含有〈司法〉标签的文章(27)

脱缰的司法系统

【2023-08-01】

@whigzhou: 最近以色列的司法制度之爭鬧得沸沸揚揚,依我看,司法審查的權限寬窄其實還只是次生問題,癥結其實在法官遴選方式上,法官遴選委員會的9名委員,現任大法官占了3個,律師協會2個,議會雙方各一個,外加司法部長和一位閣員,前兩類的5個都來自法律界,只要他們行動足夠一致,加上從兩位議員中拉到一位,便可決定法官人選,

和米國相比,這種安排明顯缺乏外部輸入,讓法官遴選很大程度上變成了法律圈内同儕推舉,這會造成一個法官的立場逐漸向圈内共識靠攏而日(more...)

标签: | |
9152
【2023-08-01】 @whigzhou: 最近以色列的司法制度之爭鬧得沸沸揚揚,依我看,司法審查的權限寬窄其實還只是次生問題,癥結其實在法官遴選方式上,法官遴選委員會的9名委員,現任大法官占了3個,律師協會2個,議會雙方各一個,外加司法部長和一位閣員,前兩類的5個都來自法律界,只要他們行動足夠一致,加上從兩位議員中拉到一位,便可決定法官人選, 和米國相比,這種安排明顯缺乏外部輸入,讓法官遴選很大程度上變成了法律圈内同儕推舉,這會造成一個法官的立場逐漸向圈内共識靠攏而日益遠離社會共識(或精英共識)的趨勢, 而且這個趨勢會不斷自我强化,因爲(1)每次選出一位立場偏向圈内共識的新法官,就提高了未來選出更多更靠近圈内共識的發給的可能性,2)儅這種傾向變得清晰可辨時,它會影響法學院學生和未來潛在律師/法官的自我選擇,比如,如果這種傾向是向左偏的,那麽一位有志於成爲法官,正在考慮是否要報法學院的右派學生,便更可能放棄這條職業道路,因爲他對前途的預期被壓低了,於是,通往法官的那條職業道路,從起點上就吸引了更多接近法律界圈内共識的人, 對比米國,你可以發現,即便法律界整體偏左,但保守派在法律界總是有著穩固的地盤,因爲只要保守派仍有機會提名法官,那麽通往法官的那條職業道路就仍然對保守派年輕人暢通無阻(甚至他們的因爲總人數偏少而競爭壓力更小), 由此想到,其實英國和以色列面臨同樣的問題,而且要嚴重的多,因爲英國的法官遴選幾乎是純粹的圈内游戲,遴選委員會成員絕大部分是法官和律師,未來司法系統與國會的衝突也在所難免,總有一天要解決 【2023-08-02】 @whigzhou: 假如電影業的激勵模式變成這樣:沒有票房,收入完全來自一個固定收益基金,每部片子的報酬由編導演協會打分決定,個人從中取得的份額由資歷和積分決定,不出幾年,就只剩下最莫名其妙的文藝片了
刑事诉讼组织

【2021-09-11】

67

@whigzhou: 据说这种公共品只有政府能提供 (Peter Clark 2000, p.67) ​​​​

@何不笑:私人众筹+赏金猎人?

@whigzhou: 跟赏金猎人两码事,是私人公益组织扮演追捕者和检察官的角色

@whigzhou: 虽然早就有了一些公诉机制,但晚至18世纪,英格兰绝大多数刑事案件的诉讼人还都是私人,这一状况直到维多利亚时代才改变

@whigzhou(more...)

标签: | | | |
8824
【2021-09-11】 67 @whigzhou: 据说这种公共品只有政府能提供 (Peter Clark 2000, p.67) ​​​​ @何不笑:私人众筹+赏金猎人? @whigzhou: 跟赏金猎人两码事,是私人公益组织扮演追捕者和检察官的角色 @whigzhou: 虽然早就有了一些公诉机制,但晚至18世纪,英格兰绝大多数刑事案件的诉讼人还都是私人,这一状况直到维多利亚时代才改变 @whigzhou: 这就意味着,若没有这样的公益组织,很多案件会因为没有当事人起诉而被忽略
Roe v. Wade

【2021-07-16】

听了个 podcast,在聊 Roe v. Wade,我对他们聊的内容本身兴趣不大,不过这让我想到一个问题,在有关 Roe v. Wade 的各种议论中,这个问题好像都被忽视了,

我对堕胎合法性本身没有很强烈的立场,我个人的道德观与之并不抵触,不过,一个共同体若是基于其传统而加以禁止,我看也未尝不可,Roe v. Wade 让我特别不爽的是,自由派法官在这事情上表现的非常虚伪和双标,

Roe v. Wade 的裁决依据是第14修正案的正当程序(due process)条款:

nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within (more...)

标签: | | | | |
8715
【2021-07-16】 听了个 podcast,在聊 [[Roe v. Wade]],我对他们聊的内容本身兴趣不大,不过这让我想到一个问题,在有关 Roe v. Wade 的各种议论中,这个问题好像都被忽视了, 我对堕胎合法性本身没有很强烈的立场,我个人的道德观与之并不抵触,不过,一个共同体若是基于其传统而加以禁止,我看也未尝不可,Roe v. Wade 让我特别不爽的是,自由派法官在这事情上表现的非常虚伪和双标, Roe v. Wade 的裁决依据是第14修正案的正当程序(due process)条款:
nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
多数意见认为,德州的堕胎禁止法律侵犯了孕妇的隐私权,而该隐私权包含在上面这个条款所提及的个人权利(liberty)里, 这显然是对个人自然权利非常宽的解释,对此我并没意见,我也向来希望对个人自然权利做宽泛解释,问题是,这些自由派法官仅仅在他们关心的那些事情上才会做如此宽泛的解释,而在其他事情上,他们对自然权利的解释都比前辈大幅收紧, 实际上,通过拓宽解释第14修正案的 liberty 来实施重大司法干预,并非 Roe v. Wade 的首创,1905年 [[Lochner v. New York]] 一案的裁决,把契约自由也纳入了第14修正案的 liberty 中,从而认定各州的最低工资法和工作时间限制违宪,因为最低工资和工作时限剥夺了契约自由, 这条原则如果存在到今天的话,那么罗斯福以来的很多管制法律都会被判违宪了,当然,实际上,它早就被推翻了,而 Roe 时代的那些自由派法官,正是推动管制国家大幅扩张、个人自然权利大幅缩减的司法能动主义者,如果他们把 Roe 案的原则也运用于其他个人权利,那我们看到的是一个比镀金时代更自由的社会, 不妨举个更加赤裸裸的例子,可以帮助我们理解这事情, 纽约市政府是出了名的 nanny state,特别替市民健康操心,所以以前酒吧是禁止向孕妇卖酒的,前几年,纽约市废除了这条法律,说是这孕妇懂得怎么做对自己最好,卖酒禁令是对孕妇的歧视, 如此说来,纽约市终于变动不那么 nanny 了吗? 这么想你就太幼稚了,也是那几年,纽约市出了新法律,限制餐馆在餐桌上摆盐罐子,因为食客太蠢了,总是给自己的菜撒太多盐, ---------------- @小金鱼上校: Unconventional opinion: there is no constitutional right to privacy. The closest opinion which may come to recognize a claim that is similiar to a constitutional right to privacy is Katz v United States @whigzhou: 扯上隐私权确实挺强词夺理的,姑且替他修正为身体自主权 @whigzhou: 其实 Roe 还有个更可笑的地方,法官竟然临时发明了一套胎儿发育三阶段理论,扮演速成医学专家,既表现了其自以为无所不知的狂妄,也大大突破了有关法官在裁决中可以做什么不可以做什么的司法传统
大法官的共识度

【2020-09-25】

@whigzhou: 很多人可能不知道,最高法院的共识程度其实是很高的,如图1所示,向来都有40-50%的案子是9:0决定的,5:4的不到20%,而且近年来尽管大环境两极化,上述趋势反而在强化,

votesplit

当然,如图2显示,阵营分化也是很清晰的,可是要注意,图2中最弱的连线也代表着75%的共识率,

network-sitting-scotus-pct-ot2017

这种共识程度显然得益于终身制,它让大法官避免了政治压力,值此风雨飘摇之际,最高法院将是最可信赖的机构(当然,还有将军们的荣誉感)

(more...)

标签: | |
8308
【2020-09-25】 @whigzhou: 很多人可能不知道,最高法院的共识程度其实是很高的,如图1所示,向来都有40-50%的案子是9:0决定的,5:4的不到20%,而且近年来尽管大环境两极化,上述趋势反而在强化, votesplit 当然,如图2显示,阵营分化也是很清晰的,可是要注意,图2中最弱的连线也代表着75%的共识率, network-sitting-scotus-pct-ot2017 这种共识程度显然得益于终身制,它让大法官避免了政治压力,值此风雨飘摇之际,最高法院将是最可信赖的机构(当然,还有将军们的荣誉感) 【2021-07-06】 @whigzhou: 更能说明问题的是,从巡回上诉法院上来的案子中,70-80%上诉法院的决定会被推翻,这就意味着,这些推翻上诉法院决定的裁决中,至少有1/3到1/2是一致通过的,也就是说,一致裁决的比例这么高,并不是因为案子缺乏争议,能打到最高法院的案子,都不会那么一目了然 @whigzhou: 看了下 scotusblog 的统计,最近三年中,巡回庭决定在诉至最高院后被推翻的比例分别是77%,70%,80%  
规则的层次

【2020-07-03】

看了一些对高院最近几个判决的评论,大多很不着调,包括WSJ的,Neil Gorsuch一直就明确说自己会按法律本义判,无论这个本义是按textualism还是originalism来解读,都完全可能得出保守派不喜欢的结果,这是早就摆明的,为啥现在突然惊诧起来了呢?仅仅因为他是保守派提名的?

评论中的另一个糊涂点是,忘了:在盎格鲁系统中,法官是没有义务为诉讼任何一方构造论点的,援引什么法律,以何种逻辑链条支持自己的主张,都是诉讼方自己的事,法官只是决定这个逻辑链条能否成立,所以,即便同一位法官,面对完全相同的案子,也可能得出截然相反的判决,因为诉讼方可能援引了不同法律,或构造了不同逻辑链,而法官没有义务把他们拉到对他们最有利的路线上来。

还有些评论分不清判决所影响的层次,规则体系是多层次的,一个判决可能在某个低层次上得到你喜欢的结果,同时却在高层次上造成你极不希望看到的结果。

说明这一点的一个经典案例是雪佛龙案(Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Na(more...)

标签: | | |
8230
【2020-07-03】 看了一些对高院最近几个判决的评论,大多很不着调,包括WSJ的,Neil Gorsuch一直就明确说自己会按法律本义判,无论这个本义是按textualism还是originalism来解读,都完全可能得出保守派不喜欢的结果,这是早就摆明的,为啥现在突然惊诧起来了呢?仅仅因为他是保守派提名的? 评论中的另一个糊涂点是,忘了:在盎格鲁系统中,法官是没有义务为诉讼任何一方构造论点的,援引什么法律,以何种逻辑链条支持自己的主张,都是诉讼方自己的事,法官只是决定这个逻辑链条能否成立,所以,即便同一位法官,面对完全相同的案子,也可能得出截然相反的判决,因为诉讼方可能援引了不同法律,或构造了不同逻辑链,而法官没有义务把他们拉到对他们最有利的路线上来。 还有些评论分不清判决所影响的层次,规则体系是多层次的,一个判决可能在某个低层次上得到你喜欢的结果,同时却在高层次上造成你极不希望看到的结果。 说明这一点的一个经典案例是雪佛龙案(Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.),由该案判决所确立的所谓雪佛龙准则(Chevron doctrine)赋予了联邦管制机构极大的自由裁量权,导致管制国家大幅扩张,可是,当初推动这个案子的政治动机,却是里根政府希望放松有关环境保护的管制,即,通过为管制当局谋得更多自由裁量权,可以放松某些管制措施,而且他们确实得到了想要的判决,从一阶结果看,这是保守派想要的,可是他们忘了二阶后果:联邦政府是会换手的,由于该判决树立的恶劣先例,当联邦政府落到自由派手里时,上述自由裁量权就被用来疯狂扩张管制。 花絮:当初代表联邦政府打这场官司的,正是Neil Gorsuch他妈,时任EPA局长Anne Gorsuch Burford @慕容飞宇gg:有毛病的是 Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision 这句话。除非你混淆 sex 和上面两个概念,这句话没有道理。 @whigzhou: 我也不同意Gorsuch的推理,但他在这一判决中确实表达了他的textualism 把三位法官的意见放到一起看就比较清楚,我的概括: Gorsuch: textualism万岁,所以我判上诉方输。 Kavanaugh:originalism万岁,所以我判上诉方赢。 Alito: 即便我们接受textualism,Gorsuch的论证也错的离谱。 我赞成Alito。 ------------------------
Gorsuch: An employer who fired an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids. Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. But the limits of the drafters' imagination supply no reason to ignore the law's demands. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit. Alito: Alito wrote, "Many will applaud today’s decision because they agree on policy grounds with the Court’s updating of Title VII. But the question in these cases is not whether discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity should be outlawed. The question is whether Congress did that in 1964. It indisputably did not."[36] Alito further stated that "even if discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity could be squeezed into some arcane understanding of sex discrimination, the context in which Title VII was enacted would tell us that this is not what the statute's terms were understood to mean at that time." Alito was critical of the majority decision: There is only one word for what the Court has done today: legislation. The document that the Court releases is in the form of a judicial opinion interpreting a statute, but that is deceptive ... A more brazen abuse of our authority to interpret statutes is hard to recall. The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous. Kavanaugh: Millions of gay and lesbian Americans have worked hard for many decades to achieve equal treatment in fact and law... They have advanced powerful policy arguments and can take pride in today's result. Under the Constitution's separation of powers, however, I believe that it was Congress's role, not this Court's, to amend Title VII.
【2021-06-18】 Alito在最近的 Nestle v. Doe 一案里又强调了原帖第二点,此案以8-1裁决支持上诉人,Alito是唯一反对者,他在dissenting里说,他完全同意多数方的裁决理由,可是上诉人并未提出这个理由,法院不能替他们动脑筋,而他们提出的那个理由他又不同意  
为何英国死刑多

【2021-05-10】

@凌云听风阁阁主:这种少用死刑的偏好是怎么形成的?

@whigzhou: 好多因素,其中之一是受西欧文明熏陶同时又没有民主法治

要回答俄国为何死刑少,不如先对照看看为何英国死刑多,18世纪的英国以其重刑而出名,有几个原因,

1)社会流动性提高,城市化加速,导致犯罪率大增,

2)没有警察,伦敦警察直到1829才创建,警察对犯罪的预先阻止,和法庭对犯罪的事后惩罚,是遏制犯罪的两种具有相互替代效果的手段,所以,当没有警察时,若要对犯罪产生同等遏制效果,就需要加重事后惩(more...)

标签: | | |
8611
【2021-05-10】 @凌云听风阁阁主:这种少用死刑的偏好是怎么形成的? @whigzhou: 好多因素,其中之一是受西欧文明熏陶同时又没有民主法治 要回答俄国为何死刑少,不如先对照看看为何英国死刑多,18世纪的英国以其重刑而出名,有几个原因, 1)社会流动性提高,城市化加速,导致犯罪率大增, 2)没有警察,伦敦警察直到1829才创建,警察对犯罪的预先阻止,和法庭对犯罪的事后惩罚,是遏制犯罪的两种具有相互替代效果的手段,所以,当没有警察时,若要对犯罪产生同等遏制效果,就需要加重事后惩罚, 对警察的需求其实早就出现,但当时的英国人对创建一种新型国家机器非常抵触,所以拖了很久才建立,这是宪政传统的代价, 3)司法公正,因为司法足够公正,被告权利得到充分保护,法官陪审团的裁断权得到充分施展,因而(相比其他社会)被告定罪率低,于是,为了达到同等威慑效果,国会不得不加重惩罚强度, 4)茗煮,加重刑罚的最大动力来自国会下院,和国会相比,君主、法官、陪审团都更倾向于宽仁,这或许是因为下院代表着有产中等阶层,是城市犯罪的最大受害群体,而上层贵族住在自家庄园城堡里,更有资本宽仁, 有一个情况最能说明这一点,当时很多盗窃案被定罪时,认定的盗窃案值都是39先令,因为国会规定40先令以上的盗窃犯必须吊死,所以,如果起诉者认定案值超过40先令,他就要冒输掉案子的风险,因为陪审团知道这是死罪,但觉得罪不至死,所以哪怕证据确凿也不愿做出有罪裁定, 实际上,在整个18世纪,立法与司法双方在严厉与宽仁之间一直在轮番博弈:国会加重同等罪名的刑罚-法庭倾向于认定更轻的罪名-于是国会把更多罪名列入死罪-如此循环……最终列入死罪的罪名翻4倍,  
metoo与无罪推定

【2018-07-26】

最近metoo丑闻铺天盖地,虽然有些细节让人震惊,但仔细想想,也不算太意外,特别是行业分布,完全在意料之中,那些特别偏爱长相俊俏,亲和度高,社会技能强,之类禀赋的行业,自然是metoo高发区,因为这些禀赋与黄喉策略更搭配,我预期,双性恋和同性恋群体中发生率会更高。

就是,那些把实名揭发跟无罪推定扯到一起的都是纯傻哔,你被人持刀攻击想要自卫时要不要先喊三遍『未经判决定罪者都是无辜的』?

道德评价这事情,你一旦(more...)

标签: | | | |
8046
【2018-07-26】 最近metoo丑闻铺天盖地,虽然有些细节让人震惊,但仔细想想,也不算太意外,特别是行业分布,完全在意料之中,那些特别偏爱长相俊俏,亲和度高,社会技能强,之类禀赋的行业,自然是metoo高发区,因为这些禀赋与黄喉策略更搭配,我预期,双性恋和同性恋群体中发生率会更高。 就是,那些把实名揭发跟无罪推定扯到一起的都是纯傻哔,你被人持刀攻击想要自卫时要不要先喊三遍『未经判决定罪者都是无辜的』? 道德评价这事情,你一旦偏离个体主义立场,就完蛋了,结果肯定一锅粥了,像metoo这种无人组织策划的自发运动,当然不能成为道德评判的对象,只有其中的个体行动才是合格对象,至于这一运动会不会导致某种你不希望(或希望)看到的结果,那是乐见与否的问题,此处没有道德评判的余地,个人只对自己的行动负责(基于可合理预见的后果),这么多实名揭发者,里面肯定有耍流氓的,比如哥伦比亚那个床垫女,但其他揭发者不能仅仅因为和她共用一个推特标签就承担连带责任吧,BTW,知识分子最容易脱离个体主义立场,因为他们喜欢从上帝视角看问题。 有关无罪推定,我再多说几句,我说把这原则扯进来的人蠢,倒不是质疑将该刑事审判原则移用于道德审判是否合适,而是他们根本弄错了适用环节,无罪推定是用来规范陪审团判决的,不是用来约束当事人的自卫、自我救济和控诉行动的,所以即便你想把该原则引入这件事情,也和指控者毫无关系,而只跟有意作出判断的旁观者有关,即,旁观者在看过控诉材料之后,开骂『大流氓、人渣』之前,是不是应该先穷尽一切可接受的辩解理由?或暂缓判断并等待被告提出某种可接受的辩解理由?这倒确实可以讨论。 依我看,这取决于你作出判断之后打算采取何种行动,假如你只是想得到个判断,从而调整自己对当事人的看法,那么证据平衡原则就够了,如果你判断完还要像黄老师那样去抽个耳光,那么标准就该向无罪推定方向靠拢一点,如果只是想骂两句,大概介于两者之间吧……
[译文]一场轰轰烈烈的反娼妓战争

The War on Sex Trafficking Is the New War on Drugs
反性贩运战争就是新的禁毒战争

作者:Elizabeth Nolan Brown @ 2015-11
译者:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
校对:辉格(@whigzhou)
来源:Reason,https://reason.com/archives/2015/09/30/the-war-on-sex-trafficking-is

And the results will be just as disastrous, for “perpetrators” and “victims” alike.
它将走向同样悲惨的结局,对“犯罪者”和“受害者”均是如此。

“Sex Trafficking of Americans: The Girls Next Door.”

“Sex-trafficking sweep nets arrests near Phoenix truck stops.”

“Man becomes 1st jailed under new human trafficking law.”

“性贩运美国人:邻家女孩。”

“凤凰城卡车停靠站附近扫网式逮捕性贩运。”

“性贩运新法实施后首人收监。”

Conduct a Google news search for the word trafficking in 2015 and you’ll find pages of stories about the commercial sex trade, in which hundreds of thousands of U.S. women and children are supposedly trapped by coercion or force.

2015年,在Google上用trafficking一词做新闻搜索,你将找到大量关于商业化性交易故事的页面,据称,成千上万的美国妇女儿童正陷于强制或暴力之困。

A few decades prior, a survey of “trafficking” headlines would have yielded much different results. Back then, newspapers recounted tales of “contemporary Al Capones trafficking illegal drugs to the smallest villages and towns in our heartland,” and of organized “motorcycle gangs” trafficking LSD and hashish.

几十年前,如果对包含“trafficking”一词的头条新闻做一番考察,结果会大不相同。那时候,报纸上详细讲述的是“当代的阿尔·卡彭【译注:Al Capone,上世纪二、三十年代芝加哥黑手党头目】们已将非法毒品贩卖至我们心脏地带的小村小镇”,以及有组织的“摩托党”贩卖LSD和印度大麻。

“Many young black men in the ghetto see the drug trade as the Gold Rush of the 1980s,” the Philadelphia Inquirer told readers in 1988. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) warned of a “nationwide phenomenon” of drug lords abducting young people to force them into the drug trade. Crack kingpins were rumored to target runaways, beating them if they didn’t make drug sales quotas.

1988年,《费城问询报》对读者说:“众多贫民区黑人青年将毒品交易视为1980年代的淘金热。”全国失踪与受剥削儿童中心(NCMEC)曾发出警告称,毒枭们绑架年轻人并强迫他们加入毒品交易是一种“全国性现象”。当时还有传言称,可卡因头目会瞄准离家出走者,如果他们没能售出足额毒品就会殴打他们。

Such articles offered a breathless sense that the drug trade was booming, irresistible to criminals, and in desperate need of child foot soldiers. Lawmakers touted harsher penalties for drug offenses. The war on drugs raged. New task forces were created. Civilians were trained how to “spot” drug traffickers in the wild, and students instructed how to rat out drug-using parents. Politicians spoke of a drug “epidemic” overtaking America, its urgency obviously grounds for anything we could throw its way.

此类文章令人窒息,让人觉得毒品交易兴旺繁荣,能令犯罪分子利欲熏心,且对儿童兵的需求极为迫切。立法者们兜售各种针对毒品犯罪的更严厉惩罚。禁毒战争风起云涌。新的特遣部队成立了。平民受到训练,学习如何在野外“认出”毒品贩子;学生得到指导,学习如何告发吸毒的父母。政客们都在谈论一场正在袭击美国的毒品“传染”,其严峻性使得我们能够采纳的任何阻止措施均有不言而喻的理由。

We know now how that all worked out.

我们如今已知道这些事情的结局如何。

The tactics employed to “get tough” on drugs ended up entangling millions in the criminal justice system, sanctioning increasingly intrusive and violent policing practices, worsening tensions between law enforcement and marginalized communities, and degrading the constitutional rights of all Americans.

为“严打”毒品而采取的种种策略,结果使得数百万人受困于刑事司法系统,鼓励了日益扰民而有害的政策措施,恶化了执法机构与边缘社群之间的紧张关系,并且损害了全体美国人的宪法权利。

Yet even as the drug war’s failures and costs become more apparent, the Land of the Free is enthusiastically repeating the same mistakes when it comes to sex trafficking. This new “epidemic” inspires the same panicked rhetoric and punitive policies the war on drugs did—often for activity that’s every bit as victimless.

