美国国家公共电台 NPR From Homemade Weapons To Inmate Art, An Inside Look At Life Behind Bars

From Homemade Weapons To Inmate¹ Art, An Inside Look At Life Behind Bars 

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0003:46repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser² to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: 

We've spent part of this summer exploring hidden treasures, unsung museums.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST: 

Today, we visit the Texas Prison Museum.

INSKEEP: Where there is plenty to discuss since Texas has the world's largest prison system and also the busiest death chamber³ in the developed world.

MONTAGNE: Look for the sign with the ball and chain on Interstate 45 north of Houston. Here's NPR's John Burnett.

JIM WILLETT: My name is Jim Willett, and I'm the director of the Texas Prison Museum. And prior to coming here, I worked for 30 years for the prison system and was a warden⁴ for the last eight years I was there.

JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE⁵: Jim Willett is bald and affable with hawkish⁶ eyes. He's not your typical museum docent. His deep knowledge of the artifacts of state-ordered punishment comes from the years he oversaw⁷ the looming⁸ red-brick penitentiary⁹ in downtown Huntsville known as The Walls. Some of the exhibits in his museum reflect the inmates¹⁰' resourcefulness in their longing¹¹ for freedom.

WILLETT: This, I'm going to tell you, is my favorite display of the museum. These are three pistols, small handguns, that I think most people walk right by as they're visting the museum. But those pistols are actually carved out of wood and painted. And they look really real.

BURNETT: Were they ever used in an escape attempt?

WILLETT: No. And they found them before the inmates were going to try to use them.

BURNETT: There is a homemade rope attached to a homemade grappling hook to scale the walls, a carved wooden propeller¹² for a chimerical¹³ flying machine, a short-handled inmate-made shovel¹⁴ used in a stunningly¹⁵ unsuccessful tunneling attempt.

WILLETT: Unfortunately, they came up in the warden's backyard and the warden's wife was out there. She was able to call for help (laughter).

BURNETT: Another display shows prisoners' ingenuity¹⁶ in making weapons to use on each other or the guards. Shanks for stabbing are fashioned from spoons, antlers and odd scraps¹⁷ of metal. Two padlocks fastened to a rope makes a handy flail¹⁸. A length of pipe with a screw-on firing pin is a crude zip gun.

WILLETT: You've only got - what are - what are you looking at there? - maybe eight inches of pipe. I'd hate to be holding it when it went off.

BURNETT: And there's convict art - a jewelry¹⁹ box made of matchsticks, a chess set carved out of soap, a purse made from Camel cigarette packs back when the prison system allowed smoking. But the exhibit that gets the most attention...

WILLETT: We have here the Texas electric chair. It was nicknamed Old Sparky; was first used in 1924 and last used in 1964. Three hundred sixty-one men were put to death in that chair.

BURNETT: Could you describe it for people?

WILLETT: It is built out of really solid oak, big arms, big legs, a lot of leather and a lot of buckles²⁰ on it and a couple of places where some large electrical wiring comes into.

BURNETT: Jim Willett himself oversaw 89 executions by lethal²¹ injection when he was warden at The Walls. He doesn't generally talk about it. He doesn't like to get into arguments with visitors who may be against capital punishment. Yet, the visitors who come here tend to self-select. He says many are supporters of the death penalty.

WILLETT: You know, we - there's people that'll come through this museum and say we ought to go back to that, you know, and there's people from Europe that'll come in and say we ought to get the executions going back in our country.

BURNETT: For me, the best takeaway from the museum are the handsome leather items, like wallets made by the inmates. Part of the proceeds go into their accounts. They're one of the few things on display in the Texas Prison Museum that the convicts are encouraged to make. John Burnett, NPR News, Huntsville, Texas.

