Episode 0144

Hello English learners, welcome back to English Pod. My name is Marco.

And my name is Catherine and today we're talking about something very serious.

Very serious. Today we're talking about capital punishment.

So if you've never heard that phrase before, you might have heard another name for this topic, it's called the death penalty.

Right. So if you commit a crime, basically the judge says that you will have to be put to death for that crime.

Right, so many countries no longer have this, this law. The United States, you can see it in some places, some states, but not in others. So what we're talking about today is the debate between to have the death penalty and to not have it.

All right, so we're going to actually have a little debate in the end of if if uh we agree that we should have the death penalty or not. Uh but before that, why don't we listen to this dialogue for the first time?

That's all for today's class. We will continue our lecture on crime and punishment tomorrow.

Do you think we should be tougher on crime?

Well, it depends on what you mean.

For example, we could bring back the death penalty for murder, give longer prison sentences for lesser offenses and lock up juvenile offenders.

Those sound like really draconian measures. Firstly, what do you do about miscarriages of justice if you've already put innocent people to death?

You'd only use capital punishment if you were absolutely sure that you convicted the right person.

But there've been many cases of wrongful conviction where people have been imprisoned for many years. The authorities were sure at the time, but later it was shown that the evidence was unreliable. In some cases, it had been fabricated by the police.

Well, no system of justice can be perfect, but surely there's a good case for longer prison sentences to deter serious crime.

I doubt whether they could act as an effective deterrent while the detection rate is so low. The best way to prevent crime is to convince people who commit it that they're going to be caught. It doesn't make sense to divert all your resources into the prison system.

But if you detect more crimes, you'll still need prisons. In my reckoning, if we could lock up more juvenile criminals, they'd learn that they can't get away with it. Soft sentences will merely encourage them to do it again.

Yes, but remember that prisons are often schools for criminals. To remove crime from society, you really have to tackle its causes.

Well, if I were president, I would impose tougher laws and punishment. I would have a peaceful society based on fear of punishment, not consciousness of doing the right thing.

You sound like a dictator.

Well, if it works, why not?

All right, so Marco, there's a lot of really great legal terms here, legal and crime terms. And so let's look at a few of these in today's language takeaway.

Language Takeaway

All right, so let's take a look at the first one. Uh they they mentioned juvenile offenders.

All right, so let's look at these two words because um well offender can be pretty general. It's someone who commits a crime.

Mhm.

So an offender, but we're talking about a special kind of offender. Here we're talking about juvenile offenders.

Mhm. So they're young offenders.

Right. And in America, legally, you're a juvenile offender if you're under the age of 18.

Okay, so if you commit a crime while you are a juvenile, you get judged differently, right? You don't get the same treatment as an adult.

Right. They usually, the punishments are not as harsh because people like to think that younger people, younger children or teenagers, they don't really understand the law. They don't really understand crime or good and bad. So you should be easier on them.

All right. Mhm.

All right, very good. So we have juvenile offenders and we also have uh wrongful conviction.

All right, this is an uh oh moment for a for a judge because a wrongful conviction, well, conviction first of all is a decision. So this is a court's decision on um whether or not a person is guilty. So

You convicted the person.

Right. Marco was convicted guilty of stealing my computer.

I was too. That happened.

Okay. Right. But uh it's a wrongful conviction if Marco didn't really steal a computer, but we decided that he did. Okay.

So it was it was a wrong decision.

Right. It was a bad decision in the sense that it's actually not what happened in reality.

Mhm. A wrongful conviction, very good. And actually related to a wrongful conviction, many times it happens because evidence is fabricated by the police.

Right. So this is a big no-no. This is something that uh really shouldn't happen and it's against the law in many countries. So fabrication or to fabricate is to fake, to make something up.

Mhm.

And so evidence that's fabricated is is evidence that the police or other people create to try and make someone look guilty, but it's not actually evidence. It's not really uh

It's not true.

It's not true. Right. And now moving on, um they were talking about a deterrent for crime.

Okay, so to deter is a verb. To deter means to try and get someone to not do something, all right? So I'm going to try and deter my staff from taking early lunch breaks. So I'm going to punish someone as a deterrent.

As a deterrent. Okay, so you have the verb deter and you have the noun, a deterrent.

Right. Yeah. And so often times very strict laws are meant to be deterrents. They're meant to keep people from doing bad things, from breaking the law.

All right, so for example, capital punishment is one of those deterrents. If you kill somebody then if you get caught, you are always going to be killed.

So that means I'm never going to kill anyone because I don't want the law to to decide that I'm going to get killed.

Exactly. And our last word for today, they were talking about imposing tougher laws. I would impose tougher laws.

Okay, so to impose is a verb that means to put in place or to set up or enact. And so

But by force, right? You don't really you don't really agree to do it.

