Cash andCrime 金钱与犯罪
“CASH”, wrote Marcus Felson, an outstandingAmerican criminologist犯罪学者, “is the mother’s milk of crime.” Its appeal tocriminals is clear. Unlike cars or paintings, it can be concealed immediatelyafter being pinched压紧的，痛苦的困难的. It has no security features安全特征 to prevent its being easily and anonymously不具名的化名的 spent on legal or illegal goods. Unlike nearly anyother object that can be stolen, it needs no fence.
马库斯·费尔森一位杰出的美国犯罪学家，在纸上写下，金钱是犯罪的源泉。其吸引的犯罪的诱惑力可见一斑。不像汽车或者名画，金钱在发现之后可以被立刻藏匿起来。金钱没有任何安全特征可以防止被用于非法或合法的物件购买上。不像其他东西可以被偷走，金钱不需要在周围加上防护的。
Criminals’ need for cash motivates much predatory掠夺的 street crime. A new paper from the National Bureau of EconomicResearch国民经济调查局 asks whetherthis might work in reverse： if cash motivates crime, could the absence of cash reduce crime? Theanswer seems to be yes.
罪犯对金钱的需要促使其在街上进行掠夺钱财。国民经济调查局的报告中，提出这种方式是否会反向驱动：即如果金钱促使犯罪，那么金钱的减少是否也会减少犯罪，答案似乎是肯定的。
The paper looks at county-level县级 crime data in Missouri from 1990 to 2011, a periodwhen crime dropped markedly all over the rich world. During this time Missouri,like the rest of America, changed the way it delivered its welfare and food-stamp给失业者或贫民的粮票 benefits. Instead of paper cheques states now usea debit-card system结算卡系统 known as Electronic Benefit Transfer电子津贴转账（EBT). Missouri introduced EBT cards in eight phasesover 12 months. This gradual shift allowed the authors to analyse not justdifferences in crime rates before and after the introduction of EBT, but alsohow those differences compared with changes during the same period in countiesthat had not implemented it.
该报告分析了密苏里各县级从1990年到2011年的犯罪数据，该期间犯罪率在全世界富裕的地方显著下降。在密苏里，和美国其他地方一样，改变了发放福利和粮票的方法。取而代之电子支票，现在各州采用结算卡系统：被称为电子津贴转账。密苏里在12月里前后八次共引进电子津贴卡。此改变逐渐使报告人不仅可以在引入电子结算卡前后分犯罪率数据，而且可以将这些不同点发生在同时期的各县的改变还没有应用的进行比较。
They found that electronic payments电子支付 led to a drop of 9.8% in the overall crime rateand caused the rates of burglary盗窃, assault and larceny to fall by 7.9%, 12.5% and9.6%, respectively. The introduction of EBT was also associated with a lowernumber of arrests, an indication that the crime rate’s decline did not stem from起源于 more 有攻击性的监管aggressivepolicing. EBT’s effects on non-property-related crimes suchas drug offences were statistically insignificant. The findings suggest,according to Volkan沃尔坎 Topalli托帕利, one of theauthors, that “for people in densely populated urban neighbourhoods, the lesscash they have and the more their transactions are digitised数码化, the less attractive criminal targets they make.”
他们发现电子支付可以使其犯罪率总体上减少9.8%，入室盗窃率，袭击率和盗窃率分别下降7.9%，12.5%和9.6%。电子结算系统的引入也和减少逮捕率有关，这表明犯罪率减少不是因为严厉的监管措施。电子结算系统也影响非财产犯罪率比如毒品犯罪，其数据上减少的。调查结果表明，根据沃尔坎，托帕利，他们是其中的作者，我们可以知道：“对于那些人口稠密的邻国，更少的现金意味着更多的交易数码化，也就是意味着更少的犯罪目标了。”
It points to something broader, too. The sharpdecline in crime since the 1990s has led to a rash of theories to explain it:ageing populations, higher incarceration and immigration rates, less exposureto lead paint, better police tactics as well as vastly improved security ofboth products and places Mr. Topalli’s paper suggests that the shift from cashto cards—since 1990 debit-cardtransactions借记卡交易 have risen 27-fold, whereas cash volume has grown by just 4% a year—mayalso have contributed to the decline in crime. It’s hard to rip and run, afterall, without something to rip.
