If we look into history we shall find that laws are conventions between men in a state of freedom. By justice we understand nothing more than that bond which is necessary to keep the interest of individuals united, without which men would return to their original state of barbarity. All punishments which exceed the necessity of preserving this bond are in their nature unjust.
The end of punishment is no other than to prevent the criminal from doing further injury to society, and to prevent others from committing the like offence. Such punishments, therefore, and such a mode of inflicting them, ought to be chosen, as will make the strongest and most lasting impressions on the minds of others, with the least torment to the body of the criminal.
The torture of a criminal during the course of his trial is a cruelty consecrated by custom in most nations. It is used with an intent either to make him confess his crime, or to explain some contradiction into which he had been led during his examination, or discover his accomplices, or for some kind of metaphysical and incomprehensible purgation of infamy, or, finally, in order to discover other crimes of which he is not accused, but of which he may be guilty.
No man can be judged a criminal until he be found guilty; nor can society take from him the public protection until it have been proved that he has violated the conditions on which it was granted. In the eye of the law, every man is innocent whose crime has not been proved. Crimes are more effectually prevented by the certainty than the severity of punishment.
In proportion as punishments become more cruel, grow hardened and insensible. All severity is superfluous, and therefore tyrannical.
The death penalty is pernicious to society, from the example of barbarity it affords. If the passions, or the necessity of war, have taught men to shed the blood of their fellow creatures, the laws, which are intended to moderate the ferocity of mankind, should not increase it by examples of barbarity, the more horrible as this punishment is usually attended with formal pageantry. Is it not absurd, that the laws, which detest and punish homicide, should, in order to prevent murder, publicly commit murder themselves?
It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them. This is the fundamental principle of good legislation.

Преступление и наказание

Если заглянуть в историю, мы увидим, что законы по сути есть условности между людьми в состоянии свободы. Под справедливостью мы понимаем узы, которые необходимо сохраняют интересы людей объединенными, без которых люди вернутся в первоначальное состояние варварства. Все наказания, которые превышают необходимость сохранения этой связи, являются по своей природе несправедливыми.
Конечной целью наказания является не что иные, как предотвращение нанесения преступником нового вреда обществу, и препятсвование другим совершить подобные преступления. Следовательно, должны быть выбраны такое наказание и такие способы нанесения их, которые произведут самые сильные и неизгладимые впечатления на умы других людей, с наименьшей мукой в теле преступника.
Пытки преступника в ходе судебного процесса над ним являются жестоким освященным обычаем в большинстве стран. Они используются с намерением либо заставить его сознаться в своем преступлении, или объяснить какое-то противоречие, в ходе его рассмотрения, или открыть его сообщников, или для какого-то метафизического и непонятного очищения от позора, или, наконец, для того, чтобы обнаружить и другие преступления, по которым его не обвиняли, но в которых он может быть виновным.
Ни один человек не может быть осужденным, пока он не был признан виновным, и не может общество забрать от него защиту, пока оно не было доказано, что он нарушил условия, на которых она была предоставлена. С точки зрения закона, каждый человек невиновен, пока преступление не было доказано. Преступления более действенно предотвратить, чем быть уверенным в строгости наказания.
В той же мере как наказания становились более жестокими, сознание людей ставало более закаленными и бесчувственным. Вся жесткость является лишней, и, следовательно, тиранической.
Смертная казнь является пагубной для общества, она дает пример варварства. Если страсти, или необходимость войны, учит людей проливать кровь их ближних, законы, которые призваны смягчить жестокость человечества, не должны увеличить его на примерах жестокости, тем более ужасно, что этот вид наказания, как правило, сопряжен с официальными зрелищами. Разве это не абсурдно, что законы, которые ненавидят и наказывают за убийство, должны, с тем чтобы предотвратить убийства, публично взять на себя убийство?
Лучше не допускать совершения преступлений, чем наказывать их. Это и есть фундаментальный принцип хорошего законодательства.

