Vocabulary and Comprehension Exercise

7/29/2019 Vocabulary and Comprehension Exercise

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Passage A

Lexington

Death in Little Rock

Politicians with national ambitions aresuddenly willing to challenge the deathpenaltyFeb 9th 2013

THANKS to a botched suicide bid that blew away part of his brain, the Arkansas murderer Ricky

Ray Rector had no inkling of the link between his execution and the presidential ambitions of his

states governor, Bill Clinton. Indeed, as he was taken to die by lethal injection (it took 50 minutes

of jabbing to find a suitable vein), Rector saved the pecan pie from his last meal for later. It did

not matter. Mr Clinton, who flew home to Arkansas from the 1992 campaign trail to oversee

Rectors death, had proved he was as tough on crime as any Republican.

It was thus quite a moment when the present governor of Arkansas, Mike Beebe, said on January

16th that he would sign a bill repealing the death penalty if legislators sent him one. Deciding which

prisoners deserved death had proved agonising and had changed his view of capital punishment,

he explained. His reversal is largely symbolic: Mr Beebe, a conservative Democrat in a deeply

conservative state, is not about to be sent an abolition bill. Nor is he seeking re-election. Yet his

conversion is more than a curiosity. A growing band of governors is defying public sentiment on

capital punishment, even though polls show almost two-thirds of Americans back the death penalty

for murder.

Martin OMalley, Marylands Democratic governor, has plausible claims to presidential or vice-

presidential ambitions in 2016. Still, he has launched a push to abolish his states death penalty this

year, after a 2009 bid narrowly failed. If he succeeds, Maryland would be the sixth state in recent

years to scrap capital punishment, after New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, Illinois andConnecticut. Another Democrat prompting 2016 talk, Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado, is

reconsidering his support for capital punishment, as state legislators launch a bid for abolition. In

libertarian-minded New Hampshire, where courts are agonising over their first death-penalty case in

50 years, the Democratic governor, Maggie Hassan, is expected to sign any repeal bill that reaches

her, after two predecessors vetoed such bills. Oregons John Kitzhaber, a Democrat who oversaw

executions during an earlier stint as governor, has suspended them and asked legislators to review a

state death penalty he calls neither fair nor just. Ohios Republican governor, John Kasich, has

risked the wrath of voters by commuting four death sentences (while overseeing eight executions),

citing the right of even awful criminals to fair trials and an effective defence. Governor Sam

Brownback of Kansas, a Republican and devout Catholic, won office despite declaring that

execution should be reserved for figures such as Osama bin Laden who might inspire fresh killingsfrom a prison cell.


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A previous generation mostly kept such pangs of conscience to themselves. A single, doleful name

Michael Dukakisexplained their caution. Mr Dukakis, then governor of Massachusetts, saw his

presidential run in 1988 ended by a televised debacle, when he was asked whether he would want

the death penalty if his wife, Kitty, were raped and murdered. Rather than embrace the moments

populism (or denounce a vile question) Mr Dukakis offered an owlish reply about deterrence and

murder rates. A lesson was absorbed by ambitious politicians: opposition to the death penalty

looked bloodless and out-of-touch. Even presidential candidates with doubts, such as John Kerry orBarack Obama, stated that some crimes might merit death, citing societys need to see justice done.

The younger George Bush, who oversaw 152 executions as Texas governor, trumpeted his zeal.

The politics of death have changed because the country has changed. The Rector execution

followed years of rising crime. Starting in 1976, when a brief period of abolition by the Supreme

Court ended, death sentences climbed to a high point in 1996, with executions peaking three years

later. Since then both violent crime and recourse to the death penalty have declined sharply. In 2012

America saw 77 new inmates under sentence of death and 43 executions, a fraction of the levels

seen a generation ago. The first prisoner was freed from death row by DNA evidence in 1993, other

high-profile exonerations followed. Studies show that killers of whites have a far higher chance of

being sentenced to death than those who kill blacks. Shrewdly, abolitionists promoted lifeimprisonment without parole as an alternative to execution, noting that it costs less than years of

death-row appeals. When polls offer life without parole as an alternative punishment for murder,

Americans divide evenly.

As it happens, Mr OMalley of Maryland thinks executions incompatible with Americas civic

values. But more practical arguments work best, he says: the key is to talk about techniques that cut

crime, to strip away the myth that the death penalty works. If he prevails that would leave 18

states with no death penalty, plus the District of Columbia.

Of course, opposing forces also operate. Some states, such as Ohio, want to fix the death penalty,

not abolish it. A ballot measure on repeal in California narrowly failed last November. Connecticuts

recent school shooting may skew Marylands debate. A 2012 cinema massacre in Aurora, Coloradois weighing on abolition there. Legislators pushing repeal include a state senator from Aurora,

Morgan Carroll, who notes that the death penalty did not deter the killer, instead draining funds

from more useful mental health and other services. Meanwhile an Aurora Democrat who backs

capital punishment wants a statewide referendum.

Yet the death-penalty debate has changed in ways that go beyond day-to-day politics. It is less loud

and more sceptical, giving thoughtful governors room to question a policy that causes them anguish

because they think it arbitrary, ineffective and costly, and because they impose it. That grim duty

does not trouble all politicians: ask Mr Clinton and Mr Bush. But it should.

1) Examine the disconnect between good politics and good governance using the case of deathpenalty legislation as outlined in the passage above.

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Passage B

Refer to attached UN forum on Crime and Society.1)From page 11,

In many cases poverty and unemployment do not just provide a greater supply of potential

illegal labour for organized criminal activities, but they also create a favourable environment for

criminals to exploit the social fabric of countries as a foundation for organized crime. In some cases

(in the south of Italy, for example), organized crime forces legal businesses to generate employment

for a fee paid to criminal syndicates in the area. Thus organized crime is actually playing a positive

social role, as a dispenser of services. Moreover, organized crime also grows as a result of the

failure of the State to provide dispute resolution mechanisms on labour matters or when the State

fails to assure access to legal services or to financial markets.

In lieu of the issues raised in the paragraph above, how much

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Vocabulary and Comprehension Exercise