As part of his push for criminal justice reform, Obama toured the El Reno Correctional Facility, a medium security prison that once housed Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and is home to 1,300 male inmates convicted of federal crimes. Their discussions will air on HBO’s “Vice” documentary programme in September.
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Over the years, we’ve checked many statements about the USA criminal justice system.
Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, said Wednesday that the tough-on-crime overhaul he signed into law in the 1990s made the problem of longer prison sentences worse and he wants to “admit it”.
Mr Obama said some of the young prisoners he met had made mistakes not that different from those he made in his youth.
The difference with the inmates, he said, is they did not have the resources to “survive those mistakes”.
On Thursday, Mr. Obama toured the El Reno federal prison and told drug-offense inmates he could have been in their place if not for the support system he had. “It’s not normal, it’s not what happens in other countries”.
Spriggs, meanwhile, drew a distinction between violent and nonviolent crimes and said not everyone with a criminal past is kept away from the president.
Andrew Duncomb, a black man who calls himself “the Black Rebel”, organized the demonstration, in which as many as 10 people waved Confederate flags as Obama’s motorcade arrived, reported Politico.
He added that if some of the young people were given different opportunities, they could be thriving.
“The question is, not only, how do we make sure we sustain those programs here in the prison, but how do we make sure that those same kind of institutional supports are there for kids and teenagers before they get into the criminal justice system?”
Obama said he did not “have tolerance for violent criminals”, but that there should be a reconsideration of whether non-violent drug offenders should end up with lengthy sentences of 20 years or more.
Critics of the emblem, used in battle by southern states in the US Civil War, say it is a symbol of slavery.
Mr Obama has said the flag is a “reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation”, and belongs in a museum. On the other hand, when we’re looking at nonviolent offenders, majority are growing up in environments in which drug traffic is common, where many of their family members may have been involved in the drug trade.
“The president’s reforms, while better than nothing, are really modest”, said Barry Krisberg, director at the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy.
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With more than 2.2 million Americans locked up in county, state, and federal prisons, the United States is home to the largest number of incarcerated individuals of any country in the world.
