One summer afternoon in 2013, DC police detained, questioned and searched a man who appeared suspicious and potentially dangerous. This wasn't what I was wearing the day of the detention, to be fair, but I have a picture of that as well. I know it's very frightening -- try to remain calm.
2013 年夏天的一個下午, 華盛頓警察以某男子面目可疑、 可能是危險分子為由 而予以拘留、問話、搜身。 我被拘留時並非穿着這件衣服, 但當時穿的衣服我也有拍照。 我知道這件衣服有點刺激眼睛—— 拜託你們還是冷靜一下吧。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
At this time, I was interning at the Public Defender Service in Washington DC, and I was visiting a police station for work. I was on my way out, and before I could make it to my car, two police cars pulled up to block my exit, and an officer approached me from behind. He told me to stop, take my backpack off and put my hands on the police car parked next to us. About a dozen officers then gathered near us. All of them had handguns, some had assault rifles. They rifled through my backpack. They patted me down. They took pictures of me spread on the police car, and they laughed.
當時我在華盛頓 「公設辯護律師服務」見習, 因工作關係到訪一間警局。 當我正在離開、 還未走到我的車前, 就被兩輛警車上前堵住去路, 其中一名警員從後向我靠近。 他叫我停下、放下背包、 把雙手放在停在旁邊的警車。 隨後多名警員圍着我們, 他們每一名都荷槍, 甚至突擊步槍。 他們搜查我的背包, 搜身, 拍下我趴在警車上的照片, 然後放聲大笑。
And as all this was happening -- as I was on the police car trying to ignore the shaking in my legs, trying to think clearly about what I should do -- something stuck out to me as odd. When I look at myself in this photo, if I were to describe myself, I think I'd say something like, "19-year-old Indian male, bright T-shirt, wearing glasses." But they weren't including any of these details. Into their police radios as they described me, they kept saying, "Middle Eastern male with a backpack. Middle Eastern male with a backpack." And this description carried on into their police reports. I never expected to be described by my own government in these terms: "lurking," "nefarious," "terrorist." And the detention dragged on like this.
當這一切都在進行時—— 我在警車旁試着不理會 自己發抖的雙腿, 並細心思考我應該如何做時—— 我發現了一些怪事。 當我望着這幅照片時, 若要我形容自己, 我會說: 「 19 歲印度裔男性, 鮮色汗衫、架着眼鏡。」 但警察們並沒有記錄這些明細。 他們在對講機上形容我時, 不停說:「帶着背包的中東裔男子。 帶着背包的中東裔男子。」 這些內容都記錄在警察報告上。 我從來沒想過自己的 政府用這些字眼形容我: 「鬼鬼崇崇」、 「心術不正」、 「恐怖分子」。 拘留過程不停重覆這些動作:
They sent dogs trained to smell explosives to sweep the area I'd been in. They called the federal government to see if I was on any watch lists. They sent a couple of detectives to cross-examine me on why, if I claimed I had nothing to hide, I wouldn't consent to a search of my car. And I could see they weren't happy with me, but I felt I had no way of knowing what they'd want to do next. At one point, the officer who patted me down scanned the side of the police station to see where the security camera was to see how much of this was being recorded. And when he did that, it really sank in how completely I was at their mercy.
他們把受過嗅辨爆炸品訓練的警犬 帶過來掃視我踏足的地方, 他們詢問聯邦政府 我是否在監視名單, 他們派數名探員盤問我: 既然我聲稱自己沒有任何隱瞞, 那為何不允許他們搜查我的車? 我感覺到他們對我不滿, 但我無從知道他們 下一步要我做甚麼。 那個把我搜身的警員甚至 查看警局旁哪裡有保安攝錄器, 以知道他們對我做的事 有多少被錄下來。 當他這樣做時, 我終於明白:人為刀俎,我為魚肉。
I think we're all normalized from a young age to the idea of police officers and arrests and handcuffs, so it's easy to forget how demeaning and coercive a thing it is to seize control over another person's body. I know it sounds like the point of my story is how badly treated I was because of my race -- and yes, I don't think I would've been detained if I were white. But actually, what I have in mind today is something else. What I have in mind is how much worse things might've been if I weren't affluent. I mean, they thought I might be trying to plant an explosive, and they investigated that possibility for an hour and a half, but I was never put in handcuffs, I was never taken to a jail cell. I think if I were from one of Washington DC's poor communities of color, and they thought I was endangering officers' lives, things might've ended differently. And in fact, in our system, I think it's better to be an affluent person suspected of trying to blow up a police station than it is to be a poor person who's suspected of much, much less than this.
