The heavy, metal door slammed behind me,

我是 1950 年代生長在

and I heard the key turn in the lock.

美國的一個普通的中產階級白人。

The cement floor underneath me had a sticky film on it

那意味著，七月四日看煙火，

that made a ripping sound,

萬聖節玩「不請客就搗蛋」，

like tape being pulled off a box,

以及聖誕節在聖誕樹下放禮物。

every time I moved my foot.

但那些傳統到了我的年代時，

The only connection to the outside world was a small window placed too high to see.

它們都很空洞、商業化了，

There was a small, square table bolted to the floor

只讓我感到空虛。

and two metal chairs,

所以，從年輕的時候，

one on either side.

我就開始尋找填補 關於存在的空洞的方法，

That was the first time I understood viscerally --

來與某種比我自己 更大的東西連結。

just for a fleeting moment --

在我的家庭中，已經超過一世紀 沒有舉行（猶太）成年禮了，

what incarceration might feel like.

所以我想我要試試看──

And I promised myself all those years ago as a young, public defender

（笑聲）

that I would never, ever forget that feeling.

但在遇到拉比時，我整個人垮掉了。

And I never have.

他的身材很高，外形像神， 有著豐厚的白髮，

It inspired me to fight for each and every one of my clients' freedom

包括他問我的中間名字是什麼，

as if it was my own.

以便填表格。

Freedom.

是的，如此而已。

A concept so fundamental to the American psyche

（笑聲）

that it is enshrined in our constitution.

我拿到了那隻鋼筆，

And yet, America is addicted to imprisonment.

但我沒有得到

From slavery through mass incarceration,

我所尋找的歸屬感和信心。

it always has been.

多年後，

Look, we all know the shocking numbers.

我無法忍受我的兒子就要十三歲了，

The United States incarcerates more people per capita

卻沒有某種成人儀式。

than almost any nation on the planet.

所以我想到辦一個 十三歲生日之旅的主意。

But what you may not know is that on any given night in America,

我提出要帶墨菲到世界上

almost half a million people go to sleep in those concrete jail cells

任何一個對他有意義的地方。

who have not been convicted of anything.

熱愛烏龜的他 是個萌芽中的年輕自然主義者，

These mothers and fathers and sons and daughters

他馬上選擇了加拉巴哥群島。

are there for one reason and one reason only:

當我女兒凱蒂十三歲時，

they cannot afford to pay the price of their freedom.

她和我在大峽谷的底部 待了兩個星期，

And that price is called bail.

在那裡，凱蒂第一次 了解到她很強大且勇敢。

Now, bail was actually created as a form of conditional release.

在那之後，我的另一半艾希頓 以及許多親朋好友，

The theory was simple:

都帶孩子踏上十三歲生日之旅，

set bail at an amount that somebody could afford to pay --

每個人皆發現此舉讓孩子 與父母都有所改變。

they would pay it --

我的成長過程沒有飯前禱告。

it would give them an incentive to come back to court;

但在過去二十年間，

it would give them some skin in the game.

在每一餐之前我們都會牽起手。

Bail was never intended to be used as punishment.

那是分享寂靜的美好時刻，

Bail was never intended to hold people in jail cells.

讓我們在那當下結合在一起。

And bail was never, ever intended to create a two-tier system of justice:

艾希頓告訴每個人要「傳遞緊握」，

one for the rich and one for everybody else.

並聲明那不是宗教性質的。

But that is precisely what it has done.

（笑聲）

75 percent of people in American local jails

最近我家人拜託我

are there because they cannot pay bail.

把我一生所收集 超過兩百五十箱的東西

People like Ramel.

處理一下時，

On a chilly October afternoon,

我的「舉行儀式」衝動開始運作了。

Ramel was riding his bicycle in his South Bronx neighborhood

我開始想我能否不單單 只是做「死前整理」。

on his way to a market to pick up a quart of milk.

「死前整理」是個瑞典用詞， 指的是在死前清理好

He was stopped by the police.

你的衣廚、地下室及閣樓。

And when he demanded to know why he was being stopped,

你的孩子以後就不用做這些。

an argument ensued, and the next thing he knew,

（笑聲）

he was on the ground in handcuffs,

我想像我的孩子 把箱子一箱一箱打開，

being charged with "riding your bicycle on the sidewalk

納悶我為什麼要留這些東西。

and resisting arrest."

