Obama’s Going to Jail! He'll Make History as First Sitting US President to Visit Federal Prison

President Barack Obama will make history on
Thursday by becoming the first sitting US
president to see the inside of a federal prison.

Obama is set to visit El Reno Federal
Correctional Institution, a medium-security
prison for male offenders near Oklahoma City, in
a push to create a fairer justice system.
The effort is part of a weeklong focus on
inequities in one of the most crowded and
expensive criminal justice systems in the world.
"If you're a low-level drug dealer, or you violate
your parole, you owe some debt to society. You
have to be held accountable and make amends,"
Obama said in a speech at the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored
People's annual convention this week. "But you
don't owe 20 years. You don't owe a life
sentence. That's disproportionate to the price
that should be paid."
Obama says taxpayers are the ones left footing
the $80 billion annual cost of locking up people
who otherwise could be rehabilitated for less
money. He says overly harsh sentences,
particularly for nonviolent drug crimes, are to
blame for doubling the prison population in the
past two decades. Half a million people were
behind bars in 1980, that's since quadrupled to
more than 2.2 million inmates.
Obama is scheduled to meet separately with law
enforcement officials and nonviolent drug
inmates, reports the Associated Press.
The President is looking for an alternative to the
lengthy incarceration of people convicted of
crimes he says did not fit the punishment.
Fourteen of the convicts whose sentences he
commuted earlier this week had been serving life
in prison.
He also wants to restore voting rights to felons
who have served their sentences, and for
employers to "ban the box" that asks job
applicants about their criminal histories.
Obama hopes that Congress will send him
legislation to address the issue before he leaves
office in 18 months.
As for Obama's safety while inside El Reno
prison, White House press secretary Josh Earnest
says "unique steps" will be taken to protect the
President but did not elaborate.
Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary said
"comprehensive security screening" will be
conducted but says that's standard practice.