Longreads Best of 2020: Crime Reporting

Through December, we’re featuring Longreads’ Best of 2020.

整个 12 月，我们都会精选 Longreads 的 2020 年最佳作品。

After taking a plunge into the murky world of crime, we narrowed down our favorites.

在深入了黑暗的犯罪世界后，我们缩小了我们最喜欢的范围。

Enjoy these Best of Crime reads, showcasing gripping tales and insights into the human psyche.

享受这些最佳犯罪读物，展示扣人心弦的故事和对人类心理的洞察。

If you like these, you can sign up to receive our weekly Top 5 email every Friday.

如果您喜欢这些，您可以注册以每周五接收我们的每周前 5 名电子邮件。

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## I Hope Our Daughters Will Not Be Punished (Justine van der Leun, Dissent Magazine)

## 我希望我们的女儿不会受到惩罚（Justine van der Leun，Dissent 杂志）

Van der Leun’s piece details the plight of Kwaneta Yatrice Harris — who, incarcerated for killing an abusive partner, wrote her letters from solitary confinement in a Texas prison.

范德伦的文章详细描述了夸内塔·亚特里切·哈里斯 (Kwaneta Yatrice Harris) 的困境——她因杀害虐待伴侣而入狱，在德克萨斯州一所监狱的单独监禁中写下了信件。

This year a lot of us have spent vast expanses of time isolated from family and friends — and so for many, this story will strike a chord.

今年，我们中的许多人度过了与家人和朋友隔绝的大量时间，因此对于许多人来说，这个故事会引起共鸣。

When van de Leun discusses pandemic lockdowns, she states, “Those who were alone began to physically throb for human connection.” This is a powerful concept — if we, with all the distractions of Zoom and Netflix and pets, can still ache for human connection when isolating, consider what it must feel like for those locked in solitary for months, with their senses so deprived of stimulation they magnify to “smell the guard’s perfume, hear the click of shoes echoing from far away.”

当范德伦讨论流行病封锁时，她说，“那些孤独的人开始渴望与人建立联系。”这是一个强有力的概念——如果我们在Zoom、Netflix和宠物的干扰下，在隔离时仍然渴望人与人之间的联系，那么想想那些被单独关了几个月的人的感受，他们的感官被剥夺了刺激，他们放大到“闻到警卫的香水味，听到远处传来的鞋子的喀哒声”。

By talking to Harris, van de Leun gives us an inkling of what it is like to live in a condition that is “classified as torture by the United Nations, serves no rehabilitative purpose, and causes mental health to deteriorate in as few as ten days.” A registered nurse, Harris is terrified of COVID-19, and the unsanitary conditions she finds herself in — her unit is rarely cleaned, and she showers in one of three showers shared by forty-two women.

通过与哈里斯的交谈，范德伦让我们大致了解了生活在“被联合国列为酷刑、没有康复目的、并在短短十天内导致心理健康状况恶化”的情况下是什么样子。哈里斯是一名注册护士，她对 COVID-19 以及她所处的不卫生环境感到恐惧——她的单位很少打扫，她在 42 名女性共用的三个淋浴间中的一个洗澡。

This essay also echoes another horrific event of 2020 — the death of George Floyd, killed during his arrest in Minneapolis.

这篇文章也呼应了 2020 年的另一件可怕事件——乔治·弗洛伊德 (George Floyd) 在明尼阿波利斯被捕期间被杀。

The racism that Black people experience at the hands of the police can extend to prison wardens.

黑人在警察手中遭受的种族主义可能会延伸到监狱看守。

In Texas in 2015, a Black man named Mark Sabbie was feeling unwell — he was given a disciplinary ticket for “creating a disturbance” by “feining [sic] illness and difficulty breathing.” He was cuffed in his cells and left alone — and found dead the next morning.

2015 年，在德克萨斯州，一位名叫马克·萨比 (Mark Sabbie) 的黑人感到身体不适，他因“因患病和呼吸困难”而“制造骚乱”而被开出纪律罚单。他被铐在牢房里，独自一人留在牢房里——第二天早上被发现死亡。

An emotional read: but an important look at how the challenges wider society has faced in 2020 are magnified inside the microcosm of a Texas prison.