相信我們自小都習慣了 警員用手鐐逮捕疑犯, 所以他們要控制別人身體時, 我們不覺得這是侮辱。 大家或會覺得我只不過想說 我都是因為種族身分 而被粗暴對待—— 如果我是白人,一定不會被拘留。 但我現在想到另一樣東西: 如果我不是家境富裕的話, 我的遭遇或會更差。 他們以為我埋下爆炸品, 因而花了一小時半進行調查, 但我從沒被扣上手鐐, 也從沒被帶進牢房。 如果我是華盛頓貧窮 有色人種社區的一員, 而且警員認為我危害他們性命安全, 事情發展可能完全不一樣。 在這制度下,作為一個富裕人士 被懷疑引爆警局, 總比作為一個窮人好過, 富人被懷疑程度遠比窮人低。
I want to give you an example from my current work. Right now, I'm working at a civil rights organization in DC, called Equal Justice Under Law. Let me start by asking you all a question. How many of you have ever gotten a parking ticket in your life? Raise your hand. Yeah. So have I. And when I had to pay it, it felt annoying and it felt bad, but I paid it and I moved on. I'm guessing most of you have paid your tickets as well. But what would happen if you couldn't afford the amount on the ticket and your family doesn't have the money either, what happens then?
讓我從目前的工作舉個例子說明。 目前我任職於華盛頓的民權組織, 它叫做「法律之下司法平等」。 首先讓我問大家一條問題: 有誰曾經收過違規停車罰單? 請舉手。 我也收過。 我要繳交罰款時, 覺得這實在討厭,感覺糟透, 但我最後都繳交了事。 相信在座大部分人都曾繳交罰款。 但若各位無力負擔罰款、 家人也無力負擔罰款會怎辦﹖
Well, one thing that's not supposed to happen under the law is, you're not supposed to be arrested and jailed simply because you can't afford to pay. That's illegal under federal law. But that's what local governments across the country are doing to people who are poor. And so many of our lawsuits at Equal Justice Under Law target these modern-day debtors' prisons.
法律下不能容許發生的事之一, 就是不能因為無力繳交罰款 就被逮捕和囚禁。 這是違反聯邦法律的, 然而全國的地方政府都對窮人 進行這種違法的事。 「法律之下司法平等」 處理的很多訴訟, 都是針對現代版「欠債人牢獄」。
One of our cases is against Ferguson, Missouri. And I know when I say Ferguson, many of you will think of police violence. But today I want to talk about a different aspect of the relationship between their police force and their citizens. Ferguson was issuing an average of over two arrest warrants, per person, per year, mostly for unpaid debt to the courts. When I imagine what that would feel like if, every time I left my house, there was a chance a police officer would run my license plate, see a warrant for unpaid debt, seize my body they way the did in DC and then take me to a jail cell, I feel a little sick.
其中一單訴訟是針對 密蘇里州佛格遜政府。 當我提到佛格遜這名字, 大家或會聯想起警察暴力事件。 但我今天要從另一角度 談警民關係。 佛格遜政府每年平均向每人發出 超過兩項逮捕令, 大部分都是為法院追討欠債。 當我想起如果每次我離開住所後, 我或被警員根據車牌號碼翻查資料, 以欠債為由發出逮捕令、 就像在華盛頓時把我的身體按下、 然後把我送進牢房時, 我就會渾身不自在。
I've met many of the people in Ferguson who have experienced this, and I've heard some of their stories. In Ferguson's jail, in each small cell, there's a bunk bed and a toilet, but they'd pack four people into each cell. So there'd be two people on the bunks and two people on the floor, one with nowhere to go except right next to the filthy toilet, which was never cleaned. In fact, the whole cell was never cleaned, so the floor and the walls were lined with blood and mucus. No water to drink, except coming out of a spigot connected to the toilet. The water looked and tasted dirty, there was never enough food, never any showers, women menstruating without any hygiene products, no medical attention whatsoever. When I asked a woman about medical attention, she laughed, and she said, "Oh, no, no. The only attention you get from the guards in there is sexual."
