TED英语演讲：给孩子监狱还是大学

1、TED英语演讲：给孩子监狱还是大学 演讲者：Alice Goffman 中英文对照翻译 On the path that American children travel to adulthood, two institutions oversee the journey. The first is the one we hear a lot about: college. Some of you may remember the e_citement that you felt when you first set off for college. Some of you may be in

2、 college right now and youre feeling this e_citement at this very moment. 美国的孩子们长大成人的道路上，有两个机构在这段旅程上至关重要。第一个是大家经常听到的大学。某些人可能还记得当你第一次进入大学时的兴奋的感觉。你们中的某些可能如今就在大学并且正在享受那份兴奋。 College has some shortcomings. Its e_pensive; it leaves young people in debt. But all in all, its a pretty good path. Young people

3、 emerge from college with pride and with great friends and with a lot of knowledge about the world. And perhaps most importantly, a better chance in the labor market than they had before they got there. 大学有很多弊端 学费昂贵，所以年轻人负债累累 但总而言之，这是一条康庄大道。年轻人从校园毕业，带着自豪与友谊。和许多关于这个世界的知识或许更重要的是上大学使得他们能有更好的就业时机。 Today

4、 I want to talk about the second institution overseeing the journey from childhood to adulthood in the United States. And that institution is prison. Young people on this journey are meeting with probation officers instead of with teachers. Theyre going to court dates instead of to class. Their juni

5、or year abroad is instead a trip to a state correctional facility. And theyre emerging from their 20s not with degrees in business and English, but with criminal records. 今天我想讨论的是第二个机构 在美国，贯穿了从童年到成年的整个人生经历 那个机构便是监狱 在这段旅程上,相伴着年轻人的 是感化官而不是老师 去法庭受审而不是去教室上课 他们的大三留学之旅是去州立管教所 当他们20多岁时 没有商科的或英语的学位 有的只是犯罪记录

6、 This institution is also costing us a lot, about 40,000 dollars a year to send a young person to prison in New Jersey. But here, ta_payers are footing the bill and what kids are getting is a cold prison cell and a permanent mark against them when they come home and apply for work. 这个机构同样花费甚多 在新泽西，送

7、一个年轻人到监狱的花费 一年要大约4万美元 但是这是纳税人买的单 而孩子们得到的只是一个冰冷的牢房单间 和一个永久的印记，阻碍着他们回归家庭 或者寻找工作 There are more and more kids on this journey to adulthood than ever before in the United States and thats because in the past 40 years, our incarceration rate has grown by 700 percent. I have one slide for this talk. Here

8、it is. Heres our incarceration rate, about 716 people per 100,000 in the population. Heres the OECD countries. 越来越多的孩子在这条路上长大成人 尤其在美国，这是因为在过去的四十年里 我们服刑率已经增长了700% 我制作了一张幻灯片 看这儿 这是我们的服刑率 每十万人就有716人服刑 这是其他OECD(经合组织)成员国家的情况 Whats more, its poor kids that were sending to prison, too many drawn from Afric

9、an-American and Latino communities so that prison now stands firmly between the young people trying to make it and the fulfillment of the American Dream. The problems actually a bit worse than this cause were not just sending poor kids to prison, 更为重要的是，被送入监狱的孩子往往 家境贫寒 他们大多来自非裔美国人和拉丁裔社区 以致于监狱成为了想要成功

10、的年轻人 实现美国梦的障碍 问题是事实更为糟糕 因为我们不只是把贫困的孩子送入监狱 were saddling poor kids with court fees, with probation and parole restrictions, with low-level warrants, were asking them to live in halfway houses and on house arrest, and were asking them to negotiate a police force that is entering poor communities of co

11、lor, not for the purposes of promoting public safety, but to make arrest counts, to line city coffers. 我们还给他们加上了许多沉重的枷锁，比方诉讼费的负担 比方感化和假释的限制 比方细微的犯罪通缉 我们让他们待在过渡教习所或者软禁在家 我们让他们和警察交涉 而当这些警察要进入有色人种的社区 不是为了改善公共平安 而是为了政绩去保证逮捕数量 This is the hidden underside to our historic e_periment in punishment: young p

