-
Behind Bars ... Sort Of
Go ahead and
say it;
everyone does. Certainly I did.
Here
’
s a striking building,
perched on a slope outside the small
Austrian town of Leoben
—
a
sleek structure
made of glass, wood and
concrete, stately but agile, sure in its rhythms
and
proportions: each part bears an
obvious relationship to the whole. In the daytime,
the
corridors and rooms are flooded
with sunshine. At night, the whole structure glows
from within. A markedly well-made
building, and what is it? A prison.
来吧，
说出来，每个人都可以。当然，
我做到了。这是一个惊人的奥地
利莱奥本镇外的
小斜坡上的建筑，建筑由光滑的玻璃，木材和混凝土组成。
它的节奏和比例是庄严的，
但灵活，确保每个部分联系整个结构。在白天，走
廊和房间都充斥着阳光。到了晚上，
整个结构呈内向。
一座制作
精良的建筑，这是什么呢？一所监狱。
Everybody
says this, or something like it: I guess crime
does pay, after all. Or,
That
’
s
bigger
than my apartment. (New Yorkers, in particular,
tend to take this route.) Or,
Maybe I
should move to
Austria
and
rob a couple of banks. It
’
s
a reflex, and perfectly
understandable,
though it
’
s also foolish and
untrue
—
about as sensible
as looking at
a new hospital wing and
saying, Gee, I wish I had cancer.
每个人都这
样说，
或者类似的：
我想毕竟犯罪会有代价的。
或者，
这比我的公寓大。
（纽
约人，
特别是倾向于走这条路。
）或者，也许我应该转移到
奥地利
的银行抢劫一对夫妇。
这是一种条件
反射，完全可以理解的，但它也是愚蠢的，不真实的
-
就好似看
着一所新
的医院里，说：哎呀，但愿我得了癌症。
To
be more accurate, free people say these things.
Prisoners don
’
t. Nor, for
the most
part, do the guards, the
wardens or the administrators; nor do legal
scholars or
experts on corrections; nor
does Josef Hohensinn, who designed the Leoben
prison.
They all say something else: No
one, however down-and-out or cynical, wants to go
to
prison, however comfortable it may
be.
更准确的说，自由的人会随便说这些事情。囚犯不会。在大多数情况下，
做保卫，
督导
员或管理员，
< br>法律上更正的学者或专家，
设计的莱奥本监狱的人也不会。
他们说点别的：
没有人，哪怕是被现实击倒的或愤世嫉俗的人，会希望去坐牢，即使是
舒适的监狱。
Still, the argument goes, the place
must be a country club for white-collar criminals.
(No, it holds everyone from prisoners
awaiting trial to the standard run of felons.)
Then it must cost a fortune. (A little
more than other prisons, maybe, but not by
much
—
as a rule,
the more a corrections center bristles with overt
security, with
cameras, and squads of
guards, and isolation cells, the more expensive
it
’
s going to
be.) And that
’
s
glass? (Yes, though it
’
s
shatterproof. And yes, those are the cells and
that is a little balcony, albeit caged
in with heavy bars, and below it is a courtyard.)
The whole thing seems impossible,
oxymoronic, like a luxury D.M.V., and yet there it
is.
仍然有观点认为，
那种舒服的
监狱是提供给白领罪犯的乡村俱乐部。
（那是错误的观点，
它提
供给等候审判的每个人或者重刑犯。
）
，那么它必须花费一笔财
富。
（会比其他监狱
多，也许，但不是太多）
< br>这是玻璃吗？是的，虽然它防碎。这些都是牢房，
这是一个小
阳台，下面是一个庭院。整个事情似乎是不可能的，自相矛盾的，像一个豪华
DMV
，
但它是真实的。
One gray day in February, Hohensinn
drove me from his office in Graz down to
Leoben, an hourlong trip through a
region isolated by mountains and still
transitioning out of an industrial
economy. He is a compact man in his early 50s,
with
bushy eyebrows, a gappy smile and
an air about him of cheerful confidence, mixed
with a kind of Alpine soulfulness.
Before the prison opened, late in 2004, he had a
solid career building public housing.
Now he is the Man Who Built That Prison, a
distinction that dismays him slightly,
if only because, as he says,
“
One always has
mixed feelings about having one work
singled out for attention.
