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  3. Debates over how to treat criminals have gone on since the judicial syst

Debates over how to treat criminals have gone on since the judicial syst

游客2023-11-25  13
问题         Debates over how to treat criminals have gone on since the judicial system founded. Across the world, imprisonment is the most common means to use in most countries, but the challenges to the effectiveness of prison as punishment never ceases. The follow news report provides a possible alternative to imprisonment. Read it carefully and write your response in NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should:
        1. summarize briefly the news report;
        2. give your comment.
                                                                Community Service: A Productive Way to Punish
        Homeless at the age of 46, Martin "boosts" goods from New York City department stores, resells them for money to purchase a week or two at a cheap hotel, then steals again when the money runs out. This way of life often lands him in court, where he faces the standard sentences of sixty or ninety days in jail. Some judges, however, consider that a waste: Cells cost money, and Martin isn’t that dangerous. They would rather use the leverage his conviction has given them to get some honest work out of him, and the city’s Community Service Sentencing Project gives them a reliable way to do so.
        That suits Martin just fine. "Jail is overcrowded," he complains. And you have a lot of gangs going on in jail now… People get stabbed up, killed. But many other New Yorkers also see the benefit of his alternative sentencing: He has cleared lots for communal gardens, cleaned up a YMCA, painted low-income housing units, and performed other sundry tasks for neighborhood groups around the city. As he and hundreds of other petty criminals do such jobs under supervision of the courts, they demonstrate both the possibilities for saving on jail costs and constructive use of work as a sanction.
        Judges typically impose the sentences according to formula—for example, six hours of work equal one day of jail. The offenders are interviewed to determine their skills and availability, then matched with jobs at government or nonprofit agencies. The probation department handles enforcement and eventual referral of failed cases hack to the court for resentencing.
        It is hard to determine how much community service serves as a substitute for jail or prison. The argument for the sanction looks compelling: Sentencing a person to community service spares the huge expense of incarceration. There is some reason to believe that use of the sanction as a genuine alternative increased in subsequent years. As courts continued to feel the pressures of jail crowding, the advantages of community service appeared more obvious than ever, and judges sought ways to make the most of it.
        As the federal government brought pressure for tougher laws against drunk driving, for example, community service became the sentence of choice, especially for offenders with stable jobs and families. Sandy Seely, former head of the National Community Sentencing Association, says that today, even drunk drivers found guilty of vehicular homicide may wind up working off their debt to society at a community service site rather then doing time behind bars. "It’s a sentence that the victim’s family usually agrees to, she says.
        In addition, states that impose escalating sanctions—intensive probation supervision, electronic monitoring, day treatment, restitution—that substitute for jail may include community service as part of a sentence package. And a few jurisdictions have set up programs that substitute community service for jail but call it something else.
选项
答案                                                         Community Service: an Ideal Means of Penalty for Petty Criminals
        As a traditional and the most commonly adopted punishment for criminals, imprisonment is experiencing increasingly acute problems, for which reason a series of substitute penalties have arisen. Among them, community service has won general approval. The offenders praise its safety and ordinary citizens appreciate its constructiveness and utility. It is most welcome for courts and judges for its obvious advantages of greatly reducing the budget of incarceration and relieving the pressure of jail crowding. Also, it’s applauded by professionals as an apt sanction for criminals with stable jobs and families. Concerning its many benefits, I also subscribe to community service as an ideal means of penalty for petty criminals.
        Firstly, community service eases the heavy burden of jail costs. Every year, a massive proportion of tax income goes to the maintenance of prisons. This undesirable way of using the tax is a problem that troubles governments all over the world By sentencing criminals to community service, a huge sum can be spared and put to more constructive uses.
        Next, undertaking community service enables the perpetrator to make tangible compensation. Unlike imprisonment, which merely deprives the prisoner’s freedom, community service yields productive results, enabling the offender to make actual contribution to the society as a compensation for the harm and loss he has inflicted.
In addition, community service is a much safer way of serving a sentence compared with imprisonment. With gangs of criminals gathered together, prisons have seen frequent occurrence of violence and crime, which presents considerable risk for prisoners, especially the non-violent ones. Community service averts this problem, guaranteeing personal safety for sentence servers.
        To sum up, community service enjoys multiple advantages, whether in regard to the governmental budget, the society or the offenders themselves. Therefore, more measures should be taken to perfect the sentence and facilitate its implementation.
解析         材料主要围绕“用社区服务代替监禁”展开论述。第一段以小偷惯犯Martin为例，引出社区服务这一替代监禁的惩罚方式。第二段分别从犯人和市民的角度说明其益处——犯人称赞它的安全性，使他们免受被刺杀的威胁（get stabbed up, killed）；在市民看来，该方法既能节省监狱的费用（saving on jail costs），又能将犯人用于建设性的用途（constructive use of work）。第三段和第四段从法官的角度出发，指出虽然如何量化社区服务的惩罚标准很难确定（hard to determine），但这种惩罚方式不仅能节省监禁开支，还能缓解监禁压力。第五段讲社区服务的适用对象——那些有稳定工作和家室（with stable jobs and families）的小罪犯。最后一段总结社区服务的未来走向，它与密切观护和电子监视等一样，很可能被纳为监禁的替代方式（as part of a sentence package）。
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