On the path that American children travel to adulthood, two institutions oversee the journey. The first is the one we hear a lot about: college. Some of you may remember the excitement that you felt when you first set off for college. Some of you may be in college right now and you're feeling this excitement at this very moment.
Na putu odrastanja američke dece, dve institucije služe kao supervizori. O prvoj znamo dosta: fakultet. Neki od vas se sećaju uzbuđenja koje su osećali kada su prvi put krenuli na fakultet. Neki od vas su tamo trenutno i uzbuđeni su ovog trenutka.
College has some shortcomings. It's expensive; it leaves young people in debt. But all in all, it's a pretty good path. Young people emerge from college with pride and with great friends and with a lot of knowledge about the world. And perhaps most importantly, a better chance in the labor market than they had before they got there.
Fakultet ima određene mane. Skup je: ostavlja mlade ljude sa dugom. Ali sve u svemu, to je poprilično dobar životni put. Mladi ljudi završavaju fakultet sa ponosom, dobrim prijateljima, i dosta znanja o svetu. I možda najvažnije, sa boljom šansom na tržištu rada nego što su imali pre nego što su tamo otišli
Today I want to talk about the second institution overseeing the journey from childhood to adulthood in the United States. And that institution is prison. Young people on this journey are meeting with probation officers instead of with teachers. They're going to court dates instead of to class. Their junior year abroad is instead a trip to a state correctional facility. And they're emerging from their 20s not with degrees in business and English, but with criminal records.
Danas želim da razgovaram o drugoj instituciji koja nadzire put od detinjstva do zrelosti u Americi. I ta institucija je zatvor. Mladi ljudi se na ovom putu susreću sa nadzornicima za uslovnu slobodu umesto sa učiteljima. Idu na sud umesto u učionicu. Njihova treća godina fakulteta je, umesto na razmeni, provedena u zatvoru. I oni izlaze iz svoji dvadesetih, bez diplome biznisa ili engleskog jezika, ali sa kriminalnim dosijeom.
This institution is also costing us a lot, about 40,000 dollars a year to send a young person to prison in New Jersey. But here, taxpayers are footing the bill and what kids are getting is a cold prison cell and a permanent mark against them when they come home and apply for work.
Ova institucija nas takođe dosta košta, oko 40.000 dolara godišnje da bismo poslali mladu osobu u zatvor u Nju Džerziju. Ali ovde poreznici plaćaju zakon, i ono što deca dobijaju je hladna zatvorska ćelija i trajno obeležje koje ih sputava kada se vrate kući i prijave za posao.
There are more and more kids on this journey to adulthood than ever before in the United States and that's because in the past 40 years, our incarceration rate has grown by 700 percent. I have one slide for this talk. Here it is. Here's our incarceration rate, about 716 people per 100,000 in the population. Here's the OECD countries.
Sve je više dece na ovom putu ka odrastanju nego što je ikad bilo u SAD-u i to je zato što je, u proteklih 40 godina, naša stopa zatvaranja porasla za 700 posto. Imam samo jedan slajd za ovaj govor. Evo ga. Ovo je naša stopa zatvaranja, oko 716 ljudi po 100.000 stanovnika populacije. Ovo su OEES zemlje.
What's more, it's poor kids that we're sending to prison, too many drawn from African-American and Latino communities so that prison now stands firmly between the young people trying to make it and the fulfillment of the American Dream. The problem's actually a bit worse than this 'cause we're not just sending poor kids to prison, we're saddling poor kids with court fees, with probation and parole restrictions, with low-level warrants, we're asking them to live in halfway houses and on house arrest, and we're asking them to negotiate a police force that is entering poor communities of color, not for the purposes of promoting public safety, but to make arrest counts, to line city coffers.
Štaviše, siromašnu decu šaljemo u zatvor, previše njih iz afroameričkih i latinoameričkih zajednica tako da sada zatvor čvrsto stoji između mladih ljudi koji pokušavaju da uspeju i ispunjenja američkog sna. Problem je čak gori od ovoga jer ne samo da šaljemo siromašnu decu u zatvor, mi tovarimo siromašnu decu sa sudskim taksama, sa ograničenjima probnih i uslovnih otpusta, sa niskim poternicama, tražimo od njih da žive u prihvatilištima i u kućnom pritvoru, i tražimo od njih da pregovaraju sa policijom koja ulazi u njihove siromašne rasno manjinske zajednice ne zato da bi promovisali javnu bezbednost, već da bi uhapsili dovoljno da zadovolje gradske blagajne.
