TED英语演讲：给孩子监狱还是大学

在美国，有两个机构指引着青少年步入成年：大学和监狱。社会学家Alice花了6年时间与费城的问题邻居相处并且拿到了非裔和拉丁裔青少年是如何步入监狱道路的第一手资料与大家分享。让我们随着她的演讲共同探寻如何正确引导青少年成人和成才的方法，现有阻碍他们健康成长的社会及制度问题，以及我们该如何为青少年的成才缔造良好环境，伸出援手的方法。下面是小编为大家收集关于TED英语演讲：给孩子监狱还是大学，欢迎借鉴参考。

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 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。你们中的某些可能现在就在大学并且正在享受那份兴奋。

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，带着自豪与友情。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机会。

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 是感化官而不是教师 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

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.

这个机构同样花费甚多 在新泽西，送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 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

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 ……此处隐藏2803个字……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. 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.

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 十分的重视 我们看到有些州开始禁止截查和搜身 因为这些侵犯了人权 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. 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 德克萨斯也开始了相同的举措 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 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.

成员有前服刑人员和财政保守派 还有人权活动家和自由主义者 年轻人走上大街去抗议那些 暴力对待手无寸铁的黑人青少年的警察 而年长的，富有的人—— 有一些是我们这里的观众—— 也捐助了巨额资金到这些反监禁的活动中 在严重分离的国会司法系统变革的工作 也是唯一一个能让左派和右派 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?

我并不认为在我的有生之年能 看到这个政治时刻的到来 我想很多正在不止疲倦的书写 关于我们历史性的高服刑率 的起因和结果的人 也不会认为能在有生之年能看到这个时刻的来临 现在我们的问题是，我们究竟能达成多少目标? 我们究竟能改变到何种程度?

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.

最后，我想对年轻人呼吁 对正在上大学的年轻人 对正在监狱外挣扎抗争的年轻人 对服刑结束重返家庭的年轻人

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.

这也许看上去是几种完全不同的成人之路 但是年轻人参加这两种机构 最终成人 他们有着共同点： 他们都可以成为重建我们司法系统的工作的领导者。青年们永远都是为了公平权利的斗争 为了更多的人赢得尊严的斗争 为了自由的机会的斗争的领导者

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 justice.Thanks.

赋予给这一代青年的使命 在这个即将到来的时代，历史性的时刻， 终结高服刑率，建造一个能充分表达 “正义”这个词的全新的司法系统.谢谢。