The US is addicted to incarceration. Here’s how to break the cycle | Robin Steinberg

Visit to get our entire library of TED Talks, transcripts, translations, personalized talk recommendations and more.

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.)

The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more. You're welcome to link to or embed these videos, forward them to others and share these ideas with people you know. For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), submit a Media Request here:

Follow TED on Twitter:
Like TED on Facebook:

Subscribe to our channel:

27 Comments on The US is addicted to incarceration. Here’s how to break the cycle | Robin Steinberg

  1. Just like family courts imprisoning an innocent man a father a husband for alimony and Unrealistic child-support financing

  2. 12:30 – 12:50 is agreeable. But what’s needed is a system that does not infringe the persons life before actual sentencing. But still keeps actual dangers from fleeing the country and hiding. Idk why that’s so hard to figure out ngl.

    • You realize she’s talking about bail right? Like, wealthy people get to wait for trial at home and poor people have to wait for trial in jail, before they’re convicted.

  3. I’m really disappointed that she didn’t address the root cause of this whole “incarceration addiction” : for profit private prisons.
    As long as jailing somebody is profitable there is not a single chance to witness change in the forseeable future.
    Private prisons are the ones lobbying in Congress for harsher criminal statutes and negotiating really expensive penalties in case a 90% + rate of cell’s occupation isn’t reached.
    Stop treating symptoms, focus on the illness.
    Good luck anyway, at least she’s working for change.

    • did you know american interests also own and make a profit from immigration detention centres in australia?
      it is a ridiculous state of affairs and nobody talks about it
      surely arrangements like this undermine the authenticity of the political debate on the legitimacy of refugee detention

  4. Incarceration?…camon Ted….Lets talk about Goverments failing population and suporting Big Companys instead?…MONEY IS THE PROBLEM.

  5. Poverty and forProfit Justice are cornerstones of the American Dream. The rich can’t stay rich without impoverished people to manipulate and exploit. And those impoverished people won’t conform to social standards and work unless there’s a threat of incarceration. Imagine actually having to pay living wages to poor people. The hedge fund economy would collapse. Much easier to trap them in a cycle of poverty and prison terms than it is to just end poverty. I mean we can absolutely afford to permanently end poverty in this country, and it would be cheaper over the long run. But, rich people won’t be able to get richer if they end poverty. Back to that catch 22.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*


Shares
Share This