但尽管是禁毒战争的失败和代价日益昭然,当遇到性贩运问题时,美国这片自由之地仍旧在满腔热情地重复同样的错误。如同禁毒战争中曾经发生的那样,新的“传染病”鼓动了同样的恐慌修辞,激发了同样的惩罚政策——通常针对的都是从头到尾找不到受害者的行为。

Forcing others into sex or any sort of labor is abhorrent, and it deserves to be t(more...)

标签: | |
7357
The War on Sex Trafficking Is the New War on Drugs 反性贩运战争就是新的禁毒战争 作者:Elizabeth Nolan Brown @ 2015-11 译者:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 校对:辉格(@whigzhou) 来源:Reason,https://reason.com/archives/2015/09/30/the-war-on-sex-trafficking-is And the results will be just as disastrous, for "perpetrators" and "victims" alike. 它将走向同样悲惨的结局,对“犯罪者”和“受害者”均是如此。 "Sex Trafficking of Americans: The Girls Next Door." "Sex-trafficking sweep nets arrests near Phoenix truck stops." "Man becomes 1st jailed under new human trafficking law." “性贩运美国人:邻家女孩。” “凤凰城卡车停靠站附近扫网式逮捕性贩运。” “性贩运新法实施后首人收监。” Conduct a Google news search for the word trafficking in 2015 and you'll find pages of stories about the commercial sex trade, in which hundreds of thousands of U.S. women and children are supposedly trapped by coercion or force. 2015年,在Google上用trafficking一词做新闻搜索,你将找到大量关于商业化性交易故事的页面,据称,成千上万的美国妇女儿童正陷于强制或暴力之困。 A few decades prior, a survey of "trafficking" headlines would have yielded much different results. Back then, newspapers recounted tales of "contemporary Al Capones trafficking illegal drugs to the smallest villages and towns in our heartland," and of organized "motorcycle gangs" trafficking LSD and hashish. 几十年前,如果对包含“trafficking”一词的头条新闻做一番考察,结果会大不相同。那时候,报纸上详细讲述的是“当代的阿尔·卡彭【译注:Al Capone,上世纪二、三十年代芝加哥黑手党头目】们已将非法毒品贩卖至我们心脏地带的小村小镇”,以及有组织的“摩托党”贩卖LSD和印度大麻。 "Many young black men in the ghetto see the drug trade as the Gold Rush of the 1980s," the Philadelphia Inquirer told readers in 1988. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) warned of a "nationwide phenomenon" of drug lords abducting young people to force them into the drug trade. Crack kingpins were rumored to target runaways, beating them if they didn't make drug sales quotas. 1988年,《费城问询报》对读者说:“众多贫民区黑人青年将毒品交易视为1980年代的淘金热。”全国失踪与受剥削儿童中心(NCMEC)曾发出警告称,毒枭们绑架年轻人并强迫他们加入毒品交易是一种“全国性现象”。当时还有传言称,可卡因头目会瞄准离家出走者,如果他们没能售出足额毒品就会殴打他们。 Such articles offered a breathless sense that the drug trade was booming, irresistible to criminals, and in desperate need of child foot soldiers. Lawmakers touted harsher penalties for drug offenses. The war on drugs raged. New task forces were created. Civilians were trained how to "spot" drug traffickers in the wild, and students instructed how to rat out drug-using parents. Politicians spoke of a drug "epidemic" overtaking America, its urgency obviously grounds for anything we could throw its way. 此类文章令人窒息,让人觉得毒品交易兴旺繁荣,能令犯罪分子利欲熏心,且对儿童兵的需求极为迫切。立法者们兜售各种针对毒品犯罪的更严厉惩罚。禁毒战争风起云涌。新的特遣部队成立了。平民受到训练,学习如何在野外“认出”毒品贩子;学生得到指导,学习如何告发吸毒的父母。政客们都在谈论一场正在袭击美国的毒品“传染”,其严峻性使得我们能够采纳的任何阻止措施均有不言而喻的理由。 We know now how that all worked out. 我们如今已知道这些事情的结局如何。 The tactics employed to "get tough" on drugs ended up entangling millions in the criminal justice system, sanctioning increasingly intrusive and violent policing practices, worsening tensions between law enforcement and marginalized communities, and degrading the constitutional rights of all Americans. 为“严打”毒品而采取的种种策略,结果使得数百万人受困于刑事司法系统,鼓励了日益扰民而有害的政策措施,恶化了执法机构与边缘社群之间的紧张关系,并且损害了全体美国人的宪法权利。 Yet even as the drug war's failures and costs become more apparent, the Land of the Free is enthusiastically repeating the same mistakes when it comes to sex trafficking. This new "epidemic" inspires the same panicked rhetoric and punitive policies the war on drugs did—often for activity that's every bit as victimless. 但尽管是禁毒战争的失败和代价日益昭然,当遇到性贩运问题时,美国这片自由之地仍旧在满腔热情地重复同样的错误。如同禁毒战争中曾经发生的那样,新的“传染病”鼓动了同样的恐慌修辞,激发了同样的惩罚政策——通常针对的都是从头到尾找不到受害者的行为。 Forcing others into sex or any sort of labor is abhorrent, and it deserves to be treated like the serious violation it is. But the activity now targeted under anti-trafficking efforts includes everything from offering or soliciting paid sex, to living with a sex worker, to running a classified advertising website. 强迫他人进行性交易或任何种类的劳动都很令人痛恨,理应和其他严重侵害一样得到处理。但目前的反贩运行动的目标所指,则包括了从提供或招揽有偿性行为,到与性工作者同居,再到运营一家分类广告网站等所有一切活动。 What's more, these new laws aren't organic responses by legislators in the face of an uptick in human trafficking activity or inadequate current statutes. They are in large part the result of a decades-long anti-prostitution crusade from Christian "abolitionists" and anti-sex feminists, pushed along by officials who know a good political opportunity when they see it and by media that never met a moral panic they didn't like. 此外,这些新法规并不是立法者在遭遇人口贩运行为增加或现行法律不足问题之后的自然回应。它们大部分都是基督教“废奴主义者”和反性女权主义者数十年来的反卖淫斗争的结果,其推手包括从中看到了良好政治机遇的官员,以及只要有道德恐慌就会来劲的媒体。 The fire is fueled by federal money, which sends police departments and activist groups into a grant-grubbing frenzy. The anti-trafficking movement is "just one big federal grant program," Michael Hudson, a scholar with the conservative Hudson Institute, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "Everybody is more worried about where they're going to get their next grant" than helping victims, Hudson said. 联邦资金则是火上添油,它将各个警局和行动组织都卷入了一场争取拨款的狂潮。保守派智库哈德逊研究所的学者Michael Hudson对《拉斯维加斯评论杂志》说,反贩运行动“只是一个大型联邦拨款项目”。他说:“大家更关心的是到哪里去找下一份拨款”,而不是帮助受害者。 Because of the visceral feelings that the issue of paid sex has always provoked, it's easy for overstatements and false statistics to go unchallenged, winning repetition in congressional hearings and the press. Yet despite all the dire proclamations, there's little evidence of anything approaching an "epidemic" of sexual slavery. 由于有偿性交易通常总能唤起一些本能的道德感,因此,过分夸大和错误统计总是容易避开质疑,得以反复出现在国会听证会和新闻媒体上。然而,尽管存在各种可怕的宣告,并没有什么证据表明性奴役这一“传染病”正在发生。 THE NUMBERS DON'T ADD UP 经不起推敲的数字 From 2000 to 2002, the State Department claimed that 50,000 people were trafficked into the U.S. each year for forced sex or labor. By 2003, the agency reduced this estimate to 18,000–20,000, further reducing it to 14,500–17,500 in subsequent reports. That's a 71 percent decrease in just five years, though officials offered no explanation as to how they arrived at these numbers or what accounted for the drastic change. These days, federal agencies tend to stick to the vague "thousands" when discussing numbers of incoming victims. 自2000年至2002年,国务院宣称,每年有5万人被贩运到美国从事强迫性行为或强迫劳动。到2003年,该机构将这一估计缩小到18000到20000人,在后续的报告中又进一步缩小为14500到17500人。五年间降低了71%,尽管官方没有给出解释说明他们是如何得出这些数字以及为何变化如此之大。现在,在讨论入境受害者数量时,联邦机构更愿意坚持使用模糊的“数千”一词。 Globally, some 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates. But the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2006 described this figure as "questionable" due to "methodological weaknesses, gaps in data, and numerical discrepancies," including the rather astonishing fact that "the U.S. government's estimate was developed by one person who did not document all his work." And even if he had, there would still be good reasons to doubt the quality of the data, which were compiled from a range of nonprofits, governments, and international organizations, all of which use different definitions of "trafficking." 全球来看,据国土安全部(DHS)估计,每年约有60至80万人遭到跨国界贩运。但政府问责办公室(GAO)2006年曾说,这一数字是“有问题的”,原因在于“方法论缺陷、数据缺失以及数值矛盾”,其中还包括一个令人乍舌的事实——“美国政府的这项估计是由一个人完成的,而且他并没有对其所有工作存档”。即便他存档了,我们也有很好的理由怀疑数据的质量,因为它们收集自各种各样的非营利组织、政府机构和国际组织,运用的“贩运”定义各不相同。 Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post's "Fact Checker" columnist, began digging into government-promulgated sex-slavery numbers last spring and discovered just how dubious many of them are. "Because sex trafficking is considered horrific, politicians appear willing to cite the flimsiest and most poorly researched statistics—and the media is content to treat the claims as solid facts," Kessler concluded in June. 《华盛顿邮报》的“事实核查者”专栏作家Glenn Kessler去年春开始钻研政府发布的性奴役数字,发现大量数字无比可疑。六月份,Kessler总结到:“由于性贩运被认为是骇人听闻的,所以政治家们似乎都愿意引用一些最经不起推敲、研究质量最糟糕的统计数字——而媒体则很乐意将这些断言当做确凿事实。” For instance, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D–Ohio) declared in a May statement that "in the U.S., some 300,000 children are at risk each year for commercial sexual exploitation." Rep. Ann Wagner (R–Mo.) made a similar statement that month at a congressional hearing, claiming the statistic came from the Department of Justice (DOJ). The New York Times has also attributed this number to the DOJ, while Fox News raised the number to 400,000 and sourced it to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). 比如,众议员Joyce Beatty(民主党—俄亥俄)在五月份的一份声明中宣称,“在美国,每年约有30万儿童遭遇商业化性剥削的威胁。”同月,众议员Ann Wagner(民主党—密苏里)在一场国会听证会上做出了类似声明,宣称统计数据来自司法部(DOJ)。《纽约时报》也将这一数字溯源于司法部,而《福克斯新闻》则将数字提升到40万,并将来源定为卫生部(HHS)。 But not only are these not DOJ or HHS figures, they're based on 1990s data published in a non-peer-reviewed paper that the primary researcher, Richard Estes, no longer endorses. The authors of that study came up with their number by speculating that certain situations—i.e., living in public housing, being a runaway, having foreign parents—place minors at risk of potential exploitation by sex traffickers. They then simply counted up the number of kids in those situations. To make a bad measure worse, anyone who fell into more than one category was counted multiple times. 然而,它们不仅不是司法部或卫生部提供的数字,而是基于一个1990年代发表于一篇未经同行评议的论文中的数据,而且其主要研究者Richard Estes现在都不再支持这一数据。完成该研究的几位作者如此推测:某些特定情形——如居住于廉租房、离家出走或父母为外国人等——会使未成年人面临被性贩子剥削的潜在风险,并由此来得出他们的数字。然后,他们就简单地把所有遭遇这类情形的孩子数量进行了一下加总。使这一糟糕估算变得更加糟糕的是,每个同时属于多种情形类别的人都被多次计算了。 "PLEASE DO NOT CITE THESE NUMBERS," wrote Michelle Stransky and David Finkelhor of the respected Crimes Against Children Research Center in 2008. "The reality is that we do not currently know how many juveniles are involved in prostitution. Scientifically credible estimates do not exist." Michelle Stransky和David Finkelhor在2008年曾写道:“请不要引用这些数字”,两人均是广受尊敬的“针对儿童犯罪研究中心”成员。“现实情况是,我们目前并不知道有多少青少年卷入了卖淫业。科学上可信的估算尚不存在。” A lengthy 2013 report on child sex trafficking from the Justice Department concluded that "no reliable national estimate exists of the incidence or prevalence of commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of minors in the United States." 司法部2013年的一份关于儿童性贩运的长篇报告得出结论:“关于美国境内涉及未成年人的商业化性剥削和性贩运的发生频率或普遍程度,尚没有可靠的全国性估算。” Common sense should preclude believing the 300,000 number in the first place. If even a third of those "at risk" youth were peddled for sex in a given year, we'd be looking at nearly 110,000 victims. And since advocates often claim that victims are forced to have sex with 10, 20, or 30 clients a day, that would be—using the lowest number—1.1 million commercial child rapes in America each day. Even if we assume that child rapists are typically repeat customers, averaging one assault per week, that would still mean nearly 8 million Americans have a robust and ongoing child rape habit, in addition to the alleged millions who pay for sex with adults. 本来,从一开始,常识就应该能够阻止人们相信30万这个数字。即便这些“有风险”的少年人某年只有三分之一遭遇性贩运,我们看到的就会是11万受害者。又由于鼓吹者们通常宣称受害者被迫每天接客10、20、30人,那就是说,美国每天发生——用最小值计算——110万起商业性的强奸儿童案。即便我们假定儿童强奸犯都是典型的回头客,平均每周犯案一次,那也将意味着有近800万美国人拥有强烈且持久的儿童强奸嗜好,此外据称还有数百万美国人与成人发生过有偿性行为。 Common sense should also immediately cast doubt on another frequently cited statistic: that the average age at which females become victims of sex trafficking is 13. "If you think about it for half a minute, this statistic makes little sense," wrote Kessler. "After all, if it is the 'average,' then for all those who entered trafficking at age 16 or 17, there have to be nearly equivalent numbers who entered at age 9 or 10. But no one seriously believes that." 本来,常识还应该能够迅速令人对另一个经常被引用的统计数据起疑:女性成为性贩运受害者的平均年龄是13岁。“只要你花半分钟时间想想,这个数据就完全说不通”,Kessler写到,“要知道,如果它确实是‘平均数’,那么对应于所有那些16或17岁时遭遇贩运的人,必须得有几乎同等数量的人在9或10岁时就有此遭遇。没人会真诚的相信这一点。” Still, the obvious implausibility of the statistic—and its routine debunking—hasn't stopped it from reaching the upper echelons of public discourse. Kessler's own Washington Post ran it uncritically in 2014. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.) made the claim on the Senate floor this year, citing the FBI. 这种数据明显不可信,且反复遭到驳斥,然而,这仍然无法阻止它们进入公共讨论的顶层。Kessler所在的《华盛顿邮报》本身就在2014年不加鉴别地登载过这一数据。今年,参议员Amy Klobuchar(民主党—明尼苏达)在参议院也做出同样的断言,引用的是FBI。 The DHS also asserts that "the average age a child is trafficked into the commercial sex trade is between 11 and 14 years old," sourcing it to the DOJ and the government's NCMEC. Yet none of these federal agencies take responsibility for this stat. 同样,卫生部也声称“儿童被贩运进入商业化性交易的平均年龄在11至14岁之间”,并称其来源为司法部政府的全国失踪与受剥削儿童中心。然而,上述联邦机构中没有一个表示为这一数据负责。 When Kessler followed the facts down the rabbit hole, the original source in all cases was...the self-disowned Estes paper, in which interviews with 107 teens doing street-based prostitution in the 1990s determined that their average age of entry into the business was 13. 当Kessler追问事实,一直钻进“兔子洞”【译注:《爱丽丝漫游奇境记》典故】之后,才发现所有这些证词的最初来源都是……Estes那篇已被作者本人否定的论文;在该文中,针对1990年代107位从事站街卖淫活动的青少年的访谈就确定了他们的平均入行年龄为13岁。 "So one government agency appears to cite two other government entities—but in the end the source of the data is the same discredited and out-of-date academic paper," wrote Kessler. "It would be amusing if it were not so sad." “所以,看似是一个政府机构引用另外两个政府部门——但最终的数据来源则是同一篇已遭否定的过时学术论文,”Kessler写到,“真是令人啼笑皆非。” Author and former sex worker Maggie McNeill has traced other uses of the age-13 figure back to a similarly narrow and unrepresentative study, this one looking at underage streetwalkers in 1982 San Francisco ("Victimization of Street Prostitutes" by M.H. Silbert and A.M. Pines). Among these interview subjects from three decades ago, the average age of their first noncommercial sexual experience was 13. The average age of entry into prostitution was 16, and the report made no mention of sex trafficking at all. 从前曾为性工作者的作家Maggie McNeill也追踪考察了其它对于13岁这个数据的用法,发现它源自一个同样狭隘且不具代表性的研究。该项研究考察的是旧金山1982年的未成年街头妓女(M. H. Silbert和A. M. Pines的《街头卖淫的牺牲》)。在这些三十年前的受访者中,第一次非商业的性经历平均发生于13岁时。进入卖淫业的平均年龄是16岁,并且这篇报告压根没有提及性贩运。 Surveys of adults working in the U.S. sex trade have yielded much higher average starting ages. A 2014 Urban Institute study involving 38 sex workers found that only four began before age 15, 10 started between the ages of 15 and 17, another four started in their 30s, and the remaining 20 began sex work between the ages of 18 and 29. A 2011 study, this one from Arizona State University, found that of more than 400 women arrested for prostitution in Phoenix, the average age of entry was about 25. 针对美国成年性交易从业者的研究得出的首次从业年龄要高得多。城市研究所2014年一项涉及38位性工作者的研究发现,只有4个入行年龄小于15岁,有10个开始于15至17岁,另有4个是30岁后才开始的,剩下的20个是在18至29岁之间开始从事性工作。另一项亚利桑拿州立大学2011年所做的研究发现,在凤凰城因卖淫被捕的400多名妇女中,平均入行年龄约为25岁。 "Regardless of whether the number is 300,000 or 30,000, something must be done to protect these children at risk of exploitation and trafficking," said Moira Bagley Smith, a spokeswoman for Rep. Wagner, when Kessler challenged the figure. But it's exactly this kind of thinking that inflicts real-world policy damage. 当Kessler对前述数据提出质疑时,众议员Wagner的发言人Moria Bagley Smith说:“不管数字是30万还是3万,我们必须采取适当措施来保护这些处于被剥削和被贩运风险中的儿童。”但正是这种思维方式导致了真实世界的政策代价。 Whether there are 30,000 or 300,000 crime victims makes a great deal of difference in terms of fashioning an appropriate response, as does the context of the victims' circumstances. Separating the mythology of sex trafficking from the facts is crucial for addressing problems as they exist, not problems as we might want, fear, or imagine them to be. 在设计恰当的应对办法时,犯罪受害者是3万还是30万,区别很大,正如受害人的环境背景影响很大一样。将有关性贩运的神话和事实加以区分,对于处理现实存在的问题——而非我们想要、惧怕或者想象中的问题——至关重要。 WILLFUL HYPERBOLE 恣意夸张 A 2010 study from Rutgers University professors James Finckenauer and Ko-lin Chin took an in-depth look at Chinese women working in America's illicit massage parlors, which are routinely denounced by politicians as hotbeds of sexual slavery. 罗格斯大学James Finckenauer和Ko-lin Chin教授2010年的一项研究深入考察了在美国非法按摩院中工作的中国妇女;此类按摩院经常被政客们指斥为性奴役的温床。 Indeed, Finckenauer noted that 93 percent of the women he interviewed would be considered sex trafficking victims under common legal definitions, which include any person who arrives in a foreign country for sex work regardless of whether force or coercion is involved. 事实上,Finckenauer指出,在他所访谈的妇女中,有93%会被通行的法律定义界定为性贩运受害者,因为这一定义包括了进入异国从事性工作的任何人,不管其中有没有涉及暴力或强制。 Yet not one of the 149 Chinese women interviewed said she was sold into prostitution, and only one reported being forced or coerced into it. "There is more diversity among the parties involved in prostitution than is commonly supposed, and to portray them all in the same way as victims is an oversimplification," the researchers concluded. 但受访的149位中国妇女中,没有一位说自己是被卖为妓女的,且只有一位报告说自己是被殴打或强制沦为妓女的。两位研究者的结论是:“卖淫业涉及的各方参与者比通常所认为的具有更多的差异性,以同一种方式将他们作为受害者来描绘,这是一种过分简化。” Under federal law and most state laws, anyone under 18 who is engaged in prostitution is considered a sex trafficking victim. But study after study has found most youths in the sex trade do not have "pimps." And if they are forced or coerced into the work, it's often at the hands of a family member or romantic partner, not some child-snatching stranger. 在联邦法律和绝大多数州法之下,18岁以下从事卖淫业的任何人都被视为性贩运受害者。但一项又一项研究都发现,性行业中的绝大多数少年人都没有“皮条”。如果他们是被强制或胁迫进入这一行的,那么施暴者通常是某个家庭成员或情人,而非绑架儿童的陌生人。 trafficking-coercion Pimps themselves claim to steer clear of underage sex workers. In interviews with 73 people who had been incarcerated for crimes such as promoting, profiting from, or compelling prostitution, the Urban Institute found that most tried to avoid business relationships with teens (though these respondents, along with the police officers Urban interviewed, also claimed it was common for teenagers to lie about their ages). 皮条客自己也宣称,他们会避开未成年性工作者。城市研究所曾对73个因助推卖淫、获利于卖淫或强迫卖淫等类罪行而入狱的罪犯进行访谈,发现其中绝大多数都避免和青少年建立业务关系(当然这些受访者和城市研究所访问的警官们也都提到,青少年谎报年龄的情况很常见)。 "I was determined to stay away from the younger bitches; 16 gets you 20," said one respondent. "Bitch better have a felony charge and stretch marks to mess with me," said another. "I know she is grown and been to jail." 某受访者说:“远离低龄婊子,这一点我很坚决;16岁能给你带来20年牢。”另一个则说:“要跟我搞,那些婊子最好能身背重罪、长妊娠纹”,“这样我就知道她是成人,坐过牢”。 "This particular business ain't about pimps going to high school and recruiting a girl," said a third. "Government don't understand how this game original come about. Girl run away from home, look older than what she is. They think pimps are going out and enticing them." 另有一个则说:“这个特殊行当,不是说皮条客去高中招募少女”,“政府没搞明白这个游戏是怎么来的。这帮女孩自己跑出家门,打扮得比实际成熟。政府觉得是皮条客们四处出动、诱拐少女。” By any estimation, teen runaways make up a major proportion of underage individuals in prostitution, forced or otherwise. Runaways are especially likely to engage in what sociologists call "survival sex"—exchanging sex not for a set fee, but for food and a place to crash. 无论采取何种方式估计,离家出走的青少年都是从事卖淫的未成年人(无论被迫与否)的主要部分。离家出走者特别容易加入社会学家所称的“生存卖淫”——并不是为了固定的价格而出卖肉体,而是为了食物或过夜之处。 Sixty-eight percent of minors engaged in street-based prostitution in New York City say they've sought help from youth services organizations, according to Kate D'Adamo of the Sex Workers Project. "New York City funds roughly 200 beds for a population of 4,000 unaccompanied, homeless youth," D'Adamo told TechCrunch. "When all the beds are full, it is street economies like the sex trade which they turn to in order to provide basic needs. If we want to identify the most vulnerable, all we have to do is provide support when someone stands up and says 'I need a place to sleep tonight.'" 据“性工作者计划”的Kate D'Adamo所说,在纽约市从事站街卖淫的未成年人中,有68%自称曾向青年服务组织寻求帮助。D'Adamo向科技博客TechCrunch说:“纽约市向4000名孤独无家的年轻人资助提供了约200个床位”,“如果床位满了,为了满足基本需求,这些人就会求助于街头经济如性交易。如果我们想要找出最容易受害的人,我们只要做到一条:有人站起来说‘我今晚需要找个地方睡’的时候,我们能提供些帮助。” Instead, we fund police task forces to monitor Internet ads for weeks in search of suspect code words or tattoos. We pass laws mandating more prison time for pimps. We set up elaborate sting operations for both sex workers and their customers. 然而,我们却在资助警察特遣队持续数周对网络广告进行监视,搜寻可疑的暗号或纹身。我们立法要求延长皮条客坐牢年限。我们精心设计种种针对性工作者及其顾客的诱捕行动。 We hang "Are you being trafficked?" signs at strip clubs and highway rest stops, and train airport staff on how they can spot the signs of sex trafficking. We act as if sex traffickers are organized, jet-setting, diabolical, and legion. We are chasing our own mythology, to the detriment of actual results. 我们在脱衣舞酒吧和高速公路停车区悬挂“你是否遭到贩运?”的标牌,向机场工作人员提供如何发现性贩运迹象的培训。我们采取种种行为,好像性贩子们组织严密、生活奢华、暴虐残忍且数量众多一样。我们所追捕的,只是我们自己编的神话,真正的结果则是有害的。 A look at human trafficking investigations in the U.S. makes this clear. In July 2015, for instance, Homeland Security, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and other Arizona state agencies conducted a joint "human trafficking enforcement operation" that involved randomly stopping commercial trucks as well as running the license plates of passersby. 看看美国的人口贩运调查就清楚了。比如,国土安全部、亚利桑那州公共安全部及其它州政府机构于2015年7月共同实施了一项“人口贩运执法行动”,措施是随机拦截商用货车并检查过路者的牌照。 The 30-agent, nine-hour stunt resulted in 28 stops, the checking of 5,576 license plates...and zero arrests for human trafficking. Police did arrest one woman for prostitution, however, and are continuing to investigate another who said she worked in "adult entertainment." 这场由30名执法官持续9小时的噱头行动拦截车辆28次,检查牌照5576次……而因贩运人口被捕的人数为零。