2020考研英語閱讀理解精讀100篇：Unit 63

Unit 63

A white kid sells a bag of cocaine at his suburban high school. A Latino kid does the same in his inner-city neighborhood. Both get caught. Both are first-time offenders. The white kid walks into juvenile court with his parents, his priest, a good lawyer and medical coverage. The Latino kid walks into court with his mom, no legal resources and no insurance. The judge lets the white kid go with his family; he’s placed in a private treatment program. The minority kid has no such option. He’s detained.

There, in a nutshell, is what happens more and more often in the juvenile-court system. Minority youths arrested on violent felony charges in California are more than twice as likely as their white counterparts to be transferred out of the juvenile-justice system and tried as adults, according to a study released last week by the Justice Policy Institute, a research center in San Francisco. Once they are in adult courts, young black offenders are 18 times more likely to be jailed and Hispanics seven times more likely than are young white offenders. “Discrimination against kids of color accumulates at every stage of the justice system and skyrockets when juveniles are, tried as adults,” says Dan Macallair, a co-author of the new study. “California has a double standard: throw kids of color behind bars, but rehabilitate white kids who commit comparable crimes.”

Even as juvenile crime has declined from its peak in the early 1990s, headline grabbing violence by minors has intensified a get-tough attitude. Over the past six years, 43 states have passed laws that make it easier to try juveniles as adults. In Texas and Connecticut in 1996, the latest year for which figures are available, all the juveniles in jails were minorities. Vincent Schiraldi, the Justice Policy Institute’s director, concedes that “some kids need to be tried as adults. But most can be rehabilitated.”

Instead, adult prisons tend to brutalize juveniles. They are eight times more likely to commit suicide and five times more likely to be sexually abused than offenders held in juvenile detention. “Once they get out, they tend to commit more crimes and more violent crimes,” says Jenni Gainsborough, a spokeswoman for the Sentencing Project, a reform group in Washington. The system, in essence, is training career criminals. And it’s doing its worst work among minorities.

注（1）：本文選自Time；

注（2）：本文習題命題模仿對象為1997年真題Text 5（其中因1997年真題Text 5只有4個題目，所以本文第4題模仿參照對象為1999年Text 4的第4題）。

1. From the first paragraph we learn that ______.

A) the white kid is more innocent than the minority kid

B) the white kid has got a lot of help than the minority kid

C) the white kid and minority kid have been treated differently

D) the minority kid should be set free at once

2. According to the passage, which of the following is TRUE?

A) Kids shouldn’t be tried as adults.

B) Discrimination exists in the justice system.

C) Minority kids are likely to commit crimes.

D) States shouldn’t pass the laws.

3. The word “skyrocket”（Line 7, Paragraph 2）means ______.

A) rising sharply

B) widening suddenly

C) spreading widely

D) expanding quickly

4. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that ______.

A) something seems to be wrong with the justice system

B) adult prisons have bad influence on the juveniles

C) juveniles in adult prison are ill-treated

D) the career criminals are trained by the system

5. The passage shows that the author is ______ the present situation.

A) amazed at

B) puzzled by

C) disappointed at

D) critical of

篇章剖析

本文的結構形式為提出問題——分析問題。第一段首先提出問題，以一個案例為切入點，對比白人少年與有色人種少年受到的不同待遇；第二段和第三段用事實進一步說明司法機關對有色人種青少年的歧視以及他們受到的不公正待遇；第四段闡述了司法機關這一做法造成的不良影響。

詞匯注釋

offender /??fend?(r)/ n. 罪犯；冒犯者

coverage /?k?v?r?d?/ n. 保險項目；保險范圍

option /??p?(?)n/ n. 選擇；供選擇的事物

detain /d??te?n/ v. 拘留

in a nutshell /?n?t?el/簡括地，簡言之

felony /?fel?ni/ n. 【法】重罪

rehabilitate /ri?h??b?l?te?t/ v. 使（身體）康復；使復職；使恢復名譽；使復原

get-tough /?get?t?f/ adj. 強硬的

concede /k?n?si?d/ v. 勉強，承認

brutalize /?bru?t?la?z/ v. 殘酷地對待

detention /d??ten?(?)n/ n. 拘留，禁閉

難句突破

Minority youths arrested on violent felony charges in California are more than twice as likely as their white counterparts to be transferred out of the juvenile-justice system and tried as adults, according to a study released last week by the Justice Policy Institute, a research center in San Francisco.

