Justice：Gun crime rises, overall violence drops

司法部：涉枪案上升，总暴力犯罪下降

Americans were robbed and victimized by gun violence at greater rates last year than the year before, even though overall violent and property crime reached a 32-year low, the Justice Department said Sunday.

美国司法部星期天说，虽然总的暴力犯罪和财产犯罪降到32年以来的新低，去年美国人被持枪抢劫和侵犯的比例比前年大幅度增加。

Experts said these increases buttress reports from the FBI and many mayors and police chiefs that violent crime is beginning to rise after a long decline.

专家称这些案件的增加证明了来自于FBI、许多市长和警察局长们的报告，他们认为在经历了长期下降后，犯罪率开始上升。

Bush administration officials expressed concern but stressed that it was too soon to tell if an upward trend in violence had begun.

布什政府官员对此表示关注，但强调说现在就下结论认为新的犯罪趋势出现还为时过早。

Last year, there were two violent gun crimes for every 1,000 individuals, compared with 1.4 in 2004, according to the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. There were 2.6 robberies for every 1,000 persons, compared with 2.1 the year before.

司法部司法统计局表示，去年，每1000人中2人涉及持枪暴力案件，而2004年为1.4人；每1000人中有2.6人涉及抢劫罪，而2004年为2.1人。

“This report tells us more the serious events——robbery and gun crimes——increased and the FBI already told us homicides increased,”said criminal justice professor James Alan Fox of Northeastern University.

东北大学的刑事审判教授詹姆斯·阿兰·福克斯说：“报告显示严重的暴力犯罪，像抢劫和持枪犯罪有所增加；同时，FBI已经告诉我们杀人案件也增加了。”

“So while the report shows the more numerous but least serious violence——simple assaults, which is pushing and shoving——went down, the mix got worse in terms of severity. That wasn't a very good trade-off,”Fox said.

他说：“虽然一方面报告显示有更多的不太严重的暴力犯罪，像普通的人身攻击，比如推搡案件减少了，但在整体的更加严重。这样不是很划算。”

A preliminary FBI report in June on crimes reported to police showed a 4.8 percent increase in the number of murders and 4.5 percent increase in the number of robberies in 2005.

6月份FBI提供给警察的一份关于犯罪的初步报告显示，在2005年，谋杀案件增加了4.8%，抢劫案增加了4.5%.

With congressional elections approaching, these reports could pose political problems for the administration, and department officials have been scurrying to understand and deal with the problem.

随着国会大选日益迫近，这些报告将会给政府部门带来一些政治问题。所以，相关部门的官员已经忙不迭的了解和处理这一问题。

Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty listened to complaints about dwindling federal anti-crime aid from several dozen mayors and police chiefs at a public meeting in Washington on August 30.

8月30日，首席检察官助理保罗·麦克纳尔蒂在华盛顿的公开会议上听取了几十位市长和警察局长抱怨政府缩减联邦预防犯罪资助金。

Several days later, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told reporters that cities will have to work harder but should not count on more federal money because of growing demands in the fight against terrorism.

几天以后，司法部长阿尔贝托·冈萨雷斯告诉记者，因为不断增加的反恐需要，各城市应该努力工作，减少犯罪，而不是指望联邦政府提供更多的资金。

Nevertheless, Gonzales arranged a private meeting in New York last Thursday with three state police executives and the police chiefs of Los Angeles, California, Miami, Florida, and Providence, Rhode Island, The Associated Press learned.

不过，据美联社消息，萨雷斯上周四还是在纽约与3位国家警务人员和来自洛杉矶、加利福尼亚、迈阿密、弗罗里达、普罗维登斯、罗德岛的警察局长安排了一个私人会议。

One of them, Providence's Dean Esserman, came away“impressed at how much he listened. He wasn't there to defend himself. He could have used the time to preach；instead he used it to hear our concerns.”

其中，普罗维登斯局长埃瑟曼离开时说：“他听得很多，而不是为自己辩解。他本来可以讲讲大道理，但他没有，他在听我们讲。”

Esserman said most cities have fewer police officers now than in 2001, with big reductions in New York, Boston, Massachusetts, and Detroit, Michigan,“because of the loss of federal money.”

埃瑟曼说，大部分城市现在的警员都比2001年时少，纽约、波士顿、马萨诸塞、底特律河密切根更是大幅度减员，“因为缺乏联邦资金。”

A Clinton administration program paid for local departments to hire community-oriented police officers, but the Bush administration stopped the money for such hiring.

