0:00:01.056,0:00:04.971
On the path that American children [br]travel to adulthood,

0:00:04.971,0:00:08.519
two institutions oversee the journey.

0:00:08.519,0:00:12.262
The first is the one we hear [br]a lot about: college.

0:00:12.262,0:00:14.845
Some of you may remember[br]the excitement that you felt

0:00:14.845,0:00:17.431
when you first set off for college.

0:00:17.431,0:00:19.983
Some of you may be in college right now

0:00:19.983,0:00:22.998
and you're feeling this excitement[br]at this very moment.

0:00:23.988,0:00:25.667
College has some shortcomings.

0:00:25.667,0:00:29.003
It's expensive; it leaves[br]young people in debt.

0:00:29.003,0:00:31.947
But all in all, it's a pretty good path.

0:00:31.947,0:00:37.114
Young people emerge from college[br]with pride and with great friends

0:00:37.114,0:00:39.453
and with a lot of knowledge [br]about the world.

0:00:39.453,0:00:41.289
And perhaps most importantly,

0:00:41.289,0:00:45.795
a better chance in the labor market[br]than they had before they got there.

0:00:45.795,0:00:48.498
Today I want to talk about[br]the second institution

0:00:48.498,0:00:54.056
overseeing the journey from childhood[br]to adulthood in the United States.

0:00:54.056,0:00:57.811
And that institution is prison.

0:00:58.791,0:01:02.536
Young people on this journey[br]are meeting with probation officers

0:01:02.536,0:01:04.939
instead of with teachers.

0:01:04.939,0:01:08.832
They're going to court dates[br]instead of to class.

0:01:08.832,0:01:13.909
Their junior year abroad is instead[br]a trip to a state correctional facility.

0:01:13.909,0:01:16.599
And they're emerging from their 20s

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not with degrees in business and English,

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but with criminal records.

0:01:22.514,0:01:25.107
This institution is also costing us a lot,

0:01:25.107,0:01:26.749
about 40,000 dollars a year

0:01:26.749,0:01:30.517
to send a young person[br]to prison in New Jersey.

0:01:31.167,0:01:33.723
But here, taxpayers are footing the bill

0:01:33.723,0:01:37.206
and what kids are getting[br]is a cold prison cell

0:01:37.206,0:01:40.016
and a permanent mark against them[br]when they come home

0:01:40.016,0:01:42.765
and apply for work.

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There are more and more kids[br]on this journey to adulthood

0:01:46.211,0:01:51.435
than ever before in the United States[br]and that's because in the past 40 years,

0:01:51.435,0:01:57.187
our incarceration rate [br]has grown by 700 percent.

0:01:57.187,0:01:59.316
I have one slide for this talk.

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Here it is.

0:02:01.760,0:02:03.623
Here's our incarceration rate,

0:02:03.623,0:02:09.915
about 716 people per 100,000[br]in the population.

0:02:11.205,0:02:14.065
Here's the OECD countries.

0:02:18.885,0:02:21.617
What's more, it's poor kids[br]that we're sending to prison,

0:02:21.617,0:02:25.105
too many drawn from African-American[br]and Latino communities

0:02:25.105,0:02:29.986
so that prison now stands firmly between[br]the young people trying to make it

0:02:29.986,0:02:33.418
and the fulfillment of the American Dream.

0:02:33.418,0:02:36.274
The problem's actually [br]a bit worse than this

0:02:36.274,0:02:38.952
'cause we're not just sending [br]poor kids to prison,

0:02:38.952,0:02:41.919
we're saddling poor kids with court fees,

0:02:41.919,0:02:44.240
with probation and parole restrictions,

0:02:44.240,0:02:46.127
with low-level warrants,

0:02:46.127,0:02:49.622
we're asking them to live [br]in halfway houses and on house arrest,

0:02:49.622,0:02:53.227
and we're asking them [br]to negotiate a police force

0:02:53.227,0:02:55.640
that is entering poor[br]communities of color,

0:02:55.640,0:02:58.839
not for the purposes [br]of promoting public safety,

0:02:58.839,0:03:03.315
but to make arrest counts,[br]to line city coffers.

