《经济学人》双语：英国如何解决自行车盗窃问题？

原文标题：
The wheels of justice
The scourge of stolen bikes in Britain
An experiment in Liverpool shows how the police can tackle bike theft
正义之轮
英国自行车失窃之祸
利物浦的一项实验展示了警方解决自行车盗窃问题的方式

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ON A SUMMER’S day in Southport, in north-west England, the Merseyside police were on the hunt for stolen bikes.
在英格兰西北部南波特的一个夏日，默西塞德郡警方正在搜寻被盗的自行车。

Their suspicions were raised by a “well-known male”, recently out of prison, on a notably pricey bicycle.
一名刚从监狱出狱的“知名男子”骑着一辆价格不菲的自行车，这引起了警方的怀疑。

Officers stopped him, entered the bike’s details into a database and rang the owner, who had been under the impression his bike was locked up outside his workplace. It had been recovered before he’d realised it had gone.
警察将其拦下，将自行车的详细信息录入数据库，并致电车主。车主原本以为自己的自行车还锁在工作地点外面，没想到自行车这么快就被找回了。

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The Merseyside police force is the first in England and Wales to experiment with routine stops of cyclists.
默西塞德郡警察局是英格兰和威尔士第一个尝试对骑自行车者进行例行拦截的警察局。

It has carried out more than 4,000 checks in the past year. But its example is likely to spread.
去年已实施了4000多次检查。但这一举措可能会得到推广。

Bike theft is a blight in many British cities.
自行车盗窃是英国许多城市的一个痼疾。

Around 200,000 bikes were reported stolen in England and Wales last year; the real number is much higher because many thefts go unreported, and bikes taken in burglaries are usually not separately recorded as bike thefts.
据报告，去年英格兰和威尔士地区约有20万辆自行车被盗；实际数字要高得多，因为许多盗窃案都没有报案，而且在入室盗窃案中被盗的自行车通常不会被单独记录为自行车盗窃案。

Very few are ever recovered. In London more than 90% of bike thefts in 2022 went unsolved, leading some politicians to complain that it has been “effectively decriminalised”.
被找回的自行车寥寥无几。在伦敦，2022年有90%以上的自行车盗窃案都没有破，导致一些政客抱怨称这实际上已经“合法化了”。

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This is not just a pain for their owners. Stolen bikes and e-bikes have also become the getaway vehicle of choice for thieves, according to the Merseyside police.
这不仅让车主们苦不堪言。据默西塞德郡警方称，被盗自行车和电动自行车也成为小偷的首选逃跑工具。

In one way or another, some 80% of acquisitive crime in Liverpool involves a nicked bike.
从某种程度上说，利物浦约80%的财产犯罪案件都涉及被盗自行车。

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That is bad for cities, which have built thousands of miles of cycle lanes in recent years.
这对近年来修建了数千英里自行车道的城市来说可不是好事。

The likelihood of having a bike stolen still puts many would-be riders off, says James Brown of BikeRegister, a company which sells security-marking kits, which tend to include a unique code that is hard to remove.
BikeRegister公司的詹姆斯·布朗说，自行车被盗的风险仍然会让许多潜在的骑行者打消骑行念头。该公司销售安全标记套件，通常包含一个难以消除的唯一代码。

Others give up after having one or two bikes stolen.
有些人在经历了一两辆自行车被盗后就彻底放弃了骑行。

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It is also corrosive of trust in the police.
这也削弱了人们对警察的信任。

The “broken-windows theory”—coined by two American criminologists, James Q. Wilson and George Kelling, in the 1980s—held that visible signs of crime often lead to more serious wrongdoing.
1980年代，两位美国犯罪学家詹姆斯·Q·威尔逊和乔治·凯林提出了“破窗理论”，认为犯罪的明显迹象往往会导致更严重的违法行为。

As bikes have grown more popular, their stripped carcasses have become one of the more obvious signs that low-level crime is permitted.
随着自行车的普及，被拆的自行车残骸已成为“默许轻度犯罪行为”的明显标志之一。

Cyclists complain that, even when they find their stolen bike on a second-hand website, the police won’t help.
骑车人抱怨说，即使他们在二手网站上发现了自己被盗的自行车，警察也不会出手相助。

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Part of the problem is simply that police are stretched. Community policing has been pared back, making brazen street theft less risky.
部分问题在于警力资源不足。社区警务力量被削减，使得街头盗窃行为变得更加肆无忌惮。

For those officers tasked with investigating crimes, the loss of a treasured two-wheeler can be a long way down the list.
对于那些负责调查犯罪的警官来说，一辆珍贵自行车的失窃案可能根本排不上优先级。