读起来充满情感：但重要的是要了解 2020 年更广泛的社会所面临的挑战如何在德克萨斯州监狱的微观世界中被放大。

## Pleas of Insanity: The Mysterious Case of Anthony Montwheeler (Rob Fischer, Rolling Stone Magazine)

## 疯狂的恳求：安东尼·蒙惠勒的神秘案件（罗布·费舍尔，滚石杂志）

What does it mean to be “criminally insane”?

“犯罪精神错乱”是什么意思？

The official answer sounds simple — to have a mental illness that impairs you from telling the difference between right and wrong.

官方的答案听起来很简单——患有精神疾病，导致你无法辨别是非。

But mental illness is a nuanced spectrum — and, to many, it seems impossible to decipher someone’s state of mind during a crime.

但精神疾病是一个微妙的范围——对许多人来说，解读一个人在犯罪期间的心理状态似乎是不可能的。

This story is a fascinating exploration into the complexities of the insanity plea in the United States — which, even though there are “lots of tests and things you can do to kind of back up your intuition …

这个故事是对美国精神错乱抗辩的复杂性的一次有趣的探索——尽管有“很多测试和你可以做的事情来支持你的直觉......

in the end, it’s kind of this gut feeling.”

最后，这就是一种直觉。”

Using the case study of Anthony Montwheeler, Fischer explores what can happen when a gut feeling isn’t enough.

费舍尔通过安东尼·蒙惠勒的案例研究，探讨了当直觉不够时会发生什么。

Montwheeler apparently played the system.

蒙惠勒显然玩弄了这个体系。

Charged in 1996 with kidnapping his wife and son at gunpoint he was found “guilty except for insanity.” Twenty years later, he claimed he faked mental illness by studying a copy of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and mimicking behavioral traits — to avoid incarceration in favor of a state psychiatric hospital — and now wanted to be discharged.

1996 年，他被指控持枪绑架妻子和儿子，“除了精神错乱之外，其他罪名成立”。二十年后，他声称自己通过学习《精神疾病诊断与统计手册》并模仿行为特征来假装患有精神疾病，以避免入狱，转而去州立精神病院，现在他想出院。

After he spoke at a hearing for a total of eight-and-a-half minutes, a review board decided Montwheeler was “no longer affected by a qualifying mental disease or defect,” and the state was legally required to discharge him.

在他在听证会上发表了总共八分半钟的讲话后，审查委员会决定蒙特惠勒“不再受到符合资格的精神疾病或缺陷的影响”，法律要求该州释放他。

Had Montwheeler been pretending all those years?

难道蒙特威勒这些年来一直在假装吗？

It seems no one really knows for sure, but what we do know is that after his release he went on to murder his third ex-wife, Annita Harmon.

似乎没有人真正确定，但我们所知道的是，在他获释后，他继续谋杀了他的第三任前妻安妮塔·哈蒙。

This case is a rarity — the insanity defense is pursued in fewer than one percent of all criminal trials.

这个案件很罕见——在所有刑事审判中，只有不到百分之一的人以精神错乱为辩护理由。

But, however hard to define, mental health is still an obvious factor in crime: “37 percent of prisoners and 44 percent of jail inmates have been told by a mental health professional at some point in their lives that they suffer from a mental disorder.” Fischer shows that while the insanity defense may be flawed, there is still a clear link between mental health and criminality — with a lack of mental health care, and the resulting issues, apparent.

但是，无论如何难以定义，心理健康仍然是犯罪的一个明显因素：“37% 的囚犯和 44% 的监狱囚犯在生命中的某个时刻被心理健康专业人士告知，他们患有精神障碍。”费舍尔表明，虽然精神错乱的辩护可能存在缺陷，但心理健康与犯罪之间仍然存在明显的联系——缺乏心理健康护理以及由此产生的问题是显而易见的。

## The Confessions of Marcus Hutchins, the Hacker Who Saved the Internet (Andy Greenberg, Wired)

## 拯救互联网的黑客马库斯·哈钦斯的自白（安迪·格林伯格，《连线》）

Greenberg is meticulous in his detailed analysis of Marcus Hutchins’ character, a hacker who some view as a criminal, and others as the savior of the internet.

