TED英語演講：給孩子監獄還是大學

在美國，有兩個機構指引着青少年步入成年：大學和監獄。社會學家Alice花了6年時間與費城的問題鄰居相處並且拿到了非裔和拉丁裔青少年是如何步入監獄道路的第一手資料與大家分享。讓我們隨着她的演講共同探尋如何正確引導青少年成人和成才的方法，現有阻礙他們健康成長的社會及制度問題，以及我們該如何為青少年的成才締造良好環境，伸出援手的方法。下面是小編為大家收集關於TED英語演講：給孩子監獄還是大學，歡迎借鑑參考。

演講者：Alice Goffman

中英文對照翻譯

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 excitement that you felt when you first set off for college. Some of you may be in college right now and you're feeling this excitement at this very moment.

美國的孩子們長大成人的道路上，有兩個機構在這段旅程上至關重要。第一個是大家經常聽到的大學。某些人可能還記得當你第一次進入大學時的興奮的感覺。你們中的某些可能現在就在大學並且正在享受那份興奮。

College has some shortcomings. It's expensive; it leaves young people in debt. But all in all, it's a pretty good path. Young people 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.

大學有很多弊端 學費昂貴，所以年輕人負債累累 但總而言之，這是一條康莊大道。年輕人從校園畢業，帶着自豪與友情。和許多關於這個世界的知識或許更重要的是上大學使得他們能有更好的就業機會。

Today 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. They're going to court dates instead of to class. Their junior year abroad is instead a trip to a state correctional facility. And they're emerging from their 20s not with degrees in business and English, but with criminal records.

今天我想討論的是第二個機構 在美國，貫穿了從童年到成年的整個人生經歷 那個機構便是監獄 在這段旅程上,相伴着年輕人的 是感化官而不是教師 去法庭受審而不是去教室上課 他們的大三留學之旅是去州立管教所 當他們20多歲時 沒有商科的或英語的學位 有的只是犯罪記錄

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, taxpayers 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.

這個機構同樣花費甚多 在新澤西，送一個年輕人到監獄的花費 一年要大約4萬美元 但是這是納税人買的單 而孩子們得到的只是一個冰冷的牢房單間 和一個永久的印記，阻礙着他們迴歸家庭 或者尋找工作

There are more and more kids on this journey to adulthood than ever before in the United States and that's because in the past 40 years, our incarceration rate has grown by 700 percent. I have one slide for this talk. Here it is. Here's our incarceration rate, about 716 people per 100,000 in the population. Here's the OECD countries.

越來越多的孩子在這條路上長大成人 尤其在美國，這是因為在過去的四十年裏 我們服刑率已經增長了700% 我製作了一張幻燈片 看這兒 這是我們的服刑率 每十萬人就有716人服刑 這是其他OECD(經合組織)成員國家的情況

What's more, it's poor kids that we're sending to prison, too many drawn from African-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 problem's actually a bit worse than this 'cause we're not just sending poor kids to prison,

更為重要的是，被送入監獄的孩子往往 家境貧寒 他們大多來自非裔美國人和拉丁裔社區 以至於監獄成為了想要成功的年輕人 實現美國夢的障礙 問題是事實更為糟糕 因為我們不只是把貧困的孩子送入監獄

we're saddling poor kids with court fees, with probation and parole restrictions, with low-level warrants, we're asking them to live in halfway houses and on house arrest, and we're asking them to negotiate a police force that is entering poor communities of color, not for the purposes of promoting public safety, but to make arrest counts, to line city coffers.

我們還給他們加上了許多沉重的枷鎖，比如訴訟費的負擔 比如感化和假釋的限制 比如輕微的犯罪通緝 我們讓他們待在過渡教習所或者軟禁在家 我們讓他們和警察交涉 而當這些警察要進入有色人種的社區 不是為了改善公共安全 而是為了政績去保證逮捕數量

This is the hidden underside to our historic experiment in punishment: young people 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.

