two witnesses’ stories, the boys will be released. If the stories are similar, they will be accused of being guilty of the crime.
Each group of police explains the inconsistencies, if any, that they were able to find in the two versions. They then decide on their verdict.

8.2.11

Discussion

Discuss the answers to the following questions:

Do you agree that the community should control gangs?
To what extent should people watch the activities of others?
What should the punishment be for minors (kids under the age of twenty-one) when they kill innocent people?

8.2.12

Interaction

Read the short texts below and answer the questions.

A young woman, called Kitty Genovese, was walking along the streets of a middle-class neighbourhood in New York at 3.00 a.m., when she was attacked. She screamed for help and managed to escape. A few minutes later her assailant caught her again and she continued screaming for half an hour whilst 38 neighbours watched transfixed from their windows and did nothing. They didn’t even call the police. Kitty died of multiple stab wounds.

In another town in America, a man went to a garage sale and bought an old tool box for $15. At home when he opened it up, he found $5,500 hidden under some plates at the bottom of the box. He returned the money to the woman he’d bought the box from.

Which seems to be the strangest story – Kitty Genovese’s or the man returning money?
What do you think? True or False?

People did nothing to help Kitty because they:

a. prefer to protect themselves rather than get involved and risk being killed.

b. no longer have a group or tribal feeling which binds them together – we are all too individual and we always put ourselves first.

c. convince themselves that there are special institutions in cities to deal with this kind of problem; they don’t need to intervene because the police will intervene for them.

d. are basically selfish and just don’t care about other people.

The man returned the box because:

e. he was a noble altruist.

f. he was simply afraid he might have been caught.

3. What would you do in the following situations?

a. You see someone suspicious hanging around outside a neighbour’s door.

b. You see a teenager stealing some sweets from a shop. (And if it was a little old lady?)

c. You see someone of a different colour skin being beaten up by four of your colour skin.

d. You see a mother violently beating her screaming child.

e. You see some children teasing and taunting another child.

8.2.13

Translation

Translate the following extracts from fiction

books. Choose one and add a few sentences

of your own to develop the idea.

1. ‘In this city,’ Rosie said, her face hardening with anger that aged her 10 years in an instant, ‘she could have been gang-raped, stabbed by some 12-year-old punk, wrecked on crack, maybe even shot dead by a carjacker in her own driveway.’

‘You’re a real optimist, huh?’

‘I watch the news.’

2. ‘The two carjackers he killed – was that a righteous shooting?’ – ‘Hell, yes, as righteous as they get. One perp was wanted for murder, and there were three felony warrants out on the second loser. Both were carrying, shot at him. Spence had no choice. The review board cleared him as quick as God let Saint Peter into Heaven.’

3. A surveillance subject, sitting in bright sunshine and reading a newspaper, could be filmed from a satellite with sufficiently high resolution that the headlines on his paper would be legible.

4. Inside the dark house, an automatic weapon stuttered briefly, spitting out several rounds. One of the cops must be trigger-happy, shooting at shadows or ghosts. Curious. Hair-trigger nerves were uncommon among special-forces officers.

8.2.14

Story-making

Make up a shot summary presenting

a plot of this story. Use active vocabulary.

1. It was not a game played by kids in the woods. Romey stuck a real gun in his mouth. These were real FBI agents. He had hired a real lawyer who’d stuck a real tape-recorder to his stomach to outfox the FBI. The man, who killed the senator, was a professional killer according to Romey, and a member of the Mafia, and they would think nothing of rubbing out an 11-year-old kid. This was just too much for him to handle alone. He’d tell the FBI every detail Romey had unloaded on him. Then they would protect him. Maybe they would send in bodyguards. Maybe. Then he remembered a movie about a guy who squealed on the Mafia and thought the FBI would protect him, but suddenly he was on the run with bullets flying over his head. The FBI wouldn’t return his phone calls. In the final scene, the guy’s car was blown to bits and as he took his final breath, a dark figure stood over him and said, ‘The mob never forgets’. It wasn’t much of a movie, but its message was suddenly clear to Mark.

2. Truman and McThune braced themselves for a reprimand. But Reggie kept her cool. She slowly extended a finger and pointed it at them. ‘If you get near my client again and attempt to obtain anything from him without my permission, I’ll sue you and the FBI. I’ll file an ethics complaint with the state bar in Louisiana, and I’ll haul you into juvenile court here and ask the judge to lock you up.’ Everyone in the room knew that she would do exactly that.

3. The law was quite simple: every citizen owes to society the duty of giving testimony to aid in the enforcement of the law. And a witness is not excused from testifying because of his fear of reprisal. There were no exceptions, no loopholes for scared little boys.

4. …‘The child moves this court to dismiss the petition filed against him on the grounds that the allegations are without merit and the petition has been filed in an effort to explore things the child might know. The petition is a hopeless mishmash of maybes and what-ifs, filed under oath without the slightest hint of the real truth…’

8.2.15

Writing

Choose one of the following topics:

1. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, making the point that you are unhappy about street-gang violence in your neighbourhood. Explain your reasons clearly, giving examples of gang incidents that you know about. Ask the community to form a block club to support the case of fighting gang violence.

2. People say that it is the society who prepares the crime and a criminal only commits it. Do you agree? Write an essay in which you state your opinion, and define the best ways to tackle the problem.