Crime has been around us for many centuries. Every day when we open a newspaper or turn on TV almost all we read or hear is about criminals and their illegal actions. According to the law, people who commit a crime must be punished, imprisoned or even sentenced to a death penalty. Without punishment our life in the society would be less secure, although sometimes punishment isn’t strict enough, to my mind.

Some kinds of crimes are as old as the human society (such as stealing, pick-pocketing, vandalism, assault or domestic violence, murder and manslaughter), others are a more recent phenomenon. Armed robbery of stores and banks, hacking into computers (so called “cyber frauds”), corruption or forgery of money and documents, for instance, are some of them. The 20 th century has also seen the appearance of organized crimes such as drug-trafficking, drug-smuggling and hijacking. Statistics show an alarming rise of violent crimes and crimes to do with the illegal sale of arms across the world. Unfortunately women and children often become the victims of crime. Sometimes criminals kidnap rich people or their kids and ask for a ransom to be paid for them.

Besides violent crimes, there are so called “white-collar crimes” in our modern society. These are frauds when a person isn’t physically threatened or hurt. Among them are tax evasion (when people are accused of not paying taxes on purpose), bribery, identity theft (when a criminal steals personal information of another person in order to use his credit cards or bank accounts, for example).

To crown it all, we must regret that today a great deal of crimes is committed by teenagers who want to become independent as soon as possible and to find a royal road to getting much money. Teenagers use drugs and drink alcohol, so they can’t control themselves. Moreover, modern TV programs and films containing much violence and sex often have huge and negative influence on teenagers.

In conclusion I should say that crime prevention in our society is an extremely difficult and complicated task because we should change our social and moral principles at large.

Перевод

Преступления в нашем современном обществе

Преступления окружают нас многие столетия. Каждый день, когда мы открываем газету или включаем телевизор, почти все, что мы читаем или слышим – это преступники и их противоправные действия. По закону люди, совершившие преступления, должны быть наказаны, заключены в тюрьму или даже приговорены к смертной казни. Без наказания наша жизнь в обществе была бы менее безопасной, хотя иногда наказание бывает недостаточно строгим, по моему мнению.

Некоторые виды преступлений стары, как само человеческое общество (такие как воровство, карманная кража, вандализм, разбой и домашнее насилие, умышленное и непредумышленное убийство), другие виды стали более недавним явлением. Вооруженное ограбление магазинов и банков, взлом компьютеров (так называемый «кибер-криминал»), коррупция или подделка банкнот и документов, к примеру, являются некоторыми из них. 20-й век также увидел появление организованных преступлений, таких как контрабанда и незаконный оборот наркотиков и захват самолета. Статистика показывает тревожный рост жестоких преступлений и криминала, связанного с незаконной продажей оружия по всему миру. К сожалению, часто женщины и дети становятся жертвами криминала. Иногда преступники похищают богатых людей или их детей и требуют за них выкуп.

Помимо жестоких преступлений, в нашем современном обществе существуют так называемые должностные преступления. Это мошеннические действия, когда человеку не угрожают физически и не причиняют боль. Среди них – уклонение от налогов (когда люди обвиняются в преднамеренной неуплате налогов), взяточничество, хищение персональных данных (когда преступник похищает личную информацию другого человека с целью использования его кредитных карт или банковских счетов, к примеру).

Ну и наконец, мы должны с сожалением признать, что сегодня большое количество преступлений совершается подростками, которые хотят стать независимыми как можно быстрее и найти легкий способ добычи денег. Подростки употребляют наркотики и алкоголь, поэтому они не контролируют себя. Более того, современное ТВ и фильмы содержат много жестокости и секса и часто имеют огромное негативное влияние на подростков.

If we look into history we shall find that laws, which are, or ought to be, conventions between men in a state of freedom, have been, for the most part the work of the passions of a few, or the consequences of a fortuitous or temporary necessity.Observe that by justice I understand nothing more than that bond which is necessary to keep the interest of individuals united, without which men would return to their original state of barbarity. All punishments which exceed the necessity of preserving this bond are in their nature unjust.