這就是關於我們印象中的懲戒措施的 不為人知的一面 年輕人總是擔心隨時會被截停、搜身和逮捕 無論是在街上還是在家 在學校還是在工作

I got interested in this other path to adulthood when I was myself a college student attending the University of Pennsylvania in the early 20xxs. Penn sits within a historic African-American neighborhood.

大約20xx年年初的時候 當時我自己在賓夕法尼亞大學上學 我對這種別樣的人生成長軌跡 產生了興趣 大學坐落在一個歷史悠久的非裔社區旁

So you've got these two parallel journeys going on simultaneously: the kids attending this elite, private university, and the kids from the adjacent neighborhood, some of whom are making it to college, and many of whom are being shipped to prison.

所以在這裏你能同時看到兩條平行的人生軌跡 一邊是在這所精英的私立大學上學的孩子 另外一邊是在附近社區的孩子 他們中有一些也在努力去讀大學 但是他們中的大多數卻身陷囹圄

In my sophomore year, I started tutoring a young woman who was in high school who lived about 10 minutes away from the university. Soon, her cousin came home from a juvenile detention center.

在我大二的時候，我開始輔導一位高中的年輕姑娘 她住在離大學10分鐘路程的地方 不久，她的表弟(堂弟)從少年拘留所回到家

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 writing about his life for my senior thesis in college. This senior thesis became a dissertation at Princeton and now a book.

他當時15歲，上高中一年級 我開始瞭解他以及他的朋友們和家庭 我問他能否在我的畢業論文中 講述他的生活 這篇論文也成為了我在普林斯頓的博士論文 現在則集結成書

By the end of my sophomore year, I moved into the neighborhood and I spent the next six years trying 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.

在我大學二年級結束的時候 我搬進了這個社區，而且花了6年時間。去嘗試理解年輕人在成長中要面對的是什麼 在這個社區中生活的第一週 我看到了兩個男孩，一個5歲一個7歲 在玩一個追逐遊戲 大一點的男孩在追另外一個。

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 child's pocket, saying, "I'm seizing that." He asked the child if he was carrying any drugs or if he had a warrant. Many times, I saw this game repeated,

他演“警察” 當“警察”抓到了小一點的男孩 他把小男孩按到身下 假裝用手銬把他銬起來 然後從小男孩的口袋裏掏出一個25分硬幣 説到：“這個歸我了” 他問他是否帶了毒品 是否在被通緝 我經常看到孩子們玩兒這個遊戲

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. Children would yell at each other, "I'm going to lock you up, I'm going to lock you up and you're never coming home!" Once I saw a six-year-old child pull another child's pants down and try to do a cavity search.

有時候，孩子們只是簡單的放棄逃跑 平躺在地上 雙手高舉過頭頂，或是將雙手靠在牆上 孩子們彼此大叫 “我要把你鎖起來， 我要把你鎖起來讓你再也回不了家!“ 有一次我看到一個6歲小孩把 另外一個小孩的褲子扒掉 然後去試着去做肛門搜查

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 people's names, chase people through the streets, pull people in for questioning, or make an arrest every single day, with five exceptions.

在住在這個社區的最初的18個月 我記下了所有我看到的 我的鄰居與警察的接觸 所以在這最初的18個月 我看到了警察截停行人或者在車裏的人 搜查他們，詢問他們的姓名 在街上追逐他們 抓他們去問話 每天都要抓一個人，只有5天例外

Fifty-two times, I watched the police break down doors, chase people through houses 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.

我看到警察破門而入多達52次 穿過很多屋子去追捕 或者在某人家中將其逮捕 我看到警察在逮捕這些年輕人之後 又用極端暴力對待他們 在這一年半時間中我一共看到14次

Bit by bit, I got to know two brothers, Chuck and Tim. Chuck was 18 when we met, a senior in high school. He was playing on the basketball team and making C's and B's. His younger brother, Tim, was 10. And Tim loved Chuck; he followed him around a lot, looked to Chuck to be a mentor.