格林伯格对马库斯·哈钦斯的性格进行了细致的详细分析，这位黑客被一些人视为罪犯，而另一些人则视为互联网的救世主。

It’s a thrilling story, with many twists and turns, but also an exploration into people’s moral complexities.

这是一个惊心动魄的故事，充满曲折，同时也是对人们道德复杂性的探索。

Hutchins stopped the worst malware attack the world had ever seen — christened WannaCry.

哈钦斯阻止了世界上有史以来最严重的恶意软件攻击——命名为“WannaCry”。

In the space of an afternoon, it destroyed, by some estimates, nearly a quarter of a million computers’ data — before Hutchins found the kill switch.

据估计，在一个下午的时间里，它销毁了近 25 万台计算机的数据——然后哈钦斯找到了终止开关。

He was celebrated as a hero, but Hutchins himself knew “what it was like to sit behind a keyboard, detached from the pain inflicted on innocents far across the internet.” Three years earlier he had been the chief author of Kronos — a type of malware focused on stealing banking login credentials.

他被誉为英雄，但哈钦斯本人知道“坐在键盘后面，远离互联网上无辜者所遭受的痛苦是什么感觉。”三年前，他是 Kronos 的主要作者，Kronos 是一种专注于窃取银行登录凭据的恶意软件。

After disabling WannaCry, Hutchins’ previous work with Kronos was discovered and he was arrested.

在禁用 WannaCry 后，哈钦斯之前与 Kronos 的合作被发现并被捕。

The hacker world rallied in support — which left Hutchins ravaged by guilt for what he had done, but even the judge in his trial concluded that “one might view the ignoble conduct that underlies this case as against the backdrop of what some have described as the work of a hero, a true hero.” This is a thought-provoking insight into the gradual descent into a criminal world, the climb back out again, and the layers of gray in between.

黑客世界团结起来支持——这让哈钦斯对自己的所作所为感到内疚，但即使是审判他的法官也得出结论：“人们可能会认为这起案件背后的不光彩行为是在一些人所描述的英雄工作的背景下进行的，一个真正的英雄。”这是对逐渐陷入犯罪世界、再次爬出以及其间的灰色层的发人深省的洞察。

## The Wind Delivered the Story (Josina Guess, The Bitter Southerner)

## 风传递了故事（Josina Guess，《苦涩的南方人》）

It feels jarring to put the terms “beautiful” and “lynching” in the same sentence — but this personal essay about the 1947 lynching of Willie Earle is beautifully written.

将“美丽”和“私刑”这两个词放在同一个句子中感觉很刺耳，但这篇关于 1947 年威利·厄尔 (Willie Earle) 私刑的个人文章写得很漂亮。

Guess’ writing is almost lyrical — as she explains how the wind blew “history into my path” in wonderfully descriptive language.

盖斯的写作几乎是抒情的——她用精彩的描述性语言解释了风如何将“历史吹进我的道路”。

When Guess moved into her farmhouse in Georgia she found a box of old newspapers from the mid-1940s through the early 50s.

当 Guess 搬进佐治亚州的农舍时，她发现了一盒 20 世纪 40 年代中期到 50 年代初期的旧报纸。

She stored them in the woodshed until a blustery autumn storm disturbed them and scattered them about the property.

她把它们存放在木棚里，直到一场大风的秋季暴风雨扰乱了它们，把它们散落在房子周围。

One headline that appeared, like “a bird I had been expecting in this landscape that carries memories of racialized violence,” read “State Seeks Death Sentence For All 31 Lynchers.” Not ready for the emotional toll of exploring this incident further, Guess tucked the paper away, but the story wanted to be told, and a few weeks later the wind blew the conclusion across the garden: “28 White Men Get Blanket Acquittal in South Carolina Mass Lynch Trial.” It was Willie Earle who was killed, to avenge the fatal stabbing of a cab driver named Thomas Brown.

