United States||?暴力横行的美国

Violence in America

暴力横行的美国

A modern murder mystery

现代杀戮之谜

In 2020 America experienced a terrible surge in murder. Why?

为何2020年美国谋杀案暴增？

In many respects, the murder of Alante Hands last year on a Chicago street was sadly unremarkable. He was young, just 27, and black, like four in every five homicide victims in the city. Like nine in ten murders in Chicago, his life was taken by a gun—bullets pierced his arm, chest and leg. He had a lengthy criminal record, beginning a decade ago when he was arrested while still a minor for shooting at a police officer. He died in the violent West Side of the city on West Rice Street, where six others have been murdered in the past two decades. But for the fact that his murder occurred on December 31st 2020, the 787th and final one of an especially bloody year for the city, it might have been forgotten.

从许多方面考量，去年发生于芝加哥街头的厄兰替·汉斯（Alante Hands）谋杀案只能说平平无奇。他年纪轻轻，只有27岁，是一个黑人。在芝加哥，每五起谋杀案中有四起受害者都是黑人。他是被枪杀的，子弹穿过了他的手臂、胸膛和腿部。而在芝加哥，枪杀案所占谋杀案的概率高达十分之九。汉斯罪行累累，犯罪记录可追溯到十年前。那时他还未成年，就因对一名警察开枪被捕。他死于芝加哥暴力横行的西区，西米街。过去二十年来，这里还有六人遇害。2020年，芝加哥掀起腥风血雨，共发生787起谋杀案。汉斯于2020年12月31日遇害，是去年最后一起；不过，这个事实可能早已被人们遗忘了。

The plague year proved brutal for Chicago, already a violent city even by American standards. Murders increased by 56% from 2019—nearly three times as many victims as in all of Italy. As crime data from 2020 are compiled, one thing has become clear: American cities saw the biggest rise in homicides in decades, currently estimated at 30% in a single year. That would be the highest annual increase in more than 50 years. In New York City, murders were up by 45%. In the Bay Area around San Francisco, they rose by 36%. In Washington, dc, they climbed by 19%. Our analysis of preliminary data from the fbi suggests that it is not just a big-city phenomenon. Small towns and even rural counties experienced smaller yet sizeable increases in murder rates (see chart).

即使以美国的标准来衡量，芝加哥也堪称暴力之都，而疫情使之雪上加霜。芝加哥的谋杀案数目自2019年增加了56%，受害者人数几乎是全意大利的三倍。2020年的罪案数据现已统计完成，其中一点显而易见：全美城市的谋杀案年增长率达到几十年之最，目前估计是30%。这可是50多年来的谋杀案年增长率之最。在纽约市，谋杀案数目增加了45%。旧金山湾区达到了36%。华盛顿则是19%。我们对联邦调查局的初始数据进行分析后发现，这种现象并不局限于大城市。小城市、甚至乡村地区的谋杀案增长率虽然相对较小，但同样不可小觑（见下表）。

Neither does the increase appear to be subsiding. Homicides in New York City are proceeding at the same pace as the previous deadly year. Mass shootings, which were mercifully rare during the year of lockdowns, have returned. On March 16th, a spree of shooting at three massage parlours in Atlanta killed eight people. On March 22nd, ten were killed at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado (pictured); President Joe Biden called for stricter gun-control laws. Though such shootings account for very few of the tens of thousands of annual gun homicides in America, they focus media attention on the enduring problem of violence. That could be salutary. Unlike past escalations in violence, this one has gone comparatively unremarked on by national politicians, despite its magnitude.

谋杀案件的增长趋势似乎并没有减弱，纽约市的凶杀案增长速度与可怕的上一年度持平。封锁隔离期间万幸少有的大规模枪击事件现在又开始发生。3月16日，亚特兰大三个按摩院发生的一系列枪杀案致8人丧生。3月22日，在科罗拉多州博尔德的一家杂货店有10人被杀（如图）。拜登总统呼吁制定更严格的枪支管控法律。尽管这些枪击案只是美国每年成千上万起枪击案中极少的一部分，他们也将媒体注意力吸引到了长期以来的暴力问题上。从这一点来讲，这是有益的。除去规模不谈，不同于以往的暴力升级，这一次暴力行为相对而言没有受到国家政界人士的重视。

America benefited from decades of what researchers termed the “great crime decline”—the violent-crime rate was cut nearly in half from 1993 to 2019. If that 30% rise in city murders in 2020 were to hold nationwide, it would return America to a homicide rate last experienced in 1998. “It’s like 20 years of crime decline and violence decline has just disappeared,” says John Roman, a criminologist at norc, a research institute at the University of Chicago.

几十年来，美国受益于研究人员所说的“犯罪率大幅下降”——从1993年到2019年，暴力犯罪率下降了近一半。如果2020年30%的城市谋杀上升率在全国范围内保持下去，美国的谋杀率将回到1998年的水平。芝加哥大学全国民意研究中心的犯罪学家约翰•罗曼（John Roman）说：“这就像20年来犯罪和暴力的减少就此消失一样。”

What has caused this? One theory emphasises the pandemic. “The recipe for violence in any city in the world is dense clusters of young men with nothing to do,” says Mr Roman. Schools, work, churches, community centres and violence-cessation programmes all stopped, making it easy for conflict to escalate.