This is the hidden underside to our historic experiment in punishment: young people worried that at any moment, they will be stopped, searched and seized. Not just in the streets, but in their homes, at school and at work.
Ovo je skrivena strana našeg istorijskog eksperimentisanja sa kaznenim sistemom: mladi ljudi su zabrinuti da će bilo kada biti zaustavljeni, pretraženi i uhapšeni. Ne samo na ulici, već i u sopstenim domovima, u školi i na poslu.
I got interested in this other path to adulthood when I was myself a college student attending the University of Pennsylvania in the early 2000s. Penn sits within a historic African-American neighborhood. So you've got these two parallel journeys going on simultaneously: the kids attending this elite, private university, and the kids from the adjacent neighborhood, some of whom are making it to college, and many of whom are being shipped to prison.
Počela sam da se interesujem za ovaj drugi put ka odrastanju kada sam bila student na Univerzitetu Pensilvanije ranih 2000-ih. Univerzitet se nalazi u istorijskom afroameričkom kraju. Tako da u isto vreme postoje ova dva paralelna puta: deca koja idu na ovaj elitni, privatni univerzitet i deca iz susednog kraja, od kojih neka idu na fakultet, a od kojih su mnogi poslati u zatvor.
In my sophomore year, I started tutoring a young woman who was in high school who lived about 10 minutes away from the university. Soon, her cousin came home from a juvenile detention center. He was 15, a freshman in high school. I began to get to know him and his friends and family, and I asked him what he thought about me writing about his life for my senior thesis in college. This senior thesis became a dissertation at Princeton and now a book.
U mojoj drugoj godini, postala sam privatni učitelj mladoj srednjoškolki koja je živela 10 minuta od mog univerziteta. Uskoro, njen rođak se vratio iz maloletničkog zatvora. Imao je 15 godina, prva godina srednje škole. Počela sam da upoznajem njega i njegove prijatelje i porodicu, i pitala sam ga šta misli o tome što pišem o njegovom životu za moj diplomski. Ovaj diplomski je postao disertacija na Prinstonu i sada knjiga.
By the end of my sophomore year, I moved into the neighborhood and I spent the next six years
Do kraja moje druge godine, preselila sam se u ovaj kraj i provela narednih šest godina
trying to understand what young people were facing as they came of age. The first week I spent in this neighborhood, I saw two boys, five and seven years old, play this game of chase, where the older boy ran after the other boy. He played the cop. When the cop caught up to the younger boy, he pushed him down, handcuffed him with imaginary handcuffs, took a quarter out of the other child's pocket, saying, "I'm seizing that." He asked the child if he was carrying any drugs or if he had a warrant. Many times, I saw this game repeated, sometimes children would simply give up running, and stick their bodies flat against the ground with their hands above their heads, or flat up against a wall. Children would yell at each other, "I'm going to lock you up, I'm going to lock you up and you're never coming home!" Once I saw a six-year-old child pull another child's pants down and try to do a cavity search.
pokušavajući da razumem sa čim se mladi susreću kako odrastaju. Prve nedelje koju sam provela u ovom kraju videla sam dva dečaka, od 5 i 7 godina, kako se igraju jureći se, stariji dečak je jurio mlađeg. Glumio je policajca. Kada je policajac stigao mlađeg dečaka, gurnuo ga je na zemlju, stavio zamišljene lisice, i uzeo mu novčić iz džepa, govoreći: "Konfiskujem ovo." Pitao je dečaka da li nosi drogu i da li za njim postoji poternica. Videla sam kako se ova igra često ponavlja nekada bi deca jednostavno odustala od jurcanja, i prislonila svoja tela na zemlju sa rukama iznad glave ili naslonjenim na zid. Deca bi se drala jedna na druge, "Uhapsiću te! Uhapsiću te i nikada se nećeš vratiti kući!" Jednom sam videla šestogodišnjaka kako spušta drugom detetu pantalone i pokušava da ga pretraži.
