Crime and Punishment: Two Reports
Findings by social scientists tell an interesting story about human behavior. Transcript of radio broadcast:
02 March 2009
VOICE ONE:
This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I’m Bob Doughty.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Barbara Klein. This week, we tell about two recent studies by teams of social scientists. One study showed that signs of disorderly behavior and theft lead to additional acts of crime. The other study explored whether punishment leads to greater cooperation among groups and individuals.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Graffiti on a building
Imagine that you live on a street where there are broken windows, graffiti painted on buildings and waste on the ground. Would this environment lead to other acts of property damage or crime?
European researchers say the answer is yes. The researchers say they found strong evidence that signs of disorder can lead individuals to carry out criminal acts or bad behavior. The researchers work at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. They reported their findings in Science magazine last November. Their report is called “The Spreading of Disorder.”
VOICE TWO:
The idea that observing disorder has an effect on people’s behavior is not new. In nineteen eighty-two, American researchers James Wilson and George Kelling wrote a report describing what they called the broken windows theory. They believed that signs of crime, such as broken windows in a building, led to other acts of crime.
VOICE ONE:
In the nineteen nineties, New York City officials started a campaign to remove signs of disorder like broken windows, graffiti markings and trash. Soon, the rate of minor crimes in New York began to drop. Other cities around the world also began to use this crime-fighting method.
VOICE TWO:
But the broken windows theory was also disputed. Experts said there was still no experimental evidence to prove that the drop in crime was a direct result of efforts to clean up city neighborhoods.
They said other influences could have caused the drop in crime. Also, the broken windows theory did not fully investigate the exact conditions of disorders that appeared to lead to crime.
The study from the Netherlands now provides the experimental information to support the broken windows theory.
VOICE ONE:
To carry out the experiment, a team led by Kees Keizer set up several situations in public areas to test people’s behavior. One experiment took place in Groningen on a quiet street where people left their bicycles. The researchers left a piece of paper on the handlebars of the bicycles while their owners were away. They wanted to see under what conditions people would demonstrate the behavior of littering, or leaving the paper on the street.
VOICE TWO:
When a wall near the bicycles was covered in graffiti, sixty nine percent of individuals left the paper in the street or on a nearby bicycle. But only thirty three percent of the individuals littered when the area lacked graffiti.
Other experiments tested how people acted when faced with rules set by police, rules set by a local business, and rules set by national law. In all situations, people were more likely to violate the rules when there were nearby signs of disorderly behavior than if there were no signs of disorder.
VOICE ONE:
Researchers also carried out an experiment to test if signs of disorder that were heard had the same effect as signs that were seen. In the Netherlands, it is illegal to explode firecrackers in the weeks before New Year’s Day. So, the researchers once again placed pieces of paper on several parked bicycles. When firecrackers were set off nearby, people picking up their bicycles were more likely to litter than when there was no firecracker noise. Eighty percent of people who heard the noise threw the paper on the ground. Without the fireworks, fifty two percent did so.
VOICE TWO:
The researchers say their report holds important meaning for policy makers and crime enforcement workers. It proves that identifying and correcting small signs of disorder before they grow into bigger problems can be an important step in fighting the spread of crime.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
You are listening to the VOA Special English program SCIENCE IN THE NEWS. With Barbara Klein, I’m Bob Doughty in Washington.
Results of another study were published in Science magazine in December. The report was called “The Long-Run Benefits of Punishment.” Economists at the University of Nottingham in Britain wanted to test whether the threat of punishment causes social groups to cooperate more fully.
VOICE TWO:
Their question is part of a model used by experimental economists to explain social and individual behavior. When societies cooperate with the aim of creating a public good, there is always the possibility of a free-rider. A free-rider uses the public good without helping to create or support it. For example, many Americans believe the country’s public television service is a kind of public good. People donate money to help support public television and its programming. A free-rider might refuse to donate money but still enjoys watching the programs.
