CHARLES DICKENS was no stranger to(对……不陌生，熟悉) grim(阴森的，令人恐惧的) prisons. When he was 12 his father was sent to a debtors’ jail. The writer would later visit London prisons for research. Yet in 1842, when he went inside a New York City jail, he was horrified(感到震惊、恐惧). “Such indecent and disgusting dungeons”, Dickens wrote, “would bring disgrace upon the most despotic(专制的，暴虐的) empire in the world!” Dark, cramped(狭窄的，拥挤的) and prone to(易于（发生），有…倾向) flooding, it acquired the nickname “The Tombs”. Successive jails on the site would inherit it. In January ground was broken on the next generation of The Tombs. But rather than resembling a dungeon, the 1,000-inmate jail will reach to the sky. It will be 335 feet (102m) high, taller than the Statue of Liberty(自由女神像).
查尔斯·狄更斯对阴森的监狱并不陌生。他12岁时，父亲被送进债务人监狱。这位作家后来曾前往伦敦监狱做研究。然而在1842年，当他走进纽约市的一座监狱时，他感到震惊。“如此肮脏下流的地牢，”狄更斯写道，“会让世上最专制的帝国都蒙羞！”这座监狱阴暗、拥挤、易发洪水，因而获得了“墓穴”的绰号。此后原址上的监狱一直沿用此名。今年1月，新一代“墓穴”监狱破土动工。但这座可容纳1000名囚犯的监狱不再是地牢模样，而是直冲云霄。它将高达335英尺（102米），比自由女神像还高。
This is one of four new vertical jails(垂直监狱，高层监狱) that the city is building to replace Rikers Island, the Dickensian(狄更斯式的，凄惨的) jail complex in the East River. Approved by the city council in 2019, the plan will cost $16bn and is already running half a decade(五年（半十年）) behind schedule. For ease of access, the new jails will be close to the courthouses in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, right in the heart of the boroughs’ downtowns. That required architects to turn to the classic New York solution: building up. Although vertical jails have been built before, the cost and ambition(雄心，抱负) of these is new.
这是该市正在建造的四座新垂直监狱之一，用以取代东河上那座狄更斯式的监狱群——赖克斯岛。该计划于2019年获得市议会批准，将耗资160亿美元，且已比原定时间推迟了五年之久。为了交通便利，新监狱将靠近曼哈顿、皇后区、布鲁克林和布朗克斯的法院，正好位于各区市中心的中心地带。这迫使建筑师采用纽约经典的解决方案：向上建造。尽管此前已有垂直监狱，但这次的成本和规模前所未有。
Currently Rikers Island houses the bulk of(大部分，主体) New York City’s 6,700 inmates, around 85% of whom are in pre-trial detention. The prison has a long history of brutality(残忍，暴力行为) and neglect: in 2015, when levels of violence were so high as to be deemed unconstitutional(违宪的), a federal monitoring team(监控小组，监督小组) was put on the island. In the decade since, conditions have only worsened. “It would be a dream if we could even get back to [those] levels of violence,” says Liz Glazer, who led the city’s criminal-justice office under the then mayor, Bill de Blasio.(“如果我们能回到（那些）暴力水平，那简直是做梦，”曾在前市长白思豪领导下负责市刑事司法办公室的莉兹·格雷泽说道。) The rate of use of force(使用武力) in the jails has more than doubled and the rate of death, in proportion to(与……成比例) the population, is up by 82%. Last year a judge placed the jails under the control of an independent, federally appointed boss.
目前，赖克斯岛关押着纽约市6700名囚犯中的大部分，其中约85%处于审前羁押。该监狱长期以来充斥着暴力和疏忽；2015年，由于暴力程度高到被认为违宪，一支联邦监督小组被派驻该岛。而在此后的十年里，情况只变得更糟。“如果我们能回到（那些）暴力水平，那简直是做梦，”曾在前市长白思豪领导下负责市刑事司法办公室的莉兹·格雷泽说道。监狱中使用武力的比率增加了一倍多，死亡比率（相对人口）上升了82%。去年，一名法官将这些监狱交由联邦任命的一名独立主管控制。
Panopticon and on
圆形监狱永续