In the first 18 months that I lived in this neighborhood, I wrote down every time I saw any contact between police and people that were my neighbors. So in the first 18 months, I watched the police stop pedestrians or people in cars, search people, run people's names, chase people through the streets, pull people in for questioning, or make an arrest every single day, with five exceptions. Fifty-two times, I watched the police break down doors, chase people through houses or make an arrest of someone in their home. Fourteen times in this first year and a half, I watched the police punch, choke, kick, stomp on or beat young men after they had caught them.
Prvih 18 meseci koje sam provela u tom kraju, svaki put sam zapisala kada sam videla bilo koji kontakt između policije i ljudi koji su mi susedi. Tako da sam prvih 18 meseci gledala kako policajci zaustavljaju pešake ili ljude u kolima, pretražuju ljude, njihova imena, kako ih jure kroz ulice, vode na ispitivanje, ili kako hapse svaki dan, sa pet izuzetaka. 52 puta, gledala sam kako policija obara vrata, juri ljude kroz kuće ili hapsi nekoga u njihovoj kući. 14 puta tokom prvih godinu i po, gledala sam kako policajci udaraju, dave, šutiraju, gaze ili tuku mlade muškarce nakon što su ih uhvatili.
Bit by bit, I got to know two brothers, Chuck and Tim. Chuck was 18 when we met, a senior in high school. He was playing on the basketball team and making C's and B's. His younger brother, Tim, was 10. And Tim loved Chuck; he followed him around a lot, looked to Chuck to be a mentor. They lived with their mom and grandfather in a two-story row home with a front lawn and a back porch. Their mom was struggling with addiction all while the boys were growing up. She never really was able to hold down a job for very long. It was their grandfather's pension that supported the family, not really enough to pay for food and clothes and school supplies for growing boys. The family was really struggling.
Malo po malo, upoznala sam dva brata, Čaka i Tima. Čak je imao 18 kad smo se upoznali, poslednja godina srednje. Igrao je za košarkaški tim i dobijao trojke i četvorke. Njegov mlađi brat, Tim, imao je 10. I Tim je voleo Čaka, uvek ga je pratio, ugledao se na njega. Živeli su sa svojom majkom i dedom u dvospratnoj kući sa prednjim travnjakom i terasom pozadi. Njihova majka se mučila sa zavisnošću dok su dečaci odrastali. Nije mogla da zadrži posao dugo. Dedina penzija je izdržavala porodicu, ne baš dovoljno da plati za hranu i odeću i školsku opremu za dečake. Porodica se zaista mučila.
So when we met, Chuck was a senior in high school. He had just turned 18. That winter, a kid in the schoolyard called Chuck's mom a crack whore. Chuck pushed the kid's face into the snow and the school cops charged him with aggravated assault. The other kid was fine the next day, I think it was his pride that was injured more than anything.
Tako da, kada smo se upoznali, Čak je bio poslednja godina srednje škole. Upravo je napunio 18. Te zime, dečko u školskom dvorištu je nazvao Čakovu majku zavisničkom kurvom. Čak je gurnuo glavu dečaka u sneg i školski policajci su ga uhapsili zbog teškog telesnog napada. Drugi dečak je bio dobro sutradan, mislim da je najviše njegov ponos bio povređen.
But anyway, since Chuck was 18, this agg. assault case sent him to adult county jail on State Road in northeast Philadelphia, where he sat, unable to pay the bail -- he couldn't afford it -- while the trial dates dragged on and on and on through almost his entire senior year. Finally, near the end of this season, the judge on this assault case threw out most of the charges and Chuck came home with only a few hundred dollars' worth of court fees hanging over his head. Tim was pretty happy that day.
Ali svejedno, pošto je Čak imao 18, ovaj teški telesni napad ga je poslao u zatvor za odrasle na Stejt putu u severoistočnoj FIladelfiji, gde je čekao, bez mogućnosti da plati kauciju, dok su se sudski datumi odugovlačili kroz skoro celu njegovu poslednju godinu. Konačno, pred kraj ovog perioda, sudija na ovom slučaju je odbacio većinu optužbi i Čak se vratio kući sa samo nekoliko stotina dolara sudskih taksi. Tim je bio prilično srećan taj dan.
The next fall, Chuck tried to re-enroll as a senior, but the school secretary told him that he was then 19 and too old to be readmitted. Then the judge on his assault case issued him a warrant for his arrest because he couldn't pay the 225 dollars in court fees that came due a few weeks after the case ended. Then he was a high school dropout living on the run.