VOICE ONE:
The University of Nottingham study examined whether the possibility of punishing free-riders leads to better group results. The study was carried out with the help of about two hundred volunteers. They used computers at the university to carry out the experiment. The volunteers sat in such a way that they could not see one another’s computer screens. They also were not permitted to speak to one another.
VOICE TWO:
Groups of three people were given twenty tokens in the computer program. Each token represented an amount of money. An individual could keep the object or donate it as part of a group project. If the person kept the token, it was worth one unit of money. If a person donated the token to a group project, the token was worth half of that amount to each person in the group.
VOICE ONE:
In half of the groups, a person could chose to punish another individual who did not donate to the public project. Punishment cost the punisher one unit of money. The person being punished had his or her money reduced by three units.
For the other groups, there was no way to punish people who did not cooperate on the public project. The results showed that if punishment was possible, the group cooperated better on the public project and donated more money towards its goal.
VOICE TWO:
The groups were asked to play this game either ten times or fifty times. The two time periods tested whether people were more likely to act differently in the short term than in the long term. The results suggested that people do act differently if they think they are working with a group for a short period of time instead of a long period.
VOICE ONE:
Simon Gaechter was one of the researchers for this project. He says his team’s research is influenced by questions in evolutionary biology about why people and groups use costly punishment. Some studies suggest that punishment can be too costly to be useful. But Professor Gaechter says his team’s theory was that punishment has only low costs because it needs to be used rarely and works as a threat. And, the experiment proved the theory.
VOICE TWO:
The professor gave an example of his team’s experiment. Standing in line is a form of social cooperation. Everyone must wait in line when, for example, waiting to mail a package or letter at the post office. Each individual has a reason to want to jump ahead in line to avoid the cost of waiting. But usually people do not cut ahead in line, even if the other people in line are strangers and may never be seen again.
VOICE ONE:
One reason for not cheating is that a person might fear being criticized in public for cutting in line. Professor Gaechter says social order in general can be explained as a system in which individuals behave cooperatively and follow social rules. This is because of the threat of punishment. Punishment can include social criticism, and police or legal enforcement.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Dana Demange. Brianna Blake was our producer. I’m Barbara Klein.
VOICE ONE:
And I’m Bob Doughty. We would like to hear from you. Write to us at Special English, Voice of America, Washington, D.C., two-zero-two-three-seven, U.S.A. Or send your e-mails to special@voanews.com. Join us again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.
Eartha Kitt, 1927-2008: Singer, Actress and ‘Catwoman’
One movie director called her “the most exciting woman in the world.”Transcript of radio broadcast:
04 June 2009
VOICE ONE:
I’m Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Barbara Klein with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we tell about the unforgettable entertainer Eartha Kitt. The life of this singer and actress was as rich and interesting as her career.
(Music: “C’est Si Bon”)
VOICE ONE:
“C’est Si Bon,” or “It’s So Good” in French, was one of Eartha Kitt’s first hit songs. She recorded it in the early nineteen fifties after performing it in a Broadway show. But Eartha Kitt’s life was not always so good. She had a very difficult childhood although information about her early history is limited.
Eartha Mae Keith was born into a poor, rural family in South Carolina in nineteen twenty-seven. Some reports say she was the child of rape. Her mother was of African and Cherokee Indian ancestry. Her father was a white farmer.
When Eartha was eight, her mother married. The husband did not want Eartha to live with them because of her mixed race. Eartha Kitt said he called her “yellow gal.”
Eartha was sent to New York City to live with an aunt in the African- American neighborhood of Harlem. The relationship was difficult. The aunt helped pay for piano and dance lessons for Eartha. But she also beat the girl. Eartha would run away after beatings.
(Music: “God Bless The Child”)
VOICE TWO:
Eartha Kitt lived on the streets and worked in a factory as a young teenager. But she kept up her dance lessons. One day she decided to try out for a famous African-American dance company. Soon, Eartha was performing in shows around the world with the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe.
