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More Crime and Less Punishment--Richard Moran

If you are looking for an explanation of why we don't get tough with criminals, you need only look at the numbers. Each year almost a third of the households in America are victims of violence or theft. This amounts to more than 41 million crimes, many more than we are able to punish. There are also too many criminals. The best estimates suggest that 36 million to 40 million people (16 to 18 percent of the U. S. population) have arrest records for nontraffic offenses. We already have 2. 4 million people under some form of correctional supervision, 412, 000 of them locked away in a prison cell. We don't have room for any more!

The painful fact is that the more crime there is the less we are able to punish it. This is why the certainty and severity of punishment must go down when the crime rate goes up. Countries like Saudi Arabia can afford to give out harsh punishments precisely because they have so little crime. But can we afford to cut off the hands of those who committed more than 35 million property crimes each year? Can we send them to prison? Can we execute more than 22,000 murderers?

We need to think about the relationship between punishment and crime in a new way. A decade of careful research has failed to provide clear and convincing evidence that the threat of punishment reduces crime. We think that punishment deters crime, but it just might be the other way around. It just might be that crime deters punishment: that there is so much crime that it simply cannot be punished.

This is the situation we find ourselves in today. Just as the decline in the number of high-school graduates has made it easier to gain admission to the college of one's choice, the gradual increase in the criminal population has made it more difficult to get into prison. While elite colleges and universities still have high standards of admissions, some of the most "exclusive" prisons now require about five prior serious crimes before an inmate is accepted into their correctional program. Our current crop of prisoners is an elite group, on the whole much more serious offenders than those who were once imprisoned in Alcatraz.

参考译文

如果你正在寻求我们为什么不严惩罪犯的原因，只要看下这些数字就明白了。在美国，每年几乎有1/3的家庭成为暴力或盗窃的受害者。这总计至少有4100万起，远远超出我们能惩罚的范围。罪犯的数量也是实在太多。最恰当的估计表明3600万至4000万人（占美国人口总数的16%至18%）有过被拘留的记录，不是因为违反交通规则。我们已有240万人在某种形式的改造监管之下，其中有41.2万人被关在监狱里。我们已没有地方可以提供给更多的罪犯了。

令人痛苦的事实是犯罪事件越多，我们能惩罚的就越少。这就是当犯罪率增长时，处罚的果断性和严厉性必须下降的原因。像沙特阿拉伯那样的国家之所以能够有钱严惩罪犯，正是因为他们的犯罪率很低。但是我们能砍得起每年3500多万财产的罪犯的双手吗？我们能把他们全都关进监狱吗？我们能处决两万两千多个谋杀犯吗？

我们需要从一个新的角度去思考惩罚与犯罪的关系。为期10年的潜心研究尚不能清晰且有说服力地证明惩罚的威胁会减少犯罪。我们以为惩罚阻止了犯罪，但事实也许正好相反。可能正是犯罪组织了惩罚：犯罪是那么的多，简直就没法惩罚。

这就是如今我们所面临的形势。正像高中毕业生人数的减少使得进入自己所选的大学更容易一样，逐渐增加的罪犯人数使得进监狱更难。一些高级的学院和大学仍有很高的录取标准，而现在一些最“排外”的监狱要求准备进它们的改造计划的犯人以前必须有5次严重犯罪，我们现在的罪犯群体都是精英，从整体上说比阿尔卡特兹监狱曾关押过的犯人要严重得多。

词汇释义

1.approval n. 批准,认可,同意,赞同

例句：

She smiled her approval.
她以微笑表示同意.

2.deter v. 制止,使...断念

例句：

Several factors deter new industry from coming to the city.
许多因素造成了新工业无法进入这座城市。

3.dismiss v. 解散,开除

例句：

He dismissed the unpleasant subject and talked about something else.
他不谈论这个令人不愉快的话题，而去谈论别的事情。

4.execute v. 执行,实行,完成

例句：

The nurse executed the doctor's orders.
护士执行医生的命令。

5.imprison v. 使...下狱,关闭,拘禁

例句：

He was imprisoned for life.
他被终生监禁。

6.inmate n. 同住者, 同室者(特指在医院、监狱), 居民

例句：

The prisoner is his inmate.
那个囚犯和他同住一起。

7.elite n. 精华,精锐,中坚份子

例句：

Cambridge only admits elite students.
剑桥大学只招收最好的学生。

短语解析

1.get tough with sb. 采取坚决态度；采用强硬手段

例句：

The government has threatened to get tough with people who try to avoid paying taxes.

政府威胁要强硬对付那些想逃税的人。

2.amount to （数量上）达到；（意义上）等于

例句：

Her reply amounts to a refusal.

她的回答等于拒绝。

3.under supervision 在...的监管之下

例句：

The work was done under my supervision.

4.lock sb. up/away 把...关入牢房

例句：

He was locked away for murder.

他因杀人罪被关押。

难句释义与解析

1.If you are looking for an explanation of why we don't get tough with criminals, you need only look at the numbers.

【难句释义】If you want to find out the reason why we don't deal with criminals severely, you can just look at the numbers--there is a great many criminals for the society to punish.

2.We already have 2. 4 million people under some form of correctional supervision, 412, 000 of them locked away in a prison cell.

【难句释义】In our country, there are already 2.4 million people who are receiving punishment with a kind of form; 412,000 of them are serving their prison terms.

【难句解析】under correctional supervision:means being disciplined, or being made to improve one's behavior under the control/charge of the community, etc. as a punishment to lock sb. away: to put sb. in prison 将某人投入监狱 to lock sth. away:to put sth. in a safe place and fasten the lock 将某物妥善锁起来

3.But can we afford to cut off the hands of those who committed more than 35 million property crimes each year? Can we send them to prison? Can we execute more than 22,000 murderers?

【难句释义】But can we cut off the hands of those who committed over 35 million crimes of stealing, mugging or robbery each year? Can we put all of them into prison? Can we put the more than 22,000 murders to death each year?

【难句解析】property crimes:crimes involved in taking other people's property illefally such as stealing, smuggling and robbery 因涉嫌侵犯他人财产权而被量刑的人