0:03:06.537,0:03:10.925
This is the hidden underside to our[br]historic experiment in punishment:

0:03:10.925,0:03:15.971
young people worried that at any moment,[br]they will be stopped, searched and seized.

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Not just in the streets, [br]but in their homes,

0:03:19.258,0:03:21.695
at school and at work.

0:03:22.925,0:03:26.116
I got interested in this [br]other path to adulthood

0:03:26.116,0:03:28.357
when I was myself a college student

0:03:28.357,0:03:30.415
attending the University of Pennsylvania

0:03:30.415,0:03:32.493
in the early 2000s.

0:03:32.493,0:03:36.060
Penn sits within a historic [br]African-American neighborhood.

0:03:36.060,0:03:41.298
So you've got these two parallel[br]journeys going on simultaneously:

0:03:41.298,0:03:44.419
the kids attending [br]this elite, private university,

0:03:44.419,0:03:46.885
and the kids from [br]the adjacent neighborhood,

0:03:46.885,0:03:48.813
some of whom are making it to college,

0:03:48.813,0:03:52.311
and many of whom [br]are being shipped to prison.

0:03:52.831,0:03:57.415
In my sophomore year, I started tutoring[br]a young woman who was in high school

0:03:57.415,0:04:00.409
who lived about 10 minutes[br]away from the university.

0:04:00.409,0:04:03.942
Soon, her cousin came home [br]from a juvenile detention center.

0:04:03.942,0:04:06.600
He was 15, a freshman in high school.

0:04:06.600,0:04:10.259
I began to get to know him [br]and his friends and family,

0:04:10.259,0:04:13.611
and I asked him what he thought [br]about me writing about his life

0:04:13.611,0:04:16.196
for my senior thesis in college.

0:04:16.196,0:04:20.387
This senior thesis became[br]a dissertation at Princeton

0:04:20.387,0:04:21.935
and now a book.

0:04:21.935,0:04:23.533
By the end of my sophomore year,

0:04:23.533,0:04:26.903
I moved into the neighborhood[br]and I spent the next six years

0:04:26.903,0:04:31.494
trying to understand what young people[br]were facing as they came of age.

0:04:32.234,0:04:34.318
The first week I spent[br]in this neighborhood,

0:04:34.318,0:04:36.894
I saw two boys, five and seven years old,

0:04:36.894,0:04:38.386
play this game of chase,

0:04:38.386,0:04:41.337
where the older boy[br]ran after the other boy.

0:04:41.337,0:04:42.532
He played the cop.

0:04:42.532,0:04:44.720
When the cop caught up[br]to the younger boy,

0:04:44.720,0:04:46.420
he pushed him down,

0:04:46.420,0:04:48.971
handcuffed him with imaginary handcuffs,

0:04:48.971,0:04:51.282
took a quarter out of [br]the other child's pocket,

0:04:51.282,0:04:54.874
saying, "I'm seizing that."

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He asked the child if [br]he was carrying any drugs

0:04:58.214,0:05:00.659
or if he had a warrant.

0:05:00.659,0:05:02.664
Many times, I saw this game repeated,

0:05:02.664,0:05:05.052
sometimes children would [br]simply give up running,

0:05:05.052,0:05:07.248
and stick their bodies flat [br]against the ground

0:05:07.248,0:05:10.593
with their hands above their heads,[br]or flat up against a wall.

0:05:10.593,0:05:12.588
Children would yell at each other,

0:05:12.588,0:05:13.870
"I'm going to lock you up,

0:05:13.870,0:05:17.052
I'm going to lock you up[br]and you're never coming home!"

0:05:17.052,0:05:21.406
Once I saw a six-year-old child[br]pull another child's pants down

0:05:21.406,0:05:23.816
and try to do a cavity search.

