2014年经济学人 犯罪的城市 成功的秘密

Criminal cities

The secret of success

America's great crime wave is receding¹ from some cities faster than others

BETWEEN getting out of his car and starting work in the morning, Bashir Akinyele, a beret-wearing history teacher in Newark, New Jersey², passes the sites of two murders. His school, Weequahic High, once taught Philip Roth, a giant among America's novelists. Its entrance is now blocked by a metal detector³; armed cops share the corridors with teenage girls. In the streets nearby almost every intersection⁴ has been the site of a shooting. “I've been a teacher for 20 years,” says Mr Akinyele. “And in that time, I've lost 38 students.”

Weequahic is only 30 minutes' drive from Manhattan, but a world apart. In 1991 Newark and New York City had roughly the same murder rate: 32 and 29 per 100,000 respectively. But by last year New York's rate had fallen to four and Newark's had jumped to 40, according to the latest data published on November 14th by the FBI. On a night out in Brooklyn, the main threat is getting caught in a boring conversation with a hipster. In Newark, when darkness fell, your correspondent was ushered⁵ back downtown by police.

Over the past 20 years, crime has fallen spectacularly in America and across the rich world. The FBI data suggest it is still falling: violent crime decreased by 4.4% between 2012 and 2013, and murder is now less common than at any time since the end of the 1950s. Criminologists have countless⁶ plausible⁷ theories to explain this, ranging from less lead-poisoning to the rise of car immobilisers. Yet the difference between cities such as Newark, which remain dangerous, and those like New York, which are safe, suggests a somewhat subtler explanation.

In Washington, DC the murder rate has dropped from a terrifying 81 per 100,000 in 1991 to a fifth of that now. In Los Angeles gang warfare⁸ has largely given way to organic coffee bars, and burglaries and robberies have become rare. Yet cities like Philadelphia and Chicago have experienced more modest improvements. And in places like Baltimore, Newark and Detroit some crime rates have barely fallen.

One possible explanation is the varying quality of local government. In New York and Los Angeles, reformers such as Rudy Giuliani, who was New York's mayor in the 1990s, and Bill Bratton—chief of police in both cities at different times—forced cops out of their cars, adopted data-driven policing and tried to make public spaces feel safe. They reckoned that residents had to trust the police for crime to fall—which meant purging⁹ corruption—and that criminals had to be deprived of convenient places to hang out.

In Newark, by contrast, Sharpe James, the mayor until 2006, was imprisoned¹⁰ in 2008 on fraud charges. His successor, Cory Booker, now a Democratic senator, did much to attract investment into downtown Newark, and managed for a short time to reduce crime and overhaul¹¹ the police department; but the money ran out, and he later had to cut the force sharply. The present mayor, Ras Baraka, a more traditional rabble-rouser, has hired new cops, but the police force remains¹² troubled (it is, uniquely, monitored by the federal Justice Department). When The Economist¹³ visited, the new police director and police chief led officers on a “community walk” around a sketchy¹⁴ neighbourhood. They seemed to spend much of their time telling people how excellent the new mayor is.

Some think that too much prison breeds nastier criminals: when released, they may be more dangerous than when they went in. In Philadelphia most homicides stem from stupid arguments, often between ex-convicts, says Lieutenant¹⁵ John Stanford of the local police. Newark has 278,000 people yet, each month, 1,400 prisoners are released from the local jail.

However, incarceration¹⁶ rates are high throughout America, so this cannot explain the specific ills of its most crime-ridden cities. Nor can poverty: unemployment in New York City is not much lower than it was in the 1990s. Rather, according to John Roman, a researcher at the Urban Institute, a think-tank, crime is like a contagious¹⁷ disease. People who are vulnerable to criminality—poor, badly-educated young men—are far more likely to become criminals when they are surrounded by men much like themselves.

Although cities like New York and Los Angeles have plenty of poor people, they are—by American standards—not unusually segregated¹⁸ by race or income. The presence of ambitious new immigrants in deprived neighbourhoods provides an inoculation¹⁹ against crime. In Weequahic, by contrast, deindustrialisation led to depopulation. Whites and many middle-class blacks have fled. Those who remain are mostly poor and desperate. Low property prices provide little incentive²⁰ for people to clean up blight²¹.

Even in the most dangerous cities, however, there is hope. Urban populations are now growing across most of the country. In Philadelphia crime rates, though still high, dropped sharply last year. At a police town-hall meeting in the west of the city, people complain about noisy bars, troublesome children and illegal parking. A new charter school and a growing student population are changing the neighbourhood. Shootings are still frighteningly common, admits the local police captain, but milder worries are creeping in.

