TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less).
Adam Foss: A prosecutor’s vision for a better justice system. Adam Foss, a prosecutor with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office in Boston, makes his case for a reformed justice system that replaces wrath with opportunity, changing people’s lives for the better instead of ruining them.
Angela Patton: A father-daughter dance … in prison At Camp Diva, Angela Patton works to help young girls and their fathers stay connected and become part of each others’ lives.
Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice In an engaging and personal talk — with cameo appearances from his grandmother and Rosa Parks — human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson shares some hard truths about America’s justice system.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.
Deanna Van Buren: What a world without prisons could look like Deanna Van Buren designs restorative justice centers that, instead of taking the punitive approach used by a system focused on mass incarceration, treat crime as a breach of relationships and justice as a process where all stakeholders come together to repair that breach.
Ethan Nadelmann: Why we need to end the War on Drugs In a bold talk, drug policy reformist Ethan Nadelmann makes an impassioned plea to end the “backward, heartless, disastrous” movement to stamp out the drug trade.
Eve Abrams: The human stories behind mass incarceration The United States locks up more people than any other country in the world, says documentarian Eve Abrams, and somewhere between one and four percent of those in prison are likely innocent.
Jarrell Daniels: What prosecutors and incarcerated people can learn from each other A few weeks before his release from state prison, Daniels took a unique course called Inside Criminal Justice, where he learned in a classroom alongside prosecutors and police officers, people he couldn’t imagine having anything in common with.
Kimberlé Crenshaw: The urgency of intersectionality Kimberlé Crenshaw uses the term “intersectionality” to describe this phenomenon; as she says, if you’re standing in the path of multiple forms of exclusion, you’re likely to get hit by both.
Peter Ouko: From death row to law graduate Peter Ouko spent 18 years in Kamiti Prison in Kenya, sometimes locked up in a cell with 13 other grown men for 23 and a half hours a day. In a moving talk, he tells the story of how he was freed.
Robin Steinberg: What if we ended the injustice of bail? In this powerful talk, Robin Steinberg outlines the plan for The Bail Project — an unprecedented national revolving bail fund to fight mass incarceration.
Salil Dudani: How jails extort the poor Salil Dudani shares stories from individuals who have experienced debtors’ prison in Ferguson, Missouri, challenging us to think differently about how we punish the poor and marginalized.
Shaka Senghor: Why your worst deeds don’t define you In 1991, Shaka Senghor shot and killed a man. He was, he says, “a drug dealer with a quick temper and a semi-automatic pistol.” Jailed for second degree murder, that could very well have been the end of the story. But it wasn’t. Instead, it was the beginning of a years-long journey to redemption, one with humbling and sobering lessons for us all.
TEDxSanQuentin The goal of TEDxSanQuentin is to use the global TEDx platform to bridge the divide between society and prisoners to promote safer and healthier communities.
Teresa Njoroge: What I learned serving time for a crime I didn’t commit In 2011, Teresa Njoroge was convicted of a financial crime she didn’t commit — the result of a long string of false accusations, increasing bribe attempts and the corrupt justice system in her home in Kenya.
Victor Rios: Help for kids the education system ignores Define students by what they contribute, not what they lack — especially those with difficult upbringings, says educator Victor Rios.
Victoria Pratt: How judges can show respect In halls of justice around the world, how can we ensure everyone is treated with dignity and respect? A pioneering judge in New Jersey, Victoria Pratt shares her principles of “procedural justice.”
What I learned as a kid in jail As a teenager, Ismael Nazario was sent to New York’s Rikers Island jail, where he spent 300 days in solitary confinement — all before he was ever convicted of a crime. Now as a prison reform advocate he works to change the culture of American jails and prisons, where young people are frequently subjected to violence beyond imagination.
