《经济学人》双语：美国废弃监狱的奇特吸引力
文/Irene-自由英语之路
【本篇内容简述】
【Para1】引入：从1990年弗吉尼亚州一监狱的犯人与研究员的对话讲起，之前的监狱像地狱。现在监狱改造后很平静，很舒适，很美丽。有各种设备，躺椅，游泳池等。
【Para2】历史：开发商对监狱感兴趣。建于1910年的模范监狱，后来人口增多，有更多暴力，于2001年关闭。
【Para3&4】监狱改造开发：在171套公寓中，大部分是出租的，其中44套是经济适用房，留有监狱过去的一些标记。营销困难。
【Para5】结尾与评论：在美国，以前的监狱正在被改造成住宅。居民支持。
标题：
Gentrifying prisons
Fulsome
The curious appeal of disused penitentiaries
监狱贵族化
过度
废弃监狱的奇特吸引力
Paragraph 1：
I would consider Lorton a hell-hole, being that life is always on the line,” Andre Mitchell, an inmate at a prison in Virginia, told a researcher in 1990. “At all times really. I never get to relax.”
“我认为洛顿是个地狱，因为那里生活总是很危险，”弗吉尼亚州一监狱的犯人安德烈 ·米切尔在1990年告诉一位研究人员时所说。“任何时候都是这样。我从来没有放松过。”
How restful he would find it today. The building in which he slept has been turned into serene apartments, their patios dotted with deckchairs.
他今天会觉得多么平静啊。他睡觉的那栋大楼已经变成了宁静的公寓，院子里点缀着帆布躺椅。
An outdoor pool, surrounded by plants, glints in the sun.
一个被植物包围的室外游泳池在阳光下闪闪发光。
Nearby, within the vast, windowless walls of what was a maximum security unit, a shopping centre is being built, the final stage in the development of a once overcrowded prison complex into “Liberty”, a spacious “urban village”.
在附近，在一个最大安全单位的巨大的、没有窗户的墙壁内，一个购物中心正在建造中，这是将一个曾经拥挤不堪的监狱综合体发展为“自由”（一个宽敞的“城市村庄”）的最后阶段。
Paragraph 2:
The 80-acre development is a public-private partnership between Fairfax County and two development companies.
占地80英亩的开发项目是费尔法克斯县和两家开发公司之间的公私合作项目。
They were drawn to the prison’s site, in the tech hub of northern Virginia, and to its design.
他们被吸引到了位于弗吉尼亚州北部科技中心的监狱所在地，他们对监狱的设计感兴趣。
Established in 1910 as a model jail, Lorton Reformatory resembled a campus, with walkways between dormitories and lots of outdoor space. Its inmates were taught vocational skills.
洛顿少管所建于1910年，是一所模范监狱，它类似于一个校园，在宿舍和许多室外空间之间有走道。它的囚犯被教授职业技能。
But as more punitive ideas about incarceration returned and its population swelled during the “war on drugs”, the prison became violent. It closed in 2001.
但在“毒品战争”期间，随着更多关于监禁的惩罚性观念的回归和人口的膨胀，监狱变得暴力。它于2001年关闭。
Paragraph 3:
Transforming a prison into fancy homes while acknowledging its past is a balancing act, says Jack Perkins of Elm Street Development, one of the developers.
榆树开发（开发商之一）的杰克·帕金斯表示，在承认监狱过去的同时，将监狱改造成豪华住宅要权衡各方利弊。
In the 171 apartments, most of which are rented, 44 of them as affordable housing, the original windows (high in the ceiling) have been given larger openings.
在171套公寓中，大部分是出租的，其中44套是经济适用房，原来的窗户（高出天花板）都有较大的开口。
Signs warning against loitering and unauthorised gatherings remain, as do guards’ huts at the peripheral fence.
禁止东游西荡和禁止未经授权的集会的标志依然存在，外围围栏上的警卫小屋也依然存在。
There is a Reformatory Way and a Sallyport Street. Nearby, a museum named after Lucy Burns, a leader of the National Women’s Party, tells the history of the suffragettesimprisoned in a women’s workhouse in Lorton.
