Robin Steinberg: What if we ended the injustice of bail?
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 le...
Robin Steinberg and Manoush Zomorodi: The US is addicted to incarceration. Here's how to break the cycle
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 Mano...
The TED Interview: Robin Steinberg's quest to reform cash bail
On any given night, 450,000 people in the United States stay in jail without having been convicted of any crime. Most of them are there because they don't have enough money to pay bail. Exasperated at what she saw as a systemic design flaw that primarily affects poor and marginalized people, public defense lawyer Robin Steinberg came up with a p...
The TED Interview: Steven Pinker on the case for optimism
Was 2017 really the "the worst ever," as some would have us believe? Cognitive psychologist and linguist Steven Pinker shares data that shows: actually, it was one of the best overall. At TED2018, head of TED Chris Anderson sat down with Steven to take a closer look at the data that suggest the world is improving -- and to unpack why so many peo...
Robin Steinberg: Breaking the cycle of injustice one bail at a time
Nearly a half million people are locked up in an American jail tonight because they can't afford a few hundred dollars for bail. The fastest growing population of those affected are women. The Bail Project's Robin Steinberg fielded a grand experiment to answer the question: what would happen if we paid their bail for them? Robin was interview...