出现的一个标题，就像“我一直在这片土地上期待一只鸟，它承载着种族暴力的记忆”，上面写着“国家寻求对所有 31 名私刑犯判处死刑”。盖斯还没准备好接受进一步探讨这一事件所带来的情感损失，所以把报纸收了起来，但这个故事想要被讲述，几周后，风把结论吹到了花园的另一边：“28 名白人在南卡罗来纳州大规模私刑审判中被无罪释放。”威利·厄尔被杀，是为了为出租车司机托马斯·布朗被刺死报仇。

Arrested, then almost immediately kidnapped from jail, Earle had no opportunity to stand trial — his guilt or innocence was never proven.

厄尔被捕，然后几乎立即被从监狱绑架，他没有机会接受审判——他的有罪或无罪从未被证明。

His murderers were given that chance, but despite ample evidence and confessions, were found innocent.

谋杀他的凶手得到了这个机会，但尽管有充足的证据和供词，他们还是被判无罪。

Guess’ work focuses on dismantling racism in Georgia, so it seemed fate that this story, literally, landed at her feet.

盖斯的工作重点是消除佐治亚州的种族主义，所以这个故事确实落在了她的脚下，这似乎是命运的安排。

She went on to research the history of the Willie Earle murder, discovering it was considered the last lynching in South Carolina, and, although the trial was a miscarriage of justice, it marked the end of mob violence and the beginning of a rumbling that eventually became the Civil Rights Movement.

她继续研究威利·厄尔谋杀案的历史，发现这被认为是南卡罗来纳州最后一次私刑，尽管这次审判是误判，但它标志着暴民暴力的结束和最终演变为民权运动的喧嚣的开始。

## The Strange and Dangerous World of America’s Big Cat People (Rachel Nuwer, Longreads)

## 美国大型猫科动物的奇异而危险的世界（Rachel Nuwer，长读）

Amongst one or two other things, 2020 was the year people learned the names Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin.

除其他一两件事外，2020 年是人们知道 Joe Exotic 和 Carole Baskin 这两个名字的一年。

The Netflix series Tiger King landed on our screens at the same time that many of us were in lockdown due to COVID-19, and was binge-watched by millions.

Netflix 剧集《虎王》登陆我们的荧屏，同时我们许多人因 COVID-19 而处于封锁状态，数百万人疯狂观看。

This story by Rachel Nuwer was written before we met these characters on Netflix while clutching our loo rolls and hand sanitizer, and her piece sheds a brighter light on their complicated personalities.

雷切尔·努维尔 (Rachel Nuwer) 的这篇故事是我们在 Netflix 上遇到这些角色之前写的，当时我们手里拿着卫生卷和洗手液，她的作品更加清晰地揭示了他们复杂的性格。

Nuwer’s piece explores the murder-for-hire plots that Exotic instigated against Baskin, but her focus also remains firmly on the animals around which the story revolves.

努维尔的作品探讨了异国情调煽动针对巴斯金的雇佣谋杀阴谋，但她的重点仍然坚定地集中在故事围绕的动物上。

Exotic was not only convicted of murder-for-hire — but of 17 wildlife crimes, including illegally killing five tigers and trafficking them across state lines — a significant conviction when there is still no oversight over big cat ownership by the federal government.

Exotic 不仅被判犯有雇佣谋杀罪，而且还犯有 17 项野生动物犯罪罪，包括非法杀死 5 只老虎并将其跨州贩运——在联邦政府对大型猫科动物所有权仍然没有监督的情况下，这是一项重大定罪。

This investigation goes beyond the larger than life characters and the human drama, and actually shows us the lives of the animals that are owned by America’s big cat people.

这项调查超越了传奇人物和人类戏剧，实际上向我们展示了美国大型猫科动物所拥有的动物的生活。

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