How we're priming some kids for college — and others for prison
-
0:01 - 0:05On the path that American children
travel to adulthood, -
0:05 - 0:09two institutions oversee the journey.
-
0:09 - 0:12The first is the one we hear
a lot about: college. -
0:12 - 0:15Some of you may remember
the excitement that you felt -
0:15 - 0:17when you first set off for college.
-
0:17 - 0:20Some of you may be in college right now
-
0:20 - 0:23and you're feeling this excitement
at this very moment. -
0:24 - 0:26College has some shortcomings.
-
0:26 - 0:29It's expensive; it leaves
young people in debt. -
0:29 - 0:32But all in all, it's a pretty good path.
-
0:32 - 0:37Young people emerge from college
with pride and with great friends -
0:37 - 0:39and with a lot of knowledge
about the world. -
0:39 - 0:41And perhaps most importantly,
-
0:41 - 0:46a better chance in the labor market
than they had before they got there. -
0:46 - 0:48Today I want to talk about
the second institution -
0:48 - 0:54overseeing the journey from childhood
to adulthood in the United States. -
0:54 - 0:58And that institution is prison.
-
0:59 - 1:03Young people on this journey
are meeting with probation officers -
1:03 - 1:05instead of with teachers.
-
1:05 - 1:09They're going to court dates
instead of to class. -
1:09 - 1:14Their junior year abroad is instead
a trip to a state correctional facility. -
1:14 - 1:17And they're emerging from their 20s
-
1:17 - 1:20not with degrees in business and English,
-
1:20 - 1:22but with criminal records.
-
1:23 - 1:25This institution is also costing us a lot,
-
1:25 - 1:27about 40,000 dollars a year
-
1:27 - 1:31to send a young person
to prison in New Jersey. -
1:31 - 1:34But here, taxpayers are footing the bill
-
1:34 - 1:37and what kids are getting
is a cold prison cell -
1:37 - 1:40and a permanent mark against them
when they come home -
1:40 - 1:43and apply for work.
-
1:43 - 1:46There are more and more kids
on this journey to adulthood -
1:46 - 1:51than ever before in the United States
and that's because in the past 40 years, -
1:51 - 1:57our incarceration rate
has grown by 700 percent. -
1:57 - 1:59I have one slide for this talk.
-
1:59 - 2:01Here it is.
-
2:02 - 2:04Here's our incarceration rate,
-
2:04 - 2:10about 716 people per 100,000
in the population. -
2:11 - 2:14Here's the OECD countries.
-
2:19 - 2:22What's more, it's poor kids
that we're sending to prison, -
2:22 - 2:25too many drawn from African-American
and Latino communities -
2:25 - 2:30so that prison now stands firmly between
the young people trying to make it -
2:30 - 2:33and the fulfillment of the American Dream.
-
2:33 - 2:36The problem's actually
a bit worse than this -
2:36 - 2:39'cause we're not just sending
poor kids to prison, -
2:39 - 2:42we're saddling poor kids with court fees,
-
2:42 - 2:44with probation and parole restrictions,
-
2:44 - 2:46with low-level warrants,
-
2:46 - 2:50we're asking them to live
in halfway houses and on house arrest, -
2:50 - 2:53and we're asking them
to negotiate a police force -
2:53 - 2:56that is entering poor
communities of color, -
2:56 - 2:59not for the purposes
of promoting public safety, -
2:59 - 3:03but to make arrest counts,
to line city coffers. -
3:07 - 3:11This is the hidden underside to our
historic experiment in punishment: -
3:11 - 3:16young people worried that at any moment,
they will be stopped, searched and seized. -
3:17 - 3:19Not just in the streets,
but in their homes, -
3:19 - 3:22at school and at work.
-
3:23 - 3:26I got interested in this
other path to adulthood -
3:26 - 3:28when I was myself a college student
-
3:28 - 3:30attending the University of Pennsylvania
-
3:30 - 3:32in the early 2000s.