Like the dictator imposes his will. All right, so he makes everyone do what he wants. But we can impose measures that do something. It's yeah, it's kind of like forcibly making people follow some kind of rule or or follow a person.

Now, sometimes you would see that you have a company or you have people at your house and they're like, well, you know, stay over for dinner and and they're like, oh, I wouldn't want to impose.

All right, so I wouldn't want to bother you or I wouldn't want to create more work for you because, you know, when you're making food, you have all these people, they don't want to impose on you. All right. So that's another way of using this impose on somebody.

All right, so uh after all of these words that we've taken a look at, uh why don't we start now with fluency builder.

Fluency Builder.

Okay, so as you know, fluency Builder is a place where we get to talk about some phrases and words that allow you to uh be more fluent in English. So these are sometimes idioms or sometimes phrases, words that go together commonly. And the first one is no exception, it's uh miscarriage, so miscarriage of justice.

All right, a miscarriage of justice. Now we have different uh words here. The first one miscarriage, it's usually related to a medical term.

Right. It's a pregnancy, well, it's a pregnancy that has a sad result. It's a pregnancy where the woman's baby dies or the woman loses the baby. And a miscarriage of justice is a metaphor. It's a way to say that um justice was not carried out. It means that um, for example, with those wrongful convictions, um, the the law failed.

To accomplish its objective. Yeah.

To accomplish its objective and to be fair.

Okay, so a miscarriage of justice. Interesting. And moving on to our next phrase, they were talking and discussing this whole uh death penalty situation and she mentioned in my reckoning.

All right, so this is a great way to share your opinion or your idea with someone. Uh you're saying pretty much, in my opinion, in my according to me or, you know, the way I'm thinking is this.

So I can also say I reckon, right?

Exactly. I I reckon it's going to rain later. I think it's going to rain. So in my reckoning, in my opinion.

All right. I reckon. Um and to finish off fluency builder, they said that the person or the criminal couldn't get away with it.

All right, so this is another one of those phrases that each word maybe means something different. You can get somewhere. Um but put together to get away with something means to do something bad or illegal or uh that's not okay without getting caught.

Or being punished.

Or being punished.

So you can say get away with murder.

He got away with murder. You know, he did something that was really, really bad, but no one caught him.

And also it means the criminal got away, so they couldn't catch him.

Right. Or I could always say to my brother, he would always lie to my parents and get away with it.

Mhm. So he never got caught. He never got punished. Okay, so he got away with his lie or got away got his way.

Right. All right, so I think this is an interesting phrase. Why don't we listen to a couple of more examples.

Example one.

Do you think we could get away with using the cheaper product?

Example two.

Thieves got away with two Picassos which were never found.

Example three.

He almost got away with murder. Unfortunately for him, the police discovered his secret.

So we've taken a look at a lot of great phrases. Why don't we listen to our dialogue for the last time and then we'll come back.

That's all for today's class. We will continue our lecture on crime and punishment tomorrow.

Do you think we should be tougher on crime?

Well, it depends on what you mean.

For example, we could bring back the death penalty for murder, give longer prison sentences for lesser offenses and lock up juvenile offenders.

Those sound like really draconian measures. Firstly, what do you do about miscarriages of justice if you've already put innocent people to death?

You'd only use capital punishment if you were absolutely sure that you convicted the right person.

But there've been many cases of wrongful conviction where people have been imprisoned for many years. The authorities were sure at the time, but later it was shown that the evidence was unreliable. In some cases, it had been fabricated by the police.

Well, no system of justice can be perfect, but surely there's a good case for longer prison sentences to deter serious crime.

I doubt whether they could act as an effective deterrent while the detection rate is so low. The best way to prevent crime is to convince people who commit it that they're going to be caught. It doesn't make sense to divert all your resources into the prison system.

But if you detect more crimes, you'll still need prisons. In my reckoning, if we could lock up more juvenile criminals, they'd learn that they can't get away with it. Soft sentences will merely encourage them to do it again.

Yes, but remember that prisons are often schools for criminals. To remove crime from society, you really have to tackle its causes.

Well, if I were president, I would impose tougher laws and punishment. I would have a peaceful society based on fear of punishment, not consciousness of doing the right thing.

You sound like a dictator.

Well, if it works, why not?

All right, so uh now the big question, Catherine, do you agree with the death penalty?

Oh, this is a big one and I don't think we have enough time to go into it in much detail here, but I definitely think that it's extreme, right? And so we have this phrase Draconian measures, and I think that they mentioned that in the dialogue. Yeah, so draconian, something that's draconian is excessive or severe, you know? And uh I think that there are a lot of reasons not to have the death penalty because the death penalty, well, you're pretty much saying, we as a society think that murder is wrong, but we're going to to show you that you've done a wrong thing, like a bad thing that's against the law by killing you. All right? And so, uh I have to disagree with that on a philosophical level.

