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“I am sick of President Trump denigrating Chicago,” said Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York, during a trip to the Windy City on March 3rd, lamenting Mr Trump’s “particularly painful stereotyping”of the place. In January Mr Trump tweeted that he would “send in the Feds!”if the city did not fix the horrible “carnage” of gun violence. In his recent speech to a joint session of Congress, Mr Trump said it was not acceptable that more than 4,000 people were shot in Chicago last year.
纽约市长比尔·德·布拉西奥（Bill de Blasio）3月3日访问温迪城时说：“特朗普总统诋毁芝加哥的行为让我感觉不舒服。”他对特朗普总统“特别痛苦刻板”之地的说法也表示遗憾。 一月，特朗普发推特说，如果这个城市不能解决枪支暴力带来的可怕“屠杀”，他会“派联邦调查局进入！”。在最近一次国会联席会议发言中，特朗普表示，去年芝加哥超过4000人被枪杀不可接受。
With 764 murders in 2016, more people were killed in Chicago, America’s third largest city, than in its biggest city, New York (334), and its second-biggest, Los Angeles(294), combined (see chart). Three children were killed in four days in February. Sending in the Feds, whatever it means, may sound appealing, but it would be unlikely to help. Though Mr Trump said that “very top police” in Chicago had told him that the city’s crime problem could be stopped in a week with tougher tactics, there is no single explanation for the rise in violent crime. Nor is there any quick fix. Many of the reasons frequently discussed, such as splintered gangs, an influx of guns from states surrounding Illinois, the demolition of public housing, concentrated poverty or even the weather, are things that have been around for years.
芝加哥是美国第三大城市。2016年，这里发生了764起谋杀案，更多的人被杀害。超过了美国最大城市纽约（334起）和第二大城市洛杉矶（294起）类似案件的总和。 二月份，四天中有三名儿童遇害。无论“派联邦调查局进入”有什么初衷，它听上去好像有些吸引力，但实际上可能于事无补。特朗普声称，芝加哥一位“高级警官”告诉他，如果采取更严厉的手段，该市的犯罪问题可以在一周内得到遏制。但暴力犯罪的上升并非单个原因可以解释，解决也没有捷径可走。翻来覆去讨论的那些原因业已存在多年，例如分裂的黑帮，伊利诺伊周边枪支的流入，公屋拆迁，集中的贫困甚至天气。
One thing is certain, says John Pfaff at Fordham University in New York: sending in the National Guard, as Mr Trump seemed to suggest, would send the wrong signal and would probably worsen the already sour relations between the police and black Chicagoans. Deploying troops—when local police are unable to contain unrest and the mayor of a city appeals to the governor, who oversees the state National Guard—should be a last resort.
纽约福特汉姆大学的约翰·普法夫(John Pfaff)说：有件事是肯定的, 如果像特朗普建议的那样派驻国民警卫队会发出错误的信号，可能使芝加哥警察和黑人间已经糟糕的关系更加恶化。部署军队应该是最后的手段，只有当地方警察无力控制动乱，市长被迫向执掌国民警卫队的州长求助时才能施行。
Some things have changed, though.Gangs are using high-powered rifles that can tear through cars and even bullet proof vests. And the Chicago Police Department (CPD) made over 80% fewer street stops in January 2016 than it did in November 2015.The officers’ retreat was related to a public outcry after the release of video footage in November 2015 showing the execution style killing of a black teenager by a white policeman. The furore resulted in the firing of the then-police chief, Garry McCarthy, as well as an investigation of CPD practices by the Department of Justice. A few months after that steep reduction in street stops, gun violence raced up.
