How The Bail Project is reforming criminal justice in the US | Robin Steinberg and Manoush Zomorodi

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2020

⏱️ 19 minutes

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Summary

Nearly half a million people in the US are in jail right now without being convicted of a crime, simply because they can’t come up with the money to pay cash bail. To try and fix this system, public defender and activist Robin Steinberg asked a straightforward question: What if we paid bail for them? In conversation with TED Radio Hour host Manoush Zomorodi, Steinberg shares how her nonprofit The Bail Project -- which uses a revolving fund to post bail for those who can’t afford it -- is scaling up their efforts across the country and rolling out a new community-based model to fight mass incarceration. (This ambitious plan is part of the Audacious Project, TED’s initiative to inspire and fund global change.)

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0:00.0	Do you know who's watching you?
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0:24.2	Palisade by Lou Gilmonde.
0:26.3	Get your copy today and make sure no one's watching.
0:36.1	Hi, it's Elise Hew with TED Talks Daily. Today, one big idea is sparking change in the criminal justice system to make it more just.
0:45.1	It's based on a simple premise that people shouldn't be stuck in jail just because they're poor.
0:50.8	In this onstage interview from TED Women 2019, you're about to hear public defender and activist Robin Steinberg chats with journalist and podcaster Manusse Omarodi about how she's making a difference.
1:02.9	And we should mention, Manus is the new host of the TED Radio Hour made in collaboration with NPR. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts.
1:12.7	So Robin Steinberg, thank you so much for being my first official guest.
1:18.2	Well, thank you for having you.
1:19.0	As the new host of TED Radio Hour. I'm delighted. I'm pretty psyched about that.
1:22.8	Yeah. So, okay, I want to start with the Bail Project, how it came to be, how you came up with the idea.
1:30.9	The story goes that 10 years ago, you and your husband were eating Chinese takeout food
1:36.0	when you came up with the concept.
1:38.1	You'd been a public defender for over 30 years, but there was this moment where you decided
1:43.4	something had to change. So we had both
1:46.9	spent decades in the trenches of the criminal legal system as public defenders, fighting for each
1:52.1	and every client the best we could, defending people's humanity and their dignity and fighting
1:56.7	for their freedom. And no matter how good we were as lawyers, and I like to think we were really
	...

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