逐漸的，我和兩兄弟熟悉起來 查克和提姆 我們相識時查克18歲，是一個高四學生 他在一個籃球隊打球，大部分成績是C和B 他的小弟弟，提姆，當時10歲 提姆很喜歡查克，經常跟着他屁股後面轉 把查克當成他的導師

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 was their grandfather's 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.

他們和母親與爺爺(姥爺)住在一起 他們住在一個兩層樓的聯排房屋裏，前面有草坪，後面有走廊 他們成長過程中，他們的母親一直都為毒癮所擾 她從來沒能有個長期的穩定工作 是他們祖父(外祖父)的退休金在支撐這個家 其實這不足以支付孩子們的食品和衣服 還有學習開銷 真的是在貧困線上掙扎

So when we met, Chuck was a senior in high school. He had just turned 18. That winter, a kid in the schoolyard called Chuck's mom a crack whore. Chuck pushed the kid's face into the snow and the school cops charged him with aggravated assault. The other kid was fine the next day, I think it was his pride that was injured more than anything.

當我們認識的時候，查克正在上高中最後一年 他剛剛滿18歲 那個冬天，一個操場上的孩子 叫查克的媽媽”嗑藥的婊子“ 查克把那孩子的臉按到積雪裏 然後校警以嚴重襲擊的罪名將他逮捕 然而罵人的孩子第二天沒什麼事 我想主要是他的自尊心受到了傷害

But anyway, since Chuck was 18, this agg. assault case sent him to adult county jail on State Road in northeast Philadelphia, where he sat, unable to pay the bail -- he couldn't afford it -- while the trial dates dragged on and on and on through almost his entire senior year.

但是無論如何，查克已經年滿18歲 他因為襲擊案被送到成人監獄 位於費城東北部的州立公路旁 他因為無力支付保釋金被關在那---他根本就付不起 當時審判日被一拖再拖 幾乎佔了他高中最後的一整年

Finally, near the end of this season, the judge on this assault 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.

最後，在接近這個季節末的時候 法官駁回了大部分關於這起襲擊案的指控 查克回家了 但是他也欠下了數百美元的訴訟費 提姆那天很開心

The next fall, Chuck tried to re-enroll as a senior, but the school secretary 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 couldn't 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，查克試着去重新註冊高中四年級 但是學校祕書告訴他 他已經19歲了，已經超齡而沒有資格復讀了 緊接着，負責他襲擊案的法官又簽署了一份他的通緝 因為他沒有付225美元的訴訟費 在他案子結束後的幾個星期後發出 所以他從高中輟學在逃去躲避追捕

Tim's 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 his girlfriend's car.

提姆第一次被捕是在那一年的晚些時候 那時他剛滿11歲 那時查克的通緝剛被取消 然後他要以分期付款的方式支付他的訴訟費 當時他用他女友的車載提姆到學校

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 girlfriend's uncle bought it from a used car auction in northeast Philly. Chuck and Tim had never been outside of the tri-state, let alone to California.

一個警察把他們截停，調查車的來源 發現車是在加州被盜的 查克根本就不知道這輛車其實是贓物 是他女友的叔叔在一個費城東北的 二手車拍賣會上買的 查克和提姆從來沒有離開過附近超過三個州 更別提加州了

But anyway, the cops down at the precinct charged Chuck with receiving stolen property. And 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,

但是儘管如此，當地轄區的警察 還是以窩贓的罪名起訴了查克 幾天後，一個青少年犯罪法官 起訴了11歲的提姆 作為窩贓的從犯 然後他被判三年的緩刑 因為揹負緩刑的罪名

Chuck 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.

