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A) Open group discussion. Describe the members of the panel and elect the chairperson.
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B) Split into groups of 5-6 students and assign the roles of the panel.
c) Before the beginning of the panel read the following selections carefully and extract the necessary information:
— It's a time-honoured misconception that the stricter the punishment, the lesser the crime rate. This misconception has long been debated by history and science. Law cannot, and must not take revenge: punishment is not an end in itself, but a means of restoring social justice. It's a tool for re-education. This concept should form the guidelines of the new legislation.
— Law is developing: it has no impunity in the court of time. A number of offences should be altogether excluded from the criminal law since administrative measures are quite sufficient against them. Say a driver violates some traffic regulations, and in the accident no one is hurt...
— Unjust law warps and handicaps a nation's morale. Remember when in the not-so-distant past families of the "enemies of the people" hurriedly renounced their relations fully aware that the charges were false.
— We used to say that we had neither drug addiction nor prostitution. As long as there were no such problems any legal responsibility was out of the question. Now it is widely claimed that we need criminal laws against both drug addiction and prostitution.
— Could we make, say, prostitution a criminal offence? What could the evidence be? Who could bear witness?
— The violation of law would be extremely difficult to prove and the punishment would necessarily be selective.
— Some would be charged, others would be spared, and a selective application of law is arbitrary rule.
— But the real problem is elsewhere. Is immorality a breach of law? Don't we have to distinguish between a moral and a criminal code? I think we must be weary of the naive desire to make law relieve us of the pains of responsible choice. If every act were dictated by an article of the Criminal Code, rather than one's conscience and moral sense, human beings would become legal objects.
— Prostitution should be fought but the judges should be kept out of it.
— Drug addiction should not entail legal prosecution. Otherwise we may be in for disastrous consequences. People would be afraid to solicit medical help; it would be an impenetrable wall between the drug addicts and those who are able to save them.
— Are changes to come in the types of punishment?
— The reformatory function of jail is little-more than fiction. Rather the opposite is true. The first "jolt" makes an inveterate criminal who won't stay in society for long.
— Even in an ideal penitentiary — if such could be imagined — serving one's time causes serious problems. A cooped-up individual loses friends, family, profession, familiar environment and finds himself or herself a member of a group that is anything but healthy.
— But that's not the whole story. Imprisonment, particularly if it is prolonged, undermines one's capacity to make decisions, to control oneself. Set free after long years in jail, one is unfit for freedom, normal life seems incomprehensible and unbearable. One might be unconsciously drawn to the habitual way of life. Around 30 per cent of former inmates are brought back behind bars after new offences, and half of them during their first year at large.
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— According to sociologists, less than 5 per cent of those sentenced for the first time consider their life in the colony as "normal", whereas the correspondent figure for those serving a second sentence (or more) is 40 per cent.
— New penitentiary principles must be introduced. It is real as well as imperative. I believe the solution lies with a differentiation between convicts and separate confinement according to different categories. First time offenders should be kept separately from those with long "case histories"; convicts serving time for particularly grave crimes must not mix with petty delinquents.
— Another urgent problem is that of the maximum term of confinement. Scholars propose that the maximum serving time envisaged by the code and by each article be reduced.
— The legal profession and sociologists know that the arrest itself, the curtailing of personal freedom, is increasingly perceived as the greatest shock by the offender. It is a traumatic, shameful psychological experience. Hence, petty delinquency,
such as hooliganism, should entail not a year or two in jail but up to 6 months in a detention home.
d) The following issues are to be discussed:
1. Ifevery act were dictated by an article of the Criminal Code rather than one's conscience and moral sense, human beings would become mere legal objects.
2. Punishment is not an end in itself, but a means of restoring social justice. It's a tool for re-education.
3. Should drug-addiction entail legal prosecution?
4. The reformatory function of imprisonment is little more than fiction.
Write an article (3 paragraphs). In the newspaper to contribute to the discussion of a new Criminal Code. The topic can be chosen from the list of the problems given in exercise 9 (d).
Give a brief talk to the ten graders on the Criminal Law and its role hi combatting Juvenile delinquency.
12. Enact a role play "Trying a criminal case". Yon are the Jury and most decide whether to acquit the accused or sentence them to a term of imprisonment (minimum 3 months/maximum life). Or could you think of a more appropriate punishment?
Case 1. A driver while speeding hit a cyclist off her bike. She was badly injured and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. The driver didn't stop so he's charged with hit and run.
Case 2. The accused is a doctor who gave an overdose to an 87-year-old woman. She had a terminal illness, was in constant pain and had asked for the overdose. Her family are accusing the doctor of murder.
Case 3. A. and B. mug Mr X., take his money and leave him for dead. B. later returns alone and pushes the body in the river. An autopsy reveals that the man was still just alive when pushed in the water and subsequently drowned.