As home security has made burglary harder and more people have taken to getting around on flashy rides, bikes have become an attractive target.
由于家庭安全使得入室盗窃变得更加困难，而且越来越多的人喜欢骑着华丽的自行车出行，自行车已成为一个诱人的盗窃目标。

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Titus Halliwell of the Metropolitan Police Service in London reckons stealing them is now the most “low-risk, high-reward” crime.
伦敦大都会警察局的泰特斯·哈利韦尔认为，如今偷自行车已成为一种“低风险、高收益”的犯罪行为。

In the capital crafty thieves are shifting towards battery-powered angle grinders, which get through the best locks in seconds (slow learners elsewhere still seem to rely on primitive bolt-cutters).
在首都伦敦，狡猾的小偷正转向使用电动角磨机，这种工具能在几秒钟内切断上好的锁具（其他地方反应较慢的小偷似乎仍然依赖原始的断线钳）。

Many work in gangs that are practised at getting rid of stolen goods quickly.
许多人结成团伙，能够快速处理赃物。

“You only need to steal four bikes a week and sell them for £250 each and you’re making £50k a year tax-free,” notes Mr Halliwell.
哈利韦尔先生说：“你每周只需偷4辆自行车，每辆卖250英镑，一年下来就能赚到5万英镑的无税收入。”

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But the Merseyside example also shows how things can be turned around comparatively quickly.
不过，默西塞德郡的例子也表明，情况可以相对迅速地扭转。

Between July 2023 and July 2024 the pilot project saw reported thefts fall by 46% compared with the previous year.
在2023.7-2024.7期间，该试点项目报告的自行车失窃案件比上一年下降了46%。

Pippa Wilcox, the constable in charge, explains that as well as stopping suspicious riders the police have helped to get thousands of bikes across the city marked, either by retailers or through events at schools and workplaces.
负责此项目的警官皮帕·威尔科克斯解释说，警方不仅拦截可疑骑行者，还帮助零售商或通过在学校和工作场所举办活动，在全市数千辆自行车上做了标记。

The aim is to make stolen bikes “too hot to handle”.
目的是让被盗自行车“难以销赃”。

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Linking bike theft to other crimes has helped win the support of her colleagues.
将自行车盗窃案与其他犯罪案件联系起来，有助于赢得警察同事的支持。

Officers have a phone app that lets them search a database of marked bikes.
警察们有一款手机应用程序，能够搜索标记自行车的数据库。

They like the fact that when they are searching someone’s property on suspicion of drug offences, they can also try and bust them for bike theft.
他们喜欢这样的事实：在搜查涉嫌毒品犯罪的嫌疑人财产时，还可以尝试破获自行车失窃案。

Returning bikes to surprised owners, sometimes aided by social media, has boosted local confidence in policing, says Ms Wilcox.
威尔科克斯女士说，有时在社交媒体的帮助下，将自行车归还给惊讶的失主，增强了当地民众对警方工作的信心。

Merseyside’s approach is being recommended to other forces.
默西塞德郡的这一举措正被推荐给其他警队。

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Two regulatory changes would help. The first is creating a requirement for manufacturers and retailers to mark new bikes.
两项监管变革将有助于改善现状。第一项是要求制造商和零售商对新自行车进行标记。

The French government did that in 2021; three years on, around a third of all bikes are marked.
法国政府在2021年实施了这一规定；3年后，大约1/3的自行车都进行了标记。

The second is to put more pressure on online platforms such as Gumtree and Facebook to ensure they are not marketplaces for stolen goods, by for example requiring sellers to include security-marking codes.
第二项是向Gumtree和Facebook等在线平台施加更多压力，确保它们不是销赃市场，例如要求卖家提供安全标记代码。

Bike thieves may be enjoying a smooth ride at the moment. It could be punctured rather easily.
自行车小偷目前可能正过着逍遥自在的日子，但这种日子很容易就会被打破。

（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇771左右）
原文出自：2024年10月5日《TE》Britain版块

精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路
本文翻译整理: Irene
本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【重点句子】（3个）
Bike theft is a blight in many British cities.
自行车盗窃是英国许多城市的一个痼疾。

Part of the problem is simply that police are stretched. Community policing has been pared back, making brazen street theft less risky.
部分问题在于警力资源不足。社区警务力量被削减，使得街头盗窃行为变得更加肆无忌惮。

Returning bikes to surprised owners, sometimes aided by social media, has boosted local confidence in policing, says Ms Wilcox.
威尔科克斯女士说，有时在社交媒体的帮助下，将自行车归还给惊讶的失主，增强了当地民众对警方工作的信心。