Why do we jail people for being poor? | Salil Dudani | TEDxStanford
-
0:12 - 0:14One summer afternoon in 2013,
-
0:14 - 0:17DC police detained, questioned
and searched a man -
0:17 - 0:20who appeared suspicious
and potentially dangerous. -
0:22 - 0:26This wasn't what I was wearing
the day of the detention, to be fair, -
0:26 - 0:28but I have a picture of that as well.
-
0:28 - 0:31I know it's very frightening --
try to remain calm. -
0:31 - 0:32(Laughter)
-
0:32 - 0:35At this time, I was interning
-
0:35 - 0:37at the Public Defender Service
in Washington DC, -
0:37 - 0:40and I was visiting
a police station for work. -
0:40 - 0:41I was on my way out,
-
0:41 - 0:43and before I could make it to my car,
-
0:43 - 0:45two police cars pulled up
to block my exit, -
0:45 - 0:48and an officer approached me from behind.
-
0:48 - 0:50He told me to stop, take my backpack off
-
0:50 - 0:53and put my hands on the police car
parked next to us. -
0:53 - 0:56About a dozen officers
then gathered near us. -
0:57 - 0:58All of them had handguns,
-
0:58 - 0:59some had assault rifles.
-
0:59 - 1:01They rifled through my backpack.
-
1:01 - 1:02They patted me down.
-
1:02 - 1:05They took pictures of me
spread on the police car, -
1:05 - 1:06and they laughed.
-
1:06 - 1:07And as all this was happening --
-
1:07 - 1:11as I was on the police car trying
to ignore the shaking in my legs, -
1:11 - 1:13trying to think clearly
about what I should do -- -
1:13 - 1:15something stuck out to me as odd.
-
1:15 - 1:17When I look at myself in this photo,
-
1:17 - 1:19if I were to describe myself,
-
1:19 - 1:21I think I'd say something like,
-
1:21 - 1:26"19-year-old Indian male,
bright T-shirt, wearing glasses." -
1:26 - 1:29But they weren't including
any of these details. -
1:29 - 1:31Into their police radios
as they described me, -
1:31 - 1:33they kept saying, "Middle Eastern
male with a backpack. -
1:34 - 1:36Middle Eastern male with a backpack."
-
1:36 - 1:39And this description carried on
into their police reports. -
1:39 - 1:44I never expected to be described
by my own government in these terms: -
1:44 - 1:45"lurking,"
-
1:46 - 1:47"nefarious,"
-
1:49 - 1:50"terrorist."
-
1:50 - 1:52And the detention dragged on like this.
-
1:52 - 1:56They sent dogs trained to smell explosives
to sweep the area I'd been in. -
1:56 - 1:59They called the federal government
to see if I was on any watch lists. -
1:59 - 2:02They sent a couple of detectives
to cross-examine me on why, -
2:02 - 2:04if I claimed I had nothing to hide,
-
2:04 - 2:06I wouldn't consent to a search of my car.
-
2:06 - 2:08And I could see
they weren't happy with me, -
2:08 - 2:11but I felt I had no way of knowing
what they'd want to do next. -
2:11 - 2:14At one point, the officer
who patted me down -
2:14 - 2:18scanned the side of the police station
to see where the security camera was -
2:18 - 2:21to see how much of this
was being recorded. -
2:21 - 2:22And when he did that,
-
2:22 - 2:25it really sank in how completely
I was at their mercy. -
2:25 - 2:28I think we're all normalized
from a young age -
2:28 - 2:32to the idea of police officers
and arrests and handcuffs, -
2:32 - 2:36so it's easy to forget how demeaning
and coercive a thing it is -
2:36 - 2:39to seize control over
another person's body. -
2:39 - 2:41I know it sounds like
the point of my story -
2:41 - 2:43is how badly treated I was
because of my race -- -
2:43 - 2:46and yes, I don't think I would've been
detained if I were white. -
2:46 - 2:49But actually, what I have in mind
today is something else. -
2:49 - 2:52What I have in mind is how
much worse things might've been -
2:52 - 2:53if I weren't affluent.