13. Do some library research and write an essay on one of the given topics:
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1. The stricter the punishment, the lesser the crime rate, or is it?
2. Law is developing: it has no impunity in the course of time.
3. What is the best way to combat juvenile delinquency? Historical survey.
Unit Three
TEXT
From: W.S.
By L. P. Hartley
Leslie Poles Hartley (1895-1972), the son of a solicitor was educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford and for more than twenty years from 1932 was a fiction reviewer for such periodicals as the Spectator, Sketch, Observer and Time and Tide. He published his first book, a collection of short stories entitled "Night Fears" in 1924. His novel "Eustace and Hilda" (1947) was recognized immediately as a major contribution to English fiction; "The Go-Between" (1953) and "The Hireling" (1957) were later made into internationally successful films. In 1967 he published "The Novelist's Responsibility", a collection of critical essays.
Henry James was a master he always revered; and, like James, he was frequently possessed bys ideas of guilt and solitude and evil. As. a contemporary reviewer remarked, "not only does he portray the exterior of social life with a novelist's sharp eye for detail, but he also explores the underworld of fears and fantasies through which we wander in our ugliest dreams."
LP.Hartley was a highly skilled narrator and all his tales are admirably told. "W.S." comes from "The Complete Short Stories of L.P.Hartley" published posthumously in 1973.
The First postcard came from Forfar. "I thought you might like a picture of Forfar," it said. "You have always been so interested in Scotland, and that is one reason why I am interested in you. I have enjoyed all your books, but do you really get to grips with people? I doubt it. Try to think of this as a handshake from your devoted admirer, W.S."
Like other novelists, Walter Streeter was used to getting communications from strangers. Usually they were friendly but sometimes they were critical. In either case he always answered them, for he was conscientious. But answering them took up the time and energy he needed for his writing, so that he was rather relieved that W.S. had given no address. The photograph of Forfar was uninteresting and he tore it up. His anonymous correspondent's criticism, however, lingered in his mind. Did he really fail to come to grips with his characters? Perhaps he did. He was aware that in most cases they were either projections of his own personality or, in different forms, the antithesis of it. The Me and the Not Me. Perhaps W.S. had spotted
this. Not for the first time Walter made a vow to be more objective.
About ten days later arrived another postcard, this time from Berwick-on-Tweed. "What do you think of Berwick-on-Tweed?" it said. "Like you, it's on the Border. I hope this doesn't sound rude. I don't mean that you are a borderline case! You know how much I admire your stories. Some people call them otherworldly. I think you should plump for one world or the other. Another firm handshake from W.S."
Walter Streeter pondered over this and began to wonder about the sender. Was his correspondent a man or a woman? It looked like a man's handwriting — commercial, unselfconscious — and the criticism was like a man's. On the other hand, it was like a woman to probe — to want to make him feel at the same time flattered and unsure of himself. He felt the faint stirrings of curiosity but soon dismissed them: he was not a man to experiment with acquaintances. Still it was odd to think of this unknown person speculating about him, sizing him up. Other-worldly, indeed!1 He re-read the last two chapters he had written. Perhaps they didn't have their feet firm on the ground. Perhaps he was too ready to escape, as other novelists were nowadays, into an ambiguous world, a world where the conscious mind did not have things too much its own way. But did that matter? He threw the picture of Berwick-on-Tweed into his November fire and tried to write; but the words came haltingly, as though contending with an extra-strong barrier of self-criticism. And as the days passed he became uncomfortably aware of self-division, as though someone had taken hold of his personality and was pulling it apart. His work was no longer homogeneous, there were two strains in it, unreconciled and opposing, and it went much slower as he tried to resolve the discord. Never mind, he thought: perhaps I was getting into a groove. These difficulties may be growing pains, I may have tapped a new source of supply. If only I could correlate the two and make their conflict fruitful, as many artists have!
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The third postcard showed a picture of York Minster. "I know you are interested in cathedrals," it said. "I'm sure this isn't a sign of megalomania in your case, but smaller churches are sometimes more rewarding. I'm seeing a good many churches on my way south. Are you busy writing or are you looking round for ideas? Another hearty handshake from your friend W. S."
It was true that Walter Streeter was interested in cathedrals. Lincoln Cathedral2 had been the subject of one of his youthful fantasies and he had written about it in a travel book. And it was also true that he admired mere size and was inclined to under-value parish churches. But how could W.S. have known that? And was it really a sign of megalomania? And who was W.S. anyhow?
