Prison Break 1《越狱》1（精讲之九）

影片对白

Cherry: Help me. Please.

T-bag: You'll have to forgive my boy. He has the, uh, propensity to be a bit gregarious when he shouldn't be. Fraternizing in the prison shower. Come on.

Michael: Maybe you ought to cut the kid a break.

T-bag: You wouldn't be meddling in my affairs now, would you, Scofield? You can't be that stupid. Not when I'm so fully invested in your affairs.

Michael: What's between you and him... is between you and him.

T-bag: That's what I thought you said.

Cherry: You've got to help me.

Sucre: Looks like I got to find something else to call you now.

Michael: Why is that?

Sucre: Cause you ain't a fish no more. You ain't the newest con in the tank. No...

Michael: I could've done something.

Lincoln: No. T-Bag had his hooks in that kid. There was nothing you could've done.

Michael: I could've told the pope. He could've transferred the kid to AdSeg. He would've been safe.

Lincoln: Go easy, Michael. You didn't even know him.

Michael: That makes it okay? I turned my back on him because I didn't want to make waves. It was just... easier... to look the other way... keep the plan safe.

Lincoln: And you did.

Michael: But at what price?

Abruzzi: I give you permission to call to Philly? Hey, I asked you a question, man.

Gus: Listen, there, uh... there's been a restructuring. This comes from Philly himself. You couldn't deliver Fibonacci... so I'm The Man in here now.

Abruzzi: Hey, jelly wad... run to the commissary, get me a bag of chips, we'll pretend this never happened, right?

Gus: Yeah, I'm telling you, John. The sooner you face these facts, the better off we will all be.

Abruzzi: I could kill you in a heartbeat.

Gus: Somehow I doubt that. The sooner you face facts, the better off we will all be. You're yesterday's news, John.

妙语佳句，活学活用

1. Cut someone a break

Give someone a break 的另一种表达，意思是"Give someone a chance or special consideration"，常常翻译成"饶了某人，放过某人，给某人一个机会"，例如：She begged the professor for an extension on her term paper, saying "Please give me a break."

另外，give me a break还可以用来表示感叹，要求对方"stop trying to fool or upset or bother me"，例如：Don't tell me the party's been postponed again--give me a break!

2. hooks

在俚语中，hooks有hands or fingers的意思，例如：Get your hooks off that cake!

3. Turn one's back on

"拒绝，忽略，背弃，抛弃"的意思，例如：I can't turn my back on my own daughter, no matter what she's done.

4. Make waves

"（诘问，拒绝接受已存在的事实因而）挑起事端，引发争端"的意思，例如：We've finally settled our differences, so please don't make waves.

5. in a heartbeat
意为"without hesitation"，例如：You'd better think over what I said. I can kill you in a heartbeat.

6. Yesterday's news

"昨天的新闻"会是什么样的新闻？从时效性上来说，当然是已经过时的、无关紧要的了。Yesterday's news means "irrelevant"，Gus 的意思是 Abruzzi从此和监狱工厂再没有关系了。

文化面面观

Prison industry in the U. S. 美国的监狱产业

Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil War, a system of "hiring out prisoners" was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition. Freed slaves were charged with not carrying out their sharecropping commitments (cultivating someone else's land in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty thievery - which were almost never proven - and were then "hired out" for cotton picking, working in mines and building railroads. From 1870 until 1910 in the state of Georgia, 88% of hired-out convicts were Black. In Alabama, 93% of "hired-out" miners were Black. In Mississippi, a huge prison farm similar to the old slave plantations replaced the system of hiring out convicts. The notorious Parchman plantation existed until 1972.

During the post-Civil War period, Jim Crow racial segregation laws were imposed on every state, with legal segregation in schools, housing, marriages and many other aspects of daily life. "Today, a new set of markedly racist laws is imposing slave labor and sweatshops on the criminal justice system, now known as the prison industry complex," comments the Left Business Observer.

Who is investing? At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom's, Revlon, Macy's, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more. All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call "highly skilled positions." At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month.

Thanks to prison labor, the United States is once again an attractive location for investment in work that was designed for Third World labor markets. A company that operated a maquiladora (assembly plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq.

Oregon State Representative Kevin Mannix recently urged Nike to cut its production in Indonesia and bring it to his state, telling the shoe manufacturer that "there won't be any transportation costs; we're offering you competitive prison labor (here)."

The prison privatization boom began in the 1980s, under the governments of Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr., but reached its height in 1990 under William Clinton, when Wall Street stocks were selling like hotcakes. Clinton's program for cutting the cutting the federal workforce resulted in the Justice Departments contracting of private prison corporations for the incarceration of undocumented workers and high-security inmates.

Private prisons are the biggest business in the prison industry complex. About 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states. The two largest are Correctional Corporation of America (CCA) and Wackenhut, which together control 75%. Private prisons receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it costs to maintain each one. According to Russell Boraas, a private prison administrator in Virginia, "the secret to low operating costs is having a minimal number of guards for the maximum number of prisoners." The CCA has an ultra-modern prison in Lawrenceville, Virginia, where five guards on dayshift and two at night watch over 750 prisoners. In these prisons, inmates may get their sentences reduced for "good behavior," but for any infraction, they get 30 days added - which means more profits for CCA. According to a study of New Mexico prisons, it was found that CCA inmates lost "good behavior time" at a rate eight times higher than those in state prisons. (www.granma.cu)

Abruzzi作为Fox River 监狱工厂的头目，享有者管理犯人、发放PI card的特权。当然，他得向狱警Bellick 缴纳巨额的好处费。当Abruzzi背后的黑帮不再支持他后，好处费的来源没有了，Abruzzi也就被赶下了头目的位置。

我观之我见

Fish Cherry 因为无法忍受T-bag的折磨，向Michael 求救，Michael劝说T-bag不成，考虑到越狱的计划，拒绝了Cherry的请求。走投无路的Cherry万念俱灰，用床单上吊自杀了。这一幕无论是对Michael还是对观众触动都很大：在这个弱肉强食的世界里，生存不仅要靠技术和手段，还要有坚定的信念。无论是在监狱内外，这条道理都适用。

考考你

用今日所学将下面的句子译成英语。

1. 他直接拒绝了他们，再也没有重新考虑一下。
2. 防止卷入办公室纠纷的最佳办法是不要挑起事端。

Prison Break 1《越狱》1（精讲之八）考考你 参考答案

1． 爸爸在工作，孩子们则在给他捣乱。
Dad was working, and the children were getting in his hair.

2． 他承认他拿了钱，并且说很高兴把这事说出来。
He admitted taking the money and said he was glad to get it off his chest.