400-099-1860

　Ending mass incarceration
　　
　　终止大规模监禁
　　
　　Two cheers
　　
　　两种呼声
　　
　　The best way to reduce the prison population
　　
　　减少监禁人数的最佳方法
　　
　　Oct 10th 2015 | IOWA CITY | From the print edition
　　
　　2015.10.11 爱荷华市 引自印刷版
　　
　　Orders from the DA
　　
　　检察官的命令
　　
　　IN 2013 Charles Hynes, Brooklyn’s district attorney, was voted out of office after 24 years on the job. The ousting of an elected local prosecutor is rare in America. Incumbents who run for re-election win 95% of the time. Until Mr Hynes got the boot, no incumbent DA had lost a vote in Brooklyn since 1911. Mr Hyness fate needs to be more common, however, if America is to cease to be the worlds leading jailer. At present, it accounts for 5% of the worlds population and nearly 25% of its prisoners. Elected public prosecutors, such as Brooklyns Mr Hynes, are largely to blame.
　　
　　2013年，布鲁克林的地方检察官查尔斯·海恩斯于在职24年后被投票免职。选举出的公诉人被罢黜的情况在美国实属罕见。参加第二次选举的在职人员有95%都会连任。除海恩斯之外，布鲁克林自1911年以来，从未有过在职检察官在换届选举中失败。然而，如果美国不想再做世界上监狱看守员的领头者，那么，海恩斯这类事例应该在成为一种更普遍的现象。目前，美国占据了世界上5%的人口，却关押了全球近25%的囚犯。像布鲁克林的海恩斯这样由选举产生的公诉人，应为此承担很大的责任。
　　
　　The incarceration rate is like the water level in a bathtub. If the tap runs faster than the water drains, the level rises. The mandatory minimum sentences and truth-in-sentencing laws passed in the 1980s and 1990s blocked the outflow from America’s prison system. Proposals for sentencing reform, such as the bipartisan bill introduced by Chuck Grassley, a Republican senator from Iowa who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, would clear it a bit, by returning some discretion to judges and parole boards. But it would be even better to turn down the gushing tap.
　　
　　监禁率就如同浴缸里的水位。如果水龙头的出水速度快于排水速度，水位就会上升。在20世纪80、90年代出台的“刚性最低刑”和“事实量刑”两条法律阻止了美国监禁系统人口的外流。关于量刑改革的提议，例如由参议院司法委员会主席、爱荷华市共和党参议员查克·格拉斯利提出的两党共裁方案，通过将部分自由量裁权归还给法官们和假释裁决委员会的方法，能更明确的说明这一点。 但减少服刑人员的涌入显然是更好。
　　
　　Although the crime rate began to decline in the 1990s, the rate of admissions to prisons continued to climb for two decades, until it peaked in 2006. The criminal-justice system managed to put more and more people behind bars for 15 years, even though fewer and fewer people were committing crimes. The admissions rate has now reverted to the level in the late-1990s, but remains three times greater than it was 30 years ago when the crime rate was higher than it is today.
　　
　　虽然犯罪率在20世纪90年代就开始回落，但入狱率在20年内仍旧持续攀高，直到2006年达到顶峰。即使犯罪人数越来越少，刑事司法制度总是想方设法将更多人送进监狱，接受长达15年的刑期。尽管现在的入狱率降回了20世纪90年代后期的水平，但依旧是在30年前的三倍多，而当时的犯罪率远高于现在。
　　
　　In a study published in 2013, “Why are so many Americans in prison?”, Steven Raphael at Berkeley and Michael Stoll at UCLA found the answer was mostly that prosecutors liked to send them there. Longer sentences, they say, played a smaller role. John Pfaff, a law professor at Fordham University, confirmed the finding: analysing the available data on how prosecutors behave, he found that the probability of a DA filing felony charges against an arrested person rose from about one in three in 1994 to about two in three by 2008.
　　
　　“为什么会有这么多美国人锒铛入狱？”据2013年发表的一篇研究报道，加州大学伯克利分校的史蒂夫•拉夫以及加州大学洛杉矶分校的迈克尔•思图尓发现，这通常是因为检察官们喜欢把他们送进监狱。他们透露，更长的审判仅占原因中的一小部分。福特汉姆大学的法学教授约翰•普法夫证实了这一研究结果。通过分析检察官行为的有效数据，他发现检察官们向被捕者提出重罪指控的可能性从1994的大约三分之一上升到2008年的三分之二左右。