The end of punishment, therefore, is no other than to prevent the criminal from doing further injury to society, and to prevent others from committing the like offence. Such punishments, therefore, and such a mode of inflicting them, ought to be chosen, as will make the strongest and most lasting impressions on the minds of others, with the least torment to the body of the criminal.

The torture of a criminal during the course of his trial is a cruelty consecrated by custom in most nations. It is used with an intent either to make him confess his crime, or to explain some contradiction into which he had been led during his examination, or discover his accomplices, or for some kind of metaphysical and incomprehensible purgation of infamy, or, finally, in order to discover other crimes of which he is not accused, but of which he may be guilty.

No man can be judged a criminal until he be found guilty; nor can society take from him the public protection until it have been proved that he has violated the conditions on which it was granted. What right, then, but that of power, can authorise the punishment of a citizen so long as there remains any doubt of his guilt? This dilemma is frequent. Either he is guilty, or not guilty. If guilty, he should only suffer the punishment ordained by the laws, and torture becomes useless, as his confession is unnecessary. If he be not guilty, you torture the innocent; for, in the eye of the law, every man is innocent whose crime has not been proved.Crimes are more effectually prevented by the certainty than the severity of punishment.

In proportion as punishments become more cruel, the minds of men, as a fluid rises to the same height with that which surrounds it, grow hardened and insensible; and the force of the passions still continuing in the space of an hundred years the wheel terrifies no more than formerly the prison. That a punishment may produce the effect required, it is sufficient that the evil it occasions should exceed the good expected from the crime, including in the calculation the certainty of the punishment, and the privation of the expected advantage. All severity beyond this is superfluous, and therefore tyrannical.

The death penalty is pernicious to society, from the example of barbarity it affords. If the passions, or the necessity of war, have taught men to shed the blood of their fellow creatures, the laws, which are intended to moderate the ferocity of mankind, should not increase it by examples of barbarity, the more horrible as this punishment is usually attended with formal pageantry. Is it not absurd, that the laws, which detest and punish homicide, should, in order to prevent murder, publicly commit murder themselves?

It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them. This is the fundamental principle of good legislation, which is the art of conducting men to the maximum of happiness, and to the minimum of misery, if we may apply this mathematical expression to the good and evil of life....

Would you prevent crimes? Let the laws be clear and simple, let the entire force of the nation be united in their defence, let them be intended rather to favour every individual than any particular classes of men; let the laws be feared, and the laws only. The fear of the laws is salutary, but the fear of men is a fruitful and fatal source of crimes.

Who are minors? It boys and girls aged 14 to 18 years. Proud, independent, ready to everyone to prove that they are. But proving that, you can get in a very unpleasant situation. In our society minors is one of the most numerous groups of the population (24,4%). Over the last ten years, juvenile delinquency has increased twice and is growing several times faster than all of the teen population of the country. Teenagers are carried out each year more than 300 thousand of criminal acts, of which about 100 thousand children under the age of criminal responsibility. The higher the proportion of serious crimes, dominated (up to 85%) crimes against property (theft, fraud, robbery, theft of a vehicle). It is increasingly common group character of the crimes, about 30% of crimes are committed by teenagers with the complicity of adults. This is generally the most dangerous crimes: banditry, murder, robbery. Increased and their public danger, - they have become more insolent, cynical, dangerous for life and health of others. The most dangerous thing is that participation in criminal groups becomes, in the eyes of children and teenagers prestigious activity. Often it becomes a certain limit desires and social expectations. Part minors dreams of joining the ranks of criminals and join the criminal structures. In the world provides “rejuvenation” of crime. The earlier a person becomes a criminal path, the less likely it is to be corrected, and the path will be longer and more dangerous. Growth of juvenile crime in Russia is consistent with global trends Over the last five years in the European countries, the number of crimes committed by minors has also increased from 40%to 70%.