12、eople worried that at any moment, they will be stopped, searched and seized. Not just in the streets, but in their homes, at school and at work. 这就是关于我们印象中的惩戒措施的 不为人知的一面 年轻人总是担忧随时会被截停、搜身和逮捕 无论是在街上还是在家 在学校还是在工作 I got interested in this other path to adulthood when I was myself a college student atten

13、ding the University of Pennsylvania in the early 20_s. Penn sits within a historic African-American neighborhood. 大约20_年年初的时候 当时我自己在宾夕法尼亚大学上学 我对这种别样的人生成长轨迹 产生了兴趣 大学坐落在一个历史悠久的非裔社区旁 So youve got these two parallel journeys going on simultaneously: the kids attending this elite, private university, and

14、 the kids from the adjacent neighborhood, some of whom are making it to college, and many of whom are being shipped to prison. 所以在这里你能同时看到两条平行的人生轨迹 一边是在这所精英的私立大学上学的孩子 另外一边是在附近社区的孩子 他们中有一些也在努力去读大学 但是他们中的大多数却身陷囹圄 In my sophomore year, I started tutoring a young woman who was in high school who lived a

15、bout 10 minutes away from the university. Soon, her cousin came home from a juvenile detention center. 在我大二的时候，我开场辅导一位高中的年轻姑娘 她住在离大学10分钟路程的地方 不久，她的表弟(堂弟)从少年拘留所回到家 He was 15, a freshman in high school. I began to get to know him and his friends and family, and I asked him what he thought about me wri

16、ting about his life for my senior thesis in college. This senior thesis became a dissertation at Princeton and now a book. 他当时15岁，上高中一年级 我开场理解他以及他的朋友们和家庭 我问他能否在我的毕业论文中 讲述他的生活 这篇论文也成为了我在普林斯顿的博士论文 如今那么集结成书 By the end of my sophomore year, I moved into the neighborhood and I spent the ne_t si_ years tr

17、ying to understand what young people were facing as they came of age. The first week I spent in this neighborhood, I saw two boys, five and seven years old, play this game of chase, where the older boy ran after the other boy. 在我大学二年级完毕的时候 我搬进了这个社区，而且花了6年时间。去尝试理解年轻人在成长中要面对的是什么 在这个社区中生活的第一周 我看到了两个男孩，

18、一个5岁一个7岁 在玩一个追逐游戏 大一点的男孩在追另外一个。 He played the cop. When the cop caught up to the younger boy, he pushed him down, handcuffed him with imaginary handcuffs, took a quarter out of the other childs pocket, saying, Im seizing that. He asked the child if he was carrying any drugs or if he had a warrant. M

19、any times, I saw this game repeated, 他演警察 当警察抓到了小一点的男孩 他把小男孩按到身下 假装用手铐把他铐起来 然后从小男孩的口袋里掏出一个25分硬币 说到：这个归我了 他问他是否带了毒品 是否在被通缉 我经常看到孩子们玩儿这个游戏 sometimes children would simply give up running, and stick their bodies flat against the ground with their hands above their heads, or flat up against a wall. Chil

20、dren would yell at each other, Im going to lock you up, Im going to lock you up and youre never coming home! Once I saw a si_-year-old child pull another childs pants down and try to do a cavity search. 有时候，孩子们只是简单的放弃逃跑 平躺在地上 双手高举过头顶，或是将双手靠在墙上 孩子们彼此大叫 我要把你锁起来， 我要把你锁起来让你再也回不了家! 有一次我看到一个6岁小孩把 另外一个小孩的裤

21、子扒掉 然后去试着去做肛门搜寻 In the first 18 months that I lived in this neighborhood, I wrote down every time I saw any contact between police and people that were my neighbors. So in the first 18 months, I watched the police stop pedestrians or people in cars, search people, run peoples names, chase people thr

22、ough the streets, pull people in for questioning, or make an arrest every single day, with five e_ceptions. 在住在这个社区的最初的18个月 我记下了所有我看到的 我的邻居与警察的接触 所以在这最初的18个月 我看到了警察截停行人或者在车里的人 搜寻他们，询问他们的姓名 在街上追逐他们 抓他们去问话 每天都要抓一个人，只有5天例外 Fifty-two times, I watched the police break down doors, chase people through hou