主體句式：Minority youths are as... as...

結構分析：這是一個比較長的簡單句?！癿ore than twice as likely as their white counterparts”是一種表示倍數(shù)的表達方式；“to be transferred out of the juvenile-justice system and tried as adults”不定式短語來修飾white counterparts;“according to a study released last week by the Justice Policy Institute”作伴隨狀語；“a research center in San Francisco”是“the Justice Policy Institute”的同位語。

句子譯文：據(jù)舊金山一家研究中心——司法政策研究所——上周發(fā)表的一項研究結果顯示，在加州因暴力重罪嫌疑被捕進而轉出少年法庭而作為成人被審判的少數(shù)民族青少年的數(shù)量可能是白人青少年的兩倍。

題目分析

1. C 推理題。作者在第一段中進行對比，其目的在于引出“同一性質(zhì)的案例因為犯罪對象的不同，從而處理的結果也不同”這一論點。

2. B 細節(jié)題。原文對應信息是在第二段：“Discrimination against kids of color accumulates at every stage of the justice system and skyrockets when juveniles are, tried as adults”。其他選項意思與原文不符。

3. A 語義題。從單詞所在的句子語境中，可以判斷skyrocket與accumulate的意思相近，都表示激增，并且前者程度更強。

4. A 推理題。原文相關信息是文章最后兩句話“The system, in essence, is training career criminals. And it’s doing its worst work among minorities.”。

5. D 情感態(tài)度題。作者通篇都在闡述司法機關對有色人種青少年的不公正待遇，所以對司法系統(tǒng)是持批判態(tài)度的。

參考譯文

一白人少年在其就讀的郊區(qū)中學販賣了一袋可卡因，一拉丁美洲少年在其市內(nèi)社區(qū)也做了同樣的事情。兩人都被逮捕了，并且他們都是初犯。白人少年在其父母、牧師、知名律師陪伴下走進少年法庭——他有醫(yī)療保險；而那個拉丁美洲少年卻只在他母親陪伴下來到法庭，沒有任何法律援助，也沒有什么保險。法官讓白人少年隨家人回家，判他接受私下處理計劃監(jiān)管的懲罰；而那位少數(shù)民族少年則別無選擇，被拘留了。

簡而言之，這樣的事情在少年法庭上越來越常見。據(jù)舊金山一家研究中心——司法政策研究——上周發(fā)表的一項研究結果顯示，在加州因暴力重罪嫌疑被捕之后進而轉出少年法庭而作為成人被審判的少數(shù)民族青少年的數(shù)量可能是白人青少年的兩倍。一旦被移交成人法庭，那些青少年黑人犯罪者被送進監(jiān)獄的可能性是白人的18倍，美籍西班牙人是白人的8倍?！八痉ㄏ到y(tǒng)對有色人種青少年的歧視每升一級都加一次碼，而這些年輕人一旦以成人的身份被審判的話，這種歧視便被極度升級，并且愈演愈烈，達到無以復加的地步?！边@項研究的合作者丹·麥卡萊爾（Dan Macallair）說，“加利福尼亞歷來奉行雙重標準：把犯罪的有色人種青少年投進監(jiān)獄，但對犯有同等罪行的白人少年卻進行教育感化。”

正當青少年犯罪率從20世紀90年代初期的高峰開始下降的時候，常常成為報刊頭條新聞的少數(shù)民族未成年人暴力犯罪強化了公眾的強硬態(tài)度。在過去6年中，43個州通過的法律使青少年以成人的身份受審變得更加易如反掌。1996年，美國得克薩斯州和康涅狄格州（這是這兩個州能收集到的最新一年的青少年犯罪記錄）的資料表明，在監(jiān)獄服刑的所有青少年都是有色人種。司法政策研究所所長文森特·希拉迪承認，“有些青少年需要作為成人進行審判，但是他們中大多數(shù)人是可以被教育感化的?！?

成人監(jiān)獄經(jīng)常虐待這些青少年。這些人自殺的可能性是少管所罪犯的8倍，遭到性虐待的可能性是他們的5倍。華盛頓的一個改革革命性團體“審判項目組織”的女發(fā)言人Jenni Gainsborough認為，“這些人一旦被釋放，往往會瘋狂作案，實施更多的暴力犯罪?！边@種體系實質(zhì)上是在培養(yǎng)職業(yè)罪犯，對有色人種而言，它起的作用更糟。