克林顿政府给地方警察局资金雇佣社区警官，但布什政府却终止了这一计划。

“I believe in homeland defense, but I also believe in crime fighting,”Esserman said.“I don't want one neglected for the other. Every year we're losing 16,000 people to murder, mostly young people and mostly killed by guns, and that's more than three times the number that died at the World Trade Center”in the attacks of September 11, 2001.

“我支持国家防卫，但我同时也支持打击犯罪，”埃瑟曼说。“两这种我不希望任何一个被忽视。每年，我们有16，000人被谋杀，大部分是年轻人，大部分是死于枪杀。这是在2001年9·11恐怖袭击世贸大楼人数的三倍多。”

Professor Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University said the rise in gun violence was particularly troubling.

卡内基·梅隆大学的阿尔弗雷德·布鲁斯顿认为持枪暴力犯罪的增加尤其麻烦。

“A major police effort to confiscate guns helped bring down the surge in violent crime that occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s,”Blumstein said.“But gun distribution is easier now because we have begun to back off gun control.”

布鲁斯顿说：“警察大力没收枪支对于制止80年代晚期至90年代初期的暴力犯罪趋势很有帮助。但是由于我们不再支持控制枪支，今天枪支买卖更加容易。

Backed by the National Rifle Association, the Bush administration has been cool toward gun control measures.

由于全美步枪协会支持布什政府，布什政府已经弱化了枪支控制的各项措施。

The statistics bureau's victimization report found that the overall violent crime rate was unchanged in 2005 from the year before, at just over 21 crimes for every 1,000 individuals over age 12.

司法部法统计局报告显示，2005年总犯罪率与前一年持平，在12岁以上的1000人中约有21人犯罪。

The property crime rate fell in 2005 from 161 crimes to 154 for every 1,000 people because of a drop in household thefts. Both rates were the lowest since the survey began in 1973.

由于入室盗窃案件减少，2005年财产犯罪从2004年的每1000人161犯罪减少到每1000人154人犯罪。这两项犯罪率都是自1973年开始这项调查以来的新低。

McNulty noted the record-low rates but said“we are concerned about”in increase in the violent firearm crime rate.“Whether the increase……marks a change in the trend toward reduced firearms victimization rates cannot be determined from one year's data,”McNulty added.

麦克纳尔蒂强调了这一创纪录的新低，但同时也表示“我们关注”持枪犯罪率的增长。“增长是否预示着持枪犯罪屡降低的趋势正在被改变不能更具1年的数据确定，”，他又说。

He said some cities are seeing violent crime increases and noted the department has several programs in which federal agents join state and local officers combating gangs and drug abuse.

他说承认一些城市正经历着发罪率上升的困扰，并强调说政府部门有一些计划让联邦探员加入各州地方警察局共同打击团伙犯罪和毒品犯罪。

Unlike the FBI report culled from police blotters, the statistic bureau makes estimates based on interviews with 134,000 people, so it counts not only as reported crime but also crimes the police never hear about. Also, 53 percent of violent crimes and 60 percent of property crimes are never reported to the police.

与FBI从警察的纪录中摘选拼凑报告不同的是，司法部司法统计局是根据采访到的134，000人推算出来，所以不仅计算那些已经报警的犯罪，也包括那些警察没有听闻过的未报警的犯罪。相同的是，52%的暴力犯罪和60%的财产犯罪从来就没有报过警。

Statistician Shannan Catalano, who wrote the new report, said the increases in gun violence and robbery rates reinforce the FBI data and the anecdotal evidence from local officials. But she cautioned that so few people in the survey reported robberies that the bureau cannot be certain whether those figures represent a true increase or a random sampling variation.

起草这一报告的统计学家珊南·加泰兰诺说，持枪犯罪和抢劫罪的增加补充了BFI的数据，证实了地方官员的传闻。但她警告说，调查中向警察报告抢劫案的人太少了，这使得统计局无法确定这些数据是真实增加了还是只是一个随机的变量。

Because it is based on interviews with people about their firsthand experiences with crimes, the bureau's survey does not include homicides. It also tallies crimes such as simple assault and personal theft that are not covered by the FBI reports.

由于该报告是根据采访到的受害者的第一手犯罪资料，统计局的调查没有包括杀人案。统计局的调查还包括了一些常见的人身攻击、私人财产被盗这些FBI的报告中不包括的犯罪