不过,确实有一名女性因卖淫而被警察逮捕,另一名自称从事“成人娱乐”的妇女也将继续接受调查。 Last April, the FBI released its first crime data on state-based trafficking investigations. In the 13 states reporting for last year, law enforcement looked into a total of 14 human trafficking incidents, ultimately making a grand total of four arrests. 去年四月,FBI首次发布了各州贩运调查的犯罪数据。在去年提交报告的13个州中,执法者总共调查了14起人口贩运案件,最终共计拘捕4人。 Between 2008 and 2010, federally funded task forces investigated 2,515 suspected incidents of human trafficking, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. An "investigation" was defined as "any effort in which the task force spent at least one hour investigating" the incident. Of these cases, only 6 percent led to arrests. 根据司法统计局数据,在2008至2010年间,得到联邦资金资助的特遣部队共调查了2515起涉嫌人口贩运的案件。其中“调查”的定义是,“特遣部队至少花了一个小时来努力调查”某案件。在这些案子中,只有6%以拘捕结束。 From 2007 to fall 2008, federal dollars funded 38 sex-trafficking task forces, of which 15 found no confirmed victims or suspects, 14 reported between one and four cases, and nine reported more than five. Of the total 1,229 suspected incidents that year, sex cops found just 14 underage victims. 自2007年至2008年秋,联邦为38个性贩运特遣部队提供了资金,其中的15个没有发现任何经确认的受害者或嫌疑人,有14个报告了1至4起案子,9个所报案件在5个以上。在当年共计1229件涉嫌案件中,性警察们只找出了14名未成年受害人。 "Given the obstacles to locating victims in black markets" some disparity between estimated numbers and confirmed cases should be expected, wrote the sociologist Ronald Weitzer in a 2011 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology paper. But "a huge disparity between the two should at least raise questions about the alleged scale of victimization." 2011年,社会学家Ronald Weitzer在《刑法与犯罪学杂志》上的一篇论文中写道:“考虑到在黑市中找受害者要面临种种障碍”,估算数字和确证案件之前存在一定差别,这是可以预料的。但是,“两者之间的巨大悬殊至少应该引发人们的疑惑,反思此前宣称的受害者规模。” UNNECESSARY LEGISLATION 毫无必要的立法 Of all the myths and misinformation about sex trafficking in America, the most pernicious may be that our current laws are insufficient. Pushing his new Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, which passed last May, Sen. John Cornyn (R–Texas) declared that it would "provide law enforcement with the tools" to hold human traffickers accountable. 在关于美国性贩运的种种迷思和误报中,最有害的可能是,宣称现行法律不完善。参议员John Cornyn(共和党—德州)在推动其《贩运受害者正义法案》这一新法(已于今年五月通过)时曾宣称,该法案将“为执法机构提供了工具”,使他们能将人贩子绳之以法。 Another co-sponsor, Sen. Mark Kirk (R–Ill.), said the bill "gives police and prosecutors the tools they need to go after sex traffickers." Such statements—and there are plenty more—imply that we currently lack tough anti-trafficking laws. Yet for at least 15 years, federal policy makers and agencies have been continually strengthening these laws and increasing funding for their enforcement. 另一名联署人,参议员Mark Kirk(共和党—伊利诺伊),则称该法案“向警察和检察官们提供了追捕性贩子所必须的工具”。这些说法——还有很多——暗示,我们原先缺乏严厉的反贩运法规。然后,至少在过去15年间,联邦政策制定者和联邦机构一直在持续强化此类法律,并不断增加其执法资金。 Things really got going with the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) in 2000, though before this federal agents could bring human trafficking charges under various statutes, including the Mann Act (passed in 1910 to prohibit transporting a minor across state lines for the purposes of engaging in prostitution), the Tariff Act (passed in 1930 to ban importing goods made with forced or indentured labor), and various laws related to peonage, indentured servitude, and slavery. 这事在2000年就已经真正启动,当年通过了《贩运受害者保护法案》(TVPA);即便在此之前,联邦机构也能通过各种不同法令对人口贩运提起控告,包括《曼恩法案》(1910年通过,禁止州际之间运送未成年人为娼)、《关税法案》(1930年通过,禁止进口由强迫劳工或契约奴工制造的产品)及其它各种与劳动偿债制、契约奴工制和奴隶制有关的法律。 But the TVPA, signed by President Bill Clinton in the waning days of his presidency, specifically established as federal crimes "forced labor," "sex trafficking," and "unlawful conduct with respect to documents in furtherance of trafficking." It also created a national Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, and gave the feds authority to seize traffickers' assets. 但是,由比尔·克林顿总统在其任期的没落时期所签署的《贩运受害者保护法案》,明确将“强迫劳动”、“性贩运”和“事涉各类文件的助推贩运的非法行为”确定为联邦犯罪。它还创设了一个全国性的“监测和打击人口贩运办公室”,并授权联邦政府官员可没收人贩子的财产。 The TVPA's 2003 reauthorization gave law enforcement the ability to use wiretapping to investigate sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation, increased the minimum and maximum sentencing requirements for a variety of sex offenses, and instituted a "two strikes, you're out" rule requiring mandatory life imprisonment upon a second sex offense involving a minor, "unless the sentence of death is imposed." 《贩运受害者保护法案》的2003年再授权法案赋予执法机构以监听调查性贩运和儿童性剥削的能力,提高了一系列性侵犯的最低和最高刑罚要求,并建立了一条“两次就出局”的规则,要求对涉及未成年人的性侵犯再犯实施刚性的终身监禁,“除非已经处以死刑”。 The 2005 reauthorization added human trafficking to crimes that can trigger the federal Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, expanded asset forfeiture possibilities, and directed the CIA to study "the interrelationship between trafficking in persons and terrorism." It also increased funding for the prosecution of "persons who engage in the purchase of commercial sex acts." 2005年的再授权法案将人口贩运添加到了可以触发联邦《反欺诈与腐败组织》(RICO)法的罪行之列,扩大了财产没收的可能性,并命令CIA研究“人口贩运与恐怖主义之间的相互关系”。它还为起诉“参与购买商业化性行为的人”增加了资金。 In 2008, legislators enhanced criminal penalties for human trafficking and expanded what qualifies to include several new areas, including anyone who "obstructs, attempts to obstruct, or in any way interferes with or prevents the enforcement of" anti-trafficking laws. It specified that in minor sex trafficking cases, "The Government need not prove that the defendant knew that the person had not attained the age of 18 years." And it significantly increased federal funding—doubling some appropriations and more than tripling others—for anti-trafficking efforts at home and abroad. The 2013 reauthorization increased federal involvement with state and local anti-trafficking efforts. 2008年,立法者提高了人口贩运的刑事惩罚,并扩大了限定条件,使之包含了几个新的领域,包括任何“阻扰、试图阻扰或以任何方式干扰或阻止”反贩运法规“实施”的人。它明确,在未成年性贩运案件中,“政府无需证明被告人知道该人未满18岁。”并且显著增加了国内外反贩运斗争的联邦资金——部分拨款是此前的两倍、其它则是此前的三倍以上。2013年的再授权法案增加了联邦在各州和各地方反贩运斗争中的参与度。 This year's Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act made soliciting paid sex from a minor a form of federal sex trafficking; established a Domestic Trafficking Victims' Fund into which anyone convicted of trafficking must pay $5,000; and lowered the evidentiary standard for proving trafficking charges. 今年的《贩运受害者正义法案》把引诱未成年人从事有偿性交易确定为联邦性贩运的一种形式;建立了一个“国内贩运受害者基金”,每个被定罪的人贩子都必须向其缴纳5000美元;并降低了证明贩运指控的证据标准。 The act also established that websites and publishers—from classified ad sites such as Craigslist to social media services such as Twitter and Reddit—may be charged with sex trafficking if any victim is found to have advertised there. And it created a "HERO corps" of military veterans who will work with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents to fight cybercrime, including "digital intellectual property theft" and "hidden marketplaces." 这一法案还明确,网站和出版商——从分类广告网站如Craigslist到社交媒体服务如Twitter和Reddit——一旦被发现有曾登过任何受害者的广告,则有可能面临性贩运指控。它还组建了一队由退伍老兵组成的“英雄警察”,与移民和海关执法局官员合作打击网络犯罪,包括“数字知识产权盗窃”和“隐蔽市场”。 trafficking-age Sen. Cornyn called it a "first step." 参议员Cornyn把这称为“第一步”。 The State Department's 2014 Trafficking in Persons report states explicitly that our current penalties for human trafficking "are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with penalties prescribed for other serious offenses." Penalties for forced labor, involuntary servitude, or peonage range from five to 20 years without aggravating factors; possible life imprisonment with them. Sex traffickers can receive up to life imprisonment, and are required to serve at least 10 years in prison if the victim is under 17 and 15 years if the victim is under 14. Victims may also independently file a civil cause of action; something 117 have done since 2003, with a 75 percent success rate. 国务院2014年《人口贩运》报告明确说明,我们对于人口贩运的现行惩罚“足够严厉,与为其它严重罪行规定的惩罚相当。”在没有加刑因素的情况下,对于强迫劳动、非自愿劳役或劳役偿债的惩罚是5到20年;如果有加刑因素,可判终身监禁。性贩子最高可获终身监禁;如果受害者小于17岁,要求至少狱中服刑10年;如果受害者小于14岁,则是15年。受害者还可以独立提起民事诉讼;自2003年以来已有大概117起,其中75%成功。 In addition to federal anti-trafficking laws, states have been adopting a flurry of their own measures. In 2014 alone, 31 states passed new laws concerning human trafficking. Since the start of 2015, at least 22 states have done so. 在联邦反贩运法律之外,各州本身也一直在采用大量措施。仅2014年就有31个州通过了涉及人口贩运的新法律。2015年开年以来,已有至少22个州这么做了。 Echoing the policy choices of the drug war, one common trend in these laws has been harsher sentences for trafficking offenses, including new mandatory minimums. In Florida, helping a minor engage in prostitution in any way now comes with mandatory life imprisonment. In Louisiana, labor trafficking of a minor comes with a five-year mandatory minimum, and sex trafficking of a minor 15 years. In New Jersey, soliciting a minor for paid sex comes with a minimum $15,000 fine. Some states have also started adding "aggravating" factors that trigger higher penalties, such as the offense taking place within a certain distance of a school or group home. 如同禁毒战争中的政策选择一样,上述法律中的一个普遍趋势是,对贩运罪行采取更为严厉的刑罚,包括制定新的刚性最低刑期。在弗罗里达州,以任何方式协助未成年人进入卖淫业如今都将面临刚性终身监禁。在路易斯安那州,贩运未成年劳动力将面临最少5年的刚性刑期,而性贩运未成年人则是15年。在新泽西州,引诱未成年人进行有偿性交易将面临最低15000美元的罚款。有些州还开始增加能够触发更高刑罚的“加刑”因素,包括侵害发生于离学校或集体宿舍一定距离以内。 trafficking-wiretapping Another trend is adding trafficking-related offenses to those that get perps on sex-offender registries. Last January, Arkansas passed a bill requiring anyone convicted of trafficking in persons or "patronizing a victim of human trafficking" to register as a sex offender. Increasing criminal penalties on patrons, or "johns," has been hot in state legislatures, too. 另一个趋势是,将与贩运有关的犯罪行为归为需要对罪犯进行性犯罪者登记之列。去年一月,阿肯色州通过一项法案,要求一旦被定罪为贩运人口或“光顾人口贩运受害者”,就必须登记为性犯罪者。对顾客即“嫖客”加重刑事惩罚也一直是各州立法的热点。 In 21 states, "sex trafficking laws have been amended or originally enacted with the intent to decisively reach the action of buyers of sex," according to the anti-trafficking nonprofit Shared Hope International. In 2014, Michigan changed soliciting someone under 18 for sex from a misdemeanor to a felony sex offense. Florida recently stipulated that people found guilty of soliciting prostitution (from someone of any age) must do 100 hours of community service and attend "john school," where they will be educated on "the negative effects of prostitution and human trafficking." 据反贩运非营利组织“国际共同希望”称,在21个州中,“对性贩运法律的修订或全新颁布,意在决定性地打击性服务买家的行为。”2014年,密歇根州将引诱未满18岁者发生性关系由轻罪改为性侵犯重罪。弗罗里达州最近规定,犯有招妓罪(无论对象是何年龄)的人都必须做满100小时社区服务,并参加“嫖客学校”,在里面接受有关“卖淫和人口贩运的负面影响”的教育。 trafficking-asset Expanding police/prosecutorial power to fight and profit from trafficking is also common. At least 21 states now allow police to use wiretapping in trafficking investigations. And many states allow asset forfeiture for those convicted of sex trafficking or prostitution. For instance, in Colorado, "every building or part of a building including the ground upon which it is situated and all fixtures and contents thereof, every vehicle, and any real property" are up for grabs if they've been used in conjunction with prostitution of any kind. 扩大警察和检察官打击贩运并从中获利的权力,这种做法也很常见。至少有21个州现已允许警察在贩运调查中使用监听手段。此外,许多州允许对获得性贩运或卖淫定罪的人实施财产没收。比如,在科罗拉多州,“每栋建筑或建筑的任一部分,包括建筑所在的土地,以及此建筑内的所有固定装置和内容物品,每辆车和所有不动产”都可以被拿走,只要它们曾被用于任何形式的卖淫活动。 The final category of popular new state laws seems predominantly concerned with "raising awareness," be it via classes for hotel employees, programs in school curricula, or signs posted in strip clubs. Dozens of states now require certain entities—from adult-entertainment businesses and job-placement firms to hospitals, rest stops, and airports—to post the National Human Trafficking Hotline number, or face penalties. In Georgia, failure to do so can result in fines of between $500 and $5,000. 各州流行的最后一类新法似乎主要注重“提高觉悟”,可能是通过为宾馆雇员开培训班,在学校课程中设置有关课程,或在脱衣舞夜总会悬挂标牌等。如今已有几十个州要求某些机构——从成人娱乐行业和职业介绍所到医院、停车场和机场——张贴“全国人口贩运热线”电话,否则就会被罚款。在佐治亚州,没做到这一点可能面临500至5000美元的罚款。 Federal agencies are also in the trafficking publicity game. In July 2015, the DHS announced the expansion of "awareness efforts to major airports, truck stops, and motorist gas stations across the country," where it will fund messages describing "the signs of human trafficking" on signs, video monitors, and shopping bags. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission conducted more than 250 human trafficking "outreach events" in 2013 alone. 联邦机构也参加了这一对人口贩运进行曝光的游戏。2015年7月,卫生部宣布要“在全国的主要机场、货车停车区和机动车加油站扩大提高觉悟的工作”,它将提供资金,在这些地方的标牌、显示器和购物袋上发布信息,内容则是“关于人口贩运的标志”。就业机会平等委员会仅2013年就举办了250多场人口贩运“宣讲活动”。 REFRAMING PROSTITUTION 重新界定卖淫 If there's no empirical evidence that domestic human trafficking is increasing, and the State Department says we already have adequate laws to go after traffickers, then what's driving this current legislative frenzy? 如果没有经验证据表明国内人口贩运在增加,且国务院说过我们已有足够法律来追捕人贩子,那么究竟是什么东西在驱动当下的这场立法狂潮? One factor is opposition to prostitution, even between consenting adults. Since the 1990s, a coalition of Christian and radical feminist activists has been working to redefine all prostitution as sex trafficking. While the Clinton administration was unsympathetic to their efforts, they found a friend in President George W. Bush. 其中一个因素是对卖淫(即便是成人之间的自愿卖淫)的反对。自1990年代以来,由基督徒和激进女权主义者结成的联盟一直在努力,试图将所有卖淫都重新界定为性贩运。克林顿政府对这一活动并不热心,但他们在小布什总统那里找到了知音。 In a 2002 National Security Presidential Directive, the White House stated that prostitution was "inherently harmful and dehumanizing." Hence the administration's new rule: Non-governmental organizations receiving federal funds to fight human trafficking (or AIDS) must explicitly oppose prostitution. 在2002年的一份国土安全总统指令中,白宫宣布卖淫“本质上有害且令人丧失人性”。于是有了该届政府的新规则:接受联邦资金从事反人口贩运(或反艾滋病)事业的非政府组织必须明确反对卖淫。 "Prostitution is not the oldest profession, but the oldest form of oppression," a State Department publication from 2004 reads. The agency stated that "the vast majority of women in prostitution don't want to be there," that "few activities are as brutal and damaging to people as prostitution," and that "prostitution leaves women and children physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually devastated," with damage that "can never be undone." “卖淫并非最古老的职业,而是最古老的压迫形式”,国务院2004年的一份出版物如是说。该机构称,“从事卖淫的绝大部分女性都不愿意如此”,且“没有什么行为比卖淫更残忍、对人更具损害性”,以及“卖淫让妇女和儿童在生理上、心理上、情感上以及精神上受到摧残”,其伤害“永不可能恢复”。 "Since the early 2000s, anti-prostitution policies at the federal level have translated into increasingly aggressive state and local-level policing of sex workers and their customers," wrote Kari Lerum, Kiesha McCurtis, Penelope Saunders, and Stephanie Wahab in a 2012 article for Anti-Trafficking Review. Kari Lerum、Kiesha McCurtis、Penelope Saunders和Stephanie Wahab 2012年发表于《反贩运评论》上的一篇文章写道:“自21世纪初以来,联邦层面的反卖淫政策已经转变为州层面和地方层面针对性工作者及其顾客的日益严厉的整顿。” This conflation of trafficking and prostitution "has allowed for federal dollars to be used locally for anti-prostitution purposes," the authors noted. "Anti-trafficking raids, such as Operation Cross Country held annually since 2006, have resulted in the arrest of many sex workers nationwide using federal anti-trafficking dollars." 上述几位作者提到,这种对人口贩运和卖淫的归并处理,“已使得各地方将联邦资金用在了反卖淫这一目的上”,“反贩运搜查,比如自2006年以来每年进行的‘横越美国行动’,花费了联邦反贩运资金,结果只是全国范围内众多性工作者被捕。” The goal of Operation Cross Country, according to the FBI's website, is "to recover victims of child sex trafficking." In 2014, more than a dozen cities took part. Knoxville, Tennessee, to cite one participant, uncovered zero underage victims of sex trafficking, but it did arrest eight women for prostitution, four women for promoting prostitution, two women for human trafficking, and four men for solicitation. 根据FBI网站,“横越美国行动”的目标,是“找回儿童性贩运的受害者”。2014年有十几个城市参加了这一行动。只举一个参与城市为例,田纳西州的Knoxville,没有找到一个未成年的性贩运受害者,但确实因卖淫逮捕了8名妇女,因协助卖淫逮捕了2名妇女,因贩卖人口逮捕了2名妇女,因引诱卖淫逮捕了4名男子。 In Newark, New Jersey, one 14-year-old victim was identified and 45 people were arrested for prostitution or pimping. Richmond, Virginia, found no child victims but charged 26 people with prostitution and two with pimping. In Atlanta, dozens were arrested for prostitution, loitering, soliciting, and drug possession. 在新泽西州的Newark,确认了一名14岁的受害者,有45人因卖淫或拉皮条而被逮捕。在弗吉尼亚州的Richmond,没有找到一个受害儿童,不过有26人因卖淫、2人因拉皮条遭到控告。在亚特兰大,数十人因卖淫、街头游荡、招嫖及持有毒品而被捕。 Phoenix officials announced the most victims recovered: five minors and 42 adults. But dig beyond the press release and you'll see the adult "victims" included women willingly working in prostitution. Officers posing as clients answered these women's online ads and then apprehended them. 凤凰城的警官所宣布的受害者解救数目最大:5个未成年、42个成人。但往新闻发布之外再挖一挖,你会发现所谓成人“受害者”中包括了自愿卖淫的妇女。警官们假装顾客,回应这些妇女的线上广告,然后再逮捕她们。 One 20-year-old "victim" had her arm broken by the cops when she tried to flee. A 16-year-old victim was booked on prostitution charges when she refused to let officers contact her parents. After failing to secure emergency shelter for two adult victims who had no money and no identification, police returned them to the motel where they'd been apprehended "so they could try and arrange funds to get back" home. 某位20岁的“受害者”在试图逃跑时还被警察把手臂给扭断了。当一位16岁的受害者拒绝让警官联系其父母时,她被登记为受到卖淫指控。在为两名成年受害人寻找临时住所失败之后,由于两人既无钱财也无身份证明,警察又把她们送回了逮捕她们的同一家汽车旅馆,“这样她们能试着筹集回家的钱”。 INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF A MORAL CRUSADE 道德圣战的制度化 In a 2012 paper published in Politics & Society, Ronald Weitzer suggested that the 1990s anti-prostitution crusade has become fully "institutionalized" in the 21st century. "Institutionalization by the state may be limited or extensive—ranging from consultation with activists, inclusion of leaders in the policy process, material support for crusade organizations, official endorsement of crusade ideology, resource mobilization, and the creation of legislation and new agencies to address the problem," Weitzer wrote. Sound familiar? 在一篇2012年发表于《政治与社会》杂志的论文中,Ronald Weitzer认为,1990年代的反卖淫斗争在21世纪已经完全“制度化”了。他写道:“州层面的制度化既可能是有限性质的,也可能是全面彻底的——其内容包括征求活跃分子意见、将其领导人纳入政策过程、向斗争组织提供物质支持、为其斗争意识形态提供官方背书、资源动员、为处理这个问题而创设法律和新的机构等。”听着是不是很熟悉? "Some moral crusades are so successful that they see their ideology fully incorporated in government policy and vigorous efforts by state agencies to combat the problem on their own," he noted. In other words, "the movement's central goals become a project of the government." 他还提到,“某些道德圣战如此成功,以至于它们的结果是,州立机构已经将这一斗争的意识形态完全纳入了政府政策和强力措施,自己扛起了与此问题作战的任务。”换句话说,“这一任务的核心目标已经变成了一项政府规划。” It's hard to think of a better representative of this institutionalization than the Polaris Project, one of America's biggest anti-trafficking groups. Founded by a man who now runs the website Everyday Feminism and a woman who now works for the federal government, Polaris has drafted multi-pronged model legislation for the taking. Compare Polaris' recommendations with state trafficking laws, and you'll find near verbatim language in some, and shared assumptions and goals in almost all. 很难想到还有什么例子能比“北极星项目”更好代表这种制度化了。它是美国最大的反贩运团体之一,其创立者为一男一女,前者目前运营着一家叫做“每日女权主义”的网站,后者现为联邦政府工作。“北极星”已经起草了多管齐下的示范法案,供人参考。拿“北极星”的建议与州反贩运法做个比较,你就能发现部分句子几乎一字不差,而且绝大部分辞句有着共同的预设前提和目标。 How did Polaris gain such influence? One way is through state "report cards." Advertised as a measure of states' commitment to fighting human trafficking, it's basically a measure of how closely their laws hew to the Polaris policy wishlist. Among the must-haves: a law requiring the display of the national human trafficking hotline number, which Polaris runs with funding from Health and Human Services. States that fail to enact all of the Polaris-endorsed policies wind up with bad grades, which the organization then publicizes extensively. “北极星”这么大的影响力是怎么来的?其中一个途径是通过发布各州“成绩单”。据宣传,这是对各州投身反人口贩运斗争努力程度的一种测量,但基本上测量的是各州法律在多大程度上遵守“北极星”的政策意愿清单。必要部分中有一条:立法要求张贴全国人口贩运热线电话,而这个热线是由“北极星”用来自卫生部的资金运营的。有些州没能将“北极星”支持的政策全部立为法律,最终得分就很差劲,并被该组织广为宣传。 Another driver of state trafficking policies is the Uniform Law Commission (ULC), a nonpartisan organization that drafts model state legislation in a variety of areas. In 2010, ULC was asked by the American Bar Association to prepare a plan for tackling human trafficking. The result was drafted in collaboration with Polaris, Shared Hope International, the National Association of Attorneys General, and the U.S. State Department, then approved by the bar association in 2013. 各州制定此类贩运政策的另一个推动力来自“统一法律委员会”(ULC),这是一个致力于在诸多领域起草示范性州法的无党派组织。2010年,美国律师协会请统一法律委员起草一个规划,以应对人口贩运问题。最终成果是由统一法律委员会与“北极星”、“国际共同希望”、“全国首席检察官联合会”以及美国国务院共同起草的,并于2013年获得律师协会认可。 In the first half of 2015, two states enacted laws based on ULC's model legislation and four others introduced them. Four states enacted ULC-based trafficking laws in 2014 with 10 more attempting to. 2015年上半年,已有2个州根据统一法律委员会的示范法案制定法律,另有4个州已发起提议。2014年有4个州颁布了以统一法律委员会为参考基础的贩运法规,另有10个州还在为此努力。 Among the model legislation's main tenets are court-ordered forfeiture of real and personal property for traffickers, providing "immunity to minors who are human trafficking victims and commit prostitution or nonviolent offenses," and imposing "felony-level punishment when the defendant offers anything of value to engage in commercial sexual activity." 该示范立法的核心原则之一是由法院下令对人贩子的不动产和个人财产实施没收,并“为本身为人口贩运受害者,同时犯有卖淫罪或非暴力罪行的未成年人”提供“豁免”,以及“当被告提供了任何有价值物品以进行商业化性行为时”,对其加以“重罪水平的惩罚”。 