-
3:32 - 3:36Penn sits within a historic
African-American neighborhood. -
3:36 - 3:41So you've got these two parallel
journeys going on simultaneously: -
3:41 - 3:44the kids attending
this elite, private university, -
3:44 - 3:47and the kids from
the adjacent neighborhood, -
3:47 - 3:49some of whom are making it to college,
-
3:49 - 3:52and many of whom
are being shipped to prison. -
3:53 - 3:57In my sophomore year, I started tutoring
a young woman who was in high school -
3:57 - 4:00who lived about 10 minutes
away from the university. -
4:00 - 4:04Soon, her cousin came home
from a juvenile detention center. -
4:04 - 4:07He was 15, a freshman in high school.
-
4:07 - 4:10I began to get to know him
and his friends and family, -
4:10 - 4:14and I asked him what he thought
about me writing about his life -
4:14 - 4:16for my senior thesis in college.
-
4:16 - 4:20This senior thesis became
a dissertation at Princeton -
4:20 - 4:22and now a book.
-
4:22 - 4:24By the end of my sophomore year,
-
4:24 - 4:27I moved into the neighborhood
and I spent the next six years -
4:27 - 4:31trying to understand what young people
were facing as they came of age. -
4:32 - 4:34The first week I spent
in this neighborhood, -
4:34 - 4:37I saw two boys, five and seven years old,
-
4:37 - 4:38play this game of chase,
-
4:38 - 4:41where the older boy
ran after the other boy. -
4:41 - 4:43He played the cop.
-
4:43 - 4:45When the cop caught up
to the younger boy, -
4:45 - 4:46he pushed him down,
-
4:46 - 4:49handcuffed him with imaginary handcuffs,
-
4:49 - 4:51took a quarter out of
the other child's pocket, -
4:51 - 4:55saying, "I'm seizing that."
-
4:55 - 4:58He asked the child if
he was carrying any drugs -
4:58 - 5:01or if he had a warrant.
-
5:01 - 5:03Many times, I saw this game repeated,
-
5:03 - 5:05sometimes children would
simply give up running, -
5:05 - 5:07and stick their bodies flat
against the ground -
5:07 - 5:11with their hands above their heads,
or flat up against a wall. -
5:11 - 5:13Children would yell at each other,
-
5:13 - 5:14"I'm going to lock you up,
-
5:14 - 5:17I'm going to lock you up
and you're never coming home!" -
5:17 - 5:21Once I saw a six-year-old child
pull another child's pants down -
5:21 - 5:24and try to do a cavity search.
-
5:25 - 5:28In the first 18 months that I lived
in this neighborhood, -
5:28 - 5:32I wrote down every time I saw
any contact between police -
5:32 - 5:34and people that were my neighbors.
-
5:35 - 5:37So in the first 18 months,
-
5:37 - 5:40I watched the police stop
pedestrians or people in cars, -
5:40 - 5:43search people, run people's names,
-
5:43 - 5:45chase people through the streets,
-
5:45 - 5:46pull people in for questioning,
-
5:46 - 5:50or make an arrest every single day,
with five exceptions. -
5:51 - 5:55Fifty-two times, I watched the police
break down doors, -
5:55 - 5:57chase people through houses
-
5:57 - 6:00or make an arrest of someone
in their home. -
6:00 - 6:03Fourteen times
in this first year and a half, -
6:03 - 6:08I watched the police punch, choke,
kick, stomp on or beat young men -
6:08 - 6:11after they had caught them.
-
6:12 - 6:15Bit by bit, I got to know two brothers,
-
6:15 - 6:16Chuck and Tim.
-
6:16 - 6:19Chuck was 18 when we met,
a senior in high school. -
6:19 - 6:23He was playing on the basketball team
and making C's and B's. -
6:23 - 6:25His younger brother, Tim, was 10.
-
6:25 - 6:28And Tim loved Chuck;
he followed him around a lot, -
6:28 - 6:30looked to Chuck to be a mentor.
