III. Interpret the lines below.

1. “Confessions” is the most disgusting, exploitative television show of the century.

2. They’re obviously itching for the negative publicity.

3. Television doesn’t get any creepier than “Confessions.”

4. The usually responsible folks at Court TV say their show is an educational drama.

5. The tree scenes in the debut episode feel like they’ve been lifted from “NYPD Blue.”

6. The confessions are presented without any social or legal context.

7. “I’m not sure it serves any purpose other than resensationalizing what was already a tough experience,” says Thad Hinnant.

8. What they are doing <…> and giving all of TV a black eye.

 

IV. Comment on the author’s choice of the headline and formulate the key idea running through the article.

V. Points for discussion.

1. What do you think of the described TV show? Is it educational?

2. Can any matter of public record be televised?

3. Is there any difference between watching fictionalized versions of crime and trials and seeing real criminals who tell their own crime stories on screen?

4. Should videotaped confessions of criminals be taken off the screen or should there be more of them on TV?

5. How do you find the Russian TV programme called: “The Federal Judge,” in which real cases are heard and real verdicts are passed.

6. Are they helpful? Is it a good idea to televise trials and court hearings?

 

 

HOW BRITISH BURGLARS PICK THEIR VICTIMS

Robert Chesshyre spent two months investigating burglars and the detectives who try to outwit them.

Pete earns his living by breaking into other people’s homes. He rises early, dresses smartly – “jeans, loafers, shirt, good coat; everything ironed and clean” – and tucks surgical gloves (his antifingerprint protection), up his sleeves. Hi picks “nice” – by which he means moderately affluent – houses within five minutes of an underground or railway station in case he needs an emergency getaway. He targets houses screened from the street by a hedge or fence, and rings a bell. “If somebody comes, I’ve got a set of car keys in my hand. ‘Minicab? No? Oh, sorry, wrong house. Third time that’s happened this week.’”

 

Once he is certain no one’s at home, he goes down the side of the house vaulting gates. “Boof – over the top. I’m only ten stone and I’m fit. I’ve gone up plastic drainpipes and got through toilet windows this size.” He indicates a tiny square with his hands. He either forces or smashes a small window, leans in and breaks the main window locks. “They do feel solid, but you can snap ‘em.” His aim is to be in and out in three minutes. He double-locks the front door to forestall unwelcome interruption – “I’m on my toes now…running for the stairs…I’m doing like four steps at a time” – and identifies the master bedroom. “Your jewellery is either on your bedside chest, or in the top two drawers. Not there? Your wardrobe or the drawers in your bed – I’ve got it.” He leaps up and claps his hands, reliving the adrenaline rush. “I pull your pillow out…everything goes wrapped up in a pillowcase, then inside my jacket and, boof…I’m off. I don’t bother with the other rooms.” He leaves by the front door or through a neighbouring garden. If he’s spotted, he brazens it out. “I walk past ‘em – ‘All right, mate?’ I do six, seven, maybe ten burglaries in a day’s work.” (Pete uses the words “work” and “earning” without irony.) He steals only jewellery, netting thousands of pounds. But the money – spent on drugs, clubbing, clothes, his daughters – slips through his hands like wet soap.

We meet in a west London police station. Pete is, readers will be relieved to hear, out of circulation for the time being. “I reckon I’ll do five years before I hit the road again,” he says. Though he has never been caught on the job, he is a crack cocaine addict and can get careless. Drugs were found on him during a random stop-and-search; he was arrested and linked to a burglary by his finger-prints. He is awaiting trial and out of jail for the day to help detectives clear up other crimes. He hopes that by putting his hand up to everything he may get a drugs treatment order rather than prison. Pete claims that before a previous arrest – he was released just four months ago from a five-year sentence – he had carried out up to 4,000 burglaries over a four-year period.

Crime statistics are unreliable. However, in 1921 there were 103,000 recorded crimes in England and Wales; in 2002, 5.5 million. Whichever way you cut the figures, crime has gone through the roof. There are 73,000 people in prison – doubled in 30 years – and jails are about to burst. There are almost one million burglaries a year, meaning that you are far more likely to be burgled than assaulted. That may be why opinion polls show that burglary is the crime we fear most. Children lie in the dark imagining an intruder; nothing wakes adults faster than the creak of a floorboard or a muffled bang. And the impact of burglary is traumatic. Victims feel violated and unsafe. They lose irreplaceable objects – wedding rings, last gifts from parents – sold within hours, usually for peanuts. Burglary can hasten death in the elderly, destroy business and harm communities. A clothing shop in west London closed in June after four break-ins. After the first, the owner slept in the shop for several weeks, only to be burgled again as soon as he returned home. He lost £80,000 and is so disillusioned that he is emigrating.

 

Burglary is a very British crime, far more prevalent here than in continental Europe or the US. Scarcely more than one in ten is “solved” and the recovery of property is still rarer. In 2001, insurers paid out £568m on burglary claims. But many vulnerable victims are uninsured. They live cheek-by-jowl with offenders on estates that were built with no thought for security. The burglars themselves are usually recidivists who graduate through a series of lesser crimes to become “career” criminals. Eighty per cent are reconvicted within two years of release from prison. Police say it is extremely rare to arrest a burglar who is not a drug addict. Det Sgt Paul Clifford, head of the burglary squad at Walworth, south London, says, “Most commit crime from an early age – they are not scared of us, though we might inconvenience them.”

 

Burglars are notoriously conscience-free. They argue that most people are insured; that burglars don’t “hurt” anyone. While carrying out many hundreds of burglaries, it had never occurred to Pete that he was a bad person. Just before we met, he saw a television programme about crime and its effects that set him thinking. “Afterwards I was laid in my cell and I said to myself, ‘It is wrong. I do hurt people, maybe not physically, but mentally.’ I was in agony, really. I had a lot of things go wrong. When I got arrested, it seemed a relief. I was glad that it had come to an end.” He insists that, given a chance, he can earn an honest living on building sites. In the long hours of the prison nights, he imagines living with one of his baby-mums and trotting off to work like any boring civilian. If only.

Easy ways to protect your home

· Lock up. One in five burglars gains access through unlocked doors or windows.

· Fit two locks – including a five-lever mortice deadlock – to the front door. A burglar will test the door with his foot. If there’s any give, he’ll put his shoulder to it.

· Install tall gates to protect side alleys. One third of burglaries are through back windows.

· Install an alarm. It may seem that no one takes any notice of alarms, but one person will always hear them – the burglar himself. Virtually all intruders clear out the moment an alarm sounds.

· Ensure that the house looks lived in while you are away. Cancel the milk and papers, ask a neighbour to draw the curtains at night and use timer switches on light and radios.

· Keep garages and sheds locked (burglars steal tools to break into the house); also lock up ladders.

· Install a chain and a spy-hole so that you can see who is at the door. Don’t let anyone in unless you are sure about them.

Robert Chesshyre

/ English Learner’s Digest, №16, 2005/

 

Set Work