That last bit is part of what's known as the "end-demand" strategy, or the "Nordic model," which focuses heavier penalties on sex buyers than sex sellers. Popularized by Nordic feminists, it's since become the law of the land in Canada and is rapidly influencing American policy, with many religious-based anti-trafficking groups also adopting its rallying cry. As a result, cities and states around the country have begun increasing penalties for prostitution clients and rebranding them as sexual predators. In Seattle, for instance, the crime of "patronizing a prostitute" was recently rechristened "sexual exploitation." 这最后一点是所谓“终结需求”策略的体现之一,该策略又称“北欧模式”,注重对性服务买家而非卖家施加重罚。最早由北欧女权主义者普及,该策略在加拿大成为当地法律,并正在加速影响美国政策,许多从宗教角度反贩运的团体也在采用这一战斗口号。结果是,全国境内的诸多城市和州政府都已开始加大对嫖客的惩罚力度,并将他们改称为色情魔。比如,在西雅图,“光顾妓女”罪最近已被改名为“性剥削”。 The theory behind "end demand" is that if only we arrest enough patrons or make the punishments for them severe enough, people will stop trying to purchase sex. Voila! No more prostitution, no more sex trafficking. If that sounds familiar, perhaps you're old enough to remember the '80s, when a similar approach was supposed to bring down the drug trade. “终结需求”策略背后的理论是,只有逮捕足够多的顾客或对他们施加足够严厉的惩罚,人们才会停止去买春。瞧!卖淫不再有,性贩运也不再有。如果你对此听着耳熟,可能是因为你足够年长,还记得80年代的事,当时曾用过类似的办法,认为它能打倒毒品交易。 "Ending the demand for drugs is how, in the end, we will win," President Ronald Reagan declared in 1988. Indeed, it was how we were already winning: "The tide of the battle has turned, and we're beginning to win the crusade for a drug-free America," Reagan claimed. 罗纳德·里根总统1988年宣布:“终结毒品需求将是我们最终取得胜利的办法。”不,它是当时正取得的节节胜利的缘由所在,里根声称:“战争的风向已经变了,我们已经开始赢得这场斗争,走向一个无毒美国。” In reality, the number of illicit drug users in America has only risen since then, despite the billions of dollars spent and hundreds of thousands of people locked away. In 1990, for instance, 7.1 percent of Americans had used some sort of illegal drug in the past month, according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. By 2002 it had risen to 8.3 percent, and by 2013 to 9.4 percent. 事实上,从那时候至今,美国人中的非法毒品使用者数量只增不降,尽管我们花费了数十亿美元,关押了数十万人。比如,根据国家毒品滥用家庭调查,1990年有7.1%的美国人在过去一个月曾服用某种非法毒品。而到2002年,这一数字已经上升到8.3%,到2013年则升到了9.4%。 The utter failure to "end demand" for drugs hasn't dented optimism that we can accomplish the trick with prostitution. During the "National Day of John Arrests" each year, police pose as sex workers online and then arrest would-be clients. Each year, hundreds of men are booked in these stings and charged with offenses ranging from public indecency and solicitation to pimping and sex trafficking. If these anti-trafficking efforts sound a lot like old vice policing, that's because the tactics, and results, are nearly identical. 针对毒品的“终结需求”策略的彻底失败,并没能减少那种认为我们能够在卖淫问题上实现这一计策的乐观主义。在每年的“全国抓嫖日”期间,警察在网上假扮性工作者,然后逮捕企图嫖娼的客户。每年都有好几百男人落入这种圈套,然后被控犯罪,罪名从公共场合猥亵、招嫖到拉皮条、性贩运不等。如果这类反贩运做法听起来特别像是以前那种腐化警察,那是因为两者在策略和结果上都接近于雷同。 In a study released last year by Shared Hope International and Arizona State University, researchers examined end-demand efforts in four metro areas over a four-month period. Between 50 and 60 percent of these efforts involved police decoys pretending to be teens, and no actual victims. A typical tactic is for police to post an ad pretending to be a young adult sex worker, and once a man agrees to meet, the "girl" indicates that she's actually only 16 or 17. 在国际共同希望和亚利桑那州立大学于2014年发布的一项研究中,研究者们考察了四个大都市区的终结需求式措施,历时四个月。其中有50-60%涉及警察设套假扮青少年,没有实际的受害者。一个惯常策略是由警察登一个广告,假扮年轻的成年性工作者,要是有男人同意见面,该“女孩”再表明她实际只有16或17岁。 Shared Hope is candid about the fact that most of the men soliciting sex here are not pedophiles and not necessarily seeking out someone underage. But "distinguishing between demand for commercial sex acts with an adult and demand for commercial sex acts with a minor is often an artificial construct," its report asserted. 共同希望坦白承认一个事实,即此中招嫖的绝大部分男人并非恋童癖,也并不一定是在寻觅未成年人。但上述报告断言,“对两种需求加以区分,一边是与成人进行商业化性行为的需求,一边是与未成年人进行商业化性行为的需求,这种做法通常只是一种人为建构”。 So to save the children, we need to prosecute men who have no demonstrated interest in children, because in the future they may seek sex with adults who could actually turn out to be old-looking teens—got that? 因此,为了拯救孩子,我们需要起诉那些还没有表露出他们对儿童有兴趣的人,因为将来他们可能会与一些成人发生性关系,而后者可能只是看起来比较成熟的青少年而已——能看懂这种逻辑不? "One shortcoming of the reverse sting approach is that no live victims are rescued from trafficking," Shared Hope admitted. "But it does take intended perpetrators of child sex trafficking off the Internet and off the streets." 共同希望承认:“这种反向设局策略的一个缺陷是,没能救出陷于贩运之中的真正受害者”。“但它确实能将具有儿童性贩运犯罪意图的人从网上和街上移除。” Bipartisan Paranoia 双党妄想症 A federal war on prostitution doesn't play well with large segments of Americans. Fighting human trafficking, on the other hand, is a feel-good cause. At a 2012 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) speech, President Barack Obama insisted that we must call human trafficking "by its true name—modern slavery." And what kind of monster would be against ending slavery? Which brings us to another factor driving all this trafficking action: It makes politicians look good. 美国人中的很大部分对一场针对卖淫的联邦战争并不感冒。但是,打击人口贩运,则是一项令人观感良好的事业。在巴拉克·奥巴马总统于2012年“克林顿全球倡议”(CGI)会议上发表的一场演说中,他强调我们必须“按照其真实名称”来称呼人口贩运——“现代奴隶制”。你要是竟然反对结束奴隶制的斗争,你将是何等邪恶?这就给我们带来了驱动以上种种反贩运行动的另一个因素:它能让政客们很好看。 At a time when Republicans and Democrats can barely agree on anything, human trafficking bills have attracted huge bipartisan support. Here is an area where enterprising legislators can attach their names to something likely to pass. And if it doesn't pass, for whatever reason, it's ripe for demagoguery: "My opponent voted against a bill to fight modern slavery!" Tough-on-crime policies, particularly tough-on-drugs policies, used this tactic for decades, until mass incarceration finally lost its luster. 在这个共和党和民主党几乎不能在任何事情上取得一致的时代,人口贩运法案获得了极大的两党共同支持。这是一个法案还有可能获得通过的领域,有进取心的立法者们有可能将其名字附加在这些法案上。如果它没能通过,无论出于任何原因,它都很适合用于煽动群众。“我的对手投票反对了打击现代奴隶制的法案!”严打犯罪的政策,特别是严打毒品的政策,曾经将这个策略用了数十年,直到大规模收监办法最后黯然收场。 Undoubtedly, many lawmakers do legitimately want to help trafficking victims and hold bad guys accountable; political point-scoring is just a happy side effect. But a less happy side effect is a slew of bad laws, violated rights, and squandered money. The federal government has given away scores of millions in grant dollars for this quixotic crusade. 毫无疑问,确实有许多立法者真正地想要帮助贩运受害者,想要将坏人绳之以法;政治上得分只是一个喜闻乐见的副作用。但是还有个不那么喜闻乐见的副作用,即一连串的糟糕法律、受侵犯的权利和金钱浪费。为了这场唐吉可德式的十字军圣战,联邦政府已经拨出了成千上百万美元的款项。 The resources spent on prostitution stings and public awareness campaigns are resources diverted from mundane but more effective strategies for helping at-risk youth, such as adding more beds at emergency shelters. The State Department's latest Trafficking in Persons report notes that "shelter and housing for all trafficking victims, especially male and labor trafficking victims, continue to be insufficient." Advocates routinely say the biggest barrier to escape for many trafficking victims is simply a lack of places to go. 用于钓鱼抓嫖和提高公共觉悟活动的资源,转移自那些在帮助面临危险的青少年方面看起来单调平凡但也更为有效的策略,比如在应急收容所添加更多床位。国务院最新的《人口贩运》报告指出:“对于所有贩运受害者,特别是男性受害者和劳力贩运受害者,收容住所持续不足。”提倡者反复说过,对于许多贩运受害者而言,逃跑的最大障碍很简单,就是无处可去。 "Studies focused on New York City consistently report that homeless youth often trade sex for a place to stay each night because of the absence of available shelter beds," noted the Urban Institute in a report last year. "These figures are even more striking for LGBTQ youth...According to a survey of nearly 1,000 homeless youth in New York City, young men were three times more likely than young women to have traded sex for a place to stay, and LGBTQ youth were seven times more likely than heterosexual youth to have done so. Transgender youth in New York City have been found eight times more likely than non-transgender youth to trade sex for a safe place to stay." “聚焦于纽约市的研究一致表明,无家可归的青少年通常每晚都会以性关系换取住所,因为可用的收容床位不足。” 城市研究所去年发布的一份报告如此写道。“对于LGBTQ青少年群体来说,这个数字更为惊人……根据一份对纽约市近1000名无家可归青少年的调查,少男为找到住所而出卖性关系的可能性要比少女高出3倍,而LGBTQ青少年做这种事的可能性又要比异性恋青少年高出7倍。研究发现,纽约市的变性青少年为了安全住所而出卖性关系的可能性比非变性青少年要高8倍。” What's more, many of the policies in place to fight trafficking actively work against their own stated mission. The criminalization of prostitution keeps sex workers from reporting abuse and keeps clients from coming forward if they suspect someone is being trafficked. Victims themselves are afraid to go to police for fear they'll be arrested for prostitution—and indeed, they often are. 此外,已经实施的、用于打击贩运的许多政策明显对它们意图实现的使命产生了负面作用。卖淫入罪妨碍了性工作者报告所受虐待,并妨碍了怀疑某人遭到贩运的嫖客挺身而出。受害者本人也不敢去找警察,因为担心因卖淫被捕——他们确实经常因此被捕。 In 2012, 579 minors were reported to the federal government as having been arrested for prostitution and commercialized vice. Prosecutors say they need this as a "bargaining chip" to make the victims testify against their perpetrators. We're just using state violence and the threat of incarceration against children in order to save them! 2012年,在联邦政府收到的报告中,有579名未成年人因卖淫和商业化卖春而遭逮捕。检察官称,他们需要这么做,这是种“议价筹码”,能促使受害者出来为其作案者的罪行作证。为了拯救孩子们,我们正在使用国家暴力和收监威胁来对付他们! Another misguided government target is the classified advertising website Backpage, home to many an "escort" ad. Lawmakers accuse the site of "profiting off of child exploitation," even though only a miniscule percentage of Backpage ads—which anyone can put up—are posted by traffickers rather than adult sex workers. 政府的另一个误导性靶子是分类广告网站Backpage,那是许多“应召”广告的老巢。立法者们指责该网站“从对儿童的剥削中牟利”,尽管网站上只有极小部分广告——任何人都可以发布——是由人贩子而非成人性工作者所发布的。 Both legislators and anti-trafficking groups have long been intent on shutting the site down. Yet "street-based sex workers, across studies, face much higher rates of violence than indoor sex workers," says Serpent Libertine, a Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP)-Chicago board member. "It's hard to understand how eliminating a low-barrier way to work indoors would promote safety." 立法者和反贩运团体一直以来都想要关闭这个网站。不过,Serpent Libertine却说:“不同研究都表明,站街的性工作者比室内性工作者遭受暴力的可能性大得多”,Libertine是“扩大对性工作者服务项目”(SWOP)芝加哥分支的董事会成员。“通过清除低门槛的室内工作途径,如何能够增进妓女安全呢,这委实难以理解。” Vera Lamarr, also with SWOP-Chicago, pointed out that Backpage cooperates with law enforcement in the U.S. more than many other sites do. "It's hard to understand the desire to take down a website that voluntarily supports efforts against trafficking and willingly cooperates with law enforcement," Lamarr says. "If Backpage closes, their user base could easily migrate to a less cooperative site" or be forced back out on the streets, where traffickers don't leave digital records. 同在SWOP工作的Vera Lamarr指出,Backpage与美国执法机构的合作比其它许多网站都要多。“很难理解为什么要关闭一个主动支持反贩运事业并愿意与执法机构合作的网站”,Lamarr说。“如果Backpage关掉,那他们的用户群可能会轻松地转移到另一个不那么合作的网站去”,或者被迫重新回去站街,街上的人贩子可不会留下什么数字信息记录。 But at least we're getting the really bad guys, right? That's also up for debate. Peruse trafficking arrest records and you'll find many folks like Amber Batt, an Alaska woman who faces 10 to 25 years in federal prison (plus a lifetime on the sex-offender registry) for running an escort service featuring adult women who freely elected to work there. 但至少我们正在抓那些真正的坏蛋,对吧?这一点也有待讨论。细检反贩运逮捕记录,你会找到许多人,比如Amber Batt,她是一位经营应召服务的阿拉斯加妇女,推销的是自愿选择在那里工作的成年妇女,她因此需要在联邦监狱服刑10至25年(再加上终身登记为性犯罪者)。 Or Julie Haner, a 19-year-old Oregon sex worker who was charged with trafficking after taking her 17-year-old friend with her to meet clients. Or Aimee Hart, 42, who served seven months in prison and faces 15 years on the sex-offender registry for driving her adult friend to a prostitution job. Or Hortencia Medeles-Arguello, a 71-year-old Houston bar owner arrested as the leader of a "sex trafficking conspiracy" because she allowed prostitution upstairs. 又如Julie Haner,她是俄勒冈一位19岁性工作者,因带着她17岁的朋友一起见客而被控贩运罪。又如Aimee Hart,42岁,因开车送其成年朋友去卖淫,已在监狱服刑7个月,并将持续15年被登记为性犯罪者。又如Hortencia Medeles-Aguello,休斯顿一位71岁的酒吧店主,因在其楼上容留卖淫,她被当作“性贩运团伙”的头目而遭逮捕。 There's Trenton McLemore, 29, who faces federal sex trafficking charges for "facilitating" the sex work of his 16-year-old girlfriend by purchasing the girl a cellphone and sometimes texting clients for her. He faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years and possible life in prison, thanks to a joint effort of Irving, Texas, police; Homeland Security; and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 还有Trenton McLemore,29岁,他因给他16岁的女友买了一个手机,有时还帮她给客户发短信,被认为“协助”其从事性工作,面临联邦性贩运指控。在德克萨斯Irving市警察、国土安全部、美国移民和海关执法局的共同努力下,他要面对的刚性最短刑期为10年,最高可能为终身监禁。 And Alfonso Kee Peterson, 28, arrested in July for telling a 17-year-old on Facebook that he could help her earn a lot of money from prostitution. The "teen" turned out to be a police decoy. Despite the absence of any real victim or any activity beyond speech, Peterson was charged with one felony count of human trafficking of a minor, one felony count of pandering, and one felony count of attempted pimping; he faces up to 12 years in prison. This important sting apparently warranted the work of several local police departments, the California Highway Patrol, and the FBI. 还有Alfonso Kee Peterson,28岁。因在Facebook上告诉一个17岁女孩他可以帮她通过卖淫赚一大笔,他于今年7月被捕。结果这个“青少年”是个警察诱饵。尽管没有任何真正的受害人,除言论之外也没有任何行动,Peterson仍被控三项重罪罪名,分别是性贩运未成年人、唆使作恶和试图拉皮条;他最高面临12年监禁。这个重要圈套显然让当地几个地方警局、加州公路巡警和FBI的共同工作看起来有了正当理由。 Even if we grant that some of this activity is unsavory, is it really the sort of behavior that warrants lengthy prison sentences and attention from federal agents? Since when is what adults—or even teenagers—willingly do with their genitalia a matter of homeland security? Is this really what President Obama had in mind at the CGI conference when he compared anti-trafficking laws to the Emancipation Proclamation? 即便我们承认上述某些行为确实令人讨厌,它们是否真的属于那种应该处于长期监禁惩罚、需要联邦机构来调查的行为?成年人——或者甚至包括青少年——愿意如何利用他们的生殖器这个问题,从什么时候开始已经成为国土安全事务了?这真的是奥巴马总统在“克林顿全球倡议”会上将反贩运法律和《解放黑奴宣言》作比较时心中所想吗? "To be sure, linking trafficking and slavery could, in theory, surface important similarities between political economies of chattel slavery (largely) of the past, and modern-day trafficking," the American University law professor Janie Chuang wrote in a paper published in the American Journal of International Law last year. 去年,美利坚大学法学教授Janie Chuang在《美国国际法杂志》上发表了一篇文章,其中写道:“诚然,将贩运和奴隶制联系起来,在理论上可以使(大致上)发生于过去的传统奴隶制和现代贩运之间在政治经济结构上的重要相似点浮出水面。” "Drawing out such nuanced comparisons is not, however, the current trajectory of slavery creep. Instead, this version promotes an understanding of trafficking as a problem created and sustained by individual deviant actors, and thus best addressed through aggressive crime control measures." “但是,描绘这种微妙的对照并不是奴隶制恐慌的当下方向。相反,目前的恐慌助推了一种看法,认为贩运是由变态的个体行动者导致和维持的问题,因此最好用严厉的犯罪控制措施来处理。” For a fraction of the money spent on these measures, state governments or private foundations could fund more beds at emergency shelters. The resources that churches, charities, and radical feminists use trying to convince people that all sex workers are victims (and their clients predators) could go toward helping that minority of sex workers who do feel trapped in prostitution with job placement or getting an education. 只需拿出用于上述措施中的资金的一部分,州政府或私人基金就能为应急收容所提供更多床位。教会、慈善组织和激进女权主义者花了大量资源试图告诉人们,所有性工作者都是受害者(且他们的所有顾客都是侵害者),而这些钱本可以用于帮助性工作者中真正觉得自己受困于卖淫的少数人,帮她们介绍工作或接受教育。 For the vast majority of vulnerable sex workers, the greatest barriers to exit aren't ankle-cuffs, isolation, and shadowy kidnappers with guns, but a lack of money, transportation, identification, or other practical things. Is helping with this stuff not sexy enough? 对于绝大多数容易受到伤害的性工作者来说,离开这一行的最大障碍并非脚链、隔离或如影随形的持枪劫持者,而是没有钱、交通工具、身份证明和其它实用之物。在这些事务方面提供帮助是不是不够性感? As it stands, many of those "rescued" by police or abolitionist groups find that their self-appointed saviors can't actually offer them housing, food, a job, or anything else of urgent value in starting a life outside the sex trade. Awareness doesn't pay the bills. 事实上,许多被警察和废奴主义团体所“营救”出来的人发现,她们面对的这些自命救世主实际上不能给她们提供住所、食物、工作或任何其它在性交易之外重新开始生活时紧迫需要之物。觉悟并不能用来支付账单。 Kamylla's story typifies this rescue paradox. A Texas mother who had fallen on hard times after an injury ended her construction career, she started working in prostitution last year. One day, producers from the A&E television series 8 Minutes contacted her, having seen her ad on Backpage. Kamylla的故事代表了这种拯救悖论的典型。Kamylla是一位德克萨斯母亲,她的建筑事业因一场事故而被迫终结,生活陷入困境,去年开始从事卖淫业。某天,因为在Backpage上看到了她的广告,A&E电视台的《八分钟》系列节目联系了她。 Though 8 Minutes was marketed as a reality show where a rogue pastor found and "saved" sex trafficking victims in real time, Kamylla and others (who were selling sexual services willingly, even if their situation wasn't optimal) actually talked with producers several times beforehand. The show promised to help with her overdue rent and finding a job, she says. After filming, they gave her $150 and told her they'd be in touch soon about further assistance. 这档节目是以真人秀的形式播出的,一位流氓牧师在其中发现并及时“拯救”了性贩卖受害者。但事实上,Kamylla和其他几个人(尽管她们的境况并不理想,但均为自愿出售性服务)事前已经多次与制片人交谈过。她说,这个节目答应会帮她解决房租逾期问题,并为她找个工作。拍摄之后,电视台给了她150美元,告诉她他们很快就会与她联系,商量后续援助问题。 They never called. When Kamylla followed up, the producers referred her to the same unhelpful social services she'd already tried on her own. Eventually Kamylla returned to Backpage, posting an ad using the same phone number that the producers had used to contact her. The first call she received was from an undercover cop, who arranged to meet her and another sex worker at a motel. Once the women agreed to oral sex for money, "he opened the door and nine police officers came inside the room," she says. Both women were taken to jail and booked on prostitution charges. 他们再没有给Kamylla打过电话。她去追究,制片方就让她去找她自己已经试过、但并不管用的社会服务机构。最终,Kamylla回到了Backpage,所登广告上使用的电话号码正是制片方曾拿来联络她的那个。她接到的第一个电话来自一个卧底警察,后者约她和另外一个性工作者在一家汽车旅馆见面。两个女人才答应收钱给他做口交,“他就把门打开了,一下进来9个警官”,她说。两人均被关进监狱,并以被控卖淫而被登记在案。 In a world with no gray areas—one where traffickers are always evil predators and victims always utterly helpless, where sex workers are never ambivalently engaged with their work, and the bright line between teendom and adulthood is always apparent and meaningful—in this world, the raid-and-rescue model of addressing sex trafficking may make some sense. You don't give a girl chained to a bed a condom and call it a day. 在一个没有灰色地带的世界里——里面的人贩子总是邪恶的侵害者,受害者总是彻底无助,性工作者从事其工作从未进退两难,青少年和成年之间的明确界限总是清楚明晰——在这样的世界中,处理性贩运问题时采用“搜捕拯救”模式可能还有道理。你不会丢个避孕套给一个被锁在床上的女孩,然后收工回家。 But in the world as it exists, sometimes a 17-year-old runaway chooses prostitution because it's better than living in an abusive foster home. Sometimes a sex worker gives all her money to a man because she loves him or thinks she needs him, or that he needs her. Sometimes a struggling mother doesn't love the sex trade, but finds it the best option to feed her kids. 但在现实存在的世界中,有时候,17岁的离家出走者会选择卖淫,因为这比生活于一个残暴虐待的寄养家庭要好。有时候性工作者会把她所有的钱财全部交给一个男人,因为她爱他,或者觉得她需要他或他需要她。有时候,一个苦苦挣扎的母亲并不喜欢性交易,但她觉得这是养活她孩子的最好办法。 Sometimes an immigrant would rather give hand jobs to strangers than face whatever drove her to leave her own country. Harm reduction strategies like handing out condoms in popular prostitution areas, offering STD tests, or even just facilitating online advertising (rather than street work) could prove lifesaving to these women. 有时候,某个移民宁愿给陌生人手交,也不愿意面对那些驱使她离开自己祖国的事情。降低危害的种种策略,比如在卖淫盛行地区分发避孕套,提供性传播疾病检查,甚至仅仅只是促进网上广告(而非站街工作),对这些女人来说,都可能是活命之举。 Yet when it comes to the way we talk about commercial sex, you have to be a victim or a predator. We've created a narrative with no room for nuance. We traffic not in facts but in melodrama. In TV broadcasts, campus panels, and congressional hearings, the most lurid and sensational stories are held up as representative. Legislators assure us that their intent is noble and pure. 但在我们讨论商业化性行为的方式里头,你必须要么是受害者,要么是侵害者。我们所创造出来的是一种没有给微妙差别留下任何空间的叙事。我们不是在事实中、而是在传奇剧中穿梭。在电视节目上、在校园会议上、在国会听证上,被拿出来作为代表的都是那些最为耸人听闻、最具轰动效应的故事。立法者向我们保证,他们的意图高贵而纯洁。 But remember: Tough-on-drugs legislation was never crafted or advertised as a means to send poor people to prison for life over a few grams of weed. It was a way to crack down on drug kingpins, violent gang leaders, evil crack fiends, and all those who would lure innocent children into addiction, doom, and death. 但是,请记住:立法严打毒品,从来就不是为了仅因几克大麻就把穷人终身关进监狱,这类法律并不是为此制定的,也没人这样宣称。它是为了镇压大毒枭、暴力团伙头目、邪恶的可卡因成瘾者和所有那些会引诱无辜少年毒品成瘾、遭遇厄运、走向死亡的人。 Yet in mandating more police attention for drug crimes, giving law enforcement new technological tools and military gear with which to fight it, and adding ever-stricter prison sentences and punishments for drug offenders, we unleashed a corrupt, authoritarian, biased, and fiscally untenable mess on American cities without any success in decreasing drug rates or the violence and danger surrounding an activity that human beings stubbornly refuse to give up. 但是,通过责令警方更加注意毒品犯罪,通过赋予执法机构新的技术工具和军需用品以打击毒品犯罪,通过前所未有地提高毒品犯罪分子的刑期和惩罚,我们在美国各城市释放出了一种腐败、专断、偏执并且在财政上无法维持的糟糕局面,却没能取得任何成功,无论是在减少毒品用量方面,还是在减少围绕这一人们坚决拒绝抛弃的活动而产生的暴力和危险方面。 Unless we can learn the lessons of our past failed crusades, the war on sex trafficking could result in every bit as much misery as its panicky predecessors. Here's hoping it won't take us another four decades to realize that this prohibition doesn't work either. 除非我们能从过去失败的圣战中吸取教训,反性贩运的战争就有可能以一种完全一模一样的结局收尾,其可悲之处与其恐慌前例会是一样的。只希望我们不会又一次再花40年才能意识到,这种禁令同样行不通。 (编辑:辉格@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