In Paris, Eartha left the dance company to sing in a nightclub. Her voice was unusual – but very appealing. She learned French quickly and gained French fans.
(Music: “Je Cherche Un Homme”)
VOICE ONE:
The film director Orson Welles discovered Eartha Kitt singing in Paris. He called her “the most exciting woman in the world.” Welles asked her to play a lead part in a play he was directing and starring in.
Eartha Kitt returned to New York and appeared in the Broadway show “New Faces of Nineteen Fifty-Two.” A humorous song she sang about a bored, spoiled woman became famous. Here is “Monotonous.”
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
She soon signed a recording agreement with a record company. Eartha Kitt’s songs were all daring, especially for the nineteen fifties. She even made a sexy Christmas song. “Santa Baby,” became Kitt’s biggest hit.
(MUSIC)
Eartha Kitt’s first role in a film was in the nineteen fifty-seven movie “Mark of the Hawk” with Nat King Cole. Kitt was very careful about choosing her roles in films. She rejected parts that were not respectful to people of color. She said if her choices were bad it would not help the black actors who came after her.
CATWOMAN: “Hello Pierre.This is Catwoman. C-A-T-W-O-M-A-N.”
PIERRE: “Quelle est la problem, Femme Chat?”
CATWOMAN: “Batman just caught Joker and me in the middle of a robbery.”
VOICE ONE:
In nineteen sixty-seven, Eartha Kitt got the part of Catwoman on the popular television series “Batman.” Fans loved the special way she rolled her “r”s to create a sound like a cat. She appeared on just three shows but was an unforgettable Catwoman.
CATWOMAN: “What now?”
BATMAN: “You’re on your way to prison, Catwoman. Will you never learn that you cannot outwit the law?”
CATWOMAN: “Maybe one day I will, Batman. Purr-haps.”
VOICE TWO:
In nineteen sixty-eight Eartha Kitt was invited to the White House. President Lyndon Johnson was in office and the Vietnam War was an issue of national dispute.
The president’s wife, Lady Bird Johnson, invited several women to a luncheon to discuss the problem of crimes committed by young people. Eartha Kitt said the First Lady asked her why she thought there was so much youth crime in America.
Eartha Kitt said: “You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. They rebel in the streets. They will take pot and they will get high. They don’t want to go to school because they will be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam.”
VOICE ONE:
Those comments destroyed Kitt’s career in America for a long time. Later, it was discovered that President Johnson had immediately ordered government agents to investigate the performer. Kitt said she was “blacklisted.” No one in the American entertainment industry would employ her. For about ten years, she could only find work in other countries.
Eartha Kitt, star of the Broadway Play “Timbuktu”, arrives on the shoulders of Mr. Universe (Tony Carroll).
Eartha Kitt in”Timbuktu”
In the mid nineteen seventies Eartha Kitt slowly began to rebuild her career in America. She won critical praise for a concert in nineteen seventy-four at Carnegie Hall in New York. In nineteen seventy-eight, President Jimmy Carter asked Eartha Kitt back to the White House. That same year, she was nominated for a Tony award as best actress in the musical “Timbuktu!”
In nineteen ninety-four, Eartha Kitt released the album “Back In Business”. It was nominated for a Grammy. She was sixty-six years old. She received another Tony nomination, three Emmys and other honors in the years that followed. And she continued singing in small clubs until the last year of her life.
(Music: “Let’s Do It”)
VOICE TWO:
Eartha Kitt was also a mother and grandmother. She married businessman William O’Donald in nineteen sixty and gave birth to their daughter, Kitt, the same year. Eartha Kitt said her daughter was her greatest joy in life. She said she took her everywhere her career went.
Eartha Kitt said her own experiences as a child left her a divided person. Her real self was not Eartha Kitt but Eartha Mae, a child given away by her mother.
EARTHA KITT: “Rejection has always made me into a person that does not want to be seen anywhere, except when I’m all made up and go out as Eartha Kitt. Then I feel okay.”