”
一个灰色的
2
月的一天，
Hohensinn
开车把我从他的办公室去
Leo
ben
，
一个长达一小时
的行程，穿过
一个孤立的山，那里还在过渡工业经济。在监狱启用之前，在
2004
< br>年底，
他的职业是公共房屋建设。现在，他是建造这所监狱的人，他说，
“
人们总是有复杂的
感情当一个作品独立出来被
关注。
”
Leoben has
received quite a lot of attention. In America, its
public profile has been
limited to a
series of get-a-load-of-this e-mail messages and
mocking blog posts
(where the prison is
often misidentified as a corrections center
outside Chicago), but
in Europe,
Hohensinn
’
s design has
become more of a model
—
not
universally
accepted, but not easily
ignored either. It is the opening statement in a
debate about
what it means to construct
a better prison. Already there are plans to build
something
like it outside of Berlin.
莱奥本已收到了相当多的关注。
在美国，
在
公众中的形象已经被限制为一系列得到载荷
-
的
-
这个
E-mail
讯息和嘲讽的博客文章（在那里的监狱被经常误认
为作为一个在芝
加哥郊外改造中心）
，
但在欧洲，
Hohensinn
的设计已成为一个模型
-
没有被普遍接
受
，但不容易被忽略
。
辩论的开场白是建设一个更美好的监狱意味
着什么。
已经有计划
在柏林外建立类似的东西。
The day Hohensinn and I visited,
Leoben was dreary, and there were traces of sleet
in
the air; as we approached, the
building looked both idle and inviting, like a
college
library during winter break
—
or it would have, anyway,
were it not for the razor wire
coiled
along the concrete wall of the yard and the
sentence carved below it, a line
from
the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (which the United
States signed
and ratified) that reads:
“
All persons deprived of
their liberty shall be
treated with
humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity
of the human
person.
”
< br>那天
Hohensinn
和我去访问，
< br>莱奥本是沉闷的，
有痕迹在空气中的雨夹雪
;
当我们走近，
建筑看上去既像闲置的又很吸引人，像寒假期间的高校图书馆
，无论如何，它的刺绳
绕沿混凝土墙
，
院子里墙刻着下面的句子，取自国际公约公民权利和政治权利
（美国签
署和批准）
，上面写着：
”<
/p>
所有被剥夺自由的人应给予人道及对人固有尊严的尊重
。
“
Inside the prison
it felt like Sunday afternoon, though in fact it
was a Tuesday. There
was
a
glassy brightness over everything, and most
surprising, an
unbreakable silence.
Prisons are usually clamorous places,
filled with the sound of
metal doors
opening and closing, and the general racket that
comes with holding
large numbers of men
in a confined space. Noise is part of the chaos of
prison life;
Leoben was serene. I
mentioned as much to Hohensinn, and he smiled and
pointed
to the whitewashed ceilings. He
had taken great care to install soundproofing.
在监狱里，感觉就像星期天的下午，尽管事实上它是星期二。
有一种<
/p>
玻璃般剔透的明亮
照亮一切，
最令人惊讶
的是
静谧感
。
监狱通常是吵闹的地方，
充满了金属门开启和关闭
的声音，大量的男子在狭窄的空间。噪
音是混乱监狱生活的一部分
;
莱奥本监狱是
平静
的
。
我向他提到这个问题，<
/p>
他笑着指了指白色的天花板，
他
殚精竭虑
的安装
了
隔音设备
。
An assistant warden
accompanied us on our tour, one of three guards on
duty tasked
with watching more than 200
inmates. On one side of the prison there was a
block of
prisoners on remand; on the
other side were the convicts, living in units
called pods
—
groups of 15
one-person cells with floor-to-ceiling windows,
private lavatories and
a common space
that includes a small kitchen. We came upon one
prisoner cooking a
late lunch for a few
of his podmates; we stood there for a bit,
chatting. They were
wearing their own
clothes. The utensils on the table were metal.
“
They are
criminals,
”
Hohensinn said to me,
“
but
they are also human beings. The
more
normal a life you give them here, the less
necessary it is to
resocialize them
when they leave.
”
His principle, he said, was simple:
“
Maximum security outside;
maximum freedom
inside
.
”
(The
bars over the
balconies are there to
ensure the inmates
’
safety,
Hohensinn said; the surrounding
wall
outside is more than enough to make sure no one
gets free.)
