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| Photo courtesy of Politico |
On Thursday, President Obama will become the first sitting president to visit a federal prison.
Mr. Obama will travel to Oklahoma's El Reno Correctional Institution, home to Jason Hernandez – a prisoner convicted on drug charges who had his life sentence commuted by Obama in 2013, reports Vice News.
The trip, which will be recorded for a Vice documentary airing on HBO this fall, comes amidst the Obama administration’s broader efforts towards creating what it sees as a fairer US criminal justice system, mostly in response to tougher drug laws that disproportionately imprisoned minorities.
The New York Times reports that in the coming weeks, Obama is expected to issue orders freeing dozens of federal prisoners locked up on nonviolent drug offenses, possibly taking the total number of commutations under his presidency to more than 80.
This will mean he will probably commute more sentences at one time than any president has in nearly half a century.
Good for President Obama.
We may in fact have just about the least fair justice system on the planet, and minorities often get longer sentences than whites, and are locked up for increasingly minor offenses.
If President Obama could actually have a significant impact on our correctional system that alone would lock down his legacy. Not that the man who ended two wars, saved the economy, and brought health care to millions necessarily needs another feather in his cap.
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