　　
　　DAs can decide whether charges will be filed against arrested persons and, if so, what they will be charged with. Less than 5% of criminal cases go to trial: most end in plea bargains. And it is DAs who decide which plea deals to offer and accept, in effect determining whether offenders will be sent to prison and, if so, for how long. By and large, they are not a merciful lot.
　　
　　地方检察官们能够决定对被捕者的指控是否成立，以及如果成立他们将以何种罪名被控告。只有不到5%的犯罪案件会进入最终审判，大多数案件都是以辩诉交易告终。由地方检察官们来决定提交和接受什么样的辩诉协议，这会影响被告人最终是否会被关进监狱，如果入狱又将有多长刑期。总而言之，他们不是什么仁慈之辈。
　　
　　They are also usually elected at county level, whereas prisons are run at state level. Short sentences—less than a year in most jurisdictions—are often served in county jails, putting county taxpayers on the hook. Punitive DAs can take the fiscal burden off the people who elect them by foisting the cost of imprisonment onto states.
　　
　　此外，检察官通常是由市里选出的，但监狱却是由州管理的。短期徒刑（在大多数行政区内都少于一年）通常在市监狱里服刑，这就让市里的纳税人陷入圈套。他们认为严厉的地方检察官可以通过强行将监禁开销挂在州政府的账上，以减除他们选民的财政负担。
　　
　　If legislators cannot rein in DAs, that job must fall to voters. Because unseating an incumbent is so unusual, and because there are more than 3,000 county and state district attorneys, this may seem an unpromising path to a lower incarceration rate. But more than half of state prisoners, who make up the vast majority of the incarcerated, are housed in just ten states. Within those states, most prisoners come from a few large metropolitan jurisdictions. Moreover, these areas tend to contain lots of rehabilitation-minded liberals as well as minority voters, who are more likely to have family members in prison. Prosecutors in California and New York have already changed tack, and incarceration rates in those states have fallen.
　　
　　如果立法者不能掌控地方检察官们，这个责任就自然落到了选民身上。由于要罢黜一个在职官员实属不易，也因为现在有着超过3000名市、州级地方检察官，想要实现更低监禁率的前途似乎并不光明。但是超过监禁人数一大部分的州级囚犯，他们中半数以上被拘置在仅仅十个州里。在这些州中，大多数的囚犯来自于一些大城市的直辖区域。此外，这些地区倾向于接纳大量有着恢复名誉意识的自由党党员以及更可能有亲属入狱的少数派选民。纽约和加州的检察官们已经改变了方针，这些州的监禁率也有所下降。
　　
　　Kenneth Thompson, Brooklyn’s first black DA, managed to knock Mr Hynes off his perch by highlighting a couple of dodgy murder convictions and speaking out against aggressive police tactics. And though sentencing reform is obviously needed too, the election of just a handful of “smart-on-crime” DAs in and around big cities like Houston, Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles could cut America’s incarceration rate even more dramatically.
　　
　　布鲁克林的首位黑人地方检察官肯尼思·汤普森曾以强调几个不靠谱的谋杀判决以及公开反对激进的警方手段这两点，试图来让海恩斯下台。尽管量刑改革显然也是必不可少的，但投票将休斯顿、芝加哥、迈阿密、洛杉矶这样的大城市周围部分所谓“精于犯罪”的检察官们革职，却能更显著地降低美国的监禁率。

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