How We’re Priming Some Kids for College – And Others for Prison

In the United States, two institutions guide teenagers on the journey to adulthood: college and prison. 

Sociologist Alice Goffman spent six years in a troubled Philadelphia neighborhood and saw first-hand how teenagers of African-American and Latino backgrounds are funneled down the path to prison — sometimes starting with relatively minor infractions. 

Watch below as Alice, in an impassioned TEDtalk, asks – “Why are we offering only handcuffs and jail time?”