（笑聲）

He was taken to court,

接著，我想像他們看著一張

where a judge set 500 dollars bail.

我和一位美麗女子的照片，

But Ramel -- he didn't have 500 dollars.

問：「和老爸在一起的 這個人到底是誰？」

So this 32-year-old father was sent to "The Boat" --

（笑聲）

a floating jail barge that sits on the East River

那是頓悟時刻。

between a sewage plant and a fish market.

並非我保留的東西很重要，

That's right, you heard me.

而是它們伴隨的故事所賦予的意義。

In New York City, in 2018,

用物品來說故事，

we have a floating prison barge that sits out there

有沒有可能 成為一個新儀式的誕生？

and houses primarily black and brown men

一個生命過程的儀式── 但不是為十三歲，

who cannot pay their bail.

而是為了我們更老的時候 要舉行的儀式。

Let's talk for a moment

我開始做實驗。

about what it means to be in jail even for a few days.

我從箱子中拿出幾十樣東西來，

Well, it can mean losing your job,

把它們散在房間各處。

losing your home,

接著我邀請一些人來

jeopardizing your immigration status.

問我任何他們感興趣的問題。

It may even mean losing custody of your children.

結果非常棒。

A third of sexual victimization by jail staff

一個好故事帶出了更深刻的討論，

happens in the first three days in jail,

在討論中，我的訪客 也在他們自己的人生

and almost half of all jail deaths, including suicides,

做了有意義的連結。

happen in that first week.

德瑞爾斯（奎爾斯）問我 一件倫納德佩爾提爾Ｔ恤的事。

What's more, if you're held in jail on bail,

我在 1980 年代常穿它。

you're four times more likely to get a jail sentence

令人感傷的是， 它與現今仍然有關聯性。

than if you had been free,

我們的對話進展很快，

and that jail sentence will be three times longer.

從美國監獄中大量的政治囚犯，

And if you are black or Latino and cash bail has been set,

到德瑞爾斯好奇想了解

you are two times more likely to remain stuck in that jail cell

1960 年代黑人的解放運動。

than if you were white.

以及如果他在那時就已成年， 而非三十多年後，

Jail in America is a terrifying, dehumanizing and violent experience.

他的人生會變什麼樣子。

Now imagine for just one moment that it's you stuck in that jail cell,

在我們的談話尾聲，

and you don't have the 500 dollars to get out.

德瑞爾斯問我能否把那件Ｔ恤給他。

And someone comes along and offers you a way out.

我覺得把Ｔ恤給他是最完美的做法。

"Just plead guilty," they say.

當這些對談建立起了共同點，

"You can go home back to your job.

特別是跨世代的共同點，

Just plead guilty.

我發現我打開了一個空間，

You can kiss your kids goodnight tonight."

讓大家來談論 對他們而言重要的事情。

So you do what anybody would do in that situation.

我開始發現我的生命又有意義了──

You plead guilty whether you did it or not.

我不是個將要離世的老人，

But now you have a criminal record

而是個有角色要扮演的人

that's going to follow you for the rest of your life.

在向前邁進。

Jailing people because they don't have enough money to pay bail

在我的成長過程，

is one of the most unfair, immoral things we do as a society.

大部分人只活到七十幾歲。

But it is also expensive and counterproductive.

現代人活得更久了，

American taxpayers --

在人類史上第一次，

they spend 14 billion dollars annually holding people in jail cells

四代同堂是常見的狀況。

who haven't been convicted of anything.

我現在七十一歲，

That's 40 million dollars a day.

若運氣不錯，

What's perhaps more confounding is it doesn't make us any safer.

我還可以活二十或三十年。

Research is clear that holding somebody in jail

現在就把我的東西送人，

makes you significantly more likely to commit a crime when you get out

分享給我的朋友、 家人，希望也有陌生人，

than if you had been free all along.

似乎是進入我人生 下個階段的完美方式。

Freedom makes all the difference.

我發現這就是我一直在尋找的：

Low-income communities

一個儀式，重點不是死亡，

and communities of color have known that for generations.

而是打開一扇門

Together, they have pooled their resources to buy their loved ones freedom

通往接下來會發生的事。

for as long as bondage and jail cells existed.

謝謝。

But the reach of the criminal legal system has grown too enormous,

（掌聲）

and the numbers have just too large.

