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

117,549 views ・ 2018-05-04

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00:12
I will never forget the first time I visited a client in jail.
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The heavy, metal door slammed behind me,
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and I heard the key turn in the lock.
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The cement floor underneath me had a sticky film on it
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that made a ripping sound,
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like tape being pulled off a box,
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every time I moved my foot.
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The only connection to the outside world was a small window placed too high to see.
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There was a small, square table bolted to the floor
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and two metal chairs,
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one on either side.
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That was the first time I understood viscerally --
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just for a fleeting moment --
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what incarceration might feel like.
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And I promised myself all those years ago as a young, public defender
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that I would never, ever forget that feeling.
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And I never have.
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It inspired me to fight for each and every one of my clients' freedom
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as if it was my own.
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Freedom.
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A concept so fundamental to the American psyche
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that it is enshrined in our constitution.
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And yet, America is addicted to imprisonment.
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From slavery through mass incarceration,
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it always has been.
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Look, we all know the shocking numbers.
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The United States incarcerates more people per capita
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than almost any nation on the planet.
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But what you may not know is that on any given night in America,
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almost half a million people go to sleep in those concrete jail cells
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who have not been convicted of anything.
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These mothers and fathers and sons and daughters
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are there for one reason and one reason only:
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they cannot afford to pay the price of their freedom.
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And that price is called bail.
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Now, bail was actually created as a form of conditional release.
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The theory was simple:
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set bail at an amount that somebody could afford to pay --
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they would pay it --
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it would give them an incentive to come back to court;
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it would give them some skin in the game.
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Bail was never intended to be used as punishment.
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Bail was never intended to hold people in jail cells.
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And bail was never, ever intended to create a two-tier system of justice:
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one for the rich and one for everybody else.
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But that is precisely what it has done.
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Seventy-five percent of people in American local jails
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are there because they cannot pay bail.
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People like Ramel.
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On a chilly October afternoon,
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Ramel was riding his bicycle in his South Bronx neighborhood
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on his way to a market to pick up a quart of milk.
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He was stopped by the police.
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And when he demanded to know why he was being stopped,
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an argument ensued, and the next thing he knew,
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he was on the ground in handcuffs,
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being charged with "riding your bicycle on the sidewalk
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and resisting arrest."
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He was taken to court,
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where a judge set 500 dollars bail.
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But Ramel -- he didn't have 500 dollars.
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So this 32-year-old father was sent to "The Boat" --
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a floating jail barge that sits on the East River
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between a sewage plant and a fish market.
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That's right, you heard me.
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In New York City, in 2018,
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we have a floating prison barge that sits out there
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and houses primarily black and brown men
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who cannot pay their bail.
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Let's talk for a moment
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about what it means to be in jail even for a few days.
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Well, it can mean losing your job,
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losing your home,
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jeopardizing your immigration status.
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It may even mean losing custody of your children.
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A third of sexual victimization by jail staff
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happens in the first three days in jail,
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and almost half of all jail deaths, including suicides,
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happen in that first week.
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What's more, if you're held in jail on bail,
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you're four times more likely to get a jail sentence
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than if you had been free,
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and that jail sentence will be three times longer.
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And if you are black or Latino and cash bail has been set,
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you are two times more likely to remain stuck in that jail cell
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than if you were white.
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Jail in America is a terrifying, dehumanizing and violent experience.
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Now imagine for just one moment that it's you stuck in that jail cell,
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and you don't have the 500 dollars to get out.
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And someone comes along and offers you a way out.
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"Just plead guilty," they say.
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"You can go home back to your job.
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Just plead guilty.
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You can kiss your kids goodnight tonight."
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So you do what anybody would do in that situation.
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You plead guilty whether you did it or not.
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But now you have a criminal record
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that's going to follow you for the rest of your life.
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Jailing people because they don't have enough money to pay bail
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is one of the most unfair, immoral things we do as a society.
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But it is also expensive and counterproductive.
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American taxpayers --
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they spend 14 billion dollars annually holding people in jail cells
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who haven't been convicted of anything.
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That's 40 million dollars a day.
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What's perhaps more confounding is it doesn't make us any safer.
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Research is clear that holding somebody in jail
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makes you significantly more likely to commit a crime when you get out
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than if you had been free all along.
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Freedom makes all the difference.
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Low-income communities
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and communities of color have known that for generations.
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Together, they have pooled their resources to buy their loved ones freedom
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for as long as bondage and jail cells existed.
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But the reach of the criminal legal system has grown too enormous,
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and the numbers are just too large.
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Ninety-nine percent of jail growth in America has been the result --
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over the last 20 years --
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of pre-trial incarceration.
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I have been a public defender for over half my life,
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and I have stood by and watched thousands of clients
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as they were dragged into those jail cells
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because they didn't have enough money to pay bail.
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I have watched as questions of justice were subsumed by questions of money,
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calling into question the legitimacy of the entire American legal system.
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I am here to say something simple --
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something obvious,
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but something urgent.
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Freedom makes all the difference,
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and freedom should be free.
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(Applause)
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But how are we going to make that happen?