23、ses or make an arrest of someone in their home. Fourteen times in this first year and a half, I watched the police punch, choke, kick, stomp on or beat young men after they had caught them. 我看到警察破门而入多达52次 穿过很多屋子去追捕 或者在某人家中将其逮捕 我看到警察在逮捕这些年轻人之后 又用极端暴力对待他们 在这一年半时间中我一共看到14次 Bit by bit, I got to know two

24、 brothers, Chuck and Tim. Chuck was 18 when we met, a senior in high school. He was playing on the basketball team and making Cs and Bs. His younger brother, Tim, was 10. And Tim loved Chuck; he followed him around a lot, looked to Chuck to be a mentor. 逐渐的，我和两兄弟熟悉起来 查克和提姆 我们相识时查克18岁，是一个高四学生 他在一个篮球队

25、打球，大局部成绩是C和B 他的小弟弟，提姆，当时10岁 提姆很喜欢查克，经常跟着他屁股后面转 把查克当成他的导师 They lived with their mom and grandfather in a two-story row home with a front lawn and a back porch. Their mom was struggling with addiction all while the boys were growing up. She never really was able to hold down a job for very long. It wa

26、s their grandfathers pension that supported the family, not really enough to pay for food and clothes and school supplies for growing boys. The family was really struggling. 他们和母亲与爷爷(姥爷)住在一起 他们住在一个两层楼的联排房屋里，前面有草坪，后面有走廊 他们成长过程中，他们的母亲一直都为毒瘾所扰 她从来没能有个长期的稳定工作 是他们祖父(外祖父)的退休金在支撑这个家 其实这缺乏以支付孩子们的食品和衣服 还有学习开

27、销 真的是在贫困线上挣扎 So when we met, Chuck was a senior in high school. He had just turned 18. That winter, a kid in the schoolyard called Chucks mom a crack whore. Chuck pushed the kids face into the snow and the school cops charged him with aggravated assault. The other kid was fine the ne_t day, I think

28、it was his pride that was injured more than anything. 当我们认识的时候，查克正在上高中最后一年 他刚刚满18岁 那个冬天，一个操场上的孩子 叫查克的妈妈嗑药的婊子 查克把那孩子的脸按到积雪里 然后校警以严重袭击的罪名将他逮捕 然而骂人的孩子第二天没什么事 我想主要是他的自尊心受到了伤害 But anyway, since Chuck was 18, this agg. assault case sent him to adult county jail on State Road in northeast Philadelphia, whe

29、re he sat, unable to pay the bail - he couldnt afford it - while the trial dates dragged on and on and on through almost his entire senior year. 但是无论如何，查克已经年满18岁 他因为袭击案被送到成人监狱 位于费城东北部的州立公路旁 他因为无力支付保释金被关在那-他根本就付不起 当时审讯日被一拖再拖 几乎占了他高中最后的一整年 Finally, near the end of this season, the judge on this assaul

30、t case threw out most of the charges and Chuck came home with only a few hundred dollars worth of court fees hanging over his head. Tim was pretty happy that day. 最后，在接近这个季节末的时候 法官驳回了大局部关于这起袭击案的指控 查克回家了 但是他也欠下了数百美元的诉讼费 提姆那天很开心 The ne_t fall, Chuck tried to re-enroll as a senior, but the school secre

31、tary told him that he was then 19 and too old to be readmitted. Then the judge on his assault case issued him a warrant for his arrest because he couldnt pay the 225 dollars in court fees that came due a few weeks after the case ended. Then he was a high school dropout living on the run. 第二年秋天，查克试着去

32、重新注册高中四年级 但是学校秘书告诉他 他已经19岁了，已经超龄而没有资格复读了 紧接着，负责他袭击案的法官又签署了一份他的通缉 因为他没有付225美元的诉讼费 在他案子完毕后的几个星期后发出 所以他从高中辍学在逃去躲避追捕 Tims first arrest came later that year after he turned 11. Chuck had managed to get his warrant lifted and he was on a payment plan for the court fees and he was driving Tim to school in