0:05:24.756,0:05:27.935
In the first 18 months that I lived[br]in this neighborhood,

0:05:27.935,0:05:31.627
I wrote down every time I saw[br]any contact between police

0:05:31.627,0:05:34.173
and people that were my neighbors.

0:05:34.553,0:05:36.652
So in the first 18 months,

0:05:36.652,0:05:40.421
I watched the police stop [br]pedestrians or people in cars,

0:05:40.421,0:05:42.589
search people, run people's names,

0:05:42.589,0:05:44.533
chase people through the streets,

0:05:44.533,0:05:46.306
pull people in for questioning,

0:05:46.306,0:05:50.489
or make an arrest every single day,[br]with five exceptions.

0:05:51.142,0:05:55.077
Fifty-two times, I watched the police[br]break down doors,

0:05:55.077,0:05:57.118
chase people through houses

0:05:57.118,0:06:00.337
or make an arrest of someone[br]in their home.

0:06:00.337,0:06:03.150
Fourteen times[br]in this first year and a half,

0:06:03.150,0:06:08.450
I watched the police punch, choke,[br]kick, stomp on or beat young men

0:06:08.450,0:06:11.269
after they had caught them.

0:06:12.289,0:06:14.665
Bit by bit, I got to know two brothers,

0:06:14.665,0:06:16.209
Chuck and Tim.

0:06:16.209,0:06:19.250
Chuck was 18 when we met,[br]a senior in high school.

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He was playing on the basketball team[br]and making C's and B's.

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His younger brother, Tim, was 10.

0:06:24.697,0:06:27.848
And Tim loved Chuck;[br]he followed him around a lot,

0:06:27.848,0:06:30.139
looked to Chuck to be a mentor.

0:06:30.139,0:06:32.285
They lived with their mom and grandfather

0:06:32.285,0:06:35.724
in a two-story row home [br]with a front lawn and a back porch.

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Their mom was struggling with addiction[br]all while the boys were growing up.

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She never really was able [br]to hold down a job for very long.

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It was their grandfather's pension[br]that supported the family,

0:06:46.281,0:06:49.484
not really enough to pay[br]for food and clothes

0:06:49.484,0:06:52.215
and school supplies for growing boys.

0:06:52.215,0:06:54.401
The family was really struggling.

0:06:54.401,0:06:56.780
So when we met, Chuck was[br]a senior in high school.

0:06:56.780,0:06:58.898
He had just turned 18.

0:06:59.628,0:07:02.770
That winter, a kid in the schoolyard

0:07:02.770,0:07:06.029
called Chuck's mom a crack whore.

0:07:06.029,0:07:08.904
Chuck pushed the kid's face into the snow

0:07:08.904,0:07:12.729
and the school cops charged him [br]with aggravated assault.

0:07:12.729,0:07:14.479
The other kid was fine the next day,

0:07:14.479,0:07:17.952
I think it was his pride that was injured[br]more than anything.

0:07:17.952,0:07:19.665
But anyway, since Chuck was 18,

0:07:19.665,0:07:22.853
this agg. assault case sent him [br]to adult county jail

0:07:22.853,0:07:25.278
on State Road in northeast Philadelphia,

0:07:25.278,0:07:29.345
where he sat, unable to pay the bail --[br]he couldn't afford it --

0:07:29.345,0:07:32.544
while the trial dates [br]dragged on and on and on

0:07:32.544,0:07:35.266
through almost his entire senior year.

0:07:35.926,0:07:38.976
Finally, near the end of this season,

0:07:38.976,0:07:42.323
the judge on this assault case[br]threw out most of the charges

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and Chuck came home

0:07:43.657,0:07:48.004
with only a few hundred dollars' worth[br]of court fees hanging over his head.

0:07:48.004,0:07:50.547
Tim was pretty happy that day.

0:07:50.547,0:07:53.301
The next fall, Chuck tried [br]to re-enroll as a senior,

0:07:53.301,0:07:55.315
but the school secretary told him that

0:07:55.315,0:07:58.446
he was then 19 and too old [br]to be readmitted.