到底是什么导致了这一切？一种理论强调是疫情。罗曼先生表示“世界上任何城市暴力的根源都是成群无所事事的年轻人。”学校，工作，教堂，社区中心和反暴力活动全都中止了，这使得冲突更容易激化。

The dwindling of stimulus payments over the summer meant that poverty was rapidly increasing during the months when murder spiked. Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at Princeton University, notes that sales of guns and alcohol, common precursors to violence, soared. Some 23m guns were bought in 2020, 64% more than usual. Alcohol sales were up by 25%. Drug-overdose deaths probably hit another peak in 2020; competition over illicit-drug sales often spills over into violence, perhaps offering a partial explanation for the simultaneous increase in rural America. Pandemic effects may thus may provide all the ingredients for the year’s grim cocktail.

整个夏季，纾困支付（stimulus payments）不断缩水，这意味着贫困人口急剧增加的那几个月谋杀案也在激增。普林斯顿大学任教的社会学家帕特里克·夏基（Patrick Sharkey）指出，枪支和酒精销量飙升通常预示着暴乱的发生。美国在2020年售出近2300万支枪支，较通常时候多了64%。酒精销量上升了25%。因吸毒过量死亡的人数很可能在2020年达到了另一个高峰；毒品交易市场的竞争常常演变成暴力事件，这也许可以部分解释为什么美国农村的谋杀案也在同时增加。因此，也许疫情的影响提供全部养料滋养了这一年的严峻形势。

Another explanation identifies the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25th, and the ensuing national protests, as the turning-point. Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah, suspects a nationwide “Minneapolis effect”. Murder had been high throughout the year, but it did seem to surge around that time. In Chicago, 42 people were killed between May 27th and June 2nd, the deadliest week in the city since 2001.

另一种解释则认为，转折点出现在5月25日乔治·弗洛伊德于明尼阿波利斯被杀，以及随后爆发的全国性抗议活动。保罗·卡塞尔（Paul Cassell，犹他大学法学教授）猜测“明尼阿波利斯效应”已波及全国。去年一整年谋杀案居高不下，但集中爆发的时间点似乎恰好也是在那个时间段左右。5月27日到6月2日期间芝加哥有42人被杀，这是自2001年来死亡人数最多的一周。

This theory holds that a sudden shock in the behaviour of cops, as officers are diverted to secure protests and discouraged from proactive policing, leaves a vacuum in high-crime neighbourhoods. Arrests in New York City dropped between July and September, even though these were the deadliest months in the city in years (and arrests were down by 35% for the entire year). Loss of trust in the police may also exacerbate violence. American cities that have experienced large protests over police practices have often experienced a subsequent wave of violence. In Baltimore, after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody in 2015, homicides rose by 50%, and have remained stuck near there ever since.

有人猜想，警察的行动突然受到冲击，从而减少了积极主动型警务，转而被调去维持抗议秩序，以致在高犯罪率社区留下了警务真空。7月到9月纽约市的逮捕人数是下降的，同时这几个月的死亡人数也是该市多年来最多的（从全年来看，逮捕人数下降了35%）。警察的公信力丧失也可能加剧暴力。美国各城市爆发反对警察暴力执法的大规模抗议活动，之后通常跟随着一波暴力浪潮。自2015年 弗雷迪·格雷（Freddie Gray）在拘留期间死亡后，巴尔的摩地区的凶杀案数量增长了50%，并且自那以后数据几乎没有波动。

A puzzle, particularly for the pandemic explanation, is America’s exceptionalism in rising murders—unlike the country’s great crime decline, which coincided with global drops in violence. Most countries went into pandemic-induced lockdown, and many have emerged with stagnant or even lower murder rates. Murders in Italy dropped sharply, and those in England seem to have remained flat. Even in the violent neighbouring country of Mexico, murders did not increase. The same was true of most of the Americas.

令人困惑的是，美国谋杀案的异常增长，尤其是基于疫情的爆发时期，这与该国的犯罪率大幅下降不同（于此同时全球暴力事件却在减少）。大多数国家也有疫情，甚至因此而封锁，但许多国家的谋杀率并未增长甚至呈减少趋势。例如意大利的谋杀案数量急剧下降，英国几乎保持平稳状态。即使在充满暴力的邻国墨西哥，谋杀案也并没有增加。大多数美洲地区与国家也是如此。

If the primary causes are pandemic-related, that may augur a reprieve in the coming summer months as vaccination drives fully reopen the economy. If they are instead related to a crisis in policing, the effects could well linger, as in Baltimore.

如果主要影响因素主与疫情有关，这可能预示着未来夏季的几个月将得到暂时性的缓解，因为随着接种疫苗的普及将推动经济全面重新开放。然而如果它们与治安危机有关，其消极影响很可能挥之不去，就像巴尔的摩一样。

Crime is often seen as a local phenomenon, the province of mayors and not presidents. The synchronous rise of homicide across American cities and towns suggests a national problem, however. As the White House has been consumed by other crises—covid-19 and now immigration—rising violence has not been a focus of the Biden administration. Should it persist, however, the trend will become increasingly hard to ignore and could disrupt the politics of criminal justice. Progressives calling to defund police or otherwise minimise police presence may find their arguments harder to sustain.

犯罪通常被视为一种地方性现象，即这是市长的责任而并非总统的。然而，美国城镇凶杀案的同步上升表明：这是一个全国性的问题。由于白宫已经被其他方面的各种问题所困扰—例如covid-19，以及移民政策问题；因此目前暴力事件的增加并不是拜登政府的焦点。但是，一旦这种趋势持续发展下去，将变得越来越难以忽视，同时可能破坏刑事司法的政策。那些要求削弱警察薪资或以其他方式尽量减少警察人数的激进人士可能会发现他们的论点将更加难以维持。

Things certainly do not seem to be improving in Chicago. Compared with last year, murders are already up by 11%.

在芝加哥，情况似乎也没有改善的迹象。与去年相比，谋杀案的数量已经上升了11个百分点。

译者 Anita Amber Eunice Gui Gary Patty Skyler