33、his girlfriends car. 提姆第一次被捕是在那一年的晚些时候 那时他刚满11岁 那时查克的通缉刚被取消 然后他要以分期付款的方式支付他的诉讼费 当时他用他女友的车载提姆到学校 So a cop pulls them over, runs the car, and the car comes up as stolen in California. Chuck had no idea where in the history of this car it had been stolen. His girlfriends uncle bought it from a used car

34、 auction in northeast Philly. Chuck and Tim had never been outside of the tri-state, let alone to California. 一个警察把他们截停，调查车的来源 发现车是在加州被盗的 查克根本就不知道这辆车其实是赃物 是他女友的叔叔在一个费城东北的 二手车拍卖会上买的 查克和提姆从来没有分开过附近超过三个州 更别提加州了 But anyway, the cops down at the precinct charged Chuck with receiving stolen property. And

35、then a juvenile judge, a few days later, charged Tim, age 11, with accessory to receiving a stolen property and then he was placed on three years of probation. With this probation sentence hanging over his head, 但是尽管如此，当地辖区的警察 还是以窝赃的罪名起诉了查克 几天后，一个青少年犯罪法官 起诉了11岁的提姆 作为窝赃的从犯 然后他被判三年的缓刑 因为背负缓刑的罪名 Chuck

36、sat his little brother down and began teaching him how to run from the police. They would sit side by side on their back porch looking out into the shared alleyway and Chuck would coach Tim how to spot undercover cars, how to negotiate a late-night police raid, how and where to hide. 查克要他弟弟坐下来 开场教他怎

37、么摆脱警察 他们会肩并肩坐在他们房后的走廊 望着公共小巷的深处 查克会叫提姆怎样辩认出假装的警车 怎样和深夜巡逻的警察交涉，还有哪里能躲避 I want you to imagine for a second what Chuck and Tims lives would be like if they were living in a neighborhood where kids were going to college, not prison. A neighborhood like the one I got to grow up in. Okay, you might say. B

38、ut Chuck and Tim, kids like them, theyre committing crimes! Dont they deserve to be in prison? 我想让你们想象一下 假如查克和提姆住在 邻居孩子都能去大学读书，而不是去监狱的社区里 就像我长大的社区 他们的生活会是怎样? 好的，你也许会说 但是像查克和提姆这样的孩子，他们确实犯罪了! 难道他们不该去蹲监狱吗? Dont they deserve to be living in fear of arrest? Well, my answer would be no. They dont. And cer

39、tainly not for the same things that other young people with more privilege are doing with impunity. If Chuck had gone to my high school, that schoolyard fight would have ended there, as a schoolyard fight. It never would have become an aggravated assault case. 难道他们不该生活在被捕的恐惧之中吗? 我的答案是不该 他们不应该被这样对待 他

40、们不应该因为做了和其他年轻人一样的事而被这样对待 比他们条件更好的年轻人做同样的事却免受惩罚 假如查克去了我的高中 那次操场打架也只会作为一次操场打架 而止于学校内部 根本就不会成为一起严重袭击案件 Not a single kid that I went to college with has a criminal record right now. Not a single one. But can you imagine how many might have if the police had stopped those kids and searched their pockets

41、for drugs as they walked to class? Or had raided their frat parties in the middle of the night? 从来就没有任何一位我的大学同学 如今有犯罪记录 从来没有一个 但是你能想象假如警察截停这些上学路上的孩子 从他们的口袋中搜寻毒品 或者在半夜突击检查他们的朋友聚会，他们会留下多少犯罪记录吗? Okay, you might say. But doesnt this high incarceration rate partly account for our really low crime rate? C

42、rime is down. Thats a good thing. Totally, that is a good thing. Crime is down. It dropped precipitously in the 90s and through the 20_s. 好的，你也许会说 但是高服刑率 不是一定程度上降低了犯罪率吗? 犯罪率下降了，这是好事。 没错，犯罪率下降是好事。 从90年代到本世纪初，犯罪率大幅下降 But according to a committee of academics convened by the National Academy of Science