我在佛格遜遇過有這些經歷的人, 也聽過他們的親身經歷。 在佛格遜的監獄, 每個小牢房都有 一張雙層床和一個馬桶, 但每個牢房卻擠著四個人。 兩人睡在床上,兩人睡地板, 骯髒的馬桶就在咫尺, 從來沒有清潔過。 其實整個牢房都沒有清潔過, 地板和牆上滿是血跡和粘液。 沒有任何飲用水, 只有來自馬桶的水。 馬桶水看上去很骯髒, 其味道也是如此, 從來沒有足夠食物, 從來沒有機會淋浴, 女士月經時沒有衞生用品可用, 得不到任何醫療協助。 當我問她們其中一位 有否得到醫療協助時, 她失笑並說:「當然沒有。 獄卒反而只有興趣跟我們性交。」
So, they'd take the debtors to this place and they'd say, "We're not letting you leave until you make a payment on your debt." And if you could -- if you could call a family member who could somehow come up with some money, then maybe you were out. If it was enough money, you were out. But if it wasn't, you'd stay there for days or weeks, and every day the guards would come down to the cells and haggle with the debtors about the price of release that day. You'd stay until, at some point, the jail would be booked to capacity, and they'd want to book someone new in. And at that point, they'd think, "OK, it's unlikely this person can come up with the money, it's more likely this new person will." You're out, they're in, and the machine kept moving like that.
他們只把欠債人帶進監獄並說: 「未能還清債務就休想離開。」 如果你可以致電家人求助、 叫他們給你一點錢的話, 你就可以離開。 錢足夠的話,你才可以走。 錢不夠的話就要在這裡多呆幾天, 每天獄卒就會來到牢房, 跟欠債人爭辯交多少錢才可以離開。 監獄總會有滿額的一天, 他們要帶新人進來時, 就會這樣考慮: 「這個人怕是還不起錢了, 反而新人更有可能還錢。」 舊人出新人入,系統就是這樣運作。
I met a man who, nine years ago, was arrested for panhandling in a Walgreens. He couldn't afford his fines and his court fees from that case. When he was young he survived a house fire, only because he jumped out of the third-story window to escape. But that fall left him with damage to his brain and several parts of this body, including his leg. So he can't work, and he relies on social security payments to survive. When I met him in his apartment, he had nothing of value there -- not even food in his fridge. He's chronically hungry. He had nothing of value in his apartment except a small piece of cardboard on which he'd written the names of his children. He cherished this a lot. He was happy to show it to me. But he can't pay his fines and fees because he has nothing to give. In the last nine years, he's been arrested 13 times, and jailed for a total of 130 days on that panhandling case. One of those stretches lasted 45 days. Just imagine spending from right now until sometime in June in the place that I described to you a few moments ago.
我曾經見過 一位九年前因在藥房 行乞而被捕的男子。 他無力繳付罰款和訴訟堂費。 他年輕時在家居火災生還, 但只因為他是從三樓窗戶躍下逃生。 這一跳令他腦部 以及大腿等身體部位受損。 因此他無法工作, 需要依靠社會保障金過活。 當我探訪他的寓所時, 他身無分文,冰箱連食物也沒有。 他長期挨餓。 他家徒四壁,只有一小塊紙板, 上面寫着他孩子的名字。 他珍而重之、很樂意的給我看。 他身無分文而無力繳付罰款和規費。 九年來他被逮捕 13 次, 因那次行乞就被監禁共 130 天。 有一次他更被連續囚禁 45 天。 試想像一下由現在直至六月 待在我剛才形容的地方。
He told me about all the suicide attempts he's seen in Ferguson's jail; about the time a man found a way to hang himself out of reach of the other inmates, so all they could do was yell and yell and yell, trying to get the guards' attention so they could come down and cut him down. And he told me that it took the guards over five minutes to respond, and when they came, the man was unconscious. So they called the paramedics and the paramedics went to the cell. They said, "He'll be OK," so they just left him there on the floor. I heard many stories like this and they shouldn't have surprised me, because suicide is the single leading cause of death in our local jails. This is related to the lack of mental health care in our jails.
