英语杂谈：80 Juvenile Delinquency 2

The only crime I have ever been connected with was unsuccessful. One summer night I went to bed, leaving my bedroom door open because it was very hot. During the night I was woken up by the sound of a match being struck. For a moment I thought it must be the friend I lived with, but then I remembered he was away.

I felt certain there was someone in the room. I saw the outline of a man standing¹ near the door. I was almost certain the man was a burglar. Without thinking what I was doing, I shouted loudly and. jumped out of bed to catch the man. As I ran across the garden, I suddenly realized I was doing something very foolish. The burglar I was chasing might be carrying a knife. I went straight back into the house and locked all the doors to protect myself.

    This was a very small crime which did not succeed, but crime is a serious problem in Britain. One sort of crime which particularly worries people is juvenile² delinquency-that is, crimes committed by young people. For some years, juvenile delinquency has been increasing. There are two main sorts of juvenile crime : stealing and violence. Most people do not understand why young people commit these crimes. There are , I think, a large number of different reasons.

    These crimes are not usually committed by people who are poor or in needl. Young people often dislike and resent the adult world. They will do things to show that they are rebels. Also in Britain today it is easier far young people to commit crimes because they have more freedom to go where they like and more money to do what they like.

    There are two other possible causes which are worth mentioning. More and more people in Britain live in large towns. In a large town no one knows who anyone else is or where they live. But in the village I come from crimes are rare because everybody knows everyone else.

    Although it is diffcult to explain, I think the last cause is very important. Perhaps there is something wrong with our society which encourages violence and crime. It is a fact that all the time children are exposed to films and reports about crime and violence. Many people do nat agree that this influences young people, but I think that young people are very much influenced
by the society they grow up in. I feel that the fault may be as tnuch with our whole society as with these young people.

 

                               Additional Information

    It's just before school starts, when they check the pupils for guns. By now, the 1,600 students at Chester High School in Philadelphia have got used to it.
    One by one, they go through a metal detector³ gate, like the ones at an airport, at the main entrance to their school. The beeper alarm is constantly going off, indicating some metal object in the pupil's pockets. Mostly, it is a key, or coins.

    Such searches-in some schools a regular routine , in others , a spotcheck- are part of the attempt of school authorities in the United States to keep students from bringing into the classroom their knives, revolvers and machine-guns.
    The metal detector checks have already become commonplace in schools in Philadelphia, Detroit, and New York. A school in Fairfax, on the outskirts⁴ of Washington, D. C. , will soon begin them.

    School administrators⁵ decided⁶ that something finally had to be done after the various shootouts and discoveries of weapons in schools around the country had made headlines for weeks running.
    On January 26, at Woodrow Wilson School in Washington, a teenager shot and wounded four others in a fight over a place to sit in the school cafeteria.

    On February 9, teachers confiscated⁷ a semi-automatic pistol from two 13-year-olds at a school in the Washington suburb of Silver Spring after they had threatened other students with the weapon. Six days later, a student at Kramer High School in Washington threatened a schoolmate with a sawedoff shotgun. Asked why he did it, the youngster said the other had "stared so stupidly" at him.
    The list of such incidents goes on and,on, and in some cases, they are fatall.

    According to the California-based " National School Safety Centre " (NSSC) in a recent report, there were 360,000 violent incidents in American schools in 1986, the last year for which statistics are available. The incidents ranged from fistfights to shootouts, and 70,000 weapons were confiscated, including 1 , 700 pistols and rifles.
    Since then , says Ronald Stephens , the director of NSSC , the number of incidents involving guns in schools has risen considerably⁸.Teachers and security experts have a hard time explaining why teenagers want to bring lethal⁹ weapons with them to school.

    "Some want to impress their schoolmates," believes Stephens."They feel that a gun is a symbol of power and control.Others have a feeling that they need weapons to protectthemselves."
    School authorities see the rise in weapons and violence above all as being connected to drugs in American high schools. Armed youth gangs divide up the drug trade turf among themselves. According to the NSSC , the older gang members use the younger newcomers as "weapons depots¹⁰".

    Lyn Siper of the National Crime Prevention Council in Washington believes that youths during their puberty lean towards fighting out their conflicts instead of talking about them. Such drugs as cocaine¹¹ and crack add to their emotional disturbance¹².
    Siper and Stephens agree that the general level of violence on the streets of big American cities, and the unimpeded access to guns, play a role. America's citizens possess a total of 120 million firearms. Many of the revolvers and rifles which authorities confiscated in the schools had been legally acquired and registered by the students' parents.

 

1 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

2 juvenile   

n.青少年，少年读物；adj.青少年的，幼稚的

参考例句：

• For a grown man he acted in a very juvenile manner.身为成年人，他的行为举止显得十分幼稚。
• Juvenile crime is increasing at a terrifying rate.青少年犯罪正在以惊人的速度增长。

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 outskirts   

n.郊外，郊区

参考例句：

• Our car broke down on the outskirts of the city.我们的汽车在市郊出了故障。
• They mostly live on the outskirts of a town.他们大多住在近郊。

5 administrators   

n.管理者( administrator的名词复数 )；有管理（或行政）才能的人；（由遗嘱检验法庭指定的）遗产管理人；奉派暂管主教教区的牧师

参考例句：

• He had administrators under him but took the crucial decisions himself. 他手下有管理人员，但重要的决策仍由他自己来做。 来自辞典例句
• Administrators have their own methods of social intercourse. 办行政的人有他们的社交方式。 来自汉英文学 - 围城

6 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

7 confiscated   

没收，充公( confiscate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Their land was confiscated after the war. 他们的土地在战后被没收。
• The customs officer confiscated the smuggled goods. 海关官员没收了走私品。

8 considerably   

adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上

参考例句：

• The economic situation has changed considerably.经济形势已发生了相当大的变化。
• The gap has narrowed considerably.分歧大大缩小了。

9 lethal   

adj.致死的；毁灭性的

参考例句：

• A hammer can be a lethal weapon.铁锤可以是致命的武器。
• She took a lethal amount of poison and died.她服了致命剂量的毒药死了。

10 depots   

仓库( depot的名词复数 )； 火车站； 车库； 军需库

参考例句：

• Public transportation termini and depots are important infrastructures for a city. 公交场站设施是城市重要的基础设施。
• In the coastal cities are equipped with after-sales service and depots. 在各沿海城市均设有服务部及售后维修站。

11 cocaine   

n.可卡因，古柯碱（用作局部麻醉剂）

参考例句：

• That young man is a cocaine addict.那个年轻人吸食可卡因成瘾。
• Don't have cocaine abusively.不可滥服古柯碱。

12 disturbance   

n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调

参考例句：

• He is suffering an emotional disturbance.他的情绪受到了困扰。
• You can work in here without any disturbance.在这儿你可不受任何干扰地工作。