[译文]司法竞争如何带来自由

When Courts Compete for ‘Business,’ Liberty Wins
当法庭之间争夺“生意”时,自由就是赢家

作者:Sheldon Richman @ 2015-12-06
译者:Luis Rightcon(@Rightcon)
校对:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
来源:Reason,https://reason.com/archives/2015/12/06/competition-produces-liberty

Those who insist that market anarchism cannot work because it lacks a monopolistic court of final jurisdiction are wrong.
那些坚持认为市场无政府主义因为缺乏垄断性法庭的终审管辖而行不通的想法是错误的

Considering that what liberty we continue to enjoy in the West is a product in large part of competing legal institutions operating within overlapping jurisdictions hundreds of years ago, it’s curious that so many libertarians still believe such an order—an essential feature of free-market, or natural-law, anarchism—would be inimical to liberty. Why wouldn’t that which produced liberty be up to preserving it?

考虑到我们在西方所持久享受的自由其实很大一部分是数百年前管辖界限互相重叠的司法制度之间相互竞争的结果,很奇怪的是,现在却有许多自由意志主义者依然相信这样一种秩序——核心特征是自由市场、或自然法、或无政府主义——将对自由不利。为什么那些产生了自由本身的事物无法承担起维持自由的责任呢?

When I say that competition produced liberty, I of course do not mean that liberty was anyone’s objective. Yet liberty emerged all the same, as if by an “invisible hand.” That’s how things often work. Good (and bad) consequences can be the result of human action but not of human design (to use a favorite phrase of F. A. Hayek’s, which he borrowed from the Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Ferguson).

当我说竞争产生自由时,我当然并不是说自由是谁人的目标。然而自由还是一样产生了,就像一只“看不见的手”创造出来的一样。这就是很多情况下事物的运作方式。好的(和坏的)后果可能是人类行为而不是人类设计的结果(这是哈耶克从著名苏格兰启蒙主义思想家Adam Ferguson那里借用的口头禅)。

We should be delighted to know that something so wonderful as liberty can emerge(more...)

标签: | | |
7264
When Courts Compete for 'Business,' Liberty Wins 当法庭之间争夺“生意”时,自由就是赢家 作者:Sheldon Richman @ 2015-12-06 译者:Luis Rightcon(@Rightcon) 校对:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 来源:Reason,https://reason.com/archives/2015/12/06/competition-produces-liberty Those who insist that market anarchism cannot work because it lacks a monopolistic court of final jurisdiction are wrong. 那些坚持认为市场无政府主义因为缺乏垄断性法庭的终审管辖而行不通的想法是错误的 Considering that what liberty we continue to enjoy in the West is a product in large part of competing legal institutions operating within overlapping jurisdictions hundreds of years ago, it's curious that so many libertarians still believe such an order—an essential feature of free-market, or natural-law, anarchism—would be inimical to liberty. Why wouldn't that which produced liberty be up to preserving it? 考虑到我们在西方所持久享受的自由其实很大一部分是数百年前管辖界限互相重叠的司法制度之间相互竞争的结果,很奇怪的是,现在却有许多自由意志主义者依然相信这样一种秩序——核心特征是自由市场、或自然法、或无政府主义——将对自由不利。为什么那些产生了自由本身的事物无法承担起维持自由的责任呢? When I say that competition produced liberty, I of course do not mean that liberty was anyone's objective. Yet liberty emerged all the same, as if by an "invisible hand." That's how things often work. Good (and bad) consequences can be the result of human action but not of human design (to use a favorite phrase of F. A. Hayek's, which he borrowed from the Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Ferguson). 当我说竞争产生自由时,我当然并不是说自由是谁人的目标。然而自由还是一样产生了,就像一只“看不见的手”创造出来的一样。这就是很多情况下事物的运作方式。好的(和坏的)后果可能是人类行为而不是人类设计的结果(这是哈耶克从著名苏格兰启蒙主义思想家Adam Ferguson那里借用的口头禅)。 We should be delighted to know that something so wonderful as liberty can emerge unintentionally. It should give us hope for the future; if the libertarian movement is deficient, we need not assume that liberty has no chance. (I have more to say about liberty as an unintended consequence in the context of Magna Carta here.) 得知像自由那样美好的事物会非意图地产生,我们应该感到高兴。这会给我们的未来带来希望;如果自由意志主义运动是有缺陷的,我们却不必认为自由已经没有了机会。(关于自由在《大宪章》语境中是个意外产物,我还有更多的话要说,戳这里。) Many authors from the 18th century onward have written about the unintended good consequences of competition, i.e., the absence of central control. They emphasized that in the West the rivalries between church and state, between nobles or parliament and crown, and between nation-states yielded zones of liberty that endure to this day, however diminished in particular matters. 18世纪以来,许多作者已经描写过竞争(即中央控制的缺失)所带来的意外好处。他们强调,西方世界中教会和世俗国家的斗争,贵族或议会和王权的斗争,以及民族国家之间的斗争,产生了延续至今的自由空间,不管这一空间在一些特定方面衰减得有多么厉害。 Competition among legal institutions—courts and bodies of law—within overlapping jurisdictions played a large role in this centuries-long beneficent process. These of course are not examples of anarchism; on the contrary, states existed. But competitive overlapping legal regimes are an element of market anarchism. 管辖界限互相交错的司法制度——各法庭和各法体【编注:一个法体是指有着独特渊源和内在一致性的一组法律规则,比如衡平法、海事法、战争法分属不同法体。】——之间的竞争在这场持续数个世纪的有益历程中扮演了重要角色。这些当然不是无政府主义的例证,恰恰相反,国家是存在的。但是司法制度之间的交叉竞争是市场无政府主义的一个组成元素。 So where a state coexisted with a polycentric legal order, we may say, with Bryan Caplan, that there existed "less than the minimum" state, that is, something that fell short of the nightwatchman state favored by limited-government libertarians. 所以当一个国家存在一种多中心的法律秩序时,我们可以用Bryan Caplan的话来说,这里就存在着一种“比最小国家更弱一点”的国家,也就是说,比喜欢有限政府的自由意志主义者所期待的守夜人政府更弱一点的东西。 A good place to read about competition in law and dispute resolution is Todd J. Zywicki's highly accessible Northwestern University Law Review article "The Rise and Fall of Efficiency in the Common Law: A Supply-Side Analysis." Todd J.Zywicki发表在Northwestern University Law Reviews上的文章“普通法中的效率兴衰史:一种供给侧分析”是一篇了解法律和争端解决机制中的竞争情形的深入浅出的文章。 An important feature that "influenced the common law's evolution," Zywicki writes, "was the competitive, or 'polycentric,' legal order in which the common law developed. During the era that the common law developed, there were multiple English courts with overlapping jurisdictions over most of the issues that comprise the common law. As a result, parties potentially could bring a particular lawsuit in a variety of different courts. In turn this created competition among these various courts for business." 一个“影响到了普通法进化的重要特征”,Zywicki写到:“是竞争性的,或者说是“多中心”的法律秩序,普通法就是在其中演化的。在普通法产生的时代,在构成普通法的绝大多数问题上都有很多管辖界限重叠的英格兰法庭(存在竞争)。结果就是当事人有可能从很多不同的法庭中选择一个来进行特定的诉讼。于是,这些法庭之间就产生了生意上的竞争。” The idea of courts competing for "business" sounds strange to modern ears, but it was commonplace before the 20th century. (The extent of private arbitration in international commerce is largely unappreciated.) 对于现代人来说,法庭在“生意”方面进行竞争这个想法听起来很怪,但是在二十世纪之前这是很常见的。(在这方面,私人仲裁在国际贸易中的普及程度并没有受到应有的注意)。 Zywicki's paper shows that the common law, which featured this competition, was efficient in the eyes of those who used its services. Monopoly is inefficient even (especially?) in matters of security, dispute resolution, and justice. Moreover, it's a mistake, as Hayek explains in Law, Legislation, and Liberty (volume 1)  to assume that government is the source of law. Zywicki的论文指出,有这种竞争特色的普通法在那些使用其服务的人们眼中是有效的。垄断性司法甚至(或者说尤其是?)在安全、调解纠纷和司法制裁方面都是效率低下的。此外,哈耶克在《法律、立法与自由》中指出,认为政府是法律源头的想法是极其错误的。 Moves away from competition and the common law, then, aren't adequately explained by shortcomings in its services to its consumers. Political ambition provides a more satisfactory explanation. (In the case of the criminal law, see this.) 因此,对司法竞争性与普通法传统的偏离,单从当事人所得服务有所欠缺这一角度是不能充分解释的。政治野心是一个更为令人满意的解释(至于刑法的情况,参见这里) Zywicki draws on the legal historian Harold Berman, who wrote, "Perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of the Western legal tradition is the coexistence and competition within the same community of diverse jurisdictions and diverse legal systems." Zywicki引用了法律史学家Harold Berman的话:“也许西方法律传统的最与众不同之处在于多样化的司法管辖权和多种法律体系在同一个共同体内部共存和竞争。” The legal philosopher Lon L. Fuller went further: "A possible objection to the view [of law] taken here is that it permits the existence of more than one legal system governing the same population. The answer is, of course, that such multiple systems do exist and have in history been more common than unitary systems." (Emphasis added.) 法哲学家Lon L.Fuller进一步指出:“对这种(法律)概念的一个可能的反对意见是,它允许多个司法体系管辖同一个人群。当然,对此的回答是:这样的重合体系确实存在,并且在历史上比一元化的(司法)体系更为常见”。 The limited-government libertarian who insists that market anarchism cannot work because it lacks a monopolistic court of final jurisiction is like the apocryphal aerodynamicist who calculated that a bumblebee couldn't possibly fly. One needed only to point out the window, saying, "Behold!" Likewise, the anarchist need only point to history. 有些相信有限政府的自由意志主义者坚持认为,市场无政府主义行不通,因为它缺乏能够实行最后裁决的垄断性法院。这就像假冒的空气动力学家计算得出大黄蜂根本无法飞起来一样。实际上我们只需要朝窗外指指说:“看呐!”。同样,无政府主义者只需要拿出历史事实。 Berman also wrote (quoted by Zywicki), "The same person might be subject to the ecclesiastical courts in one type of case, the king's courts in another, his lord's courts in a third, the manorial court in a fourth, a town court in a fifth, [and] a merchants' court in a sixth." This sounds as though the courts were not really competitive, but rather that the variety of courts constituted specialization and a division of labor. Berman又写道(引用自Zywicki):“同样的一个人可能在某种案子中服从于宗教法庭,在另外一种案子中则可能服从国王的法庭,也可能是其领主的法庭,又可能是庄园的法庭,城镇法庭,甚至是商人法庭。”听起来好像各个法庭并不存在真实的互相竞争关系,不同法庭之间存在专业区分和劳动分工。 But that inference would be wrong. To see this we may turn to a keen contemporaneous observer, Adam Smith. In The Wealth of Nations Smith notes that despite a de jure division of labor, courts in fact competed with one another, even to the point of entrepreneurially finding ways to lure cases from other courts. 但是这样的推断是错误的。为了了解这一点,我们可以求助于同时代的一位敏锐观察者,亚当·斯密。在《国富论》中,斯密提到,尽管从法理上来说,法庭之间存在劳动分工,但事实上他们是相互竞争的,竞争甚至到了多方钻营以从其他法庭中诱拐案件的程度。 Why do this? Because the courts obtained their revenues from fees paid by parties to cases. The more cases a court heard, the more money it earned, a state of affairs that Smith, no anarchist of course, approved of: "Public services are never better performed than when their reward comes only in consequence of their being performed, and is proportioned to the diligence employed in performing them." 为什么要这样做呢?因为法庭的经费来自案件各方所支付的费用。一个法庭开审的案件越多,那么得到的金钱就越多,斯密当然不是一位无政府主义者,但他赞成这样的一种状态:“公共服务办好才给予酬劳,并且按勤勉的程度决定酬额,这样才能办好。” Smith described the legal environment of his day: 斯密这样描述他那个时代的法律环境:
The fees of court seem originally to have been the principal support of the different courts of justice in England. Each court endeavoured to draw to itself as much business as it could, and was, upon that account, willing to take cognisance of many suits which were not originally intended to fall under its jurisdiction. 英格兰各法院最初似乎主要仰赖于法院诉讼费。各法院都尽可能兜揽诉讼事件,那怕本来不是归自己管辖的案件,也乐于受理。例如,单为审理刑事案件而设的高等法院,居然接受民事案件,而以原告声称被告对他所行不义是犯了非法侵害罪或轻罪为受理的口实。 The court of king's bench, instituted for the trial of criminal causes only, took cognisance of civil suits; the plaintiff pretending that the defendant, in not doing him justice, had been guilty of some trespass or misdemeanour. The court of exchequer, instituted for the levying of the king's revenue, and for enforcing the payment of such debts only as were due to the king, took cognisance of all other contract debts; the plaintiff alleging that he could not pay the king because the defendant would not pay him. 王室特别法院的设立,本来单是为了征收国王收入和强制人民偿清对于国王所欠债务的。但它后来居然受理关于一切其他契约债务的诉讼,原告陈诉的理由是,被告不偿还对他的债务,所以他不能偿还对国王的债务这个理由。 In consequence of such fictions it came, in many cases, to depend altogether upon the parties before what court they would choose to have their cause tried; and each court endeavoured, by superior dispatch and impartiality, to draw to itself as many causes as it could. 由于这种种的假托,结果许多案件,究竟归哪个法院审理,全由诉讼当事人选择,而各法院要想为自己方面多多招徕诉讼案件,也在审理上力求迅速公平。 The present admirable constitution of the courts of justice in England was, perhaps, originally in a great measure formed by this emulation which anciently took place between their respective judges; each judge endeavouring to give, in his own court, the speediest and most effectual remedy which the law would admit for every sort of injustice. [Emphasis added.] 英格兰今日的法院制度,是值得赞赏的,但一探其究竟,恐怕在很大程度上须归因于往昔各法院法官的相互竞争,对一切不正当行为,各个力求在自己法院就法律许可的范围内给予最迅速最有效的救济这个事实。
Zywicki also quotes from Smith's Lectures on Jurisprudence: Zywicki也引用了斯密在《法学讲稿》中的话:
Another thing which tended to support the liberty of the people and render the proceedings in the courts very exact, was the rivalship which arose betwixt them. 另一件倾向于支持人民的自由和使得法庭程序更为严谨的事务,是法庭之间的竞争关系。
It may be argued that the state provided a backdrop to the competitive legal order, such that a forum of last resort was always available. This argument loses its force, however, when one realizes, as Edward Stringham teaches, that private dispute-resolution procedures arose in matters where states abstained from involvement, such as the nascent stock markets. (For more on the weakness of the "shadow of the State" argument, see this.) 有人可能会认为,竞争性的法律秩序总有国家站在后面,因此终极的裁决平台总是存在。然而,就如Edward Stringham教导的那样:当国家放弃参与时,私人的纠纷解决程序才会出现,就像最初的股票市场那样。只要意识到这一点,上述论调就变得苍白无力。(关于“国家的影子”论调的弱点,详见这里)。 "In short," Zywicki sums up, "a market for law prevailed, with numerous court systems competing for market share in order to increase their fees. This competitive process generated rules that satisfied the demand of consumers (here litigants) for fairness, consistency, and reasonableness." “总而言之,”Zywicki总结道:“法律市场繁盛起来了,很多法庭系统为市场占有率和从中所获费用进行竞争。这一竞争过程产生了符合顾客(这里指诉讼当事人)对公平性、一致性和合理性的需求的规则。” Bumblebees fly and reasonably pro-freedom dispute resolution emerges without the state, no matter what a cloistered theoretician may think. 不论纸上谈兵的理论家们怎样思考,大黄蜂会飞,公道的、促进自由的纠纷解决方式无需国家也能产生。 (编辑:辉格@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

[译文]勿忘普通法

Remember the Common Law
勿忘普通法

作者:Jim Harper  @ 2016-4
译者:小册子(@昵称被抢的小册子)
校对:小橘子
来源:Cato Institute,http://www.cato.org/policy-report/marchapril-2016/remember-common-law

Good economists are familiar with Frédéric Bastiat’s parable of the broken window, which illustrates that visible economic activity may have unseen costs. When a broken window leads to the purchase of a new window, it’s easy to think that the broken window helped society by increasing production and trade. In fact, breaking a window makes society worse off; wealth has been destroyed, not increased. Bastiat’s essay on this topic was titled “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen.”

优秀的经济学家都熟知弗雷德里克•巴斯夏的破窗理论,这个理论说明了,在可见的经济活动之下,可能潜藏了不可见的成本。打破一扇窗户,就要买一扇新的,所以人们很容易认为,通过促进生产和贸易,打破窗户会改善社会境况。而实际上,打破窗户使社会境况恶化了;财富被破坏了,而不是增加了。巴斯夏给讨论此问题的那篇论文起的标题正是“看得见的和看不见的”。

A similar dynamic exists in the legal world. Legislative and regulatory processes are easy to see. Elections routinely draw public attention to legislative and administrative government. Elected and unelected regulators have media operations to tell reporters what they are doing. Common-law rules, on the other hand, are mostly u(more...)