-
2:53 - 2:56I mean, they thought I might be trying
to plant an explosive, -
2:56 - 2:59and they investigated that possibility
for an hour and a half, -
2:59 - 3:01but I was never put in handcuffs,
-
3:01 - 3:03I was never taken to a jail cell.
-
3:03 - 3:07I think if I were from one of Washington
DC's poor communities of color, -
3:07 - 3:09and they thought I was
endangering officers' lives, -
3:09 - 3:11things might've ended differently.
-
3:11 - 3:14And in fact, in our system, I think
it's better to be an affluent person -
3:14 - 3:17suspected of trying
to blow up a police station -
3:17 - 3:18than it is to be a poor person
-
3:18 - 3:21who's suspected of much,
much less than this. -
3:21 - 3:24I want to give you an example
from my current work. -
3:24 - 3:27Right now, I'm working
at a civil rights organization in DC, -
3:27 - 3:30called Equal Justice Under Law.
-
3:30 - 3:33Let me start by asking you all a question.
-
3:33 - 3:36How many of you have ever gotten
a parking ticket in your life? -
3:36 - 3:37Raise your hand.
-
3:37 - 3:39Yeah. So have I.
-
3:39 - 3:40And when I had to pay it,
-
3:40 - 3:42it felt annoying and it felt bad,
-
3:42 - 3:44but I paid it and I moved on.
-
3:44 - 3:47I'm guessing most of you
have paid your tickets as well. -
3:47 - 3:52But what would happen if you
couldn't afford the amount on the ticket -
3:52 - 3:55and your family doesn't have
the money either, what happens then? -
3:55 - 3:58Well, one thing that's not supposed
to happen under the law is, -
3:58 - 4:00you're not supposed to be
arrested and jailed -
4:00 - 4:02simply because you can't afford to pay.
-
4:02 - 4:04That's illegal under federal law.
-
4:04 - 4:07But that's what local governments
across the country are doing -
4:07 - 4:08to people who are poor.
-
4:08 - 4:11And so many of our lawsuits
at Equal Justice Under Law -
4:11 - 4:14target these modern-day debtors' prisons.
-
4:15 - 4:17One of our cases is against
Ferguson, Missouri. -
4:17 - 4:19And I know when I say Ferguson,
-
4:19 - 4:21many of you will think of police violence.
-
4:21 - 4:24But today I want to talk
about a different aspect -
4:24 - 4:27of the relationship between
their police force and their citizens. -
4:27 - 4:31Ferguson was issuing an average
of over two arrest warrants, -
4:31 - 4:33per person, per year,
-
4:33 - 4:35mostly for unpaid debt to the courts.
-
4:36 - 4:40When I imagine what that would feel like
if, every time I left my house, -
4:40 - 4:43there was a chance a police officer
would run my license plate, -
4:43 - 4:45see a warrant for unpaid debt,
-
4:45 - 4:47seize my body they way the did in DC
-
4:47 - 4:49and then take me to a jail cell,
-
4:49 - 4:50I feel a little sick.
-
4:52 - 4:55I've met many of the people in Ferguson
who have experienced this, -
4:55 - 4:57and I've heard some of their stories.
-
4:57 - 4:58In Ferguson's jail,
-
4:58 - 5:01in each small cell,
there's a bunk bed and a toilet, -
5:01 - 5:03but they'd pack four people
into each cell. -
5:03 - 5:07So there'd be two people on the bunks
and two people on the floor, -
5:07 - 5:10one with nowhere to go except
right next to the filthy toilet, -
5:10 - 5:11which was never cleaned.
-
5:11 - 5:13In fact, the whole cell was never cleaned,
-
5:13 - 5:16so the floor and the walls were lined
with blood and mucus. -
5:17 - 5:18No water to drink,
-
5:18 - 5:21except coming out of a spigot
connected to the toilet. -
5:21 - 5:22The water looked and tasted dirty,
-
5:22 - 5:24there was never enough food,
-
5:24 - 5:26never any showers,
-
5:26 - 5:28women menstruating
without any hygiene products, -
5:28 - 5:30no medical attention whatsoever.
