紐時賞析／「寧願把年輕人關起來」砍社福預算、建監獄 英國真能減少青年犯罪率嗎？

馬可斯．利普頓青年俱樂部曾獲英國政府數十萬英鎊補助照顧青少年，補助金額如今幾乎歸零。（紐約時報）

After Gutting Youth Services, Can U.K. Cut Youth Crime?

砍社福預算後 英國能減少青年犯罪率？

The Marcus Lipton Youth Club is the last dedicated youth center still standing in its pocket of south London.

馬可斯．利普頓青年俱樂部是倫敦南部最後一個專門的青年中心，至今仍屹立。

But it is teetering. Nearly half of London’s youth centers have closed in the past decade as Britain has cut money for youth services, as well as for welfare, schools and drug and alcohol treatment, according to the most recent available data. Marcus Lipton used to count on hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in government funding. Now, it gets nearly zero.

但它正搖搖欲墜。根據最新數據，由於英國削減青年服務，以及福利、學校和毒品與酒精治療的資金，過去十年倫敦有將近一半青年中心關閉。馬可斯．利普頓過去仰賴政府每年數十萬英鎊補助，如今幾乎爲零。

“Just look around you,” said Ira Campbell, 55, the manager of the club, which offers counseling, warm meals and sports for young people. “This place is a safe haven.”

該俱樂部爲青年提供諮詢、熱騰騰餐點跟運動，55歲經理坎伯說：「看看你周圍，這是一個安全避風港。」

Marcus Lipton lies in the shadow of the Loughborough Estate public housing project, where two of the Conservative government’s longtime priorities — fighting crime and trying to reduce the budget deficit — collide.

馬可斯．利普頓俱樂部正籠罩在拉夫堡莊園公共住宅計劃的陰影下，保守黨政府長期兩大優先施政項目—打擊犯罪跟試圖減少預算赤字，在該計劃有所衝突。

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is building new prisons and recruiting more police officers as part of his party’s pledge to be tough on crime. He has also proposed a budget that would make deep spending reductions in the coming years, forcing officials to find savings in programs that have already been whittled to the bone during a decade of austerity.

英國首相蘇納克正建造新的監獄，並招募更多警察，這是他的政黨嚴厲打擊犯罪承諾的部分行動。他還提出一項預算計劃，未來幾年將大幅削減支出，迫使官員們在十年撙節政策期間已被嚴重削減的項目再設法省錢。

Budget cuts during that decade, instituted in response to the global financial crisis of 2008, hit the poorest neighborhoods of Britain’s capital particularly hard, according to the Institute for Government, an independent research group in London. Those neighborhoods are also where serious youth violence, like homicide, has risen or remained disproportionately high after austerity, data from the office of London Mayor Sadiq Khan shows.

倫敦獨立研究機構政府研究所指出，爲因應2008年全球金融危機，這十年間實施的預算刪減對英國首都最窮困社區的打擊尤爲嚴重。根據倫敦市長卡恩辦公室的數據，這些社區也是在撙節開支政策實施後，兇殺案之類嚴重青年暴力事件有所上升或依舊居高不下的地方。

Annual knife violence involving teenage victims in the city increased by nearly 40% to 5,332 in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic began, from 3,809 in 2012, according to police figures obtained by The New York Times. (There was later a dip in serious youth violence during virus-related lockdowns, most likely because of reduced social contact.)

紐約時報從警方獲得的數據顯示，在新冠病毒大流行開始前的2019年，倫敦市涉及受害者爲青少年的持刀暴力事件，從2012年的3809件增加近40%至5332件。（後來在與病毒有關的防疫封鎖期間，嚴重青年暴力事件有所減少，很可能是因爲社會接觸減少。）

Residents of the Loughborough Estate, already frustrated by sharply rising utility bills and food costs, say that the government would rather pay to lock up young people than spend money on projects that might provide them with positive activities or help their parents to make ends meet.

已對急劇上漲水電費與食物價格感到沮喪的拉夫堡莊園居民們說，政府寧願花錢把年輕人關起來，也不願資助可爲他們提供正面活動的計劃，或幫助他們的父母維持生計。

文／Euan Ward　譯／陳韋廷