0:07:58.446,0:08:02.113
Then the judge on his assault case[br]issued him a warrant for his arrest

0:08:02.113,0:08:05.388
because he couldn't pay [br]the 225 dollars in court fees

0:08:05.388,0:08:08.915
that came due a few weeks after[br]the case ended.

0:08:08.915,0:08:12.935
Then he was a high school dropout[br]living on the run.

0:08:12.935,0:08:14.987
Tim's first arrest came later that year

0:08:14.987,0:08:16.770
after he turned 11.

0:08:16.770,0:08:18.900
Chuck had managed[br]to get his warrant lifted

0:08:18.900,0:08:21.561
and he was on a payment plan[br]for the court fees

0:08:21.561,0:08:25.071
and he was driving Tim to school[br]in his girlfriend's car.

0:08:25.071,0:08:27.806
So a cop pulls them over, runs the car,

0:08:27.806,0:08:31.591
and the car comes up [br]as stolen in California.

0:08:31.591,0:08:35.714
Chuck had no idea where in the history[br]of this car it had been stolen.

0:08:35.714,0:08:39.190
His girlfriend's uncle bought it[br]from a used car auction

0:08:39.190,0:08:40.657
in northeast Philly.

0:08:40.657,0:08:43.485
Chuck and Tim had never been[br]outside of the tri-state,

0:08:43.485,0:08:45.834
let alone to California.

0:08:45.834,0:08:47.932
But anyway, the cops down at the precinct

0:08:47.932,0:08:51.500
charged Chuck with [br]receiving stolen property.

0:08:51.500,0:08:54.312
And then a juvenile judge, [br]a few days later,

0:08:54.312,0:08:56.464
charged Tim, age 11,

0:08:56.464,0:08:59.537
with accessory to receiving[br]a stolen property

0:08:59.537,0:09:03.190
and then he was placed on [br]three years of probation.

0:09:04.430,0:09:07.332
With this probation sentence [br]hanging over his head,

0:09:07.332,0:09:09.419
Chuck sat his little brother down

0:09:09.419,0:09:12.868
and began teaching him[br]how to run from the police.

0:09:12.868,0:09:15.200
They would sit side by side [br]on their back porch

0:09:15.200,0:09:17.264
looking out into the shared alleyway

0:09:17.264,0:09:21.104
and Chuck would coach Tim[br]how to spot undercover cars,

0:09:21.104,0:09:26.071
how to negotiate a late-night police raid,[br]how and where to hide.

0:09:27.011,0:09:28.691
I want you to imagine for a second

0:09:28.691,0:09:31.060
what Chuck and Tim's lives would be like

0:09:31.060,0:09:35.809
if they were living in a neighborhood[br]where kids were going to college,

0:09:35.809,0:09:37.238
not prison.

0:09:37.918,0:09:41.071
A neighborhood like the one [br]I got to grow up in.

0:09:41.071,0:09:42.536
Okay, you might say.

0:09:42.536,0:09:46.288
But Chuck and Tim, kids like them,[br]they're committing crimes!

0:09:46.288,0:09:48.414
Don't they deserve to be in prison?

0:09:48.414,0:09:52.228
Don't they deserve to be [br]living in fear of arrest?

0:09:52.228,0:09:55.350
Well, my answer would be no.

0:09:55.350,0:09:56.430
They don't.

0:09:56.430,0:09:59.457
And certainly not for the same things [br]that other young people

0:09:59.457,0:10:02.901
with more privilege are doing[br]with impunity.

0:10:02.901,0:10:04.718
If Chuck had gone to my high school,

0:10:04.718,0:10:07.041
that schoolyard fight [br]would have ended there,

0:10:07.041,0:10:08.717
as a schoolyard fight.

0:10:08.717,0:10:12.267
It never would have become[br]an aggravated assault case.

0:10:12.937,0:10:15.758
Not a single kid that[br]I went to college with

0:10:15.758,0:10:17.437
has a criminal record right now.

0:10:17.437,0:10:19.311
Not a single one.