标签: | | |
7242
Remember the Common Law 勿忘普通法 作者:Jim Harper  @ 2016-4 译者:小册子(@昵称被抢的小册子) 校对:小橘子 来源:Cato Institute,http://www.cato.org/policy-report/marchapril-2016/remember-common-law Good economists are familiar with Frédéric Bastiat’s parable of the broken window, which illustrates that visible economic activity may have unseen costs. When a broken window leads to the purchase of a new window, it’s easy to think that the broken window helped society by increasing production and trade. In fact, breaking a window makes society worse off; wealth has been destroyed, not increased. Bastiat’s essay on this topic was titled “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen.” 优秀的经济学家都熟知弗雷德里克•巴斯夏的破窗理论,这个理论说明了,在可见的经济活动之下,可能潜藏了不可见的成本。打破一扇窗户,就要买一扇新的,所以人们很容易认为,通过促进生产和贸易,打破窗户会改善社会境况。而实际上,打破窗户使社会境况恶化了;财富被破坏了,而不是增加了。巴斯夏给讨论此问题的那篇论文起的标题正是“看得见的和看不见的”。 A similar dynamic exists in the legal world. Legislative and regulatory processes are easy to see. Elections routinely draw public attention to legislative and administrative government. Elected and unelected regulators have media operations to tell reporters what they are doing. Common-law rules, on the other hand, are mostly unseen. Legal doctrines such as property and contract emerged quietly from series of court decisions over decades and even centuries, so they often go unconsidered and unspoken. Many people may believe that legislation and regulation do most of the work of ordering society. 在法律领域,类似的情况也同样存在。立法与监管程序是显而易见的。大选会定期让民众注意到立法与行政机构,选举的与非选举的官员会通过媒体来阐述他们的举措。相比之下,普通法下的规则绝大部分是看不见的。有关财产与契约等范畴的法律原则,在数十年甚至数百年来的法庭判例中悄无声息地形成,因此往往既不为人留意,也未经言明。许多人可能会认为,规范社会的,主要是法典与规条。 Libertarians should remember the common law and generally prefer it. The common law process for making the rules of a free society has much to commend it. And where it falls down, it is more readily fixable than legislation and government regulation. 自由意志主义者应该谨记普通法,并将其置于优先地位。普通法体系在形成自由社会规则方面确有不少令人赞许之处。而且与成文法和行政规制体系相比,普通法在其失足跌倒之处也更便于调整修正。 American law students learn early that the common law is an important inheritance from England that differs from the civil-law tradition dominant on the European continent. In the common-law tradition, the basic rules that govern our interactions arise from years of experience over generations. Our forebears learned that justice is served and benefits accrue when people avoid violence, stick to their promises, and allocate things in an orderly way. 美国法学学生很早就认识到普通法体系是继承自英国的一项重要遗产,该法系与欧洲大陆盛行的民法传统大相径庭。在普通法传统下,基本法律规范由一代代人的长期经验积累而来。我们的祖先发现,当人们免于暴力,信守承诺,分配有序时,正义便得到伸张,福祉便得到增长。 The law of battery, contract law, and property law all emerged as common practice solidified into common law. It’s often called “judge-made” law, but at its best common law is “judge-found” law— that is, judges discover law in common practices that are deeply ingrained in society. 有关殴打的法律、契约法以及财产法,都是由惯例凝结固化而成的普通法。普通法常被称为“法官制造的”法律,但最恰当的说法应该是“法官发现的”法律——意思是说,法官们发掘出社会上根深蒂固的惯例中所蕴含的规则。 In contrast, the source of rules in civil-law countries is the code books issued by rulers and governments. Civil codes establish the rules governing contracts, trade, property, criminal law, and so on. The civil-law tradition extols the great law-givers—Solon, Hammurabi, Napoleon—who wrote down the law codes purporting to govern their societies. 对比之下,民法体系国家的规则来源是统治者与政府颁布的法律条文。有关契约、商业、财产、刑法等各方面的规则,均由民法法典确立。民法传统推崇伟大的立法者——梭伦、汉穆拉比、拿破仑——他们一手制订治理社会的法典。 But the founding of civil law is something of a myth. In the times when civil law originated, the bulk of most populations was illiterate. These citizens did not have copies of the civil codes that purported to govern them. The civil-law tradition relies on the fiction that certain powerful men produced laws—but they actually arose like common law from the time-worn habits and customs of their subjects. 然而,民法起源于一个神话。在民法最初形成的时候,大部分民众还是文盲,他们并没有读过那些用来管辖他们的民法法典。民法传统建基于强人立法的虚构故事——实际上它们和普通法一样,源自于古老的习惯与惯例。【编注:作者的意思大概是,有关强人立法的虚构故事为民法赋予了其被广泛接受所需的权威性。】 Part of the genius of the common law is its mix of adaptability and consistency. When new circumstances arise, common-law courts, urged on and educated by the parties to disputes, adapt existing rules in ways that they believe produce the most just and fair outcomes. 普通法的优越之处,部分表现在它在适应性和连贯性之间的平衡。当新的环境条件出现时,普通法的法庭在争讼各方的敦促与启发下,会灵活理解运用现有规则,以期达到一个他们都认为公正公平的结果。 They look for comparable cases in their own and other jurisdictions to learn what adaptation of existing law will produce the best results. Over time, new doctrines emerge and old ones may die out. But at any given time there is a stable rule-set people can use to organize their lives and business activities. 法庭将在本身与其他司法管辖区中查找可供比附的案例,以研究如何调整现有规则才能达致最佳的结果。随着时间的推移,新的法律原则形成,旧的则被淘汰。但在任何一个时间点上,人民生活经商都有一套相对稳定的规则可供遵循。 THE COMMON LAW OF PRIVACY 有关隐私的普通法 The field of privacy protection illustrates how common law develops. In 1890 a Harvard Law Review article entitled “The Right to Privacy” made the original argument that law should address privacy. Samuel Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, later to become a U.S. Supreme Court justice, catalogued the legal doctrines that might control certain abuses of private life arising from photography and mass circulation newspapers. They argued that the law should explicitly protect privacy. 普通法规则的发展演变,从保护隐私领域就可觅一斑。1890年,一篇刊载在《哈佛法学评论》上题为《隐私权》的文章首次提出,法律需要处理隐私问题。萨缪尔•沃伦与后来成为美国最高法院大法官的路易斯•布兰代斯,整理出了能够制止因拍照和大发行量报纸而引致侵犯私生活的法律原则。他们认为法律应明确保护隐私。 Over time, a new branch of common law was born. Courts across the country began to recognize privacy torts—legally recognized wrongs that give victims of privacy invasions the right to sue invaders. In 1960 eminent legal scholar William L. Prosser documented how privacy as a legal concept had come to constitute four distinct torts: intrusion upon seclusion or solitude, or into private affairs; public disclosure of embarrassing private facts; publicity that places a person in a false light in the public eye; and appropriation of name or likeness. 随着时间推移,普通法的一个新分支出现了。全国的法庭都开始承认隐私侵权——从法律上确认侵犯隐私是错的,受害者可以控告侵权者。1960年,杰出的法律学者威廉•普罗萨总结了隐私权这一法律概念,并界定了四种不同的侵权类型:侵扰他人独处或私人领域;曝光令人困窘的私人信息;不当报道,以造成对个人的错误印象;盗用人名等个人标记。 The common law of privacy continues to develop and advance. In 1998, the Minnesota Supreme Court recognized invasion of privacy as a tort in that state for the first time. The case was Lake v. Wal-Mart Stores. The defendant’s photo-developing shop failed to deliver two women their vacation photos, but an employee distributed a photo of the two showering together, spurring the court to adopt the “public disclosure” branch of the privacy torts. 有关隐私权的普通法不断地发展和推进。1998年,明尼苏达州最高法院首次裁定侵犯隐私在该州构成民事侵权行为。该案为“莱克诉沃尔玛”(Lake v. Wal-Mart)案。被告的照片冲印店未能交付两位女顾客度假时拍的照片,但被告的一名员工却对外散布了这两名女顾客一起淋浴的照片。法庭认为此举适用于隐私侵权分类中的“公开泄露私人信息”。 Like most law, the privacy torts work in the background, through the threat of lawsuits and not actual days in court or big damage awards. The rarity of lawsuits under the privacy torts may show how consistent these baseline privacy rules are with society’s general mores. Some would argue, of course, that they’re not strict enough and that debatable uses of information should produce successful privacy lawsuits more often. Legal evolution will decide who is right. 与大多数的其他法律一样,隐私侵权的法规在社会背景中默默运作,通过潜在的诉讼威胁,而不是大量的实际庭审或高额赔偿来发挥作用。有关隐私侵权的实际案件之少,可能正说明了保护隐私的法律规则与社会上普遍的道德观念高度一致。当然,可能有些人会认为这些法规不够严厉,信息的争议性使用应该产生更多的隐私案胜诉。孰是孰非,在法律演变中自有定夺。 Privacy law may be in tension with free speech and the First Amendment, so it’s not clear that the privacy torts are a permanent fixture in the common-law pantheon. On the other hand, privacy-law professors and others often use the phrase “privacy harm” in a tacit effort to impress into common language— and ultimately common law—that more offenses against privacy or data security should be recognized as legally actionable harms. It’s all part of a quiet but important debate about our privacy values and what may become our privacy laws. 隐私法也许与言论自由和宪法第一修正案有一定的矛盾,因此隐私侵权能否成为普通法神殿的永久基石之一,并未有定论。而在另一方面,隐私法领域的教授与其他学者经常引用“隐私伤害”来试图与普通用语挂钩——最终与普通法挂钩——并试图将更多侵害隐私或信息安全的行为纳入可采取法律行动的伤害行为。 这些争论虽然悄然进行,但对于我们确立有关隐私的价值观,以及确立针对隐私的法律,都非常重要。 But people don’t often ask how common law torts, property rights, and contracts protect privacy. They ask: “What will Congress and our state legislatures do?” Legislation and regulation get most of the attention. 但人们并不会经常过问,隐私权如何得到普通法的侵权法、财产法,以及契约法的保护。他们会问:“国会和我们的州立法机构会怎么做?”。引人注目的是立法与规制。 The top-down process that established federal privacy regulation of health information illustrates some differences between understated common-law development and cacophonous civil-law-style rule-writing. 有关健康信息隐私的联邦管制规则,是通过一个由上至下的程序确立的,从中可以看出低调的普通法发展与喧闹的民法式规则制定之间的某些区别。 In 1996 Congress revamped the rules around health insurance. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) also addressed health privacy, but it didn’t set new privacy rules. Instead, Congress instructed the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to make recommendations about the privacy of individually identifiable health information. It told HHS to go ahead and write privacy regulations based on those recommendations if Congress did not act. 1996年,国会对有关医疗保险的法规进行修订。《健康保险隐私及责任法案》(HIPAA)也涉及健康隐私,但其并未对隐私做出新规定。相反,国会要求卫生及公共服务部(HHS)部长就个人可辨识医疗信息的隐私提供建议,并指示HHS,如果国会没有采取相应行动,该部可根据这些建议撰写隐私相关规定。 When HHS reported back to Congress, it downplayed many safeguards for privacy that already existed. These included medical ethics, explicit and implied contract rights, malpractice claims, and state privacy torts— non regulatory privacy protections that got only a few cryptic lines buried deep in the report. In addition to largely ignoring them, HHS advocated eliminating some of them. 此后,当HHS向国会汇报时,对已有的隐私保护措施予以淡化处理,这些措施包括医疗道德,明确及隐含的契约权利,针对专业失当的索赔,以及各州的隐私侵权法——即非行政的隐私保护,仅在报告的某个角落以寥寥数行隐晦提及。HHS不仅对其几近无视,甚至建议将它们当中的一部分予以剔除。 Today, with the HIPAA privacy regulations in place, people seeking health care sign a lot of forms and see a lot of notices discussing health privacy—but it’s not at all clear that their privacy is well protected. The HIPAA rules preserved and helped solidify behind the- scenes information-sharing practices in the health care industry that may or may not serve consumers and society well. Every year, it seems, there is less and less of a free market in health care to test for and discover consumers’ true interests in health privacy and every other dimension of health care. The common law of health privacy is widely ignored. 如今,由于HIPAA的隐私条文已付诸实施,人们接受医疗保健服务需要签署大量表格,阅读大量讨论健康隐私的告示,但他们的隐私是否得到很好的保障,却根本不清楚。医疗行业幕后的信息共享机制未必能很好地满足消费者和社会整体的要求,而HIPAA的条文则保护了这一机制,并使之更加稳固。年复一年,自由的医疗保健市场似乎正在日益萎缩,我们难以探知与发掘消费者在健康隐私乃至医疗保障其他方面的真正利益之所在。健康隐私方面的普通法原则被普遍忽略了。 INDUCTIVE COMMON LAW VS. DEDUCTIVE REGULATION 归纳式的普通法与推论式的立法 Common law is inductive. Building on experience in case after real-world case, common- law courts accrete knowledge about the rule-set that best serves society. Because rule development occurs with reference to real life cases, it takes advantage of local knowledge about the precise disputes that occur. This allows better approximation of what the truly just rules will be for most cases. 普通法是归纳性的。在众多真实案例的经验基础上,普通法法庭在不断积累认知,寻求最适合社会的法则。由于规则在参照真实案例的过程中发展,其优势是能够利用实际发生的真切争议中所包含的局部知识。在绝大多数情况下,这种方式都能达致较为接近公平法则的效果。【编注:此处作者援引的是哈耶克在1948年的论文《社会中的知识利用》中阐述的思想,哈耶克认为,中央计划者或理性建构者的根本困难在于,无法收集和利用作出正确决定所需的分散的局部知识。】 Hayek emphasized the value of local knowledge in economic decision making. He also emphasized the distinction between common law and top-down legislation in his three-volume work Law, Legislation and Liberty. The Italian lawyer Bruno Leoni is another great thinker in this area. His book Freedom and the Law extolled the virtue of English common law compared to Roman jus civile. The two systems have very different ways of developing rules. Common-law systems hew closer to common justice. 哈耶克强调过局部知识对于经济决策的重要价值,也在他的三卷本著作《法律、立法与自由》中强调了普通法与由上至下立法的区别。意大利律师布鲁诺•莱奥尼在这一领域也颇有研究,他在其著作《自由与法律》中赞扬了英式普通法较之罗马市民法的优点。两套体系在发展法规方面大相径庭,普通法更倾向于追求常理上的正义。 Legislation and regulation more often produce rank re-ordering of rights and liabilities because legislation is deductive. At a single point in time, based on all the knowledge it has drawn together at that moment, a legislature establishes the rule-set that it believes to make the most sense. This is often what it perceives as pleasing the most— or the most important—constituencies. That imperative to please constituencies means that the information legislatures codify often comes from well-organized interests with substantial resources. Special- interest pleading is a hallmark of legislation and regulation. 由于立法是演绎性的,因此权利与义务的轻重经常通过订立法律与规章来编排。在某个给定的时点上,立法机关基于当时所知,建立一整套它认为最合理的法规。这又被认为是在迎合最多数或者最重要的选民。迎合选民,意味着立法机关为之编写法规的诉求,经常会来自于掌握重要资源的有组织团体。因而,制定法律与规章带有满足特殊利益诉求的印记。 Judges in common law courts have fewer of the perverse incentives that legislators and regulators do, particularly when judges are appointed for life terms. A tenured judge gets professional acclaim from developing a reputation for fairness, from clearing dockets, and from suffering few reversals in higher courts. Judges generally don’t anticipate growing their courts’ budgets, getting post-service perks, or being re-installed in office due to the outcomes in their cases, as legislators and regulators often do. Legislation and regulation are systematically subject to a kind of intellectual corruption in which self interest diverges from the public interest. 与立法者和监管者相比,普通法法庭的法官带有的不当动机较少,尤其当法官职位是终身制的时候。为赢得专业上的赞誉,一个终身制的法官需要建立断案公正的名声,避免案件积压,以及减少其裁定被高一级法院推翻的案件。与立法者和监管者不同,法官一般来说并不需要担心他们的判决会对法庭的收入,个人离任津贴,或者恢复职位造成影响。而立法与监管机构则由于自身利益与公众利益有所偏离,容易系统性的滋生智识上的腐败。 WRITING THE RIGHT RULES 编写正确的规则 Rules produced by the deductions of legislators and regulators don’t always fail, of course, and they aren’t always wrong. But it is better to arrive at just rules through a long, society-wide deliberation than through a legislative debate. To illustrate this subtle point, consider the rules that govern the liability of interactive computer services like YouTube, Yelp, craigslist, and Facebook. 当然,立法者与监管者通过推导演绎编写的规则并非必然失败,也并非总是错的。但为了得到公正的规则,经由全社会参与的长期讨论始终还是比经由立法辩论为好。为了体现这当中的微妙之处,让我们来研究规管诸如YouTube、Yelp、Craigslist和Facebook等电脑互动服务供应商之责任的规则。 In the mid-1990s courts were considering whether interactive online services would be considered publishers of the information people uploaded and posted to them. If they were publishers, websites might be liable for defamation and other causes of action because of the material users contributed to them. Had this rule taken hold, operators of online services would probably have allowed only tightly controlled and monitored interactions among users. The rollicking, interactive Internet we know today would have been sharply curtailed. 1990年代中期,法庭在研究在线互动服务是否应该被视为其用户张贴上载信息的发布人。如果是的话,这些网站可能将会因为其用户所提供的信息,而负上诽谤及其他法律责任。如果确立了这一规则,在线服务运营商就很可能会对用户间的交流进行严密的控制与监视,我们今天所见到的生动活泼、积极互动的互联网必将大打折扣。 In response to this concern, Congress passed legislation saying that interactive computer services are not publishers or speakers of any information others provide using their services. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) is one of the most important protections for online speech in the United States. 出于这一顾虑,国会通过法案表明,电脑互动服务供应商并非其用户上载信息的发布人或发言人。《通信规范法案》(CDA)第230条,便是美国网上言论最重要的保障之一。 But CDA section 230 is often talked about as an “immunity” Congress gave to online service providers, a carve-out from general liability rules, put in place to advance a certain public policy goal. The perception of CDA section 230 as a special-interest favor means that other interests are on relatively strong footing when they come to Congress seeking to overturn it. Today, CDA section 230 is under attack from groups who would like to see it reversed. The rule against liability for online service providers would be stronger if courts had arrived at a rule of “no liability” based in considerations of natural justice. 但CDA第230条经常被认为有异于一般的责任条款,是国会旨在推动某一特定的公共政策,而赋予网络服务运营商的“豁免权”。该条款给人以一种照顾特殊利益的印象,这意味着当其他利益的代表寻求在国会推翻这一条款的时候,将会有较强的理据。如今,一些持反对立场的团体正在挑战该条款。如果在线服务供应商的“免责”是经由法庭考虑自然正义原则之后确立的话, 该规则就将会有较强的说服力。 When the rules that organize our society are temporal products of legislation, they may always be “in play” for a legislative reversal. Online service providers must always remain vigilant in Washington, D.C., for attempts to undercut their special “immunity.” The rules that govern online liability were established quickly, which is good, but they are less settled than they otherwise would be, and there is one more reason for private businesses to maintain a stable of lobbyists and lawyers in Washington. 如果规制社会的规则是因应时势的立法产物,那么这些规则就处于一种随时可能被立法推翻的状态之下。在线服务供应商就必须在华盛顿特区保持高度警觉,以防有人破坏他们的特殊“豁免权”。迅速订立规制网上责任的规则是好事,但这些规则的认受性本来可以更高一些,而且这也为私营企业在华盛顿豢养着一班说客和律师提供了多一个理由。 There is no guarantee, of course, that the common-law rule would be the same right now as what CDA section 230 produced. The common-law process might still be searching for the right rule. Common-law development would probably find, though, that online service providers are not liable for the acts of others. 当然,普通法体系下订立的规则,未必就和CDA第230条的内容一样。在普通法程序下,我们可能仍在寻找恰当的规则,当然,普通法体系很可能会认为在线服务供应商无需为他人的行为负责。 FAR FROM PERFECT, BUT BETTER IN PRACTICE 虽远未完美,但在实践中占优 This is no argument that common-law courts are perfect. They are not. It takes a very long time for just rules to be found out and settled on through common-law development. Elected judges often have incentives to please powerful constituencies. The class-action mechanism is prone to abuse and often used to reward plaintiffs’ lawyers. Punitive damages are too often a source of windfalls to lucky plaintiffs. The rules about who pays for litigation may be changed to improve the delivery of justice in the courts. 没有人会认为普通法法庭运作得很完美。并非如此。在普通法体系下,确立公平规则,并得到认受,需要很长的时间;选举产生的法官常有动机去迎合强大的利益团体;集体诉讼机制容易被滥用,而且常常有利于原告的律师;幸运的原告经常从惩罚性赔偿中大捞一票;为了正义能更好地在法庭上体现,诉讼费用的分担规则可能需要进行修改。 But these challenges are more correctable than the dynamics in legislation and regulation. Public choice economics teaches that actors in all these rule-making processes will pursue their own self-interest, but the interests of legislators and regulators are likely to diverge from justice more often than the interests of judges. 但这些难题,要比立法与规制过程中的纠葛易于解决。公共选择经济学指出,在规则制定的过程中,相关各方会追求自身的最大利益,但与法官比起来,立法者与监管者的利益很可能更容易与社会公义有分歧。 There is a fair argument that legislation and government regulation create certainty, which may make it worthwhile to accept their many costs. This is particularly acute in the area of high tech, where the application of common law may be unclear. 一种意见认为,明文立法与政府规章带来了确定性,因此随之而来的众多代价也就变得可以接受。这不是没有道理,特别在普通法的适用性并不明确的高科技领域,这显得尤其突出。 But regulation produces certainty in theory better than it does in practice. Witness the recent “BitLicense” fiasco in New York State. When Bitcoin, a digital currency, first captured public attention a few years ago, New York superintendent of financial services Ben Lawsky saw it as an opportunity to make his mark in a hot new area. He proposed an ill-defined “BitLicense” that would require registration of Bitcoin businesses in New York. During the rule-making process, his office declined to release “research and analysis” backing the necessity of a BitLicense, in violation of New York’s Freedom of Information Law. 成文法规理论上能带来确定性,但在实践中却未必。近来“比特登记证”(BitLicense)在纽约州的惨败便是一例。当电子货币比特币在几年前引起公众关注的时候,纽约金融服务主管本•洛斯基将其视为他在这个炙手可热的新领域留名的机会。他提议推出含混不清的“比特登记证”条例,要求纽约的比特币业务进行注册登记。在条例制定过程中,他的部门不惜违反纽约的《信息自由法》,拒绝提供与证明“比特登记证”之必要性相关的“研究与分析”。 The final “BitLicense” was a hodgepodge of regulations like the ones that burden the mainstream financial services sector. They were an ill fit with this emerging technology and a hindrance to innovation because they drove up the cost of starting new businesses. They didn’t acknowledge the technology’s inherent capability to provide consumer protections that surpass existing financial services. Shortly after the “BitLicense” was finalized, Lawsky stepped down from his post to establish a financial regulation consultancy. 和那些为主流金融服务增加负担的规章一样,最终出台的“比特登记证”条例是个大杂烩。这些条例完全不适应这一新兴技术,并且因提高创业成本而妨碍了创新。它们无视新技术内在的保护消费者的能力,这种保护超越了现有的金融服务。“比特登记证”条例推出不久,洛斯基就下台创立了一家金融监管咨询公司。 Today, it is anyone’s guess whether and how the New York Department of Financial Services will amend or enforce the technology- specific regulation that Lawsky produced. The “BitLicense” did not create certainty about the rules of the road for Bitcoin businesses in New York, and it did not create an upwelling of Bitcoin business activity in New York. America’s financial capital appears to be ceding ground on financial innovation to London, in the birthplace of common law. 今天,大家都在猜测纽约的金融服务管理局是否会修订或者执行洛斯基留下来的这一针对特定科技的条例,以及具体如何修订或执行。“比特登记证”并没有为比特币业务在纽约的发展之路带来确定性,也没有令比特币业务在纽约蓬勃发展。美国的金融之都在金融创新方面似乎正在让位于伦敦,普通法的发源地。 Common-law rules foster innovation because they allow anyone with a new idea or process to experiment with it, subject only to background rules, such as “stick to your promises” and “do no harm.” There are no forms to fill out or licensing fees. There is no oversight body that must examine how an innovation fits into pre-existing regulation. “Permissionless innovation” does mean some more risk to consumers and society, but our experience with high tech shows just how great the reward is when behavior is controlled with light-touch, simple, fair common-law rules. 普通法规则有利于创新,因为它允许人们去试验新主意和新方法,只要遵守诸如“履行承诺”、“避免伤害”等基本规则即可。不需要填表格,不需要付牌照费,也没有监管部门去检验一项创新在现行规章下如何自处。“免许可创新”的确意味着消费者和社会将面对较高的风险,但经验已经告诉我们,当我们的行为处于简单、公平的普通法规则的规制之下时,高科技将会给我们带来多么巨大的回报。 The United States and England today live under a dual system. In many areas, they continue to enjoy the benefits of the common law. But legislatures increasingly insert themselves, making temporal judgments that rejigger the rules that people and businesses must live by. In many fields, people look to legislation and regulation first, rather than examining how time-honored rules can be adapted to solve new problems. 现今的美国与英格兰生活在一个双重体系之下。在很多方面,她们继续享受着普通法的益处。但立法机关正不断强化自己的作用,用世俗的判断来改变日常生活与商业活动所需遵守的规则。在很多领域,人们首先寄望于立法与规管,而不是去审视自古以来的规则可以如何调适,以解决新生的问题。 Legislatures and regulatory agencies have a lot of smart people working in them. They universally believe they are pursuing the best interests of their jurisdictions. But the system they work in has perverse incentives, and they have little of the knowledge that common-law processes gather and pass down through the ages. “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience,” wrote jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in his 1881 book, The Common Law. 立法机关与监管部门当中不乏能人,他们普遍认为他们在为其辖区的最大利益而努力。但他们所供职的体系有着不当的激励,并且他们对普通法体系经年累月累积传承下来的知识知之甚少。法学家小奥利佛•温德尔•霍姆斯在他1881年所著的《普通法》一书中写道,“法律的生命从不在于逻辑,而在于经验,” The common law is an important part of structuring and ordering a free and prosperous society. It is preferable to legislation and government regulation. Even when we confront new problems, we lovers of liberty should remember the common law. 构建与规范一个自由繁荣的社会,普通法体系乃重要一环,它比成文的法律与政府规章更为可取。即便遭遇新的挑战,热爱自由的我们也不应该忘记普通法。 (编辑:辉格@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

军令如丝

【2016-04-22】

@whigzhou: 在阅读普通法的早期文献时,我常常为其(操作主义意义上的)精确性所折服,与其他系统中常见的(看不出操作性含义的)泛泛空洞之辞形成鲜明对照,这种精确性显然源自其司法程序的令状基础,每种令状对一项程序应如何执行有着明确指示,再往前追究,这一特性大概和诺曼君主的军事背景不无关系,

@whigzhou: 和其他文书相比,军令应该是最讲究(操作意义上的)明确性的——你,和谁谁谁一起,(more...)

