STREET GANGS NO LONGER JUST A BIG-CITY PROBLEM
Though community residents often refuse to face up to it, rowdy bands of youths have staked out new turf - suburbia.
The rival gangs piled into one another with a vengeance - fists flew, knives flashed, clubs struck muscle and bone with sickening smacks. When it was over, a 19-year-old youth lay dead.
No, the scene was not a dismal dead end street in New York, Philadelphia or Los Angeles. The gang fight occurred in Evanston, 111., a mostly well-to-do suburb north of Chicago.
Evanston's problem is far from a unique one. Street gangs - once confined to the slums of the country's biggest cities - are found increasingly today in smaller cities and suburbs as well.
Federal researchers discovered that two-thirds of the cities reporting street-gang problems had populations below 500,000.
Out of the core. The spread of gang activity from the inner city began more than two decades ago in California. Today, of an estimated 28,300 gang members in Los Angeles County, 20,000 live outside the city of Los Angeles.
Although the pattern established in California is not as pronounced elsewhere, it is growing fast in some areas. Law officers report that at least 20 Chicago suburbs have youth-gang problems nowadays. Five gangs, with 400 members all told, compete for turf in Evanston, population 73,000. The once peaceful suburb was shocked by two gang-related murders.
Cicero, a blue-collar Chicago suburb of 60,000, also numbers street-gang members in the hundreds and was the scene of two gang killings last year. In East St. Louis, 111., an impoverished city of 55,000, investigators blame gangs for three recent murders and the firebombing of a police officer's home.
Youth gangs are spreading in part because the conditions that spawn them in the old urban cores are becoming more prevalent in suburbs and small cities, experts say. They point to racial and ethnic separation, poverty, family breakups, high youth unemployment and lack of recreational activities.
II. Ответьтенавопросы.
1. What crime does the article begin with?
2. How many Chicago suburbs have youth-gang problems nowadays?
3. How is gang activity spread?
4. What is Cicero?
5. What are the conditions that spawn the spreading of youth gangs?
III. Прочитайте следующие утверждения и решите, какие из них правильные, какие –нет.
1. The gang fight occurred in Evanston, 115., a mostly well-to-do suburb north of Chicago.
2. Government reports that at least 20 Chicago suburbs have youth-gang problems nowadays.
3. Street gangs are found increasingly today in smaller cities and suburbs as well.
4. The conditions that spawn the gangs point to racial and ethnic separation, poverty, family breakups, high youth unemployment and lack of recreational activities.
5. Federal researchers discovered that two-sixths of the cities reporting street-gang problems had populations below 500,000.
IV. Подберите к следующим словам и словосочетаниям правильный русский перевод.
| 1. gang | a. всё больше и больше |
| 2. suburb | b. рождать (в большом количестве) |
| 3. increasingly | c. банда, шайка |
| 4. spawn | d. бедный; жалкий, убогий |
| 5. impoverished | e. окраина, пригород |
V. Поставьте глаголы, данные в скобках, в соответствующем времени и переведите предложения на русский язык.
1. As a result of some reforms many of law institutes … (to regulate), but none of the English law branches has been codified so far.
2. Each member of the gang … (to perform) a definite function.
3. An Australian couple … (to kidnap) and kept for one month.
4. The Government …(to spend) a lot of money on police equipment this year.
5. Capital punishment … (to carry out) by hanging, electrocution, gassing, lethal injection, beheading or shooting.
VI. Вставьте подходящие по смыслу слова или словосочетания в предложения.
1. Evanston is a mostly well-to-do suburb north of Chicago.
2. Street gangs are found increasingly today in big cities.
3. Two gangs, with 400 members all told, compete for turf in Evanston.
4. Cicero also numbers street-gang members in the hundreds.
5. Youth gangs are spreading now.
ВАРИАНТ 24
I. Прочитайте и письменно переведите текст.
APPELLATE COURTS
The tribunals described are trial courts or "courts of first instance." They see the parties, hear the witnesses, receive the evidence, find the facts, apply the law, and determine the outcome.
Above them are appellate courts that are usually collegiate bodies, consisting of several judges instead of the single one who usually presides over a trial court. The jurisdiction of the appellate courts is usually general; specialized appellate tribunals handling, for example, only criminal appeals or only civil ones are rare, although not unknown. Their functions are those of reviewing the work of trial courts and of correcting their errors.
Appellate review is not automatic. It must be sought by some party aggrieved by the judgment in the court below. For that reason, and because an appeal may be both expensive and useless, there are far fewer appeals than trials and, if successive appeals are available, far fewer second appeals than original ones. Judicial systems are organized on a hierarchical basis: at the bottom are numerous trial courts scattered throughout the nation; above them are a smaller number of first-level appellate courts, usually those organized on a regional basis; and at the apex is a single court of last resort.
There are basic types of appellate review. The first one consists of a retrial of the case, with the appellate court hearing the evidence for the second time, making fresh findings of fact, and in general proceeding in much the same manner as the court that originally rendered the judgment.
The second type of review is based on a record compiled in the court below of the evidence received and the findings made there. The reviewing court has the power to rehear the same witnesses again or to supplement their testimony by taking one additional evidence, but it need not do so, being content to rely on the record already made in reaching its own findings of fact and conclusions of law.
II. Ответьтенавопросы.
1. What are trial courts responsibilities?
2. Is there only one judge in appellate court?
3. What are the functions of appellate courts?
4. Is appellate review automatic?
5. What does the first type of appellate review consist of?