Mhm. But what about practical?

Practically speaking, I think that there are a lot of problems with the prison system and the legal system in in the United States, for example, because prisons are really crowded. 1% of the American population is in prison, and so I think that so long as the prison system still has problems, there's a really good argument for having the death penalty, but still, I think that it's excessive and it's unnecessary and that there are other ways to treat and punish prisoners.

It is an interesting topic because you have many different angles that are in favor or or against uh the death penalty. For example, you have religious views where you say that you should not take a life of another person, no matter what. Or you have other views that say that the death penalty is simply wrong and that you can't write a wrong with another wrong. Right, exactly. So it it kind of doesn't make sense. But at the same time, you do, like you say, the prisons uh are full of people and it costs around, uh I think it's $12,000 a year per person to keep them in prison. So what do you do with all of these people that have life sentences that are going to spend the rest of their lives in jail?

So it is interesting and many countries are very, very strict with their legal system uh in comparison with the United States, right?

Definitely, but there is a statistic that's pretty stunning that I think among the top 20 developed nations in the world, I think only the United States is the one with the death penalty.

Exactly. And uh actually the ratio of the of people compared to the population that are in jail is much higher in the United States than in other countries.

That's true.

So uh it is a very um questionable topic, but uh we want to know what you think. Do you think that uh the death penalty is is a justifiable way to to do justice or do you think maybe it's just wrong and we shouldn't have it anymore?

Yeah, we're hoping that uh that this will get the conversation going on our website. Uh if you have any opinions, please let us know about them. Englishpod.com is the website and of course, you can always email us or send us a PM if you're a little bit shy.

All right, so we'll see you guys there.

Bye, everyone.

Bye.

The English Pod Audio Review.

Listen to the meaning, then say the vocabulary word.

The punishment of death.

Death penalty.

The act of changing the direction or use of something.

Diversion.

The amount of time to keep criminals in jail.

Prison sentence.

Expecting or requiring people to obey rules or laws.

Authoritarian.

Underage criminals.

Juvenile offender.

An issue that causes disagreement between people and causes them to separate into different groups.

Divisive topic.

Very strict and severe.

Draconian.

A person who continues to commit crimes even after being caught and punished.

Recidivist.

An unjust legal decision.

Miscarriage of justice.

To teach a criminal in prison to live a normal and productive life.

Rehabilitate.

Punishment of death.

Capital punishment.

To make something up to trick people.

Fabricate.

Something that prevents people from doing something.

Deterrent.

To move resources from one thing to another.

Divert.

Someone who rules with absolute power.

Dictator.

Let's try that faster.

To make something up to trick people.

Fabricate.

Very strict and severe.

Draconian.

An unjust legal decision.

Miscarriage of justice.

Underage criminals.

Juvenile offender.

The punishment of death.

Death penalty.

The amount of time to keep criminals in jail.

Prison sentence.

Someone who rules with absolute power.

Dictator.

An issue that causes disagreement between people and causes them to separate into different groups.

Divisive topic.

Expecting or requiring people to obey rules or laws.

Authoritarian.

Punishment of death.

Capital punishment.

The act of changing the direction or use of something.

Diversion.

To teach a criminal in prison to live a normal and productive life.

Rehabilitate.

Something that prevents people from doing something.

Deterrent.

To move resources from one thing to another.

Divert.

A person who continues to commit crimes even after being caught and punished.

Recidivist.

Now say the word and hear it in a sentence.

Death penalty.

Many religious groups object to the death penalty.

Death penalty.

The death penalty is one of the most divisive topics in America.

Death penalty.

Statistics about the effectiveness of the death penalty in crime deterrents are often conflicting.

Draconian.

Some small American towns are enacting draconian laws against dancing.

Draconian.

The word draconian comes from an ancient Greek lawyer under whom small offenses had heavy punishments.

Draconian.

In places with draconian laws, there may be law and order, but there is no personal freedom.

Fabricate.

The boy fabricated the entire story. There was no wolf at all.

Fabricate.

The factory can fabricate almost any textile.

Fabricate.

New studies have found that even DNA evidence can be easily fabricated.

Deterrent.

Bike locks are good theft deterrents.

Deterrent.

Many studies have proven that long jail sentences are not an effective crime deterrent.

Deterrent.

When traveling in these mountains, we recommend carrying a long stick to deter mountain lion attacks.

Divert.

The government will divert future revenue into paying off the national debt.

Divert.

Beaver dams can divert an entire river.

Divert.

One thief diverted the victim's attention while the other thief stole his wallet.