标签: | | |
7109
【2016-04-22】 @whigzhou: 在阅读普通法的早期文献时,我常常为其(操作主义意义上的)精确性所折服,与其他系统中常见的(看不出操作性含义的)泛泛空洞之辞形成鲜明对照,这种精确性显然源自其司法程序的令状基础,每种令状对一项程序应如何执行有着明确指示,再往前追究,这一特性大概和诺曼君主的军事背景不无关系, @whigzhou: 和其他文书相比,军令应该是最讲究(操作意义上的)明确性的——你,和谁谁谁一起,带上这个那个,于某月某日几点前,到达某地。——读令状的感觉就像这样。史家也曾指出,在亨利二世之前,司法令状和其他令状并没有明确区别,依我看,他们都有着军令的背景。  
[译文]赏金猎人的正义追寻

The Bounty Hunter’s Pursuit of Justice
赏金猎人的正义追寻

作者:Alex Tabarrok @ 2011-冬
译者:陈小乖(@lion_kittyyyyy),带菜刀的诗人
校对:Tianyi Xu (@pathto)
来源:The Wilson Quarterly,http://wilsonquarterly.com/stories/the-bounty-hunters-pursuit-of-justice/

When felony defendants jump bail, bounty hunters spring into action. It’s a uniquely American system, and it works.

当重罪嫌疑人弃保潜逃时,赏金猎人便会立刻展开行动。这是一套美国独有的制度,并且它行之有效。

Andrew Luster had it all: a multimillion-dollar trust fund, good looks, and a bachelor pad just off the beach in Mussel Shoals, California. Luster, the great-grandson of cosmetics legend Max Factor, spent his days surfing and his nights cruising the clubs. His life would have been sad but unremarkable if he had not had a fetish for sex with unconscious women. When one woman alleged rape, Luster claimed mutual consent, but the videotapes the police discovered when they searched his home told a different story. Eventually, more than 10 women came forward, and he was convicted of 20 counts of rape and sentenced to 124 years in prison. There was only one problem. Luster could not (more...)

标签: |
5643
The Bounty Hunter’s Pursuit of Justice 赏金猎人的正义追寻 作者:Alex Tabarrok @ 2011-冬 译者:陈小乖(@lion_kittyyyyy),带菜刀的诗人 校对:Tianyi Xu (@pathto) 来源:The Wilson Quarterly,http://wilsonquarterly.com/stories/the-bounty-hunters-pursuit-of-justice/ When felony defendants jump bail, bounty hunters spring into action. It's a uniquely American system, and it works. 当重罪嫌疑人弃保潜逃时,赏金猎人便会立刻展开行动。这是一套美国独有的制度,并且它行之有效。 Andrew Luster had it all: a multimillion-dollar trust fund, good looks, and a bachelor pad just off the beach in Mussel Shoals, California. Luster, the great-grandson of cosmetics legend Max Factor, spent his days surfing and his nights cruising the clubs. His life would have been sad but unremarkable if he had not had a fetish for sex with unconscious women. When one woman alleged rape, Luster claimed mutual consent, but the videotapes the police discovered when they searched his home told a different story. Eventually, more than 10 women came forward, and he was convicted of 20 counts of rape and sentenced to 124 years in prison. There was only one problem. Luster could not be found. Andrew Luster曾经应有尽有:数百万美元的信托基金、英俊的外表以及一套位于加州马尔斯肖尔斯(Mussel Shoals)的海边单身公寓。Luster是传奇彩妆品牌蜜丝佛陀(Max Factor)创始人的曾孙。他过着白天在海上冲浪,夜里流连往返于各个夜店的日子。要不是他沉湎于迷奸女性,他的生活不过是可怜又平常的。当一名女性声称被Luster强奸时,他表示是两厢情愿的。可警方从他住所搜出的录影带却表明并非如此。最终,十多名女性站了出来,指证Luster的罪行。法院裁定Luster 20项强奸罪名成立,并判处他124年监禁,但问题是:Luster已不见踪影。 Shortly before he was expected to take the stand, Luster withdrew funds from his brokerage accounts, found a caretaker for his dog, and skipped town on a $1 million bail bond. The FBI put Luster on its most-wanted list, but months passed with no results. In the end, the authorities did not find him. But Luster was brought to justice—by a dog (or at least a man who goes by that name). 在出庭前夕,Luster从他的经纪账户中撤出了资金,为他的狗找了个看护,然后放弃了一百万美元的保释金溜之大吉。FBI将Luster列为最重要的通缉犯,但历经数月依旧毫无进展。官方机构始终没能找到他。但最终Luster还是被一条狗(或至少是以此名义出现的一个人)绳之以法。 Duane Chapman, star of the A&E reality TV show Dog: The Bounty Hunter, tracked Luster for months. He picked up clues to Luster’s whereabouts from old phone bills and from Luster’s mother, who inadvertently revealed that her son spoke fluent Spanish. He also gleaned useful information from a mysterious Mr. X who taunted him by e-mail and who may have been Luster himself. Finally, a tip from someone who had seen Dog on television brought Chapman to a small town in Mexico known for its great surfing. Days later, he and his team spotted Luster at a taco stand, apprehended him, and turned him over to the local police. A&E频道真人秀节目《赏金猎人大狗(DogThe Bounty Hunter)》中的明星Duane Chapman追踪Luster数月。他通过Luster的旧电话账单,以及Luster母亲无意间提及的她儿子能讲一口流利的西班牙语等线索来判断Luster的行踪。此外,他还从神秘人X先生嘲讽他的电子邮件中搜集到有用的信息,这位神秘人可能就是Luster本人。最后,来自赏金猎人大狗的观众的线报将Chapman带到了一个以冲浪闻名的墨西哥小镇。数日后,Chapman和他的团队在一个墨西哥夹饼小摊前发现了Luster,将他一举拿下送往当地警局。 Most people don’t realize how many fugitives from the law there are. About one-quarter of all felony defendants fail to show up on the day of their trial. Some of these absences are due to forgetfulness, hospitalization, or even imprisonment on another charge. But like Luster, many felony defendants skip court with willful intent. The police are charged with recapturing these fugitives, but some of them are chased by an even more tireless pursuer, the bounty hunter. 大多数人并没有意识到有多少逃犯仍逍遥法外,大约四分之一的重罪嫌疑人没有在庭审之日按时出庭。有些是因为忘了出庭时间,或正住院接受治疗,甚至正因另一起案件而接受监禁。但还有许多重罪嫌疑人是像Luster一样,蓄意潜逃。警察负有将这些逃犯抓捕归案的责任,但有些逃犯则是由一群更加不知疲倦的人追捕的——他们就是赏金猎人。 Bounty hunters and bail bondsmen play an important but unsung role in a legal system whose court dockets are too crowded to provide swift justice. When a suspect is arrested, a judge must make a decision: set the suspect free on his own recognizance until the court is ready to proceed, hold the suspect in jail, or release the accused on the condition that he post a bail bond. A bond is a promise backed by incentive. If the suspect shows up on the trial date, he gets his money back; but if he fails to show, the money is forfeited. We don’t want to deprive the innocent of their liberty, but we also don’t want to give the guilty too much of a head start on their escape. Bail bonds don’t solve this problem completely, but they do give judges an additional tool to help them navigate the dilemma. 由于法庭日程过于繁忙而无法保证及时的审理,赏金猎人和保释担保人在法律系统中扮演着重要却默默无闻的角色。当嫌疑人被逮捕后,法官必须先在自行具结监外候审,羁押以及交保候审之间做出决定。保释是一种基于激励的承诺。如果嫌疑人在庭审当日出庭,他便能取回保释金,如果他未能按时出庭,那么这笔钱就会被没收。我们不想剥夺无辜者的自由,但也不希望给罪犯逃跑的机会。保释金制度并不能完全解决这个问题,但它确实为法官在两难之间作出权衡提供了一个额外手段。 Bail might be a rich man’s privilege were it not for the bail bondsman. (Many bondsmen are women, but “bondsperson” doesn't have quite the same ring, so I’ll use the standard terminology.) In return for a non-refundable fee, usually around 10 percent of the bond, a bondsman will put up his own money with the court. A typical bond might run $6,000. If the defendant shows up, the bondsman earns $600. But if the defendant flees, the bondsman potentially can forfeit $6,000. Potentially, because when a fugitive fails to appear, the court gives the bondsman a notice that essentially says, “Bring your charge to justice soon or your money is mine.” A bondsman typically has 90 to 180 days to bring a fugitive back to justice, so when a defendant jumps bail, the bondsman lets the dogs loose. 保释也许是一种富人特权,但幸好还有保释担保人。保释担保人会替被保释者支付全额保释金,通常被保释者会支付保释金的百分之十左右作为回报。一笔典型的保释金可能要6000美元。如果嫌疑人按时出庭,那么担保人就能赚取600美元,但如果嫌疑人潜逃,那么这6000美元就有被没收的危险。这是因为当逃犯没能按时出庭时,法院会给担保人一张通知,大意为“快把你的被保释人带到法庭,不然你的钱就是我的了”。担保人通常有90到180天的时间来找到逃犯,将他送到法庭,所以当被告弃保潜逃时,担保人就会让赏金猎人出动。 Actually, that last image suggesting a massive manhunt is misleading. Bail bond firms are often small, family-run businesses—the wife writes the bonds and the husband, the “bounty hunter,” searches for clients who fail to show up in court. Although a bondsman never knows when a desperate client might turn violent, his job is usually routine, as I found out when Dennis Sew volunteered to show me the ropes. Dennis has been in the business for more than 20 years and in 2009 was named agent of the year by the Professional Bail Agents of the United States. Nevertheless, I was apprehensive as I drove to Baltimore early one morning to try my hand at bounty hunting. 事实上,抓捕行动并非人们想象中那样兴师动众。保释担保公司通常都是些夫妻店,老婆提供担保,老公则扮演赏金猎人的角色,搜寻抓捕未能按时出庭的客户。虽然担保人无从知晓什么时候绝望的客户会使用暴力,但Dennis Sew的志愿演示让我了解到,通常担保人的工作只是例行公事。Dennis从事这行已经20多年了,2009年还被美国职业保释代理协会(Professional Bail Agents of the United States)评选为年度代理人。尽管如此,在一个清晨,当我开车到巴尔的摩(Baltimore)尝试当一回赏金猎人时,我仍心存顾虑。 When Dennis and I meet, he hands me a photo showing our first fugitive of the day. I’ll be honest. I was expecting to see a young African-American male. What can I say? It’s Baltimore and I've seen every episode of The Wire. But I’m surprised. Taken a few years ago in better times, the picture shows an attractive young woman, perhaps at her prom. She has long blond hair and bright eyes. She is smiling. 当Dennis和我见面时,他递给我一张当天的第一个追捕对象的照片。坦白地说,我以为会是一个年轻的黑人男性。怎么说呢?毕竟这里是巴尔的摩【译注:巴尔的摩市的犯罪率显著高于美国平均水平,种族结构以黑人为主,根据2010年的人口普查,黑人占当地人口的63%。】,而且我看了每一集《火线》(The Wire)【译注:《火线》是一部现实主义电视剧,由HBO在美国播出,讲述了马里兰州巴尔的摩市警察与犯罪团伙间交锋的故事。曾有媒体报道称,一些本地的黑人学生表示,这个电视剧揭了黑人社区的伤疤,他们自己就认识许多和剧中角色类似的人。】但我吃了一惊,照片上是一个迷人的年轻女性,拍摄于几年前还年轻的时候,可能就在她的高中毕业舞会上。她有着金色的长发,微笑着,眼睛闪闪发亮。 We drive to the house where a tip has placed her. It’s a middle-class home in a nice suburb. Children’s toys are strewn about the garden. I’m accompanied by Dennis and two of his coworkers—a former police officer and a former sheriff’s deputy. One of them takes the back while Dennis knocks. A woman still in her nightclothes answers. She does not seem surprised to have four men knocking at her door this early in the morning. She volunteers that we can search the house, and eventually we get the whole story from her. 我们驱车前往线索所指的她的栖身之处。那是一座坐落于郊外,地段颇好的中产阶级的房子,孩子们的玩具散落在花园里。我由Dennis和他的两名同事陪同,他们分别曾是警员和副警长。当Dennis敲门时其中一人走向后门。一个还穿着睡衣的女人开了门,对于四个男人一大清早敲开她门这事她似乎一点都不吃惊。她主动提出让我们搜查整个房子,最后,我们从她那儿听到了故事的全部。 “Chrissy,” our fugitive, is the woman’s niece. Chrissy was at the house two days before and may return. The once attractive young woman has had her life ruined by drugs. Or she has ruined her life with drugs—sometimes it’s hard to tell. She is now a heroin addict whose boyfriend regularly beats her. The aunt is momentarily shocked when we show her the photo. No, she doesn't look like that anymore—her hair is brown, her face is covered with scabs and usually bruised, and she weighs maybe 85 pounds. “Be gentle with her,” the aunt says, even though, she predicts, “she will probably fight.” Chrissy,我们的追捕对象,是这个女人的侄女。她两天前曾住在这里,而且可能还会回来。这个曾经如此迷人的年轻女人被毒品毁了一生,或者,她用毒品毁了她自己的一生,有时候这很难区分。她现在吸食海洛因成瘾,男朋友还常常打她。当我们向她阿姨出示那张照片时,她一惊。不,她看上去已经不再是这个样子了:她现在的头发是棕色的,脸上满是痂和淤青而且体重只有大概85磅。虽然她阿姨估计Chrissy很可能会和我们对抗,但她还是对我们说,“对她友善点。” The aunt gives us another location to scout: a parking lot where Chrissy and her mother are supposedly living out of a car. We are about to leave when the aunt thanks us for being quiet, because there’s a child in the house who was scared the last time the police came by. The child is Chrissy’s son. We drive to the location and look for the car. Dennis and his deputies see what looks like the vehicle and knock on one of the dirty windows, peering intently into the interior. The car is empty. Dennis and his deputies will return later. Chrissy的阿姨给了我们另一个搜寻地点:一处停车场,Chrissy和她的母亲应该住在一辆车里。在我们即将离开的时候,她阿姨对我们保持安静表示了感谢。因为上次来的警察惊吓到了屋里的孩子,他是Chrissy的儿子。我们开到那个停车场,搜寻Chrissy和她母亲住的那辆车。Dennis和他的助手们看见了一辆看着可能是搜寻目标的汽车,敲了敲其中一扇脏乎乎的车窗,同时目不转睛地注意着车内的动静,车里空无一人。Dennis和他的助手们稍后会再回来。 What it takes to be a successful bounty hunter is mostly persistence and politeness. On most days your leads don’t pay off, so you need to visit and revisit the fugitive’s home, work, and favorite hangouts. Waiting is a big part of the game. Why politeness? Well, where do the leads come from? From people like Chrissy’s aunt—relatives and friends who might not talk to the police but who will respond to a kind word. 成为一个成功的赏金猎人关键在于坚持不懈和以礼待人。大多数时候你的线索都不会有什么帮助,所以你需要不断地造访追捕对象的家、工作场所以及他平日里最爱去的地方。等待是这场游戏的重要组成部分。那么,为什么要以礼待人呢?想想,你的线索从哪儿来?从像Chrissy的阿姨这样的人那里来,他们是追捕对象的亲戚、朋友。他们对警察可能不理不睬,但他们会回应友善的交谈。 Bounty hunters are polite even to the fugitives who, after all, are also their customers, and sadly, bounty hunters rely a lot on repeat business. One customer of a firm owned by the same family that runs the one Dennis works for told him proudly, “My family and I have been coming to Frank’s Bail Bonds for three generations.” 赏金猎人甚至对追捕对象都很友善。因为追捕对象终究也是他们的客户。而且,可悲的是,赏金猎人依靠大量回头客。一个和Dennis所在公司被同一家族拥有的另一间公司的客户曾自豪地对他说:“我们家族三代人都找Frank的保释担保公司。”【编注:这句原文比较费解,从字面看,这里似乎分别提到了服务方和客户方的两个家族,但依我看,作者本意可能是:两个“family”指的是同一个家族,而且是客户方的。】 Most fugitives don’t fight, and Dennis is eager to avoid confrontation. Cowboys don’t last long in this business. Most bounty hunters have a working relationship with police officers and will sometimes call on them to make the arrest once a fugitive has been located. 大多数追捕对象并不反击,同时Dennis也极力避免冲突。冲动的人在这行干不久。大多数赏金猎人与警员有着工作伙伴关系,有时一旦追捕对象被锁定,他们便会打电话给警察让他们采取逮捕行动。 A bounty hunter also benefits from being prepared. A typical application for a bond, for example, requires information about the defendant’s residence, employer, former employer, spouse, children (along with their names and schools), spouse’s employer, mother, father, automobile (including description, tags, and financing), union membership, previous arrests, and so forth. In addition, bond dealers need access to all kinds of public and private databases. Noted bounty hunter Bob Burton says that a list of friends who work at the telephone, gas, or electric utility, the post office, welfare agencies, and in law enforcement is a major asset. Today, familiarity with the Internet and computer databases is a must. 充分的准备也对赏金猎人大有好处。例如,一个典型的担保申请需要被告人提供居住地址、现雇主、前雇主、配偶、孩子(以及他们的姓名和学校)、配偶的雇主、父母、汽车(包括描述、车牌、车贷)、所属工会、之前的被捕记录等一系列信息。此外,担保人还会查看所有公共和私人的数据库信息。著名赏金猎人Bob Burton说,拥有在电信公司、加油站、电力公司、邮局、福利机构以及执法机构等各行各业工作的朋友是一笔巨大的财富。如今,熟悉互联网和电脑数据库也是一项必备技能。 Good bond dealers master the tricks of their trade. The first three digits of a Social Security number, for example, indicate the state where the number was issued. This information can suggest that an applicant might be lying if he claims to have been born elsewhere, and it may provide a clue about where a skipped defendant has family or friends. 好的担保人能够轻易识别交易中的小陷阱。比如,社保号前三位表示该社保号的发行州,如果申请人声称出生在其他州,那么他可能在说谎。此外,这一信息还能为逃跑的被告人在哪里有亲戚朋友提供线索。 If at all possible, bail bondsmen get a friend or family member to cosign the bond. The reason is simple. A defendant whose bond is cosigned is less likely to flee. As Dennis told me, “In my line of work, I deal with some mean people, people who aren't afraid of me or the police. But even the mean ones are afraid of their mom, so if I can get Mom to list her house as collateral, I know the defendant is much more likely to show up when he is supposed to.” A defendant whose bond is cosigned is also more likely to be caught if he does flee, because the bondsman will remind the cosigner that if the fugitive can’t be found, it’s not just the bondsman who will be left holding the bag. 如果有可能,保释担保人会找一个被担保人的朋友或家庭成员共同担保。原因很简单,被共同担保的被告人逃跑的概率更小。正如Dennis告诉我的,“在我工作的过程中,我常要应付一些无赖,他们既不怕我也不怕警察,但即便是这样的人还是会对自己的母亲心存畏惧,所以,如果我能让他的母亲用房产做抵押,被告人基本上就会按时出庭。” 同时,一个有共同担保人的被告即使逃跑也更可能被抓住,因为保释担保人会提醒共同担保人要是嫌疑犯找不到了,包袱可不是保释担保人一人背。 Bounty hunters have robust rights to arrest fugitives. They can, for example, lawfully break into a suspect’s home without a warrant, pursue and recover fugitives across state lines without necessity of extradition proceedings, and search and seize without the constraint of the Fourth Amendment’s “reasonableness” requirement. Just like everyone else, however, bounty hunters must obey the criminal statutes. A bounty hunter who uses unreasonable force or mistakenly enters the home of someone who is not a bail jumper is subject to criminal prosecution. 赏金猎人具有逮捕逃犯的坚实权利。比如,他们不需要搜查令就能合法地破门进入嫌疑人家中、无需引渡程序就能实行跨州追捕遣返,不受宪法第四修正案“合理性”要求的约束搜查及扣押逃犯。【译注:第四修正案,是美国权力法案的一部分,旨在禁止无理搜查和扣押,并要求搜查和扣押状的发出有相当理由的支持。】但是,赏金猎人仍需像其他人一样服从刑事法规。使用不恰当武力或者误闯非逃保人住宅的赏金猎人将会受到刑事起诉。 The prerogatives of bounty hunters flow from the historical evolution of bail. Bail began in medieval England as a progressive measure to help defendants get out of jail while they waited, sometimes for many months, for a roving judge to show up to conduct a trial. If the local sheriff knew the accused, he might release him on the defendant’s promise to return for the hearing. More often, however, the sheriff would release the accused to the custody of a surety, usually a brother or friend, who guaranteed that the defendant would present himself when the time came. 赏金猎人拥有的特权是保释制度历史演变的结果。取保候审作为起源于中世纪英格兰的一项进步措施,旨在帮助等候巡回法官出席主持审判期间的被告人免除牢狱之灾,这等待时间有时长达数月。如果当地的执法人员认识被告人,他可能会凭被告人的承诺将其释放听候传唤。然而,更多时候,执法人员会将被告人置于担保人的监护之下,担保人通常可以是被告的一个兄弟或者朋友,他保证被告人在审判到来之际会及时出庭。 So, in the common law, custody of the accused was never relinquished but instead was transferred to the surety—the brother became the keeper—which explains the origin of the strong rights bail bondsmen have to pursue and capture escaped defendants. Initially, the surety’s guarantee to the sheriff was simple: If the accused failed to show, the surety would take his place and be judged as if he were the offender. 所以,在普通法中,法院并未解除对被告人的羁押,只是这种责任转移到了担保人手上——兄弟成为了监管人——这也解释了保释担保人所拥有的追捕逃跑被告人这项牢固权利的起源。最初,担保人给执法人员的保证很简单:如果被告人没有在出席庭审,担保人就要接替被告人的位置并接受审判,就像他才是违法的人。 The English system provided lots of incentives for sureties to make certain that the accused showed up for trial, but not a lot of incentive to be a surety. The risk to sureties was lessened when courts began to accept pledges of cash rather than of one’s person, but the system was not perfected until personal surety was slowly replaced by a commercial surety system in the United States. That system put incentives on both sides of the equation. Bondsmen had an incentive both to bail defendants out of jail and to chase them down should they flee. By the end of the 19th century, commercial sureties were the norm in the United States. (The Philippines is the only other country with a similar system.) 英国司法系统给予担保人极大激励,促使其确保被告出席审判,但没有提供足够激励使人愿意为他人担保。当法院开始接受现金抵押保证而不是人身保证的时候,担保人的风险大大减小,但是直到私人担保制逐渐被美国的商业担保制度所取代,这项制度才日渐完善。商业担保制度在这两种情况下对担保人都会产生激励【编注:原文的字面意思似乎是“该制度在(衡量成本收益的)天平两侧都放上了激励”】,担保人既有动机将被告人保释出狱,也有动机在被告潜逃时去抓捕他们。19世纪末的美国,商业担保制度已成为常态。(菲律宾是美国之外仅有的一个拥有类似制度的国家。) Bail was widely admired as a progressive institution when the alternative was jail, but in the 1950s and 60s many judges and law professors began to think that the alternative to bail should be release on a defendant’s own recognizance. Bail looked increasingly like a conservative institution that kept people, especially poor people, in jail. Many opinion makers came to support the creation of pretrial services agencies that would investigate defendants and recommend to judges whether they could be safely released on their own recognizance. In essence, the agencies would replace the judgment of bail bondsmen with the judgment of a professional bureaucracy. 作为一项代替羁押的先进制度,保释制广受美誉,但是在1950年代和60年代,许多法官和法学教授开始认为,保释应由被告人自行具结所取代。保释越发看起来像是把人——特别是穷人——关进监狱的保守制度。许多意见领袖开始站出来支持创建审前服务机构,这些机构会调查被告人并建议法官他们能否自行具结从而得以安全释放。本质上,这种机构将会用专业官僚制度取代保释担保人的判断。 In the early 1960s, the Vera Institute of Justice’s Manhattan Bail Project in New York City began gathering information about local defendants’ community ties and residential and employment stability and summarizing it in a numerical scoring system that it used to identify those who could be recommended for release on their own recognizance. The experiment was successful. The failure-to-appear rate among felony defendants the project recommended for release was no higher than the rate among those released on bail. Largely on the basis of these results, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Federal Bail Reform Act of 1966, which created a presumption in favor of releasing defendants on their own recognizance. 1960年代早期,纽约市的维拉司法研究所(Vera Institute of Justice)开展的曼哈顿保释实验(Manhattan Bail Project)就开始收集当地被告人的社区关系、居住、就业稳定性方面的信息,并且总结了一套用于辨别个人是否可以被认可为通过自行具结即可获释的打分系统。这个实验很成功。实验建议释放的身负重罪者的未出庭率不高于那些因保释释放的群体。很大程度上基于这些结果,美国总统林登·约翰逊(Lyndon B. Johnson)签署了1966年的联邦保释改革法,这项法律为支持释放自行具结被告人创造了前提。 Although the new law applied only to the federal courts, the states have widely emulated the reforms. Every state now has some kind of pretrial services program, and four (Illinois, Kentucky, Oregon, and Wisconsin) have outlawed commercial bail altogether. In its place, Illinois introduced the government bail or “deposit bond” system. The defendant is required to deposit with the court a small percentage of the face value of the bond. 尽管新法仅适用于联邦法院中,但是各州已广泛仿效这项改革。如今,每个州都拥有某些审前服务计划,其中四个州(伊利诺斯、肯塔基、俄勒冈和威斯康辛)已经宣布商业保释制度不合法。在其辖区内,伊利诺斯州引进了一套被称为政府保释或“担保债券”(depositbond)的制度。它要求被告将债券面值的一小部分交存法院。 If the defendant fails to appear, he may lose the deposit and be held liable for the full value of the bond. But while a defendant in a commercial bail system who shows up in court must still pay the bondsman a fee, those who do so in jurisdictions with systems like Illinois’s get all their money back (less a small service fee in some cases). And the only people empowered to chase down a defendant who has fled are the police. 如果被告人没能出席,他将失去交存法院的那部分存款并对债券的全部面值负责。而在商业保释制度下的被告人,即使在出席了庭审的情况下仍然必须给担保人支付一定的费用,那些在像伊利诺伊州法律系统的审判权范围内出席庭审的人则可以拿回所有的钱(某些情况下需要支付一点点服务费用)。另外,这种制度下唯一有权追捕逃跑被告的是警察。 The results of the Manhattan Bail Project seemed to support the position of progressives who argued that commercial bail was unnecessary. But all that the findings really demonstrated was that a few carefully selected felony defendants could be safely released on their own recognizance. In reality, the project allowed relatively few defendants to be let go and so could easily cherry pick those who were most likely to appear at trial. As pretrial release programs expanded in the late 1960s and early 70s, failure-to-appear rates increased. 曼哈顿保释实验的结果看似支持那种认为商业保释多余的进步主义立场。然而其发现所证明的不过是:一些精心挑选出来的重罪被告能够以自行具结安全释放。事实上,此实验只给了相对较少的被告以自由,因而挑选那些极有可能出庭的人就不是什么难事。 随着1960年代末70年代初审前释放计划的展开,未出庭率就上升了。 Today, when a defendant fails to appear, an arrest warrant is issued. But if the defendant was released on his own recognizance or on government bail, very little else happens. In many states and cities, the police are overwhelmed with outstanding arrest warrants. In California, about two million warrants have gone unserved. Many are for minor offenses, but hundreds of thousands are for felonies, including thousands of homicides. 如今,只要被告人没能出席,逮捕令便会签发。但是如果被告人是以自行具结或政府保释而被释放的,逮捕令往往不会起到什么作用。在许多州和城市中,警察面对大把大把未执行的逮捕令而焦头烂额。在加利福尼亚州,约有两百万张逮捕令未被执行。他们当中大多只是轻罪,但是仍有几十万人是重罪犯,其中还包括数以千计的杀人犯。 In Philadelphia, where commercial bail has been regulated out of existence, The Philadelphia Inquirer recently found that “fugitives jump bail . . . with virtual impunity.” At the end of 2009, the City of Brotherly Love had more than 47,000 unserved arrest warrants. About the only time the city’s bail jumpers are recaptured is when they are arrested for some other crime. One would expect that a criminal on the lam would be careful not to get caught speeding, but foresight is rarely a prominent characteristic of bail jumpers. Routine stops ensnare more than a few of them. When the jails are crowded, however, even serial bail jumpers are often released. 在法律规定商业保释非法的费城,《费城问询报(The Philadelphia Inquirer)》最近发现“逃犯逃保…实际上不受惩罚。”2009年年底,这个友爱之城【译注:费城又被称为友爱之城(City of Brotherly Love)/span>】尚有超过47, 000张未执行的逮捕令。只有因犯下其他罪行而被逮捕,这个城市的逃保者才会被重新逮捕。有人可能以为潜逃的罪犯会小心行事以免被抓到超速马上再次被捕,但是拥有如此先见之明的逃保者少之又少。例行拦车检查抓住了他们中的不少人。当监狱人满为患时,即使是屡次逃保的罪犯通常也可以得到释放。 The backlog of unserved warrants has become so bad that Philadelphia and many other cities with similar systems, including Washington, D.C., Indianapolis, and Phoenix, have held “safe surrender” days when fugitives are promised leniency if they turn themselves in at a local church or other neutral location. (Some safe surrender programs even advertise on-site child care.) That’s good for the fugitives, but for victims of crime, both past and future, justice delayed is justice denied. 未执行逮捕令的积压问题越来越严峻,像费城还有其他许多拥有类似制度的城市,如华盛顿特区、印第安纳波利斯和凤凰城,已经设立“安全自首日”,当逃犯去教堂或其他中间地带自首时承诺给他们从轻发落(一些安全自首计划甚至打出代为照顾孩子的广告)。对于逃亡者来说固然很好,但对于犯罪行为的受害者——无论过去的还是将来的——,迟来的正义即非正义。 Unserved warrants tend not to pile up in jurisdictions with commercial bondsmen. In those places, the bail bond agent is on the hook for the bond and thus has a strong incentive to bring those who jump bail to justice. My interest in commercial bail and bounty hunting began when economist Eric Helland and I used data on 36,231 felony defendants released between 1988 and 1996 to investigate the differences between the public and private systems of bail and fugitive recovery. Our study, published in The Journal of Law and Economics in 2004, is the largest and most comprehensive ever written on the bail system. 存在商业担保人的司法辖区内,未执行逮捕令一般不会积压成山。在那些地区,保释担保机构负担保释金,从而他们有着极其强烈的动机将逃保者带上法庭。经济学家Eric Helland和我曾使用1988至1996年间释放的36,231个重罪犯的数据来调查政府和私人保释及追逃系统的差别,我对商业保释和赏金追捕的兴趣就是从那时候开始的。我们的研究成果发表在了2004年的The Journal of Law and Economics杂志上,也是迄今关于保释制度最详细并且最全面的文章。 Our research backs up what I found on the street: Bail bondsmen and bounty hunters get their charges to show up for trial, and they recapture them quickly when they do flee. Nationally, the failure-to-appear rate for defendants released on commercial bail is 28 percent lower than the rate for defendants released on their own recognizance, and 18 percent lower than the rate for those released on government bond. 我们的研究印证了我在现实经验中的发现:保释担保人和赏金猎人使被告人按时出庭,一旦被告人逃保,他们也能及时将他们绳之以法。就全国而言,在商业保释中释放的被告人未出庭率比以自我担保形式保释的未出庭率低28%,比以政府担保形式释放的未出庭率低了18%。 Even more important, when a defendant does skip town, the bounty hunters are the ones who pursue justice with the greatest determination and energy. Defendants sought by bounty hunters are a whopping 50 percent less likely to be on the loose after one year than other bail jumpers. 更重要的是,当被告人真的逃保了,赏金猎人会怀着极大的决心和精力去伸张正义。那些被赏金猎人追捕的被告人在一年之后仍逍遥法外的概率比其他逃保者低了惊人的50%。 In addition to being effective, bail bondsmen and bounty hunters work at no cost to the taxpayers. The public reaps a double benefit, because when a bounty hunter fails to find his man, the bond is forfeit to the government. Because billions of dollars of bail are written every year and not every fugitive is caught, bond forfeits are a small but welcome source of revenue. 除了富有效率之外,保释担保人和赏金猎人是在没有花费纳税人一分钱的条件下工作的。公众获得了双重好处,因为赏金猎人没能找到他的目标的话,政府便会没收保释金。因为每年开出了数十亿的保释金,并且不是每一个逃犯都能被捉拿归案,没收的保释金虽然不多,也是一笔相当可观的收入。 At the federal level, forfeits help fund the Crime Victim Fund, which does what its name suggests, and in states such as Virginia and North Carolina they yield millions of dollars for public schools. Indeed, budget shortfalls around the nation are leading to a reconsideration of commercial bail. Oregon, which banned commercial bail in 1974, is considering a controversial bill to reinstate it, and even Illinois, nearly 50 years after establishing its alternative system, may once again allow bail bondsmen. 从联邦层面来说,罚没金可用以资助犯罪受害人基金(Crime Victim Fund),其作用顾名思义。同时,在弗吉尼亚和北卡罗来纳等州罚没金资助了公立学校几百万美元。事实上,全国性的预算赤字迫使人们重新考虑商业保释。1974年就禁止了商业保释的俄勒冈州,现在正考虑通过一项颇具争议的法案来恢复它,甚至连伊利诺斯州在建立起替代制度近五十年后,也可能会再一次允许保释担保人的存在。 Bail bondsmen monitor defendants, guide them through the court process, and help them show up for trial. When defendants skip town, it’s the bounty hunters who track them down. But despite the benefits of commercial bail, bondsmen and bounty hunters don’t get a lot of thanks. The American Bar Association has said that the commercial bail business is “tawdry,” and Supreme Court justice Harry Blackmun once called it “odorous.” 保释担保人监视着被告人,引导他们通过法律程序,并且帮他们按时出庭。当被告逃跑了,正是赏金猎人去追捕他们。但是除了商业保释能够带来的收益之外,担保人和赏金猎人没得到什么感谢。美国律师协会就曾经评论商业保释行业“道德低下”,最高法院法官Harry Blackmun也曾称之为“浑身散发臭气”。 After Dog Chapman arrested the serial rapist Andrew Luster and delivered him to the Mexican police, Dog was the one who ended up in jail. Bounty hunting is illegal in Mexico, and Chapman was charged with kidnapping despite the fact that (according to him) he had a local police officer with him at the time of the arrest. It surely didn't help Chapman’s case that he was not trying to recover a bond that he had posted, since Luster had put up his own money. Luster was quickly extradited by the FBI, which offered Chapman no gratitude or assistance with the Mexican authorities. As if to rub salt in the wound, the judge in the Luster case refused even to reimburse Chapman for his expenses out of the $1 million Luster had forfeited. 在Dog Chapman逮捕了连环强奸案犯Andrew Luster并将其移交至墨西哥警方之后,他自己却被投入监狱。赏金猎人在墨西哥是不合法的,而墨西哥方面不顾在抓捕现场有一名当地警员陪同的事实(根据Dog Chapman的说法)而指控他绑架罪。在Chapman的案件中,他并非在追回他所支付的担保这一事实显然对他极为不利,因为Luster是用自己的钱做的担保。很快,Luster就被FBI引渡回国,对于Chapman,FBI并未对他表示任何感激,或者在与墨西哥当局交涉中提供协助。在Luster一案中,法官甚至拒绝从Luster被没收的一百万美元中拿出一部分偿付Chapman的开销,真有点伤口上撒盐的味道。 Dog Chapman’s television show has brought him and the bail bond industry plenty of fame and notoriety, but Chapman is a controversial figure among bondsmen. The famed bounty hunter’s checkered history includes prison time, drug abuse, and charges of racism, and many bondsmen think that “Dog” doesn't do much for their image. Bondsmen don’t want to be the dogs of criminal justice; they want to be recognized as professionals working alongside police, lawyers, and judges. They are tired of being called “odorous.” Bounty hunters want some respect. The record shows that they've earned it. 尽管Dog Chapman的电视秀已经带给他本人和保释担保行业无数毁誉,在保释担保人圈子里Chapman仍是一个颇具争议的人物。这位著名的赏金猎人波澜起伏的经历包括蹲监狱、滥用药物和种族歧视指控,许多保释担保人认为Chapman并没有为改善他们的形象做多少努力。担保人不想成为刑事审判的走狗;他们更希望被视为同警察、律师和法官合作的专业人士。他们厌倦了“浑身散发臭气”的名声。赏金猎人希望得到一些尊重。而事实表明,他们也应当得到这份尊重。 (编辑:辉格@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