一名狱长助理陪同我们的拜访，我们的值班狱警负责看
200
多名囚犯。在一侧的监狱关
着候审犯人
，
另一侧是定罪犯人，
住在单位被称为豆荚
- 15
人一组的牢房，
附带的
观察
窗能从地板看到天花板，
独立的厕所和公共空间包括一个小
厨房。
我们看到一个囚犯烹
饪一午餐为他的几个室友，我们在那
里站了一下，聊天。他们都穿着自己的衣服。
桌子
上的器皿是金
属的。
“
他们是罪犯
，
”
Hohensinn
对我
说，
“
但他们也是人。在这里你给
他们
更正常的生活，那么当他们离开就没必要重新社会化他们。
“
他
说，他的原则很简
单：
”
对外有最大的
安全性，
对内有最大的自由度
。
“
（在阳台上围栏以确保囚犯的安全，
Hohensinn
说，周围的围墙安全到绰绰有余，以确保没有人会逃离）
。
We walked around some
more. There was a gymnasium, a prayer room, a room
for
conjugal visits. I asked Hohensinn
what he would do if, contrary to fact, it were
conclusively proved that prisons like
his encouraged crime rather than diminished it.
Would he renounce the design? He shook
his head.
“
The
prisoners
’
dignity
is all I
really care
about,
”
he told me.
< br>我们走了一圈多。有一间健身房，一间祈祷室，一间为配偶探视。
，我问
Hohensinn
他会做什么，
如果成果和事实相反，
最终证实这种监狱鼓励犯罪，而不是削弱它。
他会
不会放弃这种设计？他摇摇头。
“
囚犯的尊严是我真正关心的
，
”
他告诉我。
Suppose we can
’
t
bring ourselves to be quite so magnanimous.
Suppose all we
’
re
interested in is reducing crime. If you
trust a criminal with a better environment, will
he prove trustworthy? As far as Leoben
is concerned, it
’
s too soon
to tell. The place
has been open for
only four years. But I noticed something as we
were leaving, and in
the absence of any
other data it seemed significant. In the three or
four hours we
spent roaming all through
the place, I hadn
’
t seen a
single example of vandalism.
假如我们不那么宽宏大
量。
假设所有我们感兴趣的仅仅是减少犯罪。
如果你在一个更好
的环境中相信罪犯，
他能否被证明是值得这样信赖的？对莱奥本
而言，
结论还为时过早。
这地方只开了有四年。
但是，在我们正要离开时我发现了一些事，并在没有任何可显示
的其他数据。我
们漫游这地方三四个小时，从没有见过一个的破坏例子。
It
sounds odd
to say, but
it
’
s nonetheless true:
we punish people with
architecture. The building
is
the method.
We
put criminals in a locked room,
inside
a locked structure, and we leave them there for a
specified period of time.
这听起来很奇怪，但它仍然真
实：
我们利用建筑惩罚人。该建筑就是惩罚方法
。我们让
罪犯呆在上锁的房间，里面有上锁的结构，并在一个指定的时间内让他们禁锢其中。
And there, for the
most part, the thinking simply stops. Surveillance
techniques come
and go, materials
change, levels of security are introduced and
refined. The language
changes, from
“
penitence
”
to
“
incarceration
< br>”
to
“
correcti
ons,
”
but very little is
fundamentally different than it was.
You can get it in a rectangle or a circle, in a
radiant or a telephone-pole style, in
brick or concrete or
shipping
containers;
you can
get
guardhouses conducting surveillance via closed-
circuit TV, electronic doors, an
isolation room. But
it
’
s pretty much the same
building: a large institution, holding
many convicts in small cells for years
at a time.
（
当代的监狱设计原则未变化只是设备
技术的进步
）
：
设计在那里，在大多数
情况下，
概念就这样了。监控技术，材料的变化，引入和完善的安全级别。语言的变化，
从
“
忏
悔
”<
/p>
，到
“
监禁
”<
/p>
，
“
更正
”
，
但很少是从根本上的不同。它在一个矩形或圆形，
在辐射或电
话极式的，材料是砖或混凝土或集装箱，你可以通过闭路电视，电子
门，隔离室进行监
视的警卫室。但是，这几乎是相同的建筑：一个大的机构，许多犯人在
小牢房几年的时
间。
Does imprisonment work?
It
seems like a bottom-line question, but the answer
depends on what you want prisons to do,
and that
’
s not an easy thing
to decide. Even
if we assume that there
are good and sensible reasons to incarcerate
people, there
remains some debate about
what purpose is served. Deterrence is often
proposed as a
goal, but no one really
knows whether the prospect of incarceration gives
would-be
criminals pause, and in any
case we quickly reach the realm of diminishing
returns.
监禁是否有用？这似乎是一个底线的问题，
但答案取决于你想要监狱达成什么目的，
这
不是一件容易的事情
来决定。
即使我们假设有良好和合理的理由关押人，
仍然存在着
一
些争论。威慑往往是监禁目的，但没有人真正知道是否监禁可以威慑住潜在的罪犯，在
任何情况下，我们很快就达到收益递减的境界。
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