'There but for the grace of God': Obama visits federal prison in Oklahoma and says nonviolent drug criminals 'made mistakes that aren't that different from the mistakes I made'

• Obama visited Federal Correctional Institution El Reno, a medium-security prison in Oklahoma, and is the first sitting president to make such a trip 
• He was a rampant drug user in his adolescence, and acknowledged that without the right support he might be an inmate instead of a president 
• Wants an overhaul of 'mandatory minimum' federal prison sentences for nonviolent drug criminals, giving prosecutors more discretion
• On Monday he commuted the federal prison sentences of 46 nonviolent drug offenders, 14 of whom were serving life terms
• Obama is searching for 'legacy' projects including his Iran nuclear deal and this initiative that could have a broad impact on black families
• Black men are in American jails at a rate three times as large as their slice of the overall US population

By David Martosko, Us Political Editor For Dailymail.com and Associated Press

Published: 02:50 EST, 16 July 2015 | Updated: 19:04 EST, 16 July 2015

President Barack Obama's visit to an Oklahoma federal prison on Thursday included a stunning admission: He considers his own past drug use to be similar to the 'mistakes' that have landed hundreds of thousands of Americans behind bars.

'That's what strikes me – there but for the grace of God,' he said at the Federal Correctional Institution El Reno, according to a White House pool reporter. 'And that is something that we all have to think about.'

After meeting with a half-dozen inmates, all of them in prison for drug offenses, the president told reporters that 'visiting with these six individuals' was the biggest eye-opener of his unprecedented trip.

'When they describe their youth and their childhood, 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,' he told a gaggle of journalists.

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.'

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEOS 

MEETING: The unprecedented meeting between the president and four criminals in Reno prison. It is the first time a serving president has been in a federal prison 

YES, HE CAN: President Barack Obama went behind bars to extend his campaign for reform in the criminal justice system, becoming the first sitting president to see inside a federal prison

DON'T LOCK IT! The president went inside a prison cell to see the living conditions for himself

CHOOM GANG WALKING: Obama was a rampant drug user in his adolescence, and acknowledged that without the right kind of supervision and support he might be an inmate instead of a president

VISIT: Obama is seen walking the hallways of an Oklahoma federal prison 

TRIP: Obama's visit 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 for himself

But on Thursday he reflected on his upbringing and concluded that the drug convicts he met 'did not have the kind of support structures, the second chances, the resources that would allow them to survive those mistakes.' 

In addition to hearing from a select few inmates, the president stepped inside cell number 123, a 9x10 foot concrete room that houses three men, although it was meant for one.

Inside he saw three bunks, sink and a toilet with no seat, a wood night table holding books including a dictionary, and a few metal cabinets according to VICE News.

Obama is beginning a push to reform America's crime-and-punishment infrastructure, saying Thursday 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's visit 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 for himself.

El Reno, near Oklahoma City, is a medium-security prison for male offenders. 

Obama behind bars: We need to reassess drug sentencing

HOME, NOT SO SWEET HOME: Three federal inmates live in a cell like this one, which is furnished with simple beds and cabinets along with a toilet and a sink

REFORM: The president has highlighted inequities in the criminal justice system all week. On Monday, he commuted the federal prison sentences of 46 nonviolent drug offenders, 14 of whom were serving life terms

The unusual cellblock tour – it was emptied out for his safety – came as Obama eases into the twilight months of his presidency with an eye toward leaving behind a few lasting legacies.

Tuesday's bold nuclear deal with Iran will be one such program; changing the dynamic that sees more than 2.2 million Americans behind bars at any one time is another.

And as the first African-American U.S. president, an administration official said Thursday, Obama feels pressure to act: Nearly 40 per cent of U.S. prison and jail inmates are Non-Hispanic blacks – three times their proportion in the nation's population.

'There's no denying that the president wants to stop the revolving doors of prisons from swinging open again and again for low-level nonviolent offenders,' the official said, 'especially in minority communities where the absence of these – mostly – men is felt the most.'

That bit of sociology is seen as a key factor in prison reform: making sure black and Hispanic offenders who don't need to be behind bars are returned to their families.

African-American males are far more likely to be incarcerated, or to die young, than their white counterparts. 

According to a recent New York Times analysis, for every 100 American black women age 25-54 living outside of jails, the U.S. Census can find just 84 black men. Among whites, that 84-100 ratio climbs to 99-100.

Clinton: A lot of minor criminals were locked up for too long

FAIRER: Obama argued this week for shortening or eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, and against solitary confinement

The impact of all those 'missing' black men, the Times found, can be measured in marriages that never take place, family stability that erodes, and the skyrocketing number of children born outside wedlock. 

'If you have minor drug dealers serving 30-year sentences, and they were never violent offenders,' the administration official said Thursday, 'it makes a lot of sense to send them home.' 