For the first time it struck him that the initials were his own. No, not for the first time. He had noticed it before, but they were such commonplace initials; they were Gilbert's3 they were Maugham's, they were Shakespeare's — a common possession. Anyone might have them. Yet now it seemed to him an odd coincidence and the idea came into his mind — suppose I have been writing postcards to myself? People did such things, especially people with split personalities. Not that he was one, of course. And yet there were these unexplained developments — the cleavage in his writing, which had now extended from his thought to his style, making one paragraph languorous with semicolons and subordinate clauses, and another sharp and incisive with main verbs and full stops.
He looked at the handwriting again. It had seemed the perfection of ordinariness — anybody's hand — so ordinary as perhaps to be disguised. Now he fancied he saw in it resemblances to his own. He was just going to pitch the postcard in the fire when suddenly he decided not to. I'll show it to somebody, he thought.
His friend said, "My dear fellow, it's all quite plain. The woman's a lunatic. I'm sure it's a woman. She has probably fallen in love with you and wants to make you interested in her. I should pay no attention whatsoever. People whose names are mentioned in the papers are always getting letters from lunatics. If they worry you, destroy them without reading them. That sort of person is often a little psychic,4 and if she senses that she's getting a rise out[1] of you she'll go on."
For a moment Walter Streeter felt reassured. A woman, a little mouse-like creature, who had somehow taken a fancy to him! What was there to feel uneasy about in that? It was really rather sweet and touching, and he began to think of her and wonder what she looked like. What did it matter if she was a little mad? Then his subconscious mind, searching for something to torment him with, and assuming the authority of logic,
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said: Supposing those postcards are a lunatic's, and you are writing them to yourself, doesn't it follow that you must be a lunatic too?
He tried to put the thought away from him; he tried to destroy the postcard as he had the others. But something in him wanted to preserve it. It had become a piece of him, he felt. Yielding to an irresistible compulsion, which he dreaded, he found himself putting it behind the clock on the chimney-piece. He couldn't see it but he knew that it was there.
He now had to admit to himself that the postcard business had become a leading factor in his life. It had created a new area of thoughts and feelings and they were most unhelpful. His being was strung up in expectation of the next postcard.
Yet when it came it took him, as the others had, completely by surprise. He could not bring himself to look at the picture. "I hope you are well and would like a postcard from Coventry," he read. "Have you ever been sent to Coventry?5 I have — in fact you sent me there. It isn't a pleasant experience, I can tell you. I am getting nearer. Perhaps we shall come to grips after all. I advised you to come to grips with your characters, didn't I? Have I given you any new ideas? If I have you ought to thank me, for they are what novelists want, I understand. I have been re-reading your novels, living in them, I might say. Another hard handshake. As always, W.S."
A wave of panic surged up in Walter Streeter. How was it that he had never noticed, all this time, the most significant fact about the postcards — that each one came from a place geographically closer to him than the last? "I am coming nearer." Had his mind, unconsciously self-protective, worn blinkers? If it had, he wished he could put them back. He took an atlas and idly traced out W.S.'s itinerary. An interval of eighty miles or so seemed to separate the stopping-places. Walter lived in a large West Country town about ninety miles from Coventry.
Should he show the postcards to an alienist? But what could an alienist tell him? He would not know, what Walter wanted to know, whether he had anything to fear from W.S.
Better go to the police. The police were used to dealing with poisonpens. If they laughed at him, so much the better. They did not laugh, however. They said they thought the postcards were a hoax and that W.S. would never show up in the flesh. Then they asked if there was anyone who had a grudge against him. "No
one that I know of," Walter said. They, too, took the view that the writer was probably a woman. They told him not to worry but to let them know if further postcards came.
Commentary
1. Other-worldly, indeed! "Other-worldly" means more concerned with spiritual matters than with daily life. The exclamation "indeed" is used to express surprise, annoyance or lack of belief.
2. Lincoln Cathedral is in the ancient town of Lincoln, North Midlands. The magnificent Cathedral Church of St.Mary, rising to 271 ft, was built between the 11th and 14th centuries and its honey-coloured stone is said to change colour in varying light.
3. Gilbert, William Schwenck: (1836-1911), an English dramatist and poet.
4. psychic: having the alleged power of seeing objects or actions beyond the range of natural vision.
5. to send smb to Coventry: to refuse to speak to someone as a sign of disapproval or punishment.
SPEECH PATTERNS
1. He was just going to pitch the postcard in the fire when suddenly he decided not to.
David was just about to order a plane ticket when suddenly he decided not to.
The little boy seemed ready to jump into the icy cold water but then he decided not to.
2. It isn't a pleasant experience, I can tell you.
It isn't easy to get tickets to the Bolshoi, I can tell you. That's not the first time he has acted this way, I can tell you.
3. How was it that he had never noticed the most significant fact about the postcards...?
How was it that he was home all day, but didn't answer any of our phone calls?
How is it that we can put a man in space, but we can't cure the common cold?
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