-
6:30 - 6:32They lived with their mom and grandfather
-
6:32 - 6:36in a two-story row home
with a front lawn and a back porch. -
6:36 - 6:39Their mom was struggling with addiction
all while the boys were growing up. -
6:39 - 6:43She never really was able
to hold down a job for very long. -
6:43 - 6:46It was their grandfather's pension
that supported the family, -
6:46 - 6:49not really enough to pay
for food and clothes -
6:49 - 6:52and school supplies for growing boys.
-
6:52 - 6:54The family was really struggling.
-
6:54 - 6:57So when we met, Chuck was
a senior in high school. -
6:57 - 6:59He had just turned 18.
-
7:00 - 7:03That winter, a kid in the schoolyard
-
7:03 - 7:06called Chuck's mom a crack whore.
-
7:06 - 7:09Chuck pushed the kid's face into the snow
-
7:09 - 7:13and the school cops charged him
with aggravated assault. -
7:13 - 7:14The other kid was fine the next day,
-
7:14 - 7:18I think it was his pride that was injured
more than anything. -
7:18 - 7:20But anyway, since Chuck was 18,
-
7:20 - 7:23this agg. assault case sent him
to adult county jail -
7:23 - 7:25on State Road in northeast Philadelphia,
-
7:25 - 7:29where he sat, unable to pay the bail --
he couldn't afford it -- -
7:29 - 7:33while the trial dates
dragged on and on and on -
7:33 - 7:35through almost his entire senior year.
-
7:36 - 7:39Finally, near the end of this season,
-
7:39 - 7:42the judge on this assault case
threw out most of the charges -
7:42 - 7:44and Chuck came home
-
7:44 - 7:48with only a few hundred dollars' worth
of court fees hanging over his head. -
7:48 - 7:51Tim was pretty happy that day.
-
7:51 - 7:53The next fall, Chuck tried
to re-enroll as a senior, -
7:53 - 7:55but the school secretary told him that
-
7:55 - 7:58he was then 19 and too old
to be readmitted. -
7:58 - 8:02Then the judge on his assault case
issued him a warrant for his arrest -
8:02 - 8:05because he couldn't pay
the 225 dollars in court fees -
8:05 - 8:09that came due a few weeks after
the case ended. -
8:09 - 8:13Then he was a high school dropout
living on the run. -
8:13 - 8:15Tim's first arrest came later that year
-
8:15 - 8:17after he turned 11.
-
8:17 - 8:19Chuck had managed
to get his warrant lifted -
8:19 - 8:22and he was on a payment plan
for the court fees -
8:22 - 8:25and he was driving Tim to school
in his girlfriend's car. -
8:25 - 8:28So a cop pulls them over, runs the car,
-
8:28 - 8:32and the car comes up
as stolen in California. -
8:32 - 8:36Chuck had no idea where in the history
of this car it had been stolen. -
8:36 - 8:39His girlfriend's uncle bought it
from a used car auction -
8:39 - 8:41in northeast Philly.
-
8:41 - 8:43Chuck and Tim had never been
outside of the tri-state, -
8:43 - 8:46let alone to California.
-
8:46 - 8:48But anyway, the cops down at the precinct
-
8:48 - 8:52charged Chuck with
receiving stolen property. -
8:52 - 8:54And then a juvenile judge,
a few days later, -
8:54 - 8:56charged Tim, age 11,
-
8:56 - 9:00with accessory to receiving
a stolen property -
9:00 - 9:03and then he was placed on
three years of probation. -
9:04 - 9:07With this probation sentence
hanging over his head, -
9:07 - 9:09Chuck sat his little brother down
-
9:09 - 9:13and began teaching him
how to run from the police. -
9:13 - 9:15They would sit side by side
on their back porch -
9:15 - 9:17looking out into the shared alleyway
-
9:17 - 9:21and Chuck would coach Tim
how to spot undercover cars, -
9:21 - 9:26how to negotiate a late-night police raid,
how and where to hide. -
9:27 - 9:29I want you to imagine for a second
-
9:29 - 9:31what Chuck and Tim's lives would be like
-
9:31 - 9:36if they were living in a neighborhood
where kids were going to college, -
9:36 - 9:37not prison.
-
9:38 - 9:41A neighborhood like the one
I got to grow up in. -
9:41 - 9:43Okay, you might say.