查克要他弟弟坐下來 開始教他怎麼擺脱警察 他們會肩並肩坐在他們房後的走廊 望着公共小巷的深處 查克會叫提姆怎樣辯認出偽裝的警車 怎樣和深夜巡邏的警察交涉，還有哪裏能躲避

I want you to imagine for a second what Chuck and Tim's 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. But Chuck and Tim, kids like them, they're committing crimes! Don't they deserve to be in prison?

我想讓你們想象一下 如果查克和提姆住在 鄰居孩子都能去大學讀書，而不是去監獄的社區裏 就像我長大的社區 他們的生活會是怎樣? 好的，你也許會説 但是像查克和提姆這樣的孩子，他們確實犯罪了! 難道他們不該去蹲監獄嗎?

Don't they deserve to be living in fear of arrest? Well, my answer would be no. They don't. And certainly 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.

難道他們不該生活在被捕的恐懼之中嗎? 我的答案是不該 他們不應該被這樣對待 他們不應該因為做了和其他年輕人一樣的事而被這樣對待 比他們條件更好的年輕人做同樣的事卻免受懲罰 如果查克去了我的高中 那次操場打架也只會作為一次操場打架 而止於學校內部 根本就不會成為一起嚴重襲擊案件

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 for drugs as they walked to class? Or had raided their frat parties in the middle of the night?

從來就沒有任何一位我的大學同學 現在有犯罪記錄 從來沒有一個 但是你能想象如果警察截停這些上學路上的孩子 從他們的口袋中搜查毒品 或者在半夜突擊檢查他們的朋友聚會，他們會留下多少犯罪記錄嗎?

Okay, you might say. But doesn't this high incarceration rate partly account for our really low crime rate? Crime is down. That's a good thing. Totally, that is a good thing. Crime is down. It dropped precipitously in the '90s and through the 20xxs.

好的，你也許會説 但是高服刑率 不是一定程度上降低了犯罪率嗎? 犯罪率下降了，這是好事。 沒錯，犯罪率下降是好事。 從90年代到本世紀初，犯罪率大幅下降

But according to a committee of academics convened by the National Academy of Sciences 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.

但是根據一個由國家科學院去年召開的 學術會議的測算 我們歷史上高服刑率 和我們的低犯罪率的關係並不十分牢靠 犯罪率的高低 和我們送多少年輕人進監獄並無關係

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 you're convicted of something you did do, you should be punished for it. There are innocent and guilty people, there are victims and there are perpetrators. Maybe we could think a little bit more broadly than that.

我們總是在一個狹窄的範圍下思考正義 好或者壞，無罪或者有罪 不正義就是被錯誤的定罪 所以如果你因為自己做過的事被定罪 你就應該受到相應的懲罰 總是用無辜的和有罪的人，總是有被害者和犯罪者，如果我們能再思考地更廣一點

Right now, we're asking kids who live in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, who have the least amount of family resources, who are attending the country's worst schools, who are facing the toughest time in the labor market, who are living in neighborhoods where violence is an everyday problem, we're asking these kids to walk the thinnest possible line -- to basically never do anything wrong.

現在，我們卻要求這些住在最惡劣的社區的小孩 他們只有最少的家庭資源 他們上着全國最差的學校 他們面對着勞動力市場的最艱難的時刻 他們住在每天都有暴力問題發生的社區 我們卻要求他們實現幾乎不可能完成的事情 不允許一絲錯誤

Why are we not providing support to young kids facing these challenges? Why are we offering only handcuffs, jail time and this fugitive existence? Can we imagine something better? Can we imagine a criminal justice system that prioritizes recovery, prevention, civic inclusion, rather than punishment? (Applause)

為什麼我們不提供給這些孩子 面對這些挑戰的幫助呢? 為什麼我們提供的只有手銬，監獄和逃亡生活呢? 我們就不能想象一點更好的事情嗎? 難道我們就不能想象一個重視重歸社會 重視預防犯罪和城市包容性 而不是隻重視懲罰的司法系統嗎?