其调查结果也指出了更有广的事。自从1990年代以来的犯罪率急剧下降也有了一系列的理论来解释：人口老龄化，长期的有期徒刑和迁徙率，更少接触到铅丹，更好的管理策略以及产品和地方的安全保障能力提升，自从1990以来借记卡交易增长了27倍，而现今量仅仅每年上升4%，这些原因都可能使得犯罪率相应减少。没有东西可以偷，自然不会有偷盗逃跑之事了。
“CASH”, wrote Marcus Felson, an outstandingAmerican criminologist犯罪学者, “is the mother’s milk of crime.” Its appeal tocriminals is clear. Unlike cars or paintings, it can be concealed immediatelyafter being pinched压紧的，痛苦的困难的. It has no security features安全特征 to prevent its being easily and anonymously不具名的化名的 spent on legal or illegal goods. Unlike nearly anyother object that can be stolen, it needs no fence.
马库斯·费尔森一位杰出的美国犯罪学家，在纸上写下，金钱是犯罪的源泉。其吸引的犯罪的诱惑力可见一斑。不像汽车或者名画，金钱在发现之后可以被立刻藏匿起来。金钱没有任何安全特征可以防止被用于非法或合法的物件购买上。不像其他东西可以被偷走，金钱不需要在周围加上防护的。
Criminals’ need for cash motivates much predatory掠夺的 street crime. A new paper from the National Bureau of EconomicResearch国民经济调查局 asks whetherthis might work in reverse： if cash motivates crime, could the absence of cash reduce crime? Theanswer seems to be yes.
罪犯对金钱的需要促使其在街上进行掠夺钱财。国民经济调查局的报告中，提出这种方式是否会反向驱动：即如果金钱促使犯罪，那么金钱的减少是否也会减少犯罪，答案似乎是肯定的。
The paper looks at county-level县级 crime data in Missouri from 1990 to 2011, a periodwhen crime dropped markedly all over the rich world. During this time Missouri,like the rest of America, changed the way it delivered its welfare and food-stamp给失业者或贫民的粮票 benefits. Instead of paper cheques states now usea debit-card system结算卡系统 known as Electronic Benefit Transfer电子津贴转账（EBT). Missouri introduced EBT cards in eight phasesover 12 months. This gradual shift allowed the authors to analyse not justdifferences in crime rates before and after the introduction of EBT, but alsohow those differences compared with changes during the same period in countiesthat had not implemented it.
该报告分析了密苏里各县级从1990年到2011年的犯罪数据，该期间犯罪率在全世界富裕的地方显著下降。在密苏里，和美国其他地方一样，改变了发放福利和粮票的方法。取而代之电子支票，现在各州采用结算卡系统：被称为电子津贴转账。密苏里在12月里前后八次共引进电子津贴卡。此改变逐渐使报告人不仅可以在引入电子结算卡前后分犯罪率数据，而且可以将这些不同点发生在同时期的各县的改变还没有应用的进行比较。
They found that electronic payments电子支付 led to a drop of 9.8% in the overall crime rateand caused the rates of burglary盗窃, assault and larceny to fall by 7.9%, 12.5% and9.6%, respectively. The introduction of EBT was also associated with a lowernumber of arrests, an indication that the crime rate’s decline did not stem from起源于 more 有攻击性的监管aggressivepolicing. EBT’s effects on non-property-related crimes suchas drug offences were statistically insignificant. The findings suggest,according to Volkan沃尔坎 Topalli托帕利, one of theauthors, that “for people in densely populated urban neighbourhoods, the lesscash they have and the more their transactions are digitised数码化, the less attractive criminal targets they make.”
他们发现电子支付可以使其犯罪率总体上减少9.8%，入室盗窃率，袭击率和盗窃率分别下降7.9%，12.5%和9.6%。电子结算系统的引入也和减少逮捕率有关，这表明犯罪率减少不是因为严厉的监管措施。电子结算系统也影响非财产犯罪率比如毒品犯罪，其数据上减少的。调查结果表明，根据沃尔坎，托帕利，他们是其中的作者，我们可以知道：“对于那些人口稠密的邻国，更少的现金意味着更多的交易数码化，也就是意味着更少的犯罪目标了。”
It points to something broader, too. The sharpdecline in crime since the 1990s has led to a rash of theories to explain it:ageing populations, higher incarceration and immigration rates, less exposureto lead paint, better police tactics as well as vastly improved security ofboth products and places Mr. Topalli’s paper suggests that the shift from cashto cards—since 1990 debit-cardtransactions借记卡交易 have risen 27-fold, whereas cash volume has grown by just 4% a year—mayalso have contributed to the decline in crime. It’s hard to rip and run, afterall, without something to rip.
其调查结果也指出了更有广的事。自从1990年代以来的犯罪率急剧下降也有了一系列的理论来解释：人口老龄化，长期的有期徒刑和迁徙率，更少接触到铅丹，更好的管理策略以及产品和地方的安全保障能力提升，自从1990以来借记卡交易增长了27倍，而现今量仅仅每年上升4%，这些原因都可能使得犯罪率相应减少。没有东西可以偷，自然不会有偷盗逃跑之事了。