Sledeće jeseni Čak je pokušao da se ponovo upiše u srednju ali mu je sekretarica rekla da ima 19 godina i da je previše star da bi bio primljen. Onda je sudija na njegovom slučaju izdao poternicu za njim zato što nije mogao da plati 225 dolara za sudske takse koje su usledile nekoliko nedelja nakon što se slučaj završio. Što znači da je bio begunac sa nezavršenom srednjom školom.
Tim's first arrest came later that year after he turned 11. Chuck had managed to get his warrant lifted and he was on a payment plan for the court fees and he was driving Tim to school in his girlfriend's car. So a cop pulls them over, runs the car, and the car comes up as stolen in California. Chuck had no idea where in the history of this car it had been stolen. His girlfriend's uncle bought it from a used car auction in northeast Philly. Chuck and Tim had never been outside of the tri-state, let alone to California. But anyway, the cops down at the precinct charged Chuck with receiving stolen property. And then a juvenile judge, a few days later, charged Tim, age 11, with accessory to receiving a stolen property and then he was placed on three years of probation. With this probation sentence hanging over his head,
Timov prvi nalog za hapšenje je stigao te godine, nakon što je napunio 11. Čak je uspeo da ukloni svoju poternicu i bio je na planu plaćanja za sudske takse i vozio je Tima u školu kolima svoje devojke. Policajac ih zaustavi, proveri vozilo, i vidi da je automobil ukraden u Kaliforniji. Čak nije imao pojma kada je tačno taj automobil bio ukraden. Ujak njegove devojke ga je kupio na aukciji polovnih vozila u severoistočnoj Filadelfiji. Čak i Tim nikada nisu bili izvan te zone tri države, a kamoli u Kaliforniji. Ali u svakom slučaju, policajci su u stanici optužili Čaka za primanje ukradene imovine Onda je sudija za maloletnike, par dana kasnije, optužio Tima, jedanaestogodišnjaka, kao saučesnika u primanju ukradene imovine i on je stavljen na tri godine uslovnog oslobođenja. Sa ovom pretnjom uslovne presude,
Chuck sat his little brother down and began teaching him how to run from the police. They would sit side by side on their back porch looking out into the shared alleyway and Chuck would coach Tim how to spot undercover cars, how to negotiate a late-night police raid, how and where to hide.
Čak je počeo da uči svog mlađeg brata kako da beži od policije. Sedeli bi jedan do drugog na njihovoj terasi, gledajući u usku ulicu i Čak bi podučavao Tima kako da provali skrivene policijske automobile, kako da pregovara noćna policijska pretresanja, kako i gde da se sakrije.
I want you to imagine for a second what Chuck and Tim's lives would be like if they were living in a neighborhood where kids were going to college, not prison. A neighborhood like the one I got to grow up in. Okay, you might say. But Chuck and Tim, kids like them, they're committing crimes! Don't they deserve to be in prison? Don't they deserve to be living in fear of arrest? Well, my answer would be no. They don't. And certainly not for the same things that other young people with more privilege are doing with impunity. If Chuck had gone to my high school, that schoolyard fight would have ended there, as a schoolyard fight. It never would have become an aggravated assault case. Not a single kid that I went to college with has a criminal record right now. Not a single one. But can you imagine how many might have if the police had stopped those kids and searched their pockets for drugs as they walked to class? Or had raided their frat parties in the middle of the night?
Želim da na sekund zamislite kako bi Čakov i Timov život izgledao da su živeli u kraju gde deca idu na fakultet, umesto u zatvor. Kraj sličan onom u kome sam ja odrasla. U redu, možda ćete reći. Ali Čak i Tim, deca kao oni, oni su počinili zločine! Zar ne zaslužuju da budu u zatvoru? Zar ne zaslužuju da žive u strahu od hapšenja? Moj odgovor bi bio ne. Ne zaslužuju. I sigurno ne za one iste stvari koje drugi mladi ljudi sa više privilegija rade nekažnjeno. Da je Čak išao u moju školu, ona školska tuča bi se završila tako, kao školska tuča. Nikada ne bi postala slučaj teškog telesnog napada. Nijedna osoba sa kojom sam studirala trenutno nema krivični dosije. Nijedna. Ali možete da zamislite koliko bi ih imalo da ih je policija zaustavljala i pretraživala zbog droge na njihovom putu ka predavanjima? Ili da je pretresla njihove žurke u sred noći?
