President Barack Obama’s visit to the Federal Correctional Institution El Reno, a medium-security prison in Oklahoma with law enforcement officials and nonviolent drug offenders marked the first time a sitting U.S. president has made such a trip to see the endpoint of federal prosecutions.
Obama is beginning a push to reform America’s crime-and-punishment infrastructure, saying that ‘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.’
‘It’s not normal,’ he said. ‘It’s not what happens in other countries. What is normal is teenagers doing stupid things. What is normal is young people making mistakes.’
‘And,’ he added, ‘we’ve got to be able to distinguish between dangerous individuals who need to be incapacitated and incarcerated versus young people who, in an environment in which they are adapting but if given different opportunities, a different vision of life, could be thriving the way we are.’
Obama made news during his first presidential campaign when it was revealed that he used marijuana consistently during his teenage years, partaking of the illegal drug and even trying cocaine with a group of friends who called themselves the ‘Choom Gang.’
Leave a Reply