And where was Eartha Mae most herself?
EARTHA KITT: “I’m at home, digging in the dirt, or doing something that is very close to the Earth, because that’s where I know how to survive.”
(MUSIC: “Here’s To Life”)
VOICE ONE:
Eartha Mae Kitt was at home when she died on December twenty fifth, two thousand eight. The cause was colon cancer. She was eighty-one.
VOICE TWO:
This program was written and produced by Caty Weaver. For transcripts, mp3s and podcasts of our shows go to voapsecialenglish.com. I’m Barbara Klein.
VOICE ONE:
And I’m Steve Ember. Join us again next week for People in America in VOA Special English.
Hooray for Hollywood!
Cecil B. DeMille, Samuel Goldwyn and Louis Mayer helped make Hollywood the center of the movie industry. Transcript of radio broadcast:
30 May 2009
VOICE ONE:
I’m Sarah Long.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Today we tell about three people who helped make Hollywood the center of the movie industry.
VOICE ONE:
When you hear the name Hollywood, you probably think of excitement, lights, cameras and movie stars. Famous actors are not the only important people in the entertainment business. Directors and producers are important, too. Today, Hollywood is full of producers and directors. However, very few are as famous and successful as Hollywood’s first motion picture businessmen, Cecil B. DeMille, Samuel Goldwyn and Louis Mayer.
VOICE TWO:
Cecil Blount DeMille was born in Ashfield, Massachusetts in eighteen eighty-one. Both his parents were writers of plays. His father died when he was twelve years old. His mother kept the family together by establishing a theater company. Cecil joined the company as an actor.
He continued working in his mother’s theater company as an actor and a manager until nineteen thirteen. That year, he joined Jesse L. Lasky and Samuel Goldfish to form the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. Goldfish later changed his name to Samuel Goldwyn.
VOICE ONE:
The three men started making motion pictures immediately. They loved working in the movie business. They were deeply interested in its creative and financial possibilities. DeMille, Lasky and Goldfish began working on a movie version of the popular American western play, “Squaw Man.” DeMille urged that the movie be made in the real American West. He chose Flagstaff, Arizona. DeMille and the company traveled to Flagstaff by train. When they arrived, DeMille thought the area looked too modern. They got back on the train and keep going until they reached the end of the line. They were in a quiet little town in southern California. The town was called Hollywood. DeMille decided this was the perfect place to film the movie.
“Squaw Man” was one of the first full-length movies produced in Hollywood. It was released in nineteen thirteen and was an immediate success. DeMille is considered the man who helped Hollywood become the center of the motion picture business.
He quickly became a creative force in the new movie industry. His success continued with “Brewster’s Millions,” “The Call of the North” and “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine.”
VOICE TWO:
Cecil B. DeMille was among the very few filmmakers in Hollywood whose name appeared above the title of his movie. His name was more important to movie-goers than the names of the stars in the movie. DeMille’s movies were known to be big productions. He combined a lot of action, realistic storytelling and hundreds of actors to make some of Hollywood’s best movies. He made many kinds of movies including westerns, comedies, romances and ones dealing with moral issues.
A movie poster for DeMille gained a great deal of fame with the kind of movie known as an epic. An epic tells a story of events that are important in history. DeMille’s epic movies were based on the settling of the American West, Roman history or stories from the Bible. His first version of the historic film “The Ten Commandments” was a huge success among silent films in nineteen twenty-three. In nineteen fifty-six, he released a new version of “The Ten Commandments” to include sound. It is broadcast still on American television during the Christian observance of Easter.
VOICE ONE:
Cecil B. DeMille produced and directed seventy movies. In nineteen forty-nine he received a special Academy Award for “thirty-seven years of brilliant showmanship.” He died of heart failure in nineteen fifty-nine.