Okay, you might say. But doesn't this high incarceration rate partly account for our really low crime rate? Crime is down. That's a good thing. Totally, that is a good thing. Crime is down. It dropped precipitously in the '90s and through the 2000s. But according to a committee of academics convened by the National Academy of Sciences last year, the relationship between our historically high incarceration rates and our low crime rate is pretty shaky. It turns out that the crime rate goes up and down irrespective of how many young people we send to prison.
U redu, možda ćete reći. Ali zar ova visoka stopa zatvaranja ne doprinosi našoj veoma niskoj stopi zločina? Zločin se smanjuje. To je dobro. Da, to je dobra stvar. Zločin se smanjuje. Opao je naglo devedesetih i kroz 2000-te. Ali prema odboru akademika sazvanom od strane Nacionalne Akademije Nauka prošle godine, odnos između naših istorijski visokih stopa zatvaranja i naše niske stope zločina je prilično klimava. Izgleda da se naša stopa zločina smanjuje i povećava bez obzira na to koliko mladih ljudi pošaljemo u zatvor.
We tend to think about justice in a pretty narrow way: good and bad, innocent and guilty. Injustice is about being wrongfully convicted. So if you're convicted of something you did do, you should be punished for it. There are innocent and guilty people, there are victims and there are perpetrators. Maybe we could think a little bit more broadly than that.
Težimo da razmišljamo o pravdi na veoma ograničen način: dobro i loše, nedužna i kriva. Nepravda je o tome da si nepravedno osuđena. Tako da, ako si osuđena za nešto što si uradila, trebalo bi da budeš kažnjena zbog toga. Postoje nedužni i krivi ljudi, postoje žrtve i izvršioci. Možda bismo mogli da razmišljamo šire od toga.
Right now, we're asking kids who live in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, who have the least amount of family resources, who are attending the country's worst schools, who are facing the toughest time in the labor market, who are living in neighborhoods where violence is an everyday problem, we're asking these kids to walk the thinnest possible line -- to basically never do anything wrong.
Trenutno tražimo od dece koja žive u najneprivilegovanijim krajevima, koja imaju najmanje porodične prihode, koja idu u najgore državne škole, koja se susreću sa najviše prepreka na tržištu rada, koja žive u krajevima gde je nasilje svakodnevni problem, tražimo od ove dece da šetaju po najtanjoj mogućoj liniji - u osnovi, da nikada ne urade nešto pogrešno.
Why are we not providing support to young kids facing these challenges? Why are we offering only handcuffs, jail time and this fugitive existence? Can we imagine something better? Can we imagine a criminal justice system that prioritizes recovery, prevention, civic inclusion, rather than punishment? (Applause) A criminal justice system that acknowledges the legacy of exclusion that poor people of color in the U.S. have faced and that does not promote and perpetuate those exclusions. (Applause) And finally, a criminal justice system that believes in black young people, rather than treating black young people as the enemy to be rounded up. (Applause)
Zašto ne pružamo podršku mladima koji se suočavaju sa ovim izazovima? Zašto nudimo samo lisice, zatvor, i ovaj identitet begunaca? Zar ne možemo da zamislimo nešto bolje? Zar ne možemo da zamislimo krivično - pravosudni sistem koji stavlja oporavak, prevenciju, građansko uključenje, kao prioritete umesto kaznu? (Aplauz) Krivično-pravosudni sistem koji prihvata nasleđe isključenosti sa kojim se siromašni ljudi drugih rasa u SAD-u suočavaju i koje ne promoviše i podržava tu isključenost. (Aplauz) I konačno, krivično-pravosudni sistem koji veruje u mlade crnce, umesto da ih tretira kao neprijatelje koje bi trebalo kontrolisati. (Aplauz)
The good news is that we already are. A few years ago, Michelle Alexander wrote "The New Jim Crow," which got Americans to see incarceration as a civil rights issue of historic proportions in a way they had not seen it before. President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have come out very strongly on sentencing reform, on the need to address racial disparity in incarceration. We're seeing states throw out Stop and Frisk as the civil rights violation that it is. We're seeing cities and states decriminalize possession of marijuana. New York, New Jersey and California have been dropping their prison populations, closing prisons, while also seeing a big drop in crime. Texas has gotten into the game now, also closing prisons, investing in education. This curious coalition is building from the right and the left, made up of former prisoners and fiscal conservatives, of civil rights activists and libertarians, of young people taking to the streets to protest police violence against unarmed black teenagers, and older, wealthier people -- some of you are here in the audience -- pumping big money into decarceration initiatives In a deeply divided Congress, the work of reforming our criminal justice system is just about the only thing that the right and the left are coming together on.