-
5:30 - 5:32When I asked a woman
about medical attention, -
5:32 - 5:35she laughed, and she said, "Oh, no, no.
-
5:35 - 5:38The only attention you get
from the guards in there is sexual." -
5:39 - 5:41So, they'd take the debtors
to this place and they'd say, -
5:41 - 5:45"We're not letting you leave
until you make a payment on your debt." -
5:45 - 5:48And if you could -- if you
could call a family member -
5:48 - 5:50who could somehow come up with some money,
-
5:50 - 5:51then maybe you were out.
-
5:51 - 5:53If it was enough money, you were out.
-
5:53 - 5:57But if it wasn't, you'd stay there
for days or weeks, -
5:57 - 5:59and every day the guards
would come down to the cells -
5:59 - 6:03and haggle with the debtors
about the price of release that day. -
6:03 - 6:08You'd stay until, at some point,
the jail would be booked to capacity, -
6:08 - 6:09and they'd want to book someone new in.
-
6:10 - 6:11And at that point, they'd think,
-
6:11 - 6:14"OK, it's unlikely this person
can come up with the money, -
6:14 - 6:16it's more likely this new person will."
-
6:16 - 6:19You're out, they're in,
and the machine kept moving like that. -
6:19 - 6:21I met a man who,
-
6:21 - 6:25nine years ago, was arrested
for panhandling in a Walgreens. -
6:25 - 6:29He couldn't afford his fines
and his court fees from that case. -
6:29 - 6:32When he was young
he survived a house fire, -
6:32 - 6:35only because he jumped out
of the third-story window to escape. -
6:35 - 6:37But that fall left him
with damage to his brain -
6:37 - 6:40and several parts of this body,
including his leg. -
6:40 - 6:41So he can't work,
-
6:41 - 6:44and he relies on social security
payments to survive. -
6:44 - 6:45When I met him in his apartment,
-
6:45 - 6:48he had nothing of value there --
not even food in his fridge. -
6:48 - 6:49He's chronically hungry.
-
6:49 - 6:53He had nothing of value in his apartment
except a small piece of cardboard -
6:53 - 6:55on which he'd written
the names of his children. -
6:55 - 6:58He cherished this a lot.
He was happy to show it to me. -
6:58 - 7:01But he can't pay his fines and fees
because he has nothing to give. -
7:01 - 7:04In the last nine years,
he's been arrested 13 times, -
7:04 - 7:09and jailed for a total of 130 days
on that panhandling case. -
7:09 - 7:12One of those stretches lasted 45 days.
-
7:12 - 7:17Just imagine spending from right now
until sometime in June -
7:17 - 7:20in the place that I described to you
a few moments ago. -
7:21 - 7:25He told me about all the suicide attempts
he's seen in Ferguson's jail; -
7:25 - 7:28about the time a man found
a way to hang himself -
7:28 - 7:29out of reach of the other inmates,
-
7:29 - 7:33so all they could do
was yell and yell and yell, -
7:33 - 7:34trying to get the guards' attention
-
7:34 - 7:36so they could come down and cut him down.
-
7:36 - 7:40And he told me that it took the guards
over five minutes to respond, -
7:40 - 7:42and when they came,
the man was unconscious. -
7:42 - 7:45So they called the paramedics
and the paramedics went to the cell. -
7:45 - 7:47They said, "He'll be OK,"
-
7:47 - 7:49so they just left him there on the floor.