-
9:43 - 9:46But Chuck and Tim, kids like them,
they're committing crimes! -
9:46 - 9:48Don't they deserve to be in prison?
-
9:48 - 9:52Don't they deserve to be
living in fear of arrest? -
9:52 - 9:55Well, my answer would be no.
-
9:55 - 9:56They don't.
-
9:56 - 9:59And certainly not for the same things
that other young people -
9:59 - 10:03with more privilege are doing
with impunity. -
10:03 - 10:05If Chuck had gone to my high school,
-
10:05 - 10:07that schoolyard fight
would have ended there, -
10:07 - 10:09as a schoolyard fight.
-
10:09 - 10:12It never would have become
an aggravated assault case. -
10:13 - 10:16Not a single kid that
I went to college with -
10:16 - 10:17has a criminal record right now.
-
10:17 - 10:19Not a single one.
-
10:19 - 10:23But can you imagine how many might have
if the police had stopped those kids -
10:23 - 10:27and searched their pockets for drugs
as they walked to class? -
10:27 - 10:31Or had raided their frat parties
in the middle of the night? -
10:32 - 10:34Okay, you might say.
-
10:34 - 10:36But doesn't this high incarceration rate
-
10:36 - 10:38partly account for our
really low crime rate? -
10:38 - 10:41Crime is down. That's a good thing.
-
10:41 - 10:43Totally, that is a good thing.
Crime is down. -
10:43 - 10:47It dropped precipitously in
the '90s and through the 2000s. -
10:47 - 10:49But according to a committee of academics
-
10:49 - 10:53convened by the National Academy
of Sciences last year, -
10:53 - 10:57the relationship between our
historically high incarceration rates -
10:57 - 11:00and our low crime rate is pretty shaky.
-
11:00 - 11:04It turns out that the crime rate
goes up and down -
11:04 - 11:08irrespective of how many young people
we send to prison. -
11:09 - 11:12We tend to think about justice
in a pretty narrow way: -
11:12 - 11:16good and bad, innocent and guilty.
-
11:16 - 11:19Injustice is about being
wrongfully convicted. -
11:19 - 11:22So if you're convicted
of something you did do, -
11:22 - 11:23you should be punished for it.
-
11:23 - 11:25There are innocent and guilty people,
-
11:25 - 11:28there are victims and
there are perpetrators. -
11:28 - 11:32Maybe we could think a little bit
more broadly than that. -
11:32 - 11:37Right now, we're asking kids who live
in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, -
11:37 - 11:39who have the least amount
of family resources, -
11:39 - 11:41who are attending
the country's worst schools, -
11:41 - 11:44who are facing the toughest time
in the labor market, -
11:44 - 11:48who are living in neighborhoods
where violence is an everyday problem, -
11:48 - 11:52we're asking these kids to walk
the thinnest possible line -- -
11:52 - 11:56to basically never do anything wrong.
-
11:56 - 12:01Why are we not providing support
to young kids facing these challenges? -
12:01 - 12:08Why are we offering only handcuffs,
jail time and this fugitive existence? -
12:08 - 12:11Can we imagine something better?
-
12:11 - 12:15Can we imagine a criminal justice system
that prioritizes recovery, -
12:15 - 12:17prevention, civic inclusion,
-
12:17 - 12:20rather than punishment?
-
12:20 - 12:23(Applause)
-
12:28 - 12:30A criminal justice system
that acknowledges -
12:30 - 12:34the legacy of exclusion that poor people
of color in the U.S. have faced -
12:34 - 12:38and that does not promote
and perpetuate those exclusions. -
12:38 - 12:42(Applause)
-
12:43 - 12:48And finally, a criminal justice system
that believes in black young people, -
12:48 - 12:52rather than treating black young people
as the enemy to be rounded up. -
12:52 - 12:55(Applause)
-
12:59 - 13:02The good news is that we already are.