43、s last year, the relationship between our historically high incarceration rates and our low crime rate is pretty shaky. It turns out that the crime rate goes up and down irrespective of how many young people we send to prison. 但是根据一个由国家科学院去年召开的 学术会议的测算 我们历史上高服刑率 和我们的低犯罪率的关系并不非常牢靠 犯罪率的上下 和我们送多少年轻人进监狱

44、并无关系 We tend to think about justice in a pretty narrow way: good and bad, innocent and guilty. Injustice is about being wrongfully convicted. So if youre convicted of something you did do, you should be punished for it. There are innocent and guilty people, there are victims and there are perpetrato

45、rs. Maybe we could think a little bit more broadly than that. 我们总是在一个狭窄的范围下考虑正义 好或者坏，无罪或者有罪 不正义就是被错误的定罪 所以假如你因为自己做过的事被定罪 你就应该受到相应的惩罚 总是用无辜的和有罪的人，总是有被害者和犯罪者，假如我们能再考虑地更广一点 Right now, were asking kids who live in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, who have the least amount of family resources, who a

46、re attending the countrys worst schools, who are facing the toughest time in the labor market, who are living in neighborhoods where violence is an everyday problem, were asking these kids to walk the thinnest possible line - to basically never do anything wrong. 如今，我们却要求这些住在最恶劣的社区的小孩 他们只有最少的家庭资源 他们

47、上着全国最差的学校 他们面对着劳动力市场的最困难的时刻 他们住在每天都有暴力问题发生的社区 我们却要求他们实现几乎不可能完成的事情 不允许一丝错误 Why are we not providing support to young kids facing these challenges? Why are we offering only handcuffs, jail time and this fugitive e_istence? Can we imagine something better? Can we imagine a criminal justice system that

48、prioritizes recovery, prevention, civic inclusion, rather than punishment? (Applause) 为什么我们不提供应这些孩子 面对这些挑战的帮助呢? 为什么我们提供的只有手铐，监狱和逃亡生活呢? 我们就不能想象一点更好的事情吗? 难道我们就不能想象一个重视重归社会 重视预防犯罪和城市包容性 而不是只重视惩罚的司法系统吗? A criminal justice system that acknowledges the legacy of e_clusion that poor people of color in the

49、U.S. have faced and that does not promote and perpetuate those e_clusions. (Applause) And finally, a criminal justice system that believes in black young people, rather than treating black young people as the enemy to be rounded up. 这个司法系统 成认有色人种在美国被隔离和疏远的历史 并且不会再促进和保持这种隔离和疏远。最终，这个司法系统更信任这些黑人青年 而不是不

50、是把这些黑人青年当作敌人来对待 The good news is that we already are. A few years ago, Michelle Ale_ander wrote The New Jim Crow, which got Americans to see incarceration as a civil rights issue of historic proportions in a way they had not seen it before. 好消息是，我们已经在努力之中 几年前，米歇尔亚历山大撰写了 ?The New Jim Crow?这本书 这本书让美国人

51、认识到 服刑率在历史上也是一个重要的人权问题，而且是前所未见的 President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have come out very strongly on sentencing reform, on the need to address racial disparity in incarceration. Were seeing states throw out Stop and Frisk as the civil rights violation that it is. Were seeing cities and st

52、ates decriminalize possession of marijuana. 总统奥巴马和首席检察官埃里克候得对于量刑改革 以及在量刑中的种族不平等 非常的重视 我们看到有些州开场制止截查和搜身 因为这些进犯了人权 我们看到有些州和城市拥有大麻合法化 New York, New Jersey and California have been dropping their prison populations, closing prisons, while also seeing a big drop in crime. Te_as has gotten into the game n

53、ow, also closing prisons, investing in education. This curious coalition is building from the right and the left, made up of former prisoners and fiscal conservatives, 他们是纽约，新泽西和加利福尼亚 这些措施减少了他们的服刑人数，关闭了一些监狱 但是于此同时犯罪率也大幅地降低了 德克萨斯也开场了一样的举措 同样关闭监狱，投资教育 一个从左派到右派的奇异的联盟正在建立起来 of civil rights activists and libertarians, of young people taking to the streets to protest police violence against unarmed black teenagers, and older, wealthier people - some of you are here in the audience - pumping big money into decarceration initiatives In a