Yahoo – AFP,
16 July 2015
US
President Barack Obama speaks as he tours the El Reno Federal Correctional
Institution in El Reno, Oklahoma, July 16, 2015 (AFP Photo/Saul Loeb)
|
El Reno
(United States) (AFP) - Barack Obama became the first sitting US president to
visit a federal prison on Thursday, amid a push to reform America's overcrowded
and expensive correctional system.
Obama
toured the "B" block of El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in
Oklahoma, where he met six inmates convicted of drug offenses.
Nearly a
quarter of the world's prison population is concentrated in American jails.
However, the United States accounts for less than five percent of the world's
population.
A prison
cell is seen through the door window
at the El Reno Federal Correctional
Institution in El Reno, Oklahoma, July 16,
2015 (AFP Photo/Saul Loeb)
|
"We have
to consider whether this is the smartest way for us to both control crime and
rehabilitate individuals," he said during his visit.
"We
have to reconsider whether 20 year, 30 year, life sentences for nonviolent
crimes is the best way for us to solve these problems."
After
viewing a small cell that can hold up to three inmates, Obama said: "This
is an outstanding institution within the system, and yet they've got enormous
overcrowding issues."
The United
States jails as many people as the top 35 European nations combined.
Black and
Latino Americans represent 60 percent of the prison population while around 30
percent of prisoners are white.
'The
grace of God'
Around
71,000 minors are also incarcerated in the United States.
"I
think we have a tendency sometimes to almost take for granted, or think it's
normal, that so many young people end up in our criminal justice system,"
Obama said. "It's not normal. It's not what happens in other
countries."
"What
is normal is teenagers doing stupid things," Obama said.
Recounting
his discussion with inmates, he added: "When they describe their youth,
these are young people who made mistakes that aren't that different from the
mistakes I made, and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made."
US
President Barack Obama walks through the prison yard during a tour of the
El
Reno Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno, Oklahoma, July 16, 2015
(AFP
Photo/Saul Loeb)
|
"The
difference is that they did not have the kind of support structures, the second
chances, the resources that would allow them to survive those mistakes."
"There
but for the grace of God," he said.
Obama has
said he will try to pass "meaningful criminal justice reform" this
year.
"This
is a cause that's bringing people in both houses of Congress together. It's
created some unlikely bedfellows," Obama said earlier this week.
He has
tried to show Republicans angry at federal spending that prison costs are also
hurting the budget.
At $80
billion, the budget for prisons represents a third of the Department of Justice's
annual spending.
But all
that money doesn't mean prisons are in good condition.
A report by
the Columbia Journalism Review on Illinois state prisons revealed vermin,
flooded basements, a general lack of sanitation and crowding, with "some
serving time for nothing more than driving on a revoked license."
Woman who spent 23 years on US death row cleared (Photo: dpa) |
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