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Well, that's the question I was wrestling with over a decade ago
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when I was sitting at a kitchen table with my husband, David,
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who is also a public defender.
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We were eating our Chinese takeout and venting about the injustice of it all
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when David looked up and said,
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"Why don't we just start a bail fund,
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and just start bailing our clients out of jail?"
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And in that unexpected moment,
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the idea for the Bronx Freedom Fund was born.
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Look, we didn't know what to expect.
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There were plenty of people that told us we were crazy
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and we were going to lose all of the money.
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People wouldn't come back because they didn't have any stake in it.
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But what if clients did come back?
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We knew that bail money comes back at the end of a criminal case,
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so it could come back into the fund,
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and we could use it over and over again for more and more bail.
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That was our big bet,
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and that bet paid off.
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Over the past 10 years,
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we have been paying bails for low-income residents of New York City,
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and what we have learned has exploded our ideas
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of why people come back to court
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and how the criminal legal system itself is operated.
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Turns out money isn't what makes people come back to court.
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We know this because when the Bronx Freedom Fund pays bail,
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96 percent of clients return for every court appearance,
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laying waste to the myth that it's money that mattered.
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It's powerful evidence that we don't need cash
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or ankle bracelets
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or unnecessary systems of surveillance and supervision.
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We simply need court reminders --
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simple court reminders about when to come back to court.
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Next, we learned that if you're held in jail on a misdemeanor,
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90 percent of people will plead guilty.
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But when the fund pays bail,
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over half the cases are dismissed.
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And in the entire history of the Bronx Freedom Fund,
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fewer than two percent of our clients have ever received a jail sentence
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of any kind.
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(Applause)
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Ramel, a week later --
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he was still on the boat, locked in that jail cell.
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He was on the cusp of losing everything,
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and he was about to plead guilty,
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and the Bronx Freedom Fund intervened and paid his bail.
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Now, reunited with his daughter,
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he was able to fight his case from outside.
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Look, it took some time --
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two years, to be exact --
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but at the end of that,
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his case was dismissed in its entirety.
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For Ramel --
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(Applause)
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For Ramel, the Bronx Freedom Fund was a lifeline,
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but for countless other Americans locked in jail cells,
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there is no freedom fund coming.
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It's time to do something about that.
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It's time to do something big.
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It's time to do something bold.
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It's time to do something, maybe, audacious?
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(Laughter)
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We want to take our proven, revolving bail-fund model
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that we built in the Bronx
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and spread it across America,
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attacking the front end of the legal system
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before incarceration begins.
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(Applause)
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(Cheers)
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(Applause)
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Here's the plan.
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(Applause)
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We're going to bail out as many people as we can
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as quickly as we can.
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Over the next five years,
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partnering with public defenders and local community organizations,
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we're going to set up 40 sites in high-need jurisdictions.
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The goal is to bail out 160,000 people.
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Our strategy leverages the fact
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that bail money comes back at the end of a case.
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Data from the Bronx
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shows that a dollar can be used two or three times a year,
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creating a massive force multiplier.
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So a dollar donated today can be used to pay bail for up to 15 people
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over the next five years.
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Our strategy also relies on the experience and the wisdom and the leadership
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of those who have experienced this injustice firsthand.
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(Applause)
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Each bail project site will be staffed by a team of bail disrupters.
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These are passionate, dedicated advocates from local communities,
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many of whom were formerly incarcerated themselves,
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who will pay bails and support clients
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while their cases are going through the legal system,
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providing them with whatever resources and support they may need.
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Our first two sites are up and running.
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One in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
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and one in St. Louis, Missouri.
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And Ramel?
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He's training right now to be a bail disrupter in Queens County, New York.
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(Applause)
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Our next three sites are ready to launch
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in Dallas, Detroit and Louisville, Kentucky.
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The Bail Project will attack the money bail system
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on an unprecedented scale.
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We will also listen, collect and elevate
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and honor the stories of our clients
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so that we can change hearts and minds,
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and we will collect critical, national data
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that we need so we can chart a better path forward
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so that we do not recreate this system of oppression in just another form.
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The Bail Project,
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by bailing out 160,000 people over the next five years,
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will become one of the largest non-governmental decarcerations
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of Americans in history.
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So look --
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(Applause)
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the criminal legal system, as it exists --
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it needs to be dismantled.
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But here's the thing I know from decades in the system:
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real, systemic change takes time,
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and it takes a variety of strategies.
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So it's going to take all of us.
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It's going to take the civil rights litigators,
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the community organizers, the academics, the media, the philanthropists,
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the students, the singers, the poets,
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and, of course, the voices and efforts of those who are impacted by this system.
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But here's what I also know:
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together, I believe we can end mass incarceration.
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But one last thing:
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those people, sitting in America, in those jail cells,
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in every corner of the country,
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who are held in jail on bail bondage, right now --
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they need a lifeline today.
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That's where The Bail Project comes in.
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We have a proven model, a plan of action,
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and a growing network of bail disrupters
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who are audacious enough to dream big and fight hard,
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one bail at a time, for as long it takes,
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until true freedom and equal justice are a reality in America.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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