0:10:19.311,0:10:23.316
But can you imagine how many might have[br]if the police had stopped those kids

0:10:23.316,0:10:27.183
and searched their pockets for drugs[br]as they walked to class?

0:10:27.183,0:10:31.244
Or had raided their frat parties[br]in the middle of the night?

0:10:32.384,0:10:33.656
Okay, you might say.

0:10:33.656,0:10:35.646
But doesn't this high incarceration rate

0:10:35.646,0:10:38.399
partly account for our [br]really low crime rate?

0:10:38.399,0:10:40.823
Crime is down. That's a good thing.

0:10:40.823,0:10:43.310
Totally, that is a good thing.[br]Crime is down.

0:10:43.310,0:10:46.837
It dropped precipitously in[br]the '90s and through the 2000s.

0:10:46.837,0:10:48.882
But according to a committee of academics

0:10:48.882,0:10:52.536
convened by the National Academy[br]of Sciences last year,

0:10:52.536,0:10:56.545
the relationship between our[br]historically high incarceration rates

0:10:56.545,0:11:00.129
and our low crime rate is pretty shaky.

0:11:00.129,0:11:03.569
It turns out that the crime rate[br]goes up and down

0:11:03.569,0:11:08.095
irrespective of how many young people[br]we send to prison.

0:11:09.265,0:11:12.358
We tend to think about justice[br]in a pretty narrow way:

0:11:12.358,0:11:15.962
good and bad, innocent and guilty.

0:11:15.962,0:11:19.317
Injustice is about being [br]wrongfully convicted.

0:11:19.317,0:11:21.632
So if you're convicted [br]of something you did do,

0:11:21.632,0:11:23.467
you should be punished for it.

0:11:23.467,0:11:25.233
There are innocent and guilty people,

0:11:25.233,0:11:27.670
there are victims and [br]there are perpetrators.

0:11:27.670,0:11:32.071
Maybe we could think a little bit[br]more broadly than that.

0:11:32.071,0:11:36.505
Right now, we're asking kids who live[br]in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods,

0:11:36.505,0:11:38.786
who have the least amount[br]of family resources,

0:11:38.786,0:11:41.347
who are attending [br]the country's worst schools,

0:11:41.347,0:11:44.253
who are facing the toughest time[br]in the labor market,

0:11:44.253,0:11:47.906
who are living in neighborhoods[br]where violence is an everyday problem,

0:11:47.906,0:11:52.479
we're asking these kids to walk[br]the thinnest possible line --

0:11:52.479,0:11:56.290
to basically never do anything wrong.

0:11:56.290,0:12:00.791
Why are we not providing support[br]to young kids facing these challenges?

0:12:00.791,0:12:08.037
Why are we offering only handcuffs,[br]jail time and this fugitive existence?

0:12:08.037,0:12:10.543
Can we imagine something better?[br]

0:12:10.543,0:12:14.798
Can we imagine a criminal justice system[br]that prioritizes recovery,

0:12:14.798,0:12:17.385
prevention, civic inclusion,

0:12:17.385,0:12:20.086
rather than punishment?

0:12:20.086,0:12:23.475
(Applause)

0:12:27.855,0:12:30.130
A criminal justice system [br]that acknowledges

0:12:30.130,0:12:34.110
the legacy of exclusion that poor people[br]of color in the U.S. have faced

0:12:34.110,0:12:38.266
and that does not promote[br]and perpetuate those exclusions.

0:12:38.266,0:12:41.651
(Applause)

0:12:43.291,0:12:47.853
And finally, a criminal justice system[br]that believes in black young people,

0:12:47.853,0:12:51.717
rather than treating black young people [br]as the enemy to be rounded up.

0:12:51.717,0:12:55.440
(Applause)

0:12:59.460,0:13:02.287
The good news is that we already are.

0:13:02.287,0:13:07.110
A few years ago, Michelle Alexander[br]wrote "The New Jim Crow,"

0:13:07.110,0:13:11.123
which got Americans to see [br]incarceration as a civil rights issue

0:13:11.123,0:13:15.479
of historic proportions in a way[br]they had not seen it before.

