What if we ended the injustice of bail? | Robin Steinberg

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 November 2018

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On any given night, more than 450,000 people in the United States are locked up in jail simply because they don't have enough money to pay bail. The sums in question are often around $500: easy for some to pay, impossible for others. This has real human consequences -- people lose jobs, homes and lives, and it drives racial disparities in the legal system. Robin Steinberg has a bold idea to change this. In this powerful talk, she outlines the plan for The Bail Project -- an unprecedented national revolving bail fund to fight mass incarceration. (This ambitious plan is one of the first ideas of The Audacious Project, TED's new initiative to inspire global change.)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Chris Anderson, head of TED.
0:03.3	And this is a special archive presentation of TED Talks Daily, recorded at TED-2018.
0:09.2	This one features Robin Steinberg, a public defense lawyer, and the CEO of the Bail Project.
0:15.6	Now, if you enjoy the talk, I'd urge you to subscribe to our podcast, The TED Interview. We've posted an episode
0:23.4	in which I sit down with Robin to further understand why she believes our system of cash bail
0:29.7	is truly unjust and how she's disrupting it. The effect just might upend the social justice
0:36.1	system as we know it.
0:38.1	So please join me for the TED interview wherever you listen.
0:41.6	I will never forget the first time I visited a client in jail.
0:45.8	The heavy metal door slammed behind me and I heard the key turn in the lock.
0:51.3	The cement floor underneath me had a sticky film on it that made a ripping sound, like tape
0:57.2	being pulled off a box every time I moved to my foot. The only connection to the outside world
1:03.1	was a small window placed too high to see. There was a small square table bolted to the floor
1:09.2	and two metal chairs, one on either side.
1:12.6	That was the first time I understood viscerally,
1:16.6	just for a fleeting moment, what incarceration might feel like.
1:21.6	And I promised myself all those years ago as a young public defender
1:25.6	that I would never, ever forget that feeling.
1:29.1	And I never have.
1:31.0	It inspired me to fight for each and every one of my client's freedom
1:34.8	as if it was my own.
1:38.3	Freedom.
	...

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