然而，有些事情已经改变了。黑帮正在使用可以击碎汽车甚至防弹背心的高能量步枪。同时芝加哥警察局（CPD）2016年1月执行的街头盘查数量比2015年11月减少了80％以上。警员的撤退与2015年11月一段视频发布后引发的公众抗议有关。视频显示一名白人警察行刑式地杀死了一名黑人少年。这场骚乱导致当时的警察局长加里·麦卡锡（Garry McCarthy）被解雇。同时司法部开展了对芝加哥警察局习惯做法的调查。几个月后，街头盘查急剧减少，涉枪暴力大幅上升。
This coincided with a sharp decline in the clearance rate for gun crimes in 2016. Last year 26% of murders resulted in an arrest, down from 36% in 2015, and arrests for shootings fell to 5% from 7%. Many assume the fall is related to black Chicagoans’ lack of trust in police officers, which in turn stems the flow of information needed to solve a crime. It meant that more than three-quarters of last year’s murderers walked free. That may have encouraged revenge killings, as the likelihood of getting caught was so low.
这与2016年涉枪犯罪结案率的急剧下降是同步的。由于谋杀导致的逮捕率从2015年的36％下降到了去年的26%，枪击案件的逮捕率从7％降到了5％。许多人相信这些比率的下降与芝加哥黑人对警察缺乏信任有关，这反过来又阻碍了破案急需的信息流入。这意味着去年有四分之三以上的谋杀犯溜之大吉。这可能鼓励了报复杀人，因为被捕的可能性如此之低。
A long-running stand-off between the governor of Illinois, Bruce Rauner, and the state legislature, which has resulted in the disruption or end of many social programmes for Chicago’s poorest residents,is also a factor. Since March 2015 the funding of CeaseFire, which employs former felons and others with insight into local crime as community messengers to prevent violence, has been cut to almost nothing. The one district on the South Side where CeaseFire was not slashed was the only one that saw a drop in shootings. Spokesmen for the programme, known in other cities as “Cure Violence”, claim that if it were fully funded, murders in Chicago could be reduced to fewer than 350 a year; possibly even fewer than 200.
伊利诺伊州长布鲁斯·劳恩（Bruce Rauner）和州立法机构间的长期对立，导致了许多为芝加哥最贫困居民设计的社会救助计划的中断或终止。这也是因素之一。自2015年3月以来，CeaseFire的资金被削减到几乎为零。该计划通过雇用前重案犯和那些对当地犯罪有深入了解的人作为社区信使来阻止暴力。南侧（South Side）一个地区的枪击事件数量是下降的。该地区是唯一一个CeaseFire预算没有被削减的地方。其他城市的CeaseFire计划或被称为“治疗暴力”计划。该计划的发言人声称如果资金充足，芝加哥的谋杀犯罪可以减少到每年少于350起; 甚至可能少于200起。
If that sounds self-serving, consider New York’s experience. After bolstering its police force, the BigApple had success with community policing, which involves officers getting to7 know not just the criminals on their beat but also the business-owners, teachers and local families, in order to build trust. In Chicago, the vast majority of shootings and murders happen in four or five poor black or Latino neighbourhoods where unemployment is high, schools dreadful and urban blight omnipresent. In January almost half of the city’s 51 murders occurred in Englewood on the South Side and Harrison and Austin on the West Side. This lopsided number contains a hopeful sign: a concentrated problem is easier to tackle than one that is diffuse. Nor is Chicago fated to suffer: six days passed last week without a murder, the first time that has happened for four years.
如果这听起来有点掩耳盗铃，自欺欺人，不妨想想纽约的经验。 在加强了警察部队后，这座大城市成功地实施了社区警务化，警察不仅需要了解辖区内的犯罪分子，还要了解企业主，教师和当地家庭，建立起彼此的信任。在芝加哥，绝大多数的枪击和谋杀发生在四到五个贫困的黑人或拉丁裔社区，那里失业率高，学校混乱，城市疾病无所不在。 一月份，这座城市的51起谋杀案几乎有一半发生在南边的Englewood和西边的Harrison 和Austin地区。 非对称的数字包含着希望：集中的问题总比离散的问题更容易解决。芝加哥并非命中注定遭受厄运：上周有六天未发生一起谋杀，这是四年中的首次。