向前行！

99 percent of jail growth in America has been the result --

（掌聲）

over the last 20 years --

of pre-trial incarceration.

I have been a public defender for over half my life,

and I have stood by and watched thousands of clients

as they were dragged into those jail cells

because they didn't have enough money to pay bail.

I have watched as questions of justice were subsumed by questions of money,

calling into question the legitimacy of the entire American legal system.

I am here to say something simple --

something obvious,

but something urgent.

Freedom makes all the difference,

and freedom should be free.

(Applause)

But how are we going to make that happen?

Well, that's the question I was wrestling with over a decade ago

when I was sitting at a kitchen table with my husband, David,

who is also a public defender.

We were eating our Chinese takeout and venting about the injustice of it all

when David looked up and said,

"Why don't we just start a bail fund,

and just start bailing our clients out of jail?"

And in that unexpected moment,

the idea for the Bronx Freedom Fund was born.

Look, we didn't know what to expect.

There were plenty of people that told us we were crazy

and we were going to lose all of the money.

People wouldn't come back because they didn't have any stake in it.

But what if clients did come back?

We knew that bail money comes back at the end of a criminal case,

so it could come back into the fund,

and we could use it over and over again for more and more bail.

That was our big bet,

and that bet paid off.

Over the past 10 years,

we have been paying bails for low-income residents of New York City,

and what we have learned has exploded our ideas

of why people come back to court

and how the criminal legal system itself is operated.

Turns out money isn't what makes people come back to court.

We know this because when the Bronx Freedom Fund pays bail,

96 percent of clients return for every court appearance,

laying waste to the myth that it's money that mattered.

It's powerful evidence that we don't need cash

or ankle bracelets

or unnecessary systems of surveillance and supervision.

We simply need court reminders --

simple court reminders about when to come back to court.

Next, we learned that if you're held in jail on a misdemeanor,

90 percent of people will plead guilty.

But when the fund pays bail,

over half the cases are dismissed.

And in the entire history of the Bronx Freedom Fund,

fewer than two percent of our clients have ever received a jail sentence

of any kind.

(Applause)

Ramel, a week later --

he was still on the boat, locked in that jail cell.

He was on the cusp of losing everything,

and he was about to plead guilty,

and the Bronx Freedom Fund intervened and paid his bail.

Now, reunited with his daughter,

he was able to fight his case from outside.

Look, it took some time --

two years, to be exact --

but at the end of that,

his case was dismissed in its entirety.

For Ramel --

(Applause)

For Ramel, the Bronx Freedom Fund was a lifeline,

but for countless other Americans locked in jail cells,

there is no freedom fund coming.

It's time to do something about that.

It's time to do something big.

It's time to do something bold.

It's time to do something, maybe, audacious?

(Laughter)

We want to take our proven, revolving bail-fund model

that we built in the Bronx

and spread it across America,

attacking the front end of the legal system

before incarceration begins.

(Applause)

(Cheers)

(Applause)

Here's the plan.

(Applause)

We're going to bail out as many people as we can

as quickly as we can.

Over the next five years,

partnering with public defenders and local community organizations,

we're going to set up 40 sites in high-need jurisdictions.

The goal is to bail out 160,000 people.

Our strategy leverages the fact

that bail money comes back at the end of a case.

Data from the Bronx

shows that a dollar can be used two or three times a year,

creating a massive force multiplier.

So a dollar donated today can be used to pay bail for up to 15 people

over the next five years.

Our strategy also relies on the experience and the wisdom and the leadership

of those who have experienced this injustice firsthand.

(Applause)

Each bail project site will be staffed by a team of bail disrupters.

These are passionate, dedicated advocates from local communities,

many of whom were formerly incarcerated themselves,

who will pay bails and support clients

while their cases are going through the legal system,

providing them with whatever resources and support they may need.

Our first two sites are up and running.

One in Tulsa, Oklahoma,

and one in St. Louis, Missouri.

And Ramel?

He's training right now to be a bail disrupter in Queens County, New York.

(Applause)

Our next three sites are ready to launch

in Dallas, Detroit and Louisville, Kentucky.

The Bail Project will attack the money bail system

on an unprecedented scale.

We will also listen, collect and elevate

and honor the stories of our clients

so that we can change hearts and minds,

and we will collect critical, national data