有一条感化路和一条萨利波特街。附近有一个以国家妇女党领袖露西·伯恩斯命名的博物馆，它讲述了洛顿一家妇女教养院里被囚禁的妇女参政者们的历史。
Paragraph 4:
Marketing all this seems to have been a dream. Liberty’s logo is an image of a watchtower, of which there are eight, all renovated, dotted around the site.
营销这一切似乎都是一个梦想。Liberty的标志是一座了望塔的图像，其中有八座，全部经过翻新，散布在该地址周围。
When Francis Cordor, a software engineer who emigrated from Liberia 20 years ago, saw that one of them loomed over one of 181 new houses, he knew he wanted to buy it.
20年前从利比里亚移民过来的软件工程师弗朗西斯·科多尔看到181栋新房中的一栋隐约可见，他知道自己想买下它。
“It makes me think of the passing of time, how places can improve,” he says, adding that an elderly neighbour told him Lorton had once been synonymous with horror.
他说：“这让我想到了时间的流逝，以及如何改善地方。”他补充说，一位年长的邻居告诉他，洛顿曾经是恐怖的同义词。
Paragraph 5:
Though its architecture makes this a particularly habitable prison, it is not the only one: across America, former jails are being turned into housing.
尽管它的建筑使这座监狱特别适合居住，但它并不是唯一的一座：在美国，以前的监狱正在被改造成住宅。
Even as the prison population has fallen, new jails continue to be built. That has left a stock of enormous, solidly constructed buildings, which tend to come with a lot of surrounding space.
尽管监狱人口有所下降，但仍在继续修建新的监狱。这就留下了一批巨大、坚固的建筑，这些建筑往往周围有很多空间。
In the Bronx, a juvenile detention centre has been demolished to make way for a five-acre (20,000 square metres) affordable-housing development.
在布朗克斯区，一个少年拘留中心被拆除，为一个占地5英亩（2万平方米）的经济适用房开发项目让路。
In St Louis, Missouri, the former county jail will be converted into flats.
在密苏里州的圣路易斯，以前的县监狱将被改造成公寓。
Inhabitants of such developments like the modernist industrial design jails seem to encourage, and the space. They also like the fact that they can leave.
像现代主义工业设计监狱风格的发展项目的居民似乎给予了鼓励，空间上也是，他们也喜欢他们可以离开的事实。
（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量533个左右）
原文出自2021年10月2日《The Economist》United States版块。
精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路，仅供个人英语学习交流使用。
【重点词汇】（17个）
gentrify/dentrfa/
v. 使优化改善；使贵族化；对（地区、人等）进行改造以适应较高阶层的人
fulsome/flsm/
adj. 令人生厌的；过度的
penitentiary /pntnr/
n. 监狱；宗教裁判所；教养所
hell-hole/hlhl/
n. 藏污纳垢之地
on the line
处于危险中；模棱两可；在电话线上
serene/srin/
adj. 平静的；清澈的；晴朗的
patio /pt/
n. 露台；天井；庭院
deckchair/dekte(r)/
n. 帆布躺椅
glint/ɡlnt/
v. （光线）反射；闪闪发光
reformatory/rfmtri/
n. 少年犯管教所，青少年教养院
a balancing act
平衡做法；协调
loiter /lt/
v. 闲逛，东游西荡；虚度；盘旋
suffragette/sfrdet/
n. 妇女参政权论者（20世纪初叶英国和美国的妇女争取选举权团体的成员）
workhouse/wkhas/
n. （英）济贫院；（美）教养所；感化院；贫民习艺所
watchtower/wtta(r)/
n. 瞭望塔，岗楼
loom over
笼罩，困扰
detention/dtenn/
n. 拘留，关押；（作为惩罚的）课后留校
【重点句子】（2个）
Transforming a prison into fancy homes while acknowledging its past is a balancing act,
在承认监狱过去的同时，将监狱改造成豪华住宅要权衡各方利弊。
Marketing all this seems to have been a dream.
营销这一切似乎都是一个梦想。
【重点词根】（1+4个）
glint=闪闪发光
词根gl- 表示“光滑，发光”，如：
glaze/ɡlez/ n. 釉, 光滑面v. 装以玻璃；上釉于
gleam/ɡlim/ n. 光束, 微光, 反光v. 发微光，闪烁
glee/ɡli/ n. 快乐；欢欣；重唱歌曲
glisten/ɡlsn/ v. 闪亮 n. 闪光，闪耀
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