-
7:49 - 7:52I heard many stories like this
and they shouldn't have surprised me, -
7:52 - 7:56because suicide is the single leading
cause of death in our local jails. -
7:57 - 8:00This is related to the lack
of mental health care in our jails. -
8:00 - 8:04I met a woman, single mother of three,
making seven dollars an hour. -
8:04 - 8:06She relies on food stamps
to feed herself and her children. -
8:07 - 8:08About a decade ago,
-
8:08 - 8:12she got a couple of traffic tickets
and a minor theft charge, -
8:12 - 8:15and she can't afford her fines
and fees on those cases. -
8:15 - 8:19Since then, she's been jailed
about 10 times on those cases, -
8:19 - 8:21but she has schizophrenia
and bipolar disorder, -
8:21 - 8:23and she needs medication every day.
-
8:23 - 8:27She doesn't have access
to those medications in Ferguson's jail, -
8:27 - 8:29because no one has access
to their medications. -
8:29 - 8:33She told me about what it was like
to spend two weeks in a cage, -
8:33 - 8:36hallucinating people and shadows
and hearing voices, -
8:36 - 8:39begging for the medication
that would make it all stop, -
8:39 - 8:40only to be ignored.
-
8:41 - 8:43And this isn't anomalous, either:
-
8:43 - 8:47thirty percent of women in our local jails
have serious mental health needs -
8:47 - 8:48just like hers,
-
8:48 - 8:52but only one in six receives
any mental health care while in jail. -
8:52 - 8:56And so, I heard all these stories
about this grotesque dungeon -
8:56 - 8:58that Ferguson was operating
for its debtors, -
8:58 - 9:01and when it came time
for me to actually see it -
9:01 - 9:03and to go visit Ferguson's jail,
-
9:03 - 9:05I'm not sure what I was expecting to see,
-
9:05 - 9:07but I wasn't expecting this.
-
9:07 - 9:09It's an ordinary government building.
-
9:09 - 9:12It could be a post office or a school.
-
9:12 - 9:15It reminded me that these illegal
extortion schemes -
9:15 - 9:17aren't being run somewhere in the shadows,
-
9:17 - 9:20they're being run out in the open
by our public officials. -
9:20 - 9:22They're a matter of public policy.
-
9:22 - 9:25And this reminded me
that poverty jailing in general, -
9:25 - 9:27even outside the debtors' prison context,
-
9:27 - 9:30plays a very visible and central role
in our justice system. -
9:31 - 9:33What I have in mind is our policy of bail.
-
9:33 - 9:35In our system, whether
you're detained or free, -
9:35 - 9:39pending trial is not a matter
of how dangerous you are -
9:39 - 9:41or how much of a flight risk you pose.
-
9:41 - 9:44It's a matter of whether you can afford
to post your bail amount. -
9:44 - 9:47So Bill Cosby, whose bail
was set at a million dollars, -
9:47 - 9:50immediately writes the check,
and doesn't spend a second in a jail cell. -
9:50 - 9:52But Sandra Bland, who died in jail,
-
9:52 - 9:56was only there because her family
was unable to come up with 500 dollars. -
9:56 - 9:59In fact, there are half a million
Sandra Blands across the country -- -
9:59 - 10:02500,000 people who are in jail right now,
-
10:02 - 10:04only because they can't afford
their bail amount. -
10:04 - 10:07We're told that our jails
are places for criminals, -
10:07 - 10:09but statistically that's not the case:
-
10:09 - 10:14three out of every five people
in jail right now are there pretrial. -
10:14 - 10:16They haven't been convicted of any crime;
-
10:16 - 10:18they haven't pled guilty to any offense.
-
10:19 - 10:20Right here in San Francisco,
-
10:20 - 10:2485 percent of the inmates
in our jail in San Francisco -
10:24 - 10:26are pretrial detainees.
-
10:26 - 10:29This means San Francisco is spending
something like 80 million dollars -
10:29 - 10:30every year
-
10:30 - 10:32to fund pretrial detention.
-
10:34 - 10:38Many of these people who are in jail
only because they can't post bail -
10:38 - 10:41are facing allegations so minor
-
10:41 - 10:44that the amount of time it would take
for them to sit waiting for trial -
10:44 - 10:47is longer than the sentence
they would receive if convicted, -
10:47 - 10:49which means they're guaranteed
to get out faster -
10:49 - 10:51if they just plead guilty.