-
13:02 - 13:07A few years ago, Michelle Alexander
wrote "The New Jim Crow," -
13:07 - 13:11which got Americans to see
incarceration as a civil rights issue -
13:11 - 13:15of historic proportions in a way
they had not seen it before. -
13:15 - 13:19President Obama and Attorney General
Eric Holder have come out very strongly -
13:19 - 13:21on sentencing reform,
-
13:21 - 13:25on the need to address
racial disparity in incarceration. -
13:25 - 13:27We're seeing states throw out
Stop and Frisk -
13:27 - 13:30as the civil rights violation that it is.
-
13:30 - 13:35We're seeing cities and states
decriminalize possession of marijuana. -
13:35 - 13:37New York, New Jersey
and California -
13:37 - 13:41have been dropping their
prison populations, closing prisons, -
13:41 - 13:43while also seeing a big drop in crime.
-
13:43 - 13:45Texas has gotten into the game now,
-
13:45 - 13:49also closing prisons,
investing in education. -
13:49 - 13:53This curious coalition is building
from the right and the left, -
13:53 - 13:56made up of former prisoners
and fiscal conservatives, -
13:56 - 13:59of civil rights activists
and libertarians, -
13:59 - 14:03of young people taking to the streets
to protest police violence -
14:03 - 14:06against unarmed black teenagers,
-
14:06 - 14:08and older, wealthier people --
-
14:08 - 14:10some of you are here in the audience --
-
14:10 - 14:14pumping big money into
decarceration initiatives -
14:15 - 14:17In a deeply divided Congress,
-
14:17 - 14:20the work of reforming
our criminal justice system -
14:20 - 14:23is just about the only thing
that the right and the left -
14:23 - 14:25are coming together on.
-
14:25 - 14:29I did not think I would see
this political moment in my lifetime. -
14:29 - 14:33I think many of the people
who have been working tirelessly -
14:33 - 14:35to write about the causes and consequences
-
14:35 - 14:37of our historically
high incarceration rates -
14:37 - 14:41did not think we would see
this moment in our lifetime. -
14:41 - 14:45The question for us now is,
how much can we make of it? -
14:45 - 14:48How much can we change?
-
14:48 - 14:50I want to end with a call to young people,
-
14:50 - 14:52the young people attending college
-
14:52 - 14:55and the young people
struggling to stay out of prison -
14:55 - 14:58or to make it through prison
and return home. -
14:58 - 15:02It may seem like these paths
to adulthood are worlds apart, -
15:02 - 15:07but the young people participating
in these two institutions -
15:07 - 15:08conveying us to adulthood,
-
15:08 - 15:11they have one thing in common:
-
15:11 - 15:16Both can be leaders in the work
of reforming our criminal justice system. -
15:16 - 15:20Young people have always been leaders
in the fight for equal rights, -
15:20 - 15:22the fight for more people
to be granted dignity -
15:22 - 15:25and a fighting chance at freedom.
-
15:25 - 15:27The mission for the generation
of young people -
15:27 - 15:32coming of age in this, a sea-change
moment, potentially, -
15:32 - 15:37is to end mass incarceration and
build a new criminal justice system, -
15:37 - 15:40emphasis on the word justice.
-
15:40 - 15:42Thanks.
-
15:42 - 15:45(Applause)
- Title:
- How we're priming some kids for college — and others for prison
- Speaker:
- Alice Goffman
- Description:
-
In the United States, two institutions guide teenagers on the journey to adulthood: college and prison. Sociologist Alice Goffman spent six years in a troubled Philadelphia neighborhood and saw first-hand how teenagers of African-American and Latino backgrounds are funneled down the path to prison — sometimes starting with relatively minor infractions. In an impassioned talk she asks, “Why are we offering only handcuffs and jail time?”
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 16:04
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for How we're priming some kids for college — and others for prison | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for How we're priming some kids for college — and others for prison | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for How we're priming some kids for college — and others for prison | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for How we're priming some kids for college — and others for prison | ||
Morton Bast approved English subtitles for How we're priming some kids for college — and others for prison | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for How we're priming some kids for college — and others for prison | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for How we're priming some kids for college — and others for prison | ||
Madeleine Aronson edited English subtitles for How we're priming some kids for college — and others for prison |