TIếng Anh 12 - Listen and read 42

Nội dung text: TIếng Anh 12 - Listen and read 42

1. downtime, such as art and sessions in a recording studio. The institution will LISTEN AND READ 42 hold no more than 49 children. Youth Justice Smaller facilities should make it easier to house youngsters close to their families, and to set up local programmes that reintegrate them upon release. In CHAINED TO THE DESK recent years the government has closed a lot of detention centres that no longer Children’s prisons are bleak places. Teachers are trying to improve them. held many prisoners, meaning children are often sent to facilities far from home. Two•thirds break the law within a year of release. MORE THAN a century ago a prison in Borstal, Kent, set aside a wing for its Not everyone is optimistic. The school will use premises vacated by a prison youngest inmates. The teenagers had bunked with older lags, but officials hoped which was dogged by allegations of staff assault. Frances Crook of the Howard special treatment would help set them right. As Evelyn Ruggles•Brise of the League, a charity, doubts a kinder form of custody can be created in such a Prison Commision put it, education and exercise would save “young ruffians” building. from a “career of habitual crime”. The government is having to change the law on charitable status, to make it Today, reformers are having another go. Next year, at a site down the road explicit charities are allowed to operate prisons—one reason why the school’s from the Borstal prison, the first “Secure School” will open. The aim is to opening, scheduled for last autumn, is running late. dismantle the violent detention centres most children end up in, and thus to In February a House of Commons committee said the slow progress did not reduce reoffending. The inspire confidence that more will arrive soon. The number of child prisoners government vows the new may fall further. More than 30% are being held on remand, and two•thirds do facilities will have “education and not end up with custodial sentences when their cases go to trial. But John Drew health” at their heart. of the Prison Reform Trust, a lobby group, thinks it is nonetheless worth finding In the past decade the number of out if educational charities can bring a “different ethos” to youth detention in under•18s behind bars in England cases where it is unavoidable. and Wales has fallen by two•thirds As Ruggles•Brise might have put it, the young ruffians deserve better. (see chart). But since prisons now [From The Economist UK, June 12, 2021] hold only the most troubled (*||*) youngsters, conditions have ~ deteriorated. Incidents in which Notes: inmates had to be restrained rose - to bunk(ed): provide bed(s) - lags: prisoners; jailbirds by 54% in the five years before the - ruffians: villains; thugs; scoundrels: côn đồ pandemic. Self•harm doubled. - downtime: time when not working A government report in 2016 - to dog(ged): follow and trouble - on remand: đưa tạm giam noted that half of 15• to - ethos: đặc điểm (giới tính, dân tộc ) 17•year•olds in jail have reading skills no better than an average 11•yearold. It recommended moving youngsters to new institutions run by the charities that now manage most of England’s secondary schools. In time, the aim is to create enough of such secure schools to house the majority of child prisoners. Oasis, a charity that runs 53 schools, has been chosen to establish the first one. Steve Chalke, the outfit’s founder, insists it will “not just be a detention centre by another name”. The school will employ youth workers rather than guards, and have “bedrooms” not cells. Volunteers will lay on activities during THẨM TÂM VY LISTEN AND READ 2
2. Space cadets Notes: - cadets: new trainees; tân tập sinh Jeff Bezos’s flight of fancy - to spearhead: làm kẻ dẫn đầu; là người đầu tiên - to trump: chơi trội; tố ngược (bài) Blue Origin’s first crewed mission will have the boss on board. - has sth at his beck and call: sai làm gì theo ý; có trong tay mọi thứ - be pencilled in: ghi tên chuẩn bị ngày giờ THE BATTLE of the space cadets is hotting up. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, a - to over•trump: phỗng tay trên; chơi vượt trội pair of billionaires who made their fortunes bending terrestrial technologies to their will, have long been trying to do something similar in outer space, and have founded companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin respectively, to this end. Their motives, however, are not purely commercial. There is a new frontier zeal involved, too. Both have plans for their firms to build crewed Moon landers. Mr Musk, indeed, has been contracted by NASA to do so. He also hopes to spearhead the human colonisation of Mars. Mr Musk won an important round of the unspoken competition last year, by being the first to launch people into outer space, courtesy of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, lifted atop a Falcon 9 rocket. But he has not yet gone there himself. Mr Bezos looks likely to trump him here, albeit that the definition of “outer space” involved is quite a technical one—being above the so-called von Kármán line, beyond which the air is so thin that the speed required to provide aerodynamic lift exceeds that required to achieve orbit. Conventionally, this is defined as 100km, though 80km might be a more accurate value. To this end, Mr Bezos announced on June 7th that he and his brother Mark will be two of the three first passengers taken above the von Kármán line in a capsule carried by New Shepard, a launcher made by Blue Origin and named after Alan Shepard, the first American to make such a rocket propelled trip. A third seat in the capsule will be auctioned on June 12th and the flight will happen on July 20th. New Shepard is not, however, powerful enough to reach orbit—which is, to be honest, most people’s idea of what it means to fly into space. Blue Origin’s orbital launcher, New Glenn, named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, is still in development, whereas Mr Musk has such a launcher at his beck and call. New Glenn’s first, uncrewed, flight is pencilled in for late next year. That gives Mr Musk plenty of time to over•trump his rival by taking a trip into orbit. Both billionaires, though, may be beaten by another. As The Economist went to press, rumours were circulating that Sir Richard Branson, boss of Virgin Galactic, may try to take a trip above the von Kármán line on July 4th, in his firm’s air­launched rocket plane. Watch, as it were, this space. • [From The Economist UK, June 12, 2021] THẨM TÂM VY LISTEN AND READ 2