-
10:51 - 10:52So now the choice is:
-
10:52 - 10:55Should I stay here in this horrible place,
-
10:55 - 10:57away from my family and my dependents,
-
10:57 - 11:00almost guaranteed to lose my job,
-
11:00 - 11:02and then fight the charges?
-
11:02 - 11:05Or should I just plead guilty to whatever
the prosecutor wants and get out? -
11:05 - 11:08And at this point, they're pretrial
detainees, not criminals. -
11:08 - 11:11But once they take that plea deal,
we'll call them criminals, -
11:11 - 11:14even though an affluent person
would never have been in this situation, -
11:14 - 11:17because an affluent person
would have simply been bailed out. -
11:17 - 11:19At this point you might be wondering,
-
11:19 - 11:22"This guy's in the inspiration section,
what is he doing -- -
11:22 - 11:23(Laughter)
-
11:23 - 11:26"This is extremely depressing.
I want my money back." -
11:26 - 11:27(Laughter)
-
11:28 - 11:30But in actuality,
-
11:30 - 11:34I find talking about jailing much less
depressing than the alternative, -
11:34 - 11:37because I think if we don't talk
about these issues -
11:37 - 11:39and collectively change
how we think about jailing, -
11:39 - 11:41at the end of all of our lives,
-
11:41 - 11:44we'll still have jails full of poor people
who don't belong there. -
11:44 - 11:45That really is depressing to me.
-
11:45 - 11:49But what's exciting to me is the thought
that these stories can move us -
11:49 - 11:51to think about jailing in different terms.
-
11:51 - 11:54Not in sterile policy terms
like "mass incarceration," -
11:54 - 11:56or "sentencing of nonviolent offenders,"
-
11:56 - 11:58but in human terms.
-
11:58 - 12:02When we put a human being in a cage
for days or weeks or months -
12:02 - 12:04or even years,
-
12:04 - 12:06what are we doing
to that person's mind and body? -
12:06 - 12:09Under what conditions
are we really willing to do that? -
12:09 - 12:12And so if starting with a few
hundred of us in this room, -
12:12 - 12:15we can commit to thinking about
jailing in this different light, -
12:15 - 12:19then we can undo that normalization
I was referring to earlier. -
12:19 - 12:22If I leave you with anything today,
I hope it's with the thought -
12:22 - 12:24that if we want anything
to fundamentally change -- -
12:24 - 12:28not just to reform our policies
on bail and fines and fees -- -
12:28 - 12:31but also to make sure that whatever
new policies replace those -
12:31 - 12:34don't punish the poor and the marginalized
in their own new way. -
12:34 - 12:35If we want that kind of change,
-
12:35 - 12:38then this shift in thinking
is required of each of us. -
12:38 - 12:39Thank you.
-
12:39 - 12:43(Applause)
- Title:
- Why do we jail people for being poor? | Salil Dudani | TEDxStanford
- Description:
-
Debtors' prisons are alive and well across the country, as local governments jail people who are too poor to pay their fines and court fees. Meanwhile, half a million Americans are in jail cells only because they cannot afford to post bail. Salil tells the stories he's heard from individuals who have experienced Ferguson's debtors' prison firsthand, challenging us to think differently about imprisonment.
Salil Dudani is an investigator at Equal Justice Under Law, a civil rights organization that litigates inequalities in the criminal legal system. Before his current work, which is supported by the John Gardner Public Service Fellowship, Dudani experienced the legal system in two different roles: as a defense investigator at the Public Defender Service in Washington, D.C., and as a plaintiff in a racial profiling case after he was detained by D.C. police on suspicion of “terrorist activity.”
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 12:44
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Why do we jail people for being poor? | Salil Dudani | TEDxStanford | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Why do we jail people for being poor? | Salil Dudani | TEDxStanford | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Why do we jail people for being poor? | Salil Dudani | TEDxStanford |