Dobre vesti su što to već radimo. Pre par godina, Mišel Aleksander je napisala "Novi Džim Krou," koji je pomogao Amerikancima da vide zatvaranje kao pitanje građanskog prava istorijskih proporcija, na način na koji to nisu videli pre. Predsednik Obama i javni tužilac Erik Holder, su se jasno izjasnili o reformi presuda, o potrebi da se govori o rasnoj nejednakosti u zatvaranju. Gledamo kako države odbacuju 'Zaustavi i pretresi' kao kršenje građanskih prava, što i jeste. Gledamo kako gradovi i države dekriminalizuju posedovanje marihuane. Njujork, Nju Džerzi, i Kalifornija smanjuju broj ljudi u zatvoru, zatvaraju zatvore, i takođe gledamo veliki pad u stopi zločina. Teksas se uključio sada, takođe zatvarajući zatvore, investirajući u obrazovanje. Ova zanimljiva koalicija se gradi i iz desnice i iz levice, napravljena od strane bivših zatvorenika i fiskalnih konzervativaca, od aktivista za građanska prava i libertarijanaca, od mladih ljudi koji idu na ulice da protestuju protiv policijskog nasilja protiv nenaoružanih mladih crnaca, i od starijih, bogatijih ljudi - neki od kojih su ovde u publici - koji ulažu velike pare u inicijative protiv zatvaranja. U duboko podeljenom Kongresu, posao reformisanja našeg krivično pravosudnog sistema je otprilike jedina stvar o kojoj se i levica i desnica zaista slažu.
I did not think I would see this political moment in my lifetime. I think many of the people who have been working tirelessly to write about the causes and consequences of our historically high incarceration rates did not think we would see this moment in our lifetime. The question for us now is, how much can we make of it? How much can we change?
Nisam mislila da ću prisustvovati ovom političkom momentu u svom životu. Mislim da mnogi ljudi koji su neumorno radili na pisanju o uzrocima i posledicama naših istorijski visokih stopa zatvaranja nisu mislili da će prisustvovati ovom trenutku. Pitanje koje postoji sada za nas je: koliko možemo ovo da iskoristimo? Koliko možemo da promenimo?
I want to end with a call to young people, the young people attending college and the young people struggling to stay out of prison or to make it through prison and return home. It may seem like these paths to adulthood are worlds apart, but the young people participating in these two institutions conveying us to adulthood, they have one thing in common: Both can be leaders in the work of reforming our criminal justice system. Young people have always been leaders in the fight for equal rights, the fight for more people to be granted dignity and a fighting chance at freedom. The mission for the generation of young people coming of age in this, a sea-change moment, potentially, is to end mass incarceration and build a new criminal justice system, emphasis on the word justice.
Želim da završim pozivom mladim ljudima, mladima koji pohađaju fakultete i mladima koji se trude da izbegnu zatvor ili da prežive zatvor i vrate se kući. Možda izgleda da su ovi životni putevi odrastanja kompletno različiti, ali mladi ljudi koji učestvuju u ovim institucijama koje nas vode kroz odrastanje, oni imaju jednu zajedničku stvar: obe strane mogu da budu vođe reformi našeg krivično-pravosudnog sistema. Mladi ljudi su oduvek bili vođe u borbi za jednaka prava borbi da se više ljudi tretira dostojanstveno i ima realnu šansu za slobodu. Zadatak za generaciju mladih ljudi koji odrastaju u ovome, u moru promena, potencijalno imaju šansu da okončaju masovno zatvaranje i stvore novi krivično-pravosudni sistem, sa naglaskom na reči pravda.
Thanks.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)