0:13:15.479,0:13:19.238
President Obama and Attorney General [br]Eric Holder have come out very strongly

0:13:19.238,0:13:20.955
on sentencing reform,

0:13:20.955,0:13:24.699
on the need to address [br]racial disparity in incarceration.

0:13:24.699,0:13:27.309
We're seeing states throw out[br]Stop and Frisk

0:13:27.309,0:13:30.345
as the civil rights violation that it is.

0:13:30.345,0:13:35.400
We're seeing cities and states[br]decriminalize possession of marijuana.

0:13:35.400,0:13:37.257
New York, New Jersey[br]and California

0:13:37.257,0:13:41.094
have been dropping their [br]prison populations, closing prisons,

0:13:41.094,0:13:43.375
while also seeing a big drop in crime.

0:13:43.375,0:13:45.068
Texas has gotten into the game now,

0:13:45.068,0:13:48.913
also closing prisons, [br]investing in education.

0:13:48.913,0:13:52.570
This curious coalition is building [br]from the right and the left,

0:13:52.570,0:13:56.018
made up of former prisoners[br]and fiscal conservatives,

0:13:56.018,0:13:59.349
of civil rights activists[br]and libertarians,

0:13:59.349,0:14:03.329
of young people taking to the streets[br]to protest police violence

0:14:03.329,0:14:06.165
against unarmed black teenagers,

0:14:06.165,0:14:08.211
and older, wealthier people --

0:14:08.211,0:14:10.082
some of you are here in the audience --

0:14:10.082,0:14:14.017
pumping big money into [br]decarceration initiatives

0:14:15.357,0:14:17.107
In a deeply divided Congress,

0:14:17.107,0:14:19.810
the work of reforming [br]our criminal justice system

0:14:19.810,0:14:22.602
is just about the only thing[br]that the right and the left

0:14:22.602,0:14:25.187
are coming together on.

0:14:25.187,0:14:29.101
I did not think I would see[br]this political moment in my lifetime.

0:14:29.102,0:14:32.710
I think many of the people[br]who have been working tirelessly

0:14:32.710,0:14:34.872
to write about the causes and consequences

0:14:34.872,0:14:37.104
of our historically [br]high incarceration rates

0:14:37.104,0:14:40.870
did not think we would see[br]this moment in our lifetime.

0:14:40.870,0:14:44.653
The question for us now is,[br]how much can we make of it?

0:14:44.653,0:14:47.618
How much can we change?

0:14:47.618,0:14:50.182
I want to end with a call to young people,

0:14:50.182,0:14:51.816
the young people attending college

0:14:51.816,0:14:54.926
and the young people[br]struggling to stay out of prison

0:14:54.926,0:14:58.030
or to make it through prison[br]and return home.

0:14:58.030,0:15:02.063
It may seem like these paths[br]to adulthood are worlds apart,

0:15:02.063,0:15:06.505
but the young people participating[br]in these two institutions

0:15:06.505,0:15:08.430
conveying us to adulthood,

0:15:08.430,0:15:10.995
they have one thing in common:

0:15:10.995,0:15:15.677
Both can be leaders in the work[br]of reforming our criminal justice system.

0:15:16.483,0:15:19.815
Young people have always been leaders[br]in the fight for equal rights,

0:15:19.815,0:15:22.080
the fight for more people [br]to be granted dignity

0:15:22.080,0:15:24.635
and a fighting chance at freedom.

0:15:24.635,0:15:27.014
The mission for the generation [br]of young people

0:15:27.014,0:15:31.994
coming of age in this, a sea-change[br]moment, potentially,

0:15:31.994,0:15:37.258
is to end mass incarceration and [br]build a new criminal justice system,

0:15:37.258,0:15:40.185
emphasis on the word justice.

0:15:40.185,0:15:41.589
Thanks.

0:15:41.589,0:15:45.168
(Applause)