经济学人:囚犯与工作 军队文化的怪象?(2)

 　　In an effort to force employers to change, 26 state and 150 municipal legislatures have adopted “ban the box” legislation that removes declarations of criminal history from job-application forms. 为了设法迫使雇主做出改变，26个州和150个市的立法机构通过了一项立法，把犯罪记录声明的复选框从工作申请表中移除。

　　On April 1st an executive order by Barack Obama's administration came into effect, banning the box for all federal jobs, amounting to 250,000 jobs a year. 4月1日，奥巴马政府出台的行政命令生效，为所有联邦岗位取消这个复选框，总数为一年二十五万个工作岗位。

　　Banning the box may, however, have unfortunate consequences. 然而，这项举措或许也造成了一些不尽如人意的后果。

　　Two American academics, Amanda Agan and Sonja Starr, have studied the effect of bans in New Jersey¹ and New York. Amanda Agan 和 Sonja Star两位美国学者研究了禁令在新泽西和纽约的效果。

　　They created dummy² job applicants³ with typically black names like Jermaine and Malcolm,  他们用典型的黑人名字比如Jermaine和Malcolm创造了虚拟的工作申请，

　　and tracked how employers responded to those beside dummy applicants with typically white names, such as Cody and Scott. 对比用典型白人名字比如Cody和Scott制作的工作申请，然后追踪雇主的反应。

　　They found that whereas black men with invented criminal histories received more responses from companies after the change in the law, black men without criminal histories received fewer. 他们发现，自从法律规定改变之后，拥有犯罪记录的黑人反而比没有犯罪记录的黑人得到更多公司的关注。

　　Presumably, some employers began to interpret black-sounding names as a signal of criminality. 大概是一些雇主开始把疑似的黑人名字解读为犯罪的信号。

　　Two things might, however, persuade employers to change their minds. 但是或许有两件事情能迫使雇主们改变想法。

　　First, negligent-hiring lawsuits—in which a firm is sued for employing someone who commits a crime at work—are terrifying but rare. 第一，雇佣过失诉讼——公司因为雇佣在工作中犯罪的人而遭到诉讼——虽然后果严重但其实很少出现。

　　Second, it is just possible that former convicts might be more productive than the other candidates who apply for a particular job. 其次，有前科的人可能在申请某些特定的工作时比其他候选人更具有竞争力。

　　Devah Pager, a sociologist⁴ at Harvard University, has tracked the performance of 8,000 formerfelons who entered the American army after passing a screening process in the years between 2002 and 2009. 哈佛大学的社会学家Devah Pager追踪调查了8000位重罪犯，他们在2002年到2009年间通过筛选程序进入了美国军队。

　　She finds that the ex-cons were slightly more likely to be undisciplined but were also promoted unusually quickly. 她发现有前科的人虽然都稍微较不守纪律，但是他们晋升速度却快得出奇。

　　Is that just a quirk⁵ of military culture? 难道这只是军队文化造成的怪相吗？

　　It would be worth finding out. 这非常值得探寻。

1 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

2 dummy   

n.假的东西；(哄婴儿的)橡皮奶头

参考例句：

• The police suspect that the device is not a real bomb but a dummy.警方怀疑那个装置不是真炸弹，只是一个假货。
• The boys played soldier with dummy swords made of wood.男孩们用木头做的假木剑玩打仗游戏。

3 applicants   

申请人，求职人( applicant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There were over 500 applicants for the job. 有500多人申请这份工作。
• He was impressed by the high calibre of applicants for the job. 求职人员出色的能力给他留下了深刻印象。

4 sociologist   

n.研究社会学的人，社会学家

参考例句：

• His mother was a sociologist,researching socialism.他的母亲是个社会学家，研究社会主义。
• Max Weber is a great and outstanding sociologist.马克斯·韦伯是一位伟大的、杰出的社会学家。

5 quirk   

n.奇事，巧合；古怪的举动

参考例句：

• He had a strange quirk of addressing his wife as Mrs Smith.他很怪，把自己的妻子称作史密斯夫人。
• The most annoying quirk of his is wearing a cap all the time.他最令人感到厌恶的怪癖就是无论何时都戴著帽子。