A criminal justice system that acknowledges the legacy of exclusion that poor people of color in the U.S. have faced and that does not promote and perpetuate those exclusions. (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.

這個司法系統 承認有色人種在美國被隔離和疏遠的歷史 並且不會再促進和保持這種隔離和疏遠。最終，這個司法系統更信任這些黑人青年 而不是不是把這些黑人青年當作敵人來對待

The good news is that we already are. A few years ago, Michelle Alexander 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，我們已經在努力之中 幾年前，米歇爾亞歷山大撰寫了 《The New Jim Crow》這本書 這本書讓美國人認識到 服刑率在歷史上也是一個重要的人權問題，而且是前所未見的

President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have come out very strongly on sentencing reform, on the need to address racial disparity in incarceration. We're seeing states throw out Stop and Frisk as the civil rights violation that it is. We're seeing cities and states decriminalize possession of marijuana.

總統奧巴馬和首席檢察官埃裏克候得對於量刑改革 以及在量刑中的種族不平等 十分的重視 我們看到有些州開始禁止截查和搜身 因為這些侵犯了人權 我們看到有些州和城市擁有大麻合法化

New York, New Jersey and California have been dropping their prison populations, closing prisons, while also seeing a big drop in crime. Texas has gotten into the game now, 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,

他們是紐約，新澤西和加利福尼亞 這些措施減少了他們的服刑人數，關閉了一些監獄 但是於此同時犯罪率也大幅地降低了 德克薩斯也開始了相同的舉措 同樣關閉監獄，投資教育 一個從左派到右派的奇異的聯盟正在建立起來

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 deeply divided Congress, the work of reforming our criminal justice system is just about the only thing that the right and the left are coming together on.

成員有前服刑人員和財政保守派 還有人權活動家和自由主義者 年輕人走上大街去抗議那些 暴力對待手無寸鐵的黑人青少年的警察 而年長的，富有的人—— 有一些是我們這裏的觀眾—— 也捐助了鉅額資金到這些反監禁的活動中 在嚴重分離的國會司法系統變革的工作 也是唯一一個能讓左派和右派 走到一起的工作

I did not think I would see this political moment in my lifetime. I think many of the people who have been working tirelessly to write about the causes and consequences of our historically high incarceration rates did not think we would see this moment in our lifetime. The question for us now is, how much can we make of it? How much can we change?

我並不認為在我的有生之年能 看到這個政治時刻的到來 我想很多正在不止疲倦的書寫 關於我們歷史性的高服刑率 的起因和結果的人 也不會認為能在有生之年能看到這個時刻的來臨 現在我們的問題是，我們究竟能達成多少目標? 我們究竟能改變到何種程度?

I want to end with a call to young people, the young people attending college and the young people struggling to stay out of prison or to make it through prison and return home.

最後，我想對年輕人呼籲 對正在上大學的年輕人 對正在監獄外掙扎抗爭的年輕人 對服刑結束重返家庭的年輕人

It may seem like these paths to adulthood are worlds apart, but the young people participating in these two institutions conveying us to adulthood, they have one thing in common: Both can be leaders in the work of reforming our criminal justice system. Young people have always been leaders in the fight for equal rights, the fight for more people to be granted dignity and a fighting chance at freedom.

這也許看上去是幾種完全不同的成人之路 但是年輕人蔘加這兩種機構 最終成人 他們有着共同點： 他們都可以成為重建我們司法系統的工作的領導者。青年們永遠都是為了公平權利的鬥爭 為了更多的人贏得尊嚴的鬥爭 為了自由的機會的鬥爭的領導者

The mission for the generation of young people coming of age in this, a sea-change moment, potentially, is to end mass incarceration and build a new criminal justice system, emphasis on the word ks.

賦予給這一代青年的使命 在這個即將到來的時代，歷史性的時刻， 終結高服刑率，建造一個能充分表達 “正義”這個詞的全新的司法系統.謝謝。