One of DeMille’s last films was “The Greatest Show on Earth.” It won the Academy Award for best picture in nineteen fifty-two. It was about people who performed in the circus. Some people say it was a fitting subject because Cecil B. DeMille often was called the greatest showman in Hollywood.
VOICE TWO:
In eighteen ninety-five, a thirteen year old boy from Warsaw, Poland found his way to the United States. Samuel Goldfish was alone. He had no money. He found work as a glove maker. He continued working in the glove-making industry until he was almost thirty years old.
In nineteen thirteen, Samuel and his wife’s brother, Jesse L. Lasky, and Cecil B. DeMille formed the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. It produced the movie “Squaw Man.”
In nineteen sixteen, Goldfish started a business with Edgar Selwyn. They combined their names Goldfish and Selwyn and called the new company Goldwyn. Samuel Goldfish liked the name and changed his to Samuel Goldwyn in nineteen eighteen. The Goldwyn Company made many successful motion pictures. Yet, the company was not a financial success.
In nineteen twenty-two, Samuel Goldwyn was forced to leave the company. The Goldwyn Company then joined with Metro Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Productions to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, known as MGM. Samuel Goldwyn was not part of the deal. He promised never to be a joint owner of another company. He formed his own company Samuel Goldwyn Productions.
VOICE ONE:
Samuel Goldwyn was one of the great independent producers during the “Golden Age” of Hollywood. Most of his films were successful financially and popular with critics. He insisted that his films be well made and of high quality. This became known as the “Goldwyn Touch.”
Goldwyn usually paid for his films himself. He bought the best stories and plays to be made into movies. He employed the best writers, directors and actors.
And he discovered new actors including Lucille Ball, Gary Cooper, Susan Hayward and Will Rogers.
Goldwyn was extremely independent. He had a strong desire to control every element of the production and marketing of his films. He made all decisions concerning his films including choosing directors, actors and writers. His best films include “The Little Foxes,” “The Best Years of Our Lives” and “Porgy and Bess.” His movies received many Academy Awards.
VOICE TWO:
Samuel Goldwyn was known also for his sense of humor. He created funny expressions. In Hollywood they are known as Goldwynisms. One of his most famous expressions was “Include me out.”
In nineteen forty-six, Goldwyn received the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award for his excellent movie productions during the Academy Award ceremonies that year. He died in nineteen seventy-four.
Samuel Goldwyn was in the movie business for almost sixty years. He is considered one of the most influential film producers ever.
VOICE ONE:
Louis B. Mayer began as a theater operator in Havermill, Massachusetts in nineteen-oh-seven. Over the next several years he bought more theaters. Soon he owned the largest group of theaters in New England. In nineteen seventeen, Mayer formed his own movie production company. In the early nineteen twenties, Louis B. Mayer Pictures joined two other companies to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Mayer was appointed vice president and general manager of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He had a strong fatherly way of supervising the company and actors.
The company had some of the biggest names in show business including Judy Garland, Clark Gable, Katherine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor. A popular expression used at the time was MGM had “more stars than there are in heaven.” MGM produced some of the most popular movies of all time including “The Wizard of Oz,” “Gone with the Wind” and “The Philadelphia Story.”
VOICE TWO:
In the nineteen thirties and nineteen forties, Louis B. Mayer was the most powerful businessman in Hollywood. He earned more than one million two hundred thousand dollars a year. He was paid more than anyone else in the United States.
In nineteen fifty, Mayer received a special Academy Award for “excellent service to the Motion Picture industry.” He died in Hollywood, California in nineteen fifty-seven. He was seventy-two years old.
VOICE ONE:
Cecil B. DeMille, Samuel Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer are remembered for their excellent movies and their continuing influence in the motion picture industry. They led the way for movie producers and directors of today and those still to come.
VOICE TWO:
This program was written and directed by Lawan Davis. Our studio engineer was Keith Holmes. I’m Steve Ember.
VOICE ONE:
And I’m Sarah Long. Join us again next week for PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English.
