Jailhouse blues 监狱愁容

California’s prisons
加州监狱

Jailhouse blues
监狱愁容

California must reduce its prisons’ overcrowding and cost. But how?
加州必须缓解其监狱的拥挤，并削减相关费用。但是怎么才能做到呢？

Feb 11th 2010 | LOS ANGELES | From The Economist print edition
2010年2月11日，洛杉矶，《经济学人》印刷版

ONE never quite knows whether Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s governor, is joking or serious. So it is with his three most recent ideas for solving one of the state’s biggest problems: its prisons. They are overcrowded, to the tune of about 40,000 inmates according to a federal court, and often inhumane. And they are too expensive, exacerbating California’s desperate budget crisis.

没有人真正知道加州州长阿诺•施瓦辛格到底是在开玩笑还是认真的。对他新近提出的解决监狱问题——该州最头疼的问题之一——的三个办法，大家的感受亦然如此。加州监狱人满为患，根据联邦法院的资料，现在关押在此的狱囚总计达4万人。这些监狱的设施常常也不够人性化。而且，监狱费用高昂，加剧恶化了加州本就相当严重的财政赤字。

The governor’s wildest thought experiment has California paying Mexico to build prisons and house California’s inmates in them. This is “totally silly” and probably unconstitutional, says Joan Petersilia of Stanford Law School. Almost as silly is his proposal to amend the state constitution to mandate reversing the current shares of the state budget that go to prisons and universities. The fact that 9.5% of spending now goes to prisons while only 5.7% goes to universities—25 years ago, prisons got 4% and universities 11%—is indeed a harsh indicator of California’s fall from grace. But there is no logical reason to pit two parts of the state budget against each other constitutionally when legislators are perfectly capable of doing the allocating.

州长设想的大胆实验是由加州付钱给墨西哥，修建监狱，安置加州的狱囚。斯坦福大学法学院的琼•皮特尔斯连（Joan Petersilia）说，这简直“蠢到家了”，而且很可能违宪。他的另一建议也同样愚蠢。他建议修改州宪法，要求重新配置州对监狱和大学的现行财政预算份额。而现在的财政预算中有9.5%划给监狱，大学只有5.7%。（25年前，监狱系统有4%，大学有11%。）这一事实清楚说明加州现已名誉扫地。但既然立法委员可以把财政预算的分配做得如此完美，那么比较这两方面的政府财政预算从宪法角度讲也就没有多少合理性。

However, Mr Schwarzenegger’s third proposal should be taken seriously. It is to privatise more of California’s prisons. He has already expanded a contract with Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the oldest and largest private prison operator, to house about 8,000 of California’s 167,000 inmates, mostly out of state. California is one of 25 states which, along with the federal government, put some inmates in private prisons. Mr Schwarzenegger wants to do more of it.

但是，施瓦辛格先生的第三项提议应该给予足够重视。这项提议是让大多数加州监狱私有化。他已经扩展了与美国最大的、历史最悠久的一家私人监狱运营商——美国感化公司（CCA）的合同。该合同准备将加州16.7万狱囚中的八千人转由该公司服刑，其中大多数都将迁出州外。除联邦政府以外，有25个州将一些囚犯送往私人监狱，加州是其中之一。施瓦辛格先生准备加大这方面的工作力度。

He has two reasons. First, private companies can expand capacity faster than government bureaucracies, and adding space is part of the answer to overcrowding. Ms Petersilia estimates that it takes seven years to build a new state prison in California, but only one year to open the equivalent private facility, through leasing, converting or building.

他有两个理由。其一，私人公司比政府机构能更快得扩展其容纳囚犯的能力，而监狱扩容是解决监狱拥挤问题的一个办法。皮特尔斯连女士估计，在加州要花7年时间修建一个新的政府监狱。但是，通过租赁、改造、新设，花上一年时间，即可修好一个同样的私人监狱投入使用。

Second, private prisons sometimes have lower costs, if they can keep prison-guard unions at bay. California’s happens to be the most powerful in the nation. About 70% of a prison’s costs go on personnel, and California’s guards not only have the highest wages but the most generous pension and health-care benefits. The union, which habitually spends lots of money on campaigns for judicial and legislative elections, as well as on ballot measures, will of course fight the proposal.

其次，如果私人监狱能不受狱警工会牵制的话，那么他们所需费用也较低。而加州的狱警工会恰恰是这个国家最强势的。监狱费用的70%都花在了狱警上。加州的狱警不仅有全国最高的工资，而且他们的养老金和医保福利都是全国最好的。常常在司法、立法选举以及投票策略上花费大量资金的工会，这次当然也会抗议这项提议。

But privatisation is not a long-term solution, says John Roman of the Urban Institute, a think-tank in Washington, DC. For big savings, a state would have to cut services to inmates, from drug treatment to counselling, whether the prison is public or private. Such cuts, however, leave inmates less prepared to re-enter society and more likely to end up behind bars again.

但是监狱私有化并非长久之计，华盛顿特区的智囊团城市研究所的约翰•罗马（John Roman）说。要削减费用的话，州政府就不得不削减对囚犯提供的从药物治疗到心理咨询的一系列服务，不管监狱是政府设立的抑或私营的。但是，这些措施只会让囚犯在重新融入社会时准备更不充分，很可能会再次走上被告席。

This is why Ms Petersilia emphasises another policy, agreed during last year’s budget deal. California has had a high recidivism rate (of 70%) in part because every released inmate used to be placed on parole and many were returned to prison for small violations such as missing appointments or failing alcohol tests. Since January 25th only dangerous ex-convicts are placed on parole, and they only go back to prison if they commit new crimes. Whether this will reduce overcrowding is yet to be seen, but it should help.

这就是为什么皮特尔斯连女士强调另一项政策的原因。这项政策在去年的财政预算中获得了通过。加州颇高的屡犯率（70%）部分是由于每个释放的囚犯过去常常都是有条件的假释，许多人都会因为违反一些小错，比如错过会见期或者未通过酒精测试等，重返监狱。自1月25日起，只有危险的囚犯才会假释，而这些人也只有犯了新罪后才会重新收监。这一措施是否可以减缓监狱拥挤的现状还有待观察，但是这肯定会有所帮助。

【1】Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is a company that manages public prisons and detention centers, and has concessions for many others. The company is the largest private corrections company in the United States and manages more than 60 facilities with a designed capacity of 85,000 beds. CCA was incorporated in 1983 by three businessmen and is based in Nashville, Tennessee.
From: wikipedia

译者：davidship
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