周史札记#17:万事俱备,只欠司法

1)春秋前期,特别是齐桓称霸期间,是华夏史和中国史上最接近于产生宪政的时期,没有之一;

2)“最接近”的意思不是“很接近”,其实还挺远,只不过其他时候距离更远,而且(粗线条看)越来越远,而最关键的欠缺,在于司法;

3)那时候,权力是分立的,竞争的,这既是事实,也是合理的预期,垄断权力的念头尚不现实,持续冲突中的妥协共存是普遍预期,日后历史上反复上演的赢家通吃、你死我活、斩尽杀绝、输家绝无生路这样的情形尚未成为惯例,因而不在博弈参与方的预期之列;

4)所以冲突各方还有一些底线,输家一般有处可逃,庇护权通常也得到承认,失势或失败宗族的权利通常仍得到保留和继承,灭门或灭国只是偶尔发生,而且常常得到恢复;

5)此种预期下,弱者联合抵御强者、以远交抗衡近敌之类策略占上风,而投靠最强者(尤其是邻近最强者)则非明智策略,相反,在你死我活预期下,及时认清形势投靠最强者才是避免最坏结果的最佳策略,正是后种策略的流行,在此后历史上反复将胜者推上权力极峰;

6)对建立政治秩序所需规范已有相当(more...)

标签: | | | |
5430
1)春秋前期,特别是齐桓称霸期间,是华夏史和中国史上最接近于产生宪政的时期,没有之一; 2)“最接近”的意思不是“很接近”,其实还挺远,只不过其他时候距离更远,而且(粗线条看)越来越远,而最关键的欠缺,在于司法; 3)那时候,权力是分立的,竞争的,这既是事实,也是合理的预期,垄断权力的念头尚不现实,持续冲突中的妥协共存是普遍预期,日后历史上反复上演的赢家通吃、你死我活、斩尽杀绝、输家绝无生路这样的情形尚未成为惯例,因而不在博弈参与方的预期之列; 4)所以冲突各方还有一些底线,输家一般有处可逃,庇护权通常也得到承认,失势或失败宗族的权利通常仍得到保留和继承,灭门或灭国只是偶尔发生,而且常常得到恢复; 5)此种预期下,弱者联合抵御强者、以远交抗衡近敌之类策略占上风,而投靠最强者(尤其是邻近最强者)则非明智策略,相反,在你死我活预期下,及时认清形势投靠最强者才是避免最坏结果的最佳策略,正是后种策略的流行,在此后历史上反复将胜者推上权力极峰; 6)对建立政治秩序所需规范已有相当共识和不少表述,因而这些规范也获得了某种道德地位,并已成为权力的合法性来源之一; 7)甚至规范的执行机制也开始出现,齐桓霸权及其主导下的会盟惯例,尽管主要是利益导向的军事联盟,但多少也起着执行和强化规范、维持秩序的作用,因为盟主往往是这一秩序的既得利益者,维持秩序总的来说对他有好处; 8)但依靠霸权执行规范是很不可靠的,首先盟主自己要足够清白,要有长远远光,还要足够公正、无私和积极,这些条件即便一时凑巧齐备,也不可能长期满足:盟主自己屁股不干净,就会破坏规则,盟主在某项纠纷中有重要利益,就很难保持公正,相反若毫无私利,则很难保证积极参与; 9)靠霸权执行规范的问题,美国和北约已经表现的很清楚:一项纠纷得到充分关注和公正处理的可能性,高度依赖于盟主的国内政策和议题重心,一旦纠纷远离其政治视野,或被国内政治议题扭曲,或干脆其国内转向孤立主义,或者国内起危机冲突无暇他顾,执行机制就失效了; 10)执行机制要常规化,必须有某种司法程序,至少需要一个法庭对纠纷和非法行为作出权威裁决,这是最起码的,至于裁决的执行,可以由当事方自力执行,或由盟主召集力量执行; 11)仅仅依靠当事方对规范的自我解释并据此进行自力救济所带来的问题,诺齐克我对诺齐克的评论中,已经说的很清楚了,无须重复,齐桓之后的历史是很好的例证;
[微言]无罪推定与安全感

【2014-09-17】

@whigzhou: #读史笔记#制度差异也有遗传基础吗? http://t.cn/RhaF5zX 不同文明与社会何以表现得如此不同,是个长久以来发人深省的问题;在《论法的精神》中,孟德斯鸠曾给出一个异想天开的便捷解释:气候与土壤决定性格,性格决定制度;19世纪的人类学家开始用科学方法对待这个问题,满世界观察和描述各民族……

@whigzhou: 最后两节有点突兀,其实我想说的是(篇幅不够没说清楚):人们对证据强度的要求,是“他们需要(more...)

标签: | | | |
5318
【2014-09-17】 @whigzhou: #读史笔记#制度差异也有遗传基础吗? http://t.cn/RhaF5zX 不同文明与社会何以表现得如此不同,是个长久以来发人深省的问题;在《论法的精神》中,孟德斯鸠曾给出一个异想天开的便捷解释:气候与土壤决定性格,性格决定制度;19世纪的人类学家开始用科学方法对待这个问题,满世界观察和描述各民族…… @whigzhou: 最后两节有点突兀,其实我想说的是(篇幅不够没说清楚):人们对证据强度的要求,是“他们需要一个判断的迫切性”与“证据之可获得性”之间的权衡,考古学家常依据一块头盖骨、几颗牙齿、几块石头就对远古人类的生活做许多猜测,但没有人指责他们这么做,因为他们迫切希望了解远古生活,而证据又太少 @whigzhou: 这一原则不仅在科学领域成立,在社交、商业和司法领域也成立,比如我要与某人做生意,必须对其诚信有一个判断,但可用信息太少,此时任何微弱线索都会被我利用,这么做是理性的 @whigzhou: 司法也是如此,假设我们必须有一个程序来了断血仇循环(这可能意味着纠纷双方中有一方必须去死),此时任何有助于判断过错的证据都会被利用,因为即便没有任何可用信息,还是有人得去死,再微弱的证据,总比由神裁法掷骰子决定谁去死,要好一点 @whigzhou: 所以,对韦德“缺乏过硬证据”的指责,需要这样一个前提才能成立:你们不应该对制度差异的遗传基础这个问题这么好奇,等证据明确点再说不迟。嗯,这么说是可以的,可是别人对此问题的好奇心有多强,你说了不算,也管不大着,对吧  
[微言]神裁与决斗

【2014-09-06】

@whigzhou: 写了《The Bontoc Igorot》的读书笔记 “几种神裁法,其中唾液测试是我见过最有希望得到科学支持的古代测谎法,鸡胆测试则好像只是为已经决定的裁..” http://t.cn/Rhb8tMV

@陈乃章:比武审判应该是最令人信服的。

@whigzhou: 何以见得?决斗和各种神裁一样,都不追求实质正义,起初只是一种了断冲突的方式,用来将伤害限制在直接冲突的个人之间,避免个人冲突(more...)

标签: | |
5312
【2014-09-06】 @whigzhou: 写了《The Bontoc Igorot》的读书笔记 “几种神裁法,其中唾液测试是我见过最有希望得到科学支持的古代测谎法,鸡胆测试则好像只是为已经决定的裁..” http://t.cn/Rhb8tMV @陈乃章:比武审判应该是最令人信服的。 @whigzhou: 何以见得?决斗和各种神裁一样,都不追求实质正义,起初只是一种了断冲突的方式,用来将伤害限制在直接冲突的个人之间,避免个人冲突发展为血仇循环,决斗的最好结果是一死一完,最坏结果是两死,更多是一死一伤,制度成本比神裁高,看不出有什么优点 @whigzhou: 从激励机制看,决斗事先赋予善斗者以优势,会鼓励他们更轻易侵犯他人,而各种神裁法的设计都旨在消除此类激励