他告訴我佛格遜監獄中 很多人企圖自殺; 一名男子去其他囚犯到不了的地方 試圖吊頸自盡, 他們可做的只是拼命叫喊, 試圖引起獄卒的注意, 希望獄卒趕過來把他救回來。 他說獄卒五分鐘後才回應, 當他們來到時那人已經不省人事。 獄卒電召醫療輔助人員, 醫護來到時, 就說:「他沒事的。」 他們就任由那人躺在地上。 這些故事我聽過多遍,我不感驚訝, 因為自殺是地區監獄中 囚犯的首要死因。 這跟監獄中缺乏精神健康協助有關。
I met a woman, single mother of three, making seven dollars an hour. She relies on food stamps to feed herself and her children. About a decade ago, she got a couple of traffic tickets and a minor theft charge, and she can't afford her fines and fees on those cases. Since then, she's been jailed about 10 times on those cases, but she has schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and she needs medication every day. She doesn't have access to those medications in Ferguson's jail, because no one has access to their medications. She told me about what it was like to spend two weeks in a cage, hallucinating people and shadows and hearing voices, begging for the medication that would make it all stop, only to be ignored. And this isn't anomalous, either: thirty percent of women in our local jails have serious mental health needs just like hers, but only one in six receives any mental health care while in jail.
我見過一名三子之母, 她時薪七美元, 她和孩子都要靠食物配給券過活。 大約十年前, 她收到幾張交通違規罰單 和被控小型盜竊, 但無力繳付罰款和訴訟堂費。 因此她在往後被監禁約十次, 然而她患上精神分裂症 和狂躁抑鬱症, 需要每天服藥。 她在佛格遜監獄得不到藥物服用, 因為所有囚犯都得不到藥物服用。 她告訴我待在牢房那兩星期間 幻覺到身邊有人、影和聲音等等, 哀求獄方提供藥物以消除幻覺, 卻無人理會。 這卻並非特例: 地區監獄有三成女囚犯 極需要精神健康協助, 就像她一樣, 但只有六分之一的人 在獄中得到精神協助。
And so, I heard all these stories about this grotesque dungeon that Ferguson was operating for its debtors, and when it came time for me to actually see it and to go visit Ferguson's jail, I'm not sure what I was expecting to see, but I wasn't expecting this. It's an ordinary government building. It could be a post office or a school. It reminded me that these illegal extortion schemes aren't being run somewhere in the shadows, they're being run out in the open by our public officials. They're a matter of public policy. And this reminded me that poverty jailing in general, even outside the debtors' prison context, plays a very visible and central role in our justice system.
佛格遜監獄為欠債人 設置荒唐的地牢, 那些駭人傳聞我全都聽過, 但當我有機會到訪佛格遜監獄 去親眼目睹那些囚牢, 我不清楚會看到些甚麼, 但我意料不到會見到這情景。 監獄看來就像普通政府辦公大樓, 看來像郵局或學校。 這提醒我一切違法的敲詐勾當 都不是在暗黑中進行, 而是由官員們在光天化日下進行。 這些勾當攸關公共政策。 這也提醒我,因貧窮而受牢獄—— 即使撇除欠債人牢獄的情況—— 在司法制度內的角色也舉足輕重。
What I have in mind is our policy of bail. In our system, whether you're detained or free, pending trial is not a matter of how dangerous you are or how much of a flight risk you pose. It's a matter of whether you can afford to post your bail amount. So Bill Cosby, whose bail was set at a million dollars, immediately writes the check, and doesn't spend a second in a jail cell. But Sandra Bland, who died in jail, was only there because her family was unable to come up with 500 dollars. In fact, there are half a million Sandra Blands across the country -- 500,000 people who are in jail right now, only because they can't afford their bail amount.
我想到的就是保釋制度。 在這制度中,被拘留或獲釋放, 並非視乎當事人有多大危險性 或者有多大機會潛逃, 而是視乎當事人能否負擔保釋金。 演員比爾 · 科斯比的保釋金 高達百萬美元, 他立即以支票交款就絲毫不用坐牢。 但死在獄中的桑德拉 · 布蘭德, 她只因家人交不出 500 元就被監禁。 其實全國有 50 萬 像布蘭德一樣的人—— 現在之所以要待在監獄, 只是因為無力繳納保釋金。
We're told that our jails are places for criminals, but statistically that's not the case: three out of every five people in jail right now are there pretrial. They haven't been convicted of any crime; they haven't pled guilty to any offense. Right here in San Francisco, 85 percent of the inmates in our jail in San Francisco are pretrial detainees. This means San Francisco is spending something like 80 million dollars every year to fund pretrial detention.