1 receding   

v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题

参考例句：

• Desperately he struck out after the receding lights of the yacht. 游艇的灯光渐去渐远，他拼命划水追赶。 来自辞典例句
• Sounds produced by vehicles receding from us seem lower-pitched than usual. 渐渐远离我们的运载工具发出的声似乎比平常的音调低。 来自辞典例句

2 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。

3 detector   

n.发觉者，探测器

参考例句：

• The detector is housed in a streamlined cylindrical container.探测器安装在流线型圆柱形容器内。
• Please walk through the metal detector.请走过金属检测器。

4 intersection   

n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集

参考例句：

• There is a stop sign at an intersection.在交叉路口处有停车标志。
• Bridges are used to avoid the intersection of a railway and a highway.桥用来避免铁路和公路直接交叉。

5 ushered   

v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The secretary ushered me into his office. 秘书把我领进他的办公室。
• A round of parties ushered in the New Year. 一系列的晚会迎来了新年。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

7 plausible   

adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的

参考例句：

• His story sounded plausible.他说的那番话似乎是真实的。
• Her story sounded perfectly plausible.她的说辞听起来言之有理。

8 warfare   

n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突

参考例句：

• He addressed the audience on the subject of atomic warfare.他向听众演讲有关原子战争的问题。
• Their struggle consists mainly in peasant guerrilla warfare.他们的斗争主要是农民游击战。

9 purging   

清洗； 清除； 净化； 洗炉

参考例句：

• You learned the dry-mouthed, fear-purged, purging ecstasy of battle. 你体会到战斗中那种使人嘴巴发干的，战胜了恐惧并排除其他杂念的狂喜。
• Purging databases, configuring, and making other exceptional requests might fall into this category. 比如清空数据库、配置，以及其他特别的请求等都属于这个类别。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

10 imprisoned   

下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was imprisoned for two concurrent terms of 30 months and 18 months. 他被判处30个月和18个月的监禁，合并执行。
• They were imprisoned for possession of drugs. 他们因拥有毒品而被监禁。

11 overhaul   

v./n.大修，仔细检查

参考例句：

• Master Worker Wang is responsible for the overhaul of this grinder.王师傅主修这台磨床。
• It is generally appreciated that the rail network needs a complete overhaul.众所周知，铁路系统需要大检修。

12 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

13 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

14 sketchy   

adj.写生的，写生风格的，概略的

参考例句：

• The material he supplied is too sketchy.他提供的材料过于简略。
• Details of what actually happened are still sketchy.对于已发生事实的详细情况知道的仍然有限。

15 lieutenant   

n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员

参考例句：

• He was promoted to be a lieutenant in the army.他被提升为陆军中尉。
• He prevailed on the lieutenant to send in a short note.他说动那个副官，递上了一张简短的便条进去。

16 incarceration   

n.监禁，禁闭；钳闭

参考例句：

• He hadn't changed much in his nearly three years of incarceration. 在将近三年的监狱生活中，他变化不大。 来自辞典例句
• Please, please set it free before it bursts from its long incarceration! 请你，请你将这颗心释放出来吧！否则它会因长期的禁闭而爆裂。 来自辞典例句

17 contagious   

adj.传染性的，有感染力的

参考例句：

• It's a highly contagious infection.这种病极易传染。
• He's got a contagious laugh.他的笑富有感染力。

18 segregated   

分开的； 被隔离的

参考例句：

• a culture in which women are segregated from men 妇女受到隔离歧视的文化
• The doctor segregated the child sick with scarlet fever. 大夫把患猩红热的孩子隔离起来。

19 inoculation   

n.接芽；预防接种

参考例句：

• Travellers are reminded that inoculation against yellow fever is advisable. 提醒旅游者接种预防黄热病的疫苗是明智的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Travelers are reminded that inoculation against yellow fever is advisable. 旅客们被提醒，注射黄热病预防针是明智的。 来自辞典例句

20 incentive   

n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机

参考例句：

• Money is still a major incentive in most occupations.在许多职业中，钱仍是主要的鼓励因素。
• He hasn't much incentive to work hard.他没有努力工作的动机。

21 blight   

n.枯萎病；造成破坏的因素；vt.破坏，摧残

参考例句：

• The apple crop was wiped out by blight.枯萎病使苹果全无收成。
• There is a blight on all his efforts.他的一切努力都遭到挫折。