巴西新招：打擊犯罪，從少年“抓起”

On a recent night， college student Fernanda Garcia stands on a pedestrian highway 1）overpass in Rio’s north zone. She’s there to help hang a sign that thousands of drivers will see in the morning. It reads：“Fewer Prisons， More Schools.”

Garcia says， adult Brazilian jails are the wrong kind of place to send adolescents. She says they come out ever more in trouble than they started.

But many Brazilians see the opposite problem. Marilene Gomes is a waitress in Rio， and she supports sending more teenage criminals to adult prisons. “At 16 years old， people know exactly what they’re doing，”she says. “I’ve had enough of all the deaths that we see every day on television.”

The fact is， less than 1% of 2）homicides in Brazil are committed by teenagers， and that number has declined in recent years. The country’s 3）juvenile detention centers are mostly filled with adolescents arrested for robbing people or drug dealing.

To get rid of the kids， Brazil has been locking them up like never before. Starting at 12 years old， children here can be sent to juvenile detention centers that now house over 18，000. And once they turn 18， teens are sent into an adult prison system that has grown six times in population over the last 25 years. It’s now at least 200，000 4）inmates overcapacity nationwide.

5）

Opponents of lowering the age of criminal responsibility say the measure would only make the problem of overcrowding worse. But the change may still pass in the Brazilian Congress， where many politicians who were elected on “tough on crime” 6）platforms are pushing for it.

“Those politicians are missing the point，”says 17-year-old high school student William Neto from the working-class neighborhood of Duque de Caxias. He says people need to focus on why so many young Brazilians end up in trouble with the law in the first place.

“How many other opportunities did these kids have in their lives？” he asks， “What about the environment in which they grew up？ What about the quality of schools they went to？”

Neto says the road to a safer Brazil is if all Brazilians—not just those of a certain social class—can be in school and social programs that allow them to grow.

最近一天晚上，大學生費爾南達·加西亞站在里約北區的公路人行天橋上。她在那里幫忙掛起一塊告示牌，第二天早上，成千上萬的司機都能看到這塊寫著“少建監獄，多建學校”的牌子。

加西亞認為巴西不應該將青少年丟進成人監獄。她說，他們出來以后會陷入比入獄時更大的麻煩。

但許多巴西人看到的問題恰恰相反。瑪麗蓮·戈梅斯是里約的一名服務生，她支持將更多少年犯送入成人監獄。“到了16歲的年紀，人們完全知道自己在做什么，”她說。“每天都在電視上看到兇案報道，我已經受夠了。”

在巴西，青少年犯下的殺人案所占比例其實不到1%，這個數字在最近幾年還在不斷下降。在這個國家的感化院里關押的少年人，大部分是因為搶劫和毒品交易被捕的。

為了擺脫這些孩子，巴西以前所未有的力度將他們統統關押起來。從12歲開始，這里的問題少年就會被送入感化院，里面如今已經關押了一萬八千多人。一旦年滿18歲，少年犯就會被送入成人監獄系統，那里的在押人數在過去25年里增長了六倍。如今，巴西全國的在押犯人至少超員二十萬。

反對降低刑事責任年齡的人則說，這一舉措只會加劇監獄超員問題。但巴西眾議院也許仍然會通過這一修改令，因為許多以“嚴厲打擊犯罪”為政綱當選的政客也在力促此事。

“那些政客都搞錯重點了，”17歲的高中生威廉·內托說，他家住在卡希亞斯公爵城的一個工人階級社區。他說，人們首先應該關注的是為什么有這么多巴西年輕人會觸犯法律。……