1 inmate   

n.被收容者；(房屋等的)居住人；住院人

参考例句：

• I am an inmate of that hospital.我住在那家医院。
• The prisoner is his inmate.那个囚犯和他同住一起。

2 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

3 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。

4 warden   

n.监察员，监狱长，看守人，监护人

参考例句：

• He is the warden of an old people's home.他是一家养老院的管理员。
• The warden of the prison signed the release.监狱长签发释放令。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 hawkish   

adj. 鹰派的, 强硬派的

参考例句：

• My staff's advice that first day was amazingly hawkish. 在第一天，我的僚属们的意见是令人吃惊的鹰派意见。
• Antiwar groups fear Barack Obama may create hawkish Cabinet. 反战团体担心巴拉克·奥巴马可以创建强硬派内阁。

7 oversaw   

v.监督，监视( oversee的过去式 )

参考例句：

• He will go down as the president who oversaw two historic transitions. 他将作为见证了巴西两次历史性转变的总统，安然引退。 来自互联网
• Dixon oversaw the project as creative director of Design Research Studio. 狄克逊监督项目的创意总监设计研究工作室。 来自互联网

8 looming   

n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近

参考例句：

• The foothills were looming ahead through the haze. 丘陵地带透过薄雾朦胧地出现在眼前。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Then they looked up. Looming above them was Mount Proteome. 接着他们往上看，在其上隐约看到的是蛋白质组山。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 回顾与展望

9 penitentiary   

n.感化院；监狱

参考例句：

• He worked as a warden at the state penitentiary.他在这所州监狱任看守长。
• While he was in the penitentiary her father died and the family broke up.他坐牢的时候，她的父亲死了，家庭就拆散了。

10 inmates   

n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• One of the inmates has escaped. 被收容的人中有一个逃跑了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The inmates were moved to an undisclosed location. 监狱里的囚犯被转移到一个秘密处所。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 longing   

n.（for）渴望

参考例句：

• Hearing the tune again sent waves of longing through her.再次听到那首曲子使她胸中充满了渴望。
• His heart burned with longing for revenge.他心中燃烧着急欲复仇的怒火。

12 propeller   

n.螺旋桨，推进器

参考例句：

• The propeller started to spin around.螺旋桨开始飞快地旋转起来。
• A rope jammed the boat's propeller.一根绳子卡住了船的螺旋桨。

13 chimerical   

adj.荒诞不经的，梦幻的

参考例句：

• His Utopia is not a chimerical commonwealth but a practical improvement on what already exists.他的乌托邦不是空想的联邦，而是对那些已经存在的联邦事实上的改进。
• Most interpret the information from the victims as chimerical thinking.大多数来自于受害者的解释是被当作空想。

14 shovel   

n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出

参考例句：

• He was working with a pick and shovel.他在用镐和铲干活。
• He seized a shovel and set to.他拿起一把铲就干上了。

15 stunningly   

ad.令人目瞪口呆地；惊人地

参考例句：

• The cooks, seamstresses and other small investors are stunningly vulnerable to reversals. 那些厨师、裁缝及其他的小投资者非常容易受到股市逆转的影响。
• The production cost of this huge passenger liner is stunningly high. 这艘船城造价之高令人惊叹。

16 ingenuity   

n.别出心裁；善于发明创造

参考例句：

• The boy showed ingenuity in making toys.那个小男孩做玩具很有创造力。
• I admire your ingenuity and perseverance.我钦佩你的别出心裁和毅力。

17 scraps   

油渣

参考例句：

• Don't litter up the floor with scraps of paper. 不要在地板上乱扔纸屑。
• A patchwork quilt is a good way of using up scraps of material. 做杂拼花布棉被是利用零碎布料的好办法。

18 flail   

v.用连枷打；击打；n.连枷（脱粒用的工具）

参考例句：

• No fence against flail.飞来横祸不胜防。
• His arms were flailing in all directions.他的手臂胡乱挥舞着。

19 jewelry   

n.（jewllery）（总称）珠宝

参考例句：

• The burglars walked off with all my jewelry.夜盗偷走了我的全部珠宝。
• Jewelry and lace are mostly feminine belongings.珠宝和花边多数是女性用品。

20 buckles   

搭扣，扣环( buckle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• She gazed proudly at the shiny buckles on her shoes. 她骄傲地注视着鞋上闪亮的扣环。
• When the plate becomes unstable, it buckles laterally. 当板失去稳定时，就发生横向屈曲。

21 lethal   

adj.致死的；毁灭性的

参考例句：

• A hammer can be a lethal weapon.铁锤可以是致命的武器。
• She took a lethal amount of poison and died.她服了致命剂量的毒药死了。