常言道,監獄是罪犯的地方, 但統計上這並非事實: 五分之三的在囚人士是還未審訊的。 他們還沒有被控犯下任何罪行, 也沒有認任何罪。 在三藩市這裡, 在囚人士中有 85% 還未經審訊而被拘留。 這意味三藩市每年花費大約 8,000 萬元 囚禁還未經審訊的被拘留人士。
Many of these people who are in jail only because they can't post bail are facing allegations so minor that the amount of time it would take for them to sit waiting for trial is longer than the sentence they would receive if convicted, which means they're guaranteed to get out faster if they just plead guilty. So now the choice is: Should I stay here in this horrible place, away from my family and my dependents, almost guaranteed to lose my job, and then fight the charges? Or should I just plead guilty to whatever the prosecutor wants and get out? And at this point, they're pretrial detainees, not criminals. But once they take that plea deal, we'll call them criminals, even though an affluent person would never have been in this situation, because an affluent person would have simply been bailed out.
很多人坐牢只因負擔不起保釋金; 針對他們的指控雖然輕微, 但他們坐牢等待審訊的時間, 比起定罪後的判監時間還要長, 所以他們乾脆認罪的話 反可更早被釋放。 他們面對這樣的抉擇: 我應否待在這鬼地方, 在不能和家人孩子一起、 一定會丟了工作的情況下, 反駁指控? 或是應否任由檢察官定罪, 乾脆認罪早日獲釋? 這時,他們還只是未經審訊的 被拘留人士而非罪犯, 他們一認罪就被稱為罪犯, 然而富裕人士不會落得如此下場, 因為他們有錢給自己保釋。
At this point you might be wondering, "This guy's in the inspiration section, what is he doing --
大家這時候或會問: 「這可是給人以鼓舞的舞臺啊, 這傢伙究竟在講甚麼——
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
"This is extremely depressing. I want my money back."
演講令人沮喪,我要退錢。」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
But in actuality, I find talking about jailing much less depressing than the alternative, because I think if we don't talk about these issues and collectively change how we think about jailing, at the end of all of our lives, we'll still have jails full of poor people who don't belong there. That really is depressing to me. But what's exciting to me is the thought that these stories can move us to think about jailing in different terms. Not in sterile policy terms like "mass incarceration," or "sentencing of nonviolent offenders," but in human terms.
但事實上, 我認為牢獄反而比其他課題 沒那麼令人沮喪, 因為如果我們不去討論這些課題、 使公眾集體改變對牢獄的看法, 到我們臨終時, 獄中還會滿是不應被囚禁的窮人。 這些情景的確令我沮喪, 但令我鼓舞的是 這些獄中見聞能打動人心, 使我們從另一角度看牢獄問題。 不是以「集體囚禁」或者 「監禁非暴力罪犯」 這些冷漠的術語探討問題, 而是從人性角度探討。
When we put a human being in a cage for days or weeks or months or even years, what are we doing to that person's mind and body? Under what conditions are we really willing to do that? And so if starting with a few hundred of us in this room, we can commit to thinking about jailing in this different light, then we can undo that normalization I was referring to earlier.
當我們把一個人困在牢中 數天、數星期、數個月 甚至數年, 這對他的身心有何影響? 我們真的要這樣對待一個人嗎? 如果在座的數百名觀眾 決心從另一角度思考牢獄問題, 就可消弭我早前說的習以為常。
If I leave you with anything today, I hope it's with the thought that if we want anything to fundamentally change -- not just to reform our policies on bail and fines and fees -- but also to make sure that whatever new policies replace those don't punish the poor and the marginalized in their own new way. If we want that kind of change, then this shift in thinking is required of each of us.
若要我說希望各位在 這演講後記住甚麼, 希望大家明白若要作出徹底改變— 不只是改革保釋、罰款和規費制度— 必須確保替代的新制度 不會懲罰貧窮和社會邊緣人士。 我們若要改變現狀, 我們的思維必須有所轉變。
Thank you.
多謝大家。
(Applause)
(鼓掌聲)