Underlying Obama's push for fairness is the discomfiting fact that black drug offenders are more likely to languish behind bars for decades while whites leave custody earlier.

That is in part because of sentencing laws crafted in reaction to a 1980s epidemic of crack cocaine addiction in U.S. inner cities.

Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1986, believing crack was a more dangerous and addictive drug than powder cocaine.

As a result, possessing or selling 10 grams of crack brought the same mandatory minimum sentence that applied to an entire kilogram of powder.

Since crack was initially a phenomenon found mostly in black communities, that 100-to-1 disparity put thousands of African-American men behind bars – and kept them there long after their white counterparts were set free.

In 2010 Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act, which threw out the 100-to-1 gap and replaced it with an 18-to-1 difference. The American Civil Liberties Union says the result 'still reflects outdated and discredited assumptions about crack cocaine.'

'Because crack and powder cocaine are two forms of the same drug,' the group says, 'there should not be any disparity in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine offenses – the only truly fair ratio is 1:1.'

Former President Bill Clinton accepted some of the blame on Wednesday for making the problem worse with a tough-on-crime overhaul law he signed in the 1990s.

He said during a speech at the NAACP convention in Philadelphia that he wants to 'admit' his role in reacting to a 'roaring decade of rising crime.'

Clinton said there were a lot of people 'who were essentially locked up who were minor actors for way too long.' 

Obama has argued forcefully this week for an alternative to the continued lengthy incarceration of people convicted of crimes that he agrees don't fit their punishments.

On Monday he commuted the federal prison sentences of 46 nonviolent drug offenders, 14 of whom were serving life terms.

'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 his own NAACP speech.

'But you don't owe 20 years. You don't owe a life sentence. That's disproportionate to the price that should be paid.'

The White House touted the president's Oklahome prison visit as a launching point for a legacy-setting reform of America's criminal justice system

Reality check: Obama is the first sitting US president to visit a federal prison, in a push to reform one of the most expensive and crowded prison systems in the world

Obama said taxpayers are the ones left to pay the $80 billion annual cost of locking up people who otherwise could be in rehabilitative programs for less than the cost of incarceration. 

Or they could be workers paying taxes, or be more involved in their children's lives, or be role models and leaders in their communities.

He also called for restoring voting rights to felons who have served their sentences, and said employers should 'ban the box' that asks job applicants about their criminal histories.

'Mass incarceration makes our country worse off, and we need to do something about it,' he said. 

As part of his push to leave a lasting mark on black communities, Obama oversees a White House program called 'My Brother's Keeper' – meant in part to help keep black and Latino boys out of the criminal justice system.

A half-million people in America were behind bars in 1980, a figure that has since quadrupled to its current total of more than 2.2 million inmates. 

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, a 2016 presidential contender, is the lone GOP White House hopeful pushing to restore voting rights to nonviolent felons who have served their sentences.

While at the El Reno prison on Thursday, Obama will also be interviewed for an upcoming Vice News documentary on the criminal justice system.

The goal is usually to keep people with criminal histories far away from a president, not to put a president in their midst. 

But as much as it may defy logic, the controlled environment of a prison is better than many of the public venues where presidents appear, said Danny Spriggs, a former deputy director of the U.S. Secret Service, which provides the president's security.

Who comes and goes from a prison is strictly limited and everyone's background is known.

'It's better that he goes there than out in the general public,' Spriggs said.

Obama: Prison reform will come one step at a time

Growing population: 2.2 million prisoners are housed in the United States, which is more men and women behind bars than the top 35 European countries combined

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said 'unique steps' will be taken to protect Obama during the visit. He did not elaborate.

Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary said 'comprehensive security screening' will be conducted, calling it standard practice.

Spriggs, who said he is familiar with El Reno, said Obama's prison tour likely will be limited to critical areas, and those areas will be roped off so that access is given only to the warden and immediate staff so they can explain what happens there daily.

'Those hallways will be clear,' Spriggs said.

Spriggs, meanwhile, drew a distinction between violent and nonviolent crimes and said not everyone with a criminal past is kept away from the president.

'The idea that you keep the president away from all who have criminal records is ... simply not true,' he said. 

______________________________________________________________________________ 

I MADE THE PROBLEM WORSE: BILL CLINTON TURNS HIS BACK ON THE 1994 THREE STRIKES LAW WHICH HILLARY LOVED TOO 

Bill Clinton has admitted that signing a bill designed to crack down on crime and reform prisons 'made the problem worse'.

The former president said Wednesday that the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act he signed in 1994 put too many people in prison for too long.

Telling a convention audience in Philadelphia he wanted to 'admit' his role in imprisoning so many Americans, Clinton said: 'I signed a bill that made the problem worse - and I want to admit it.'

Scroll down for video  

Mea culpa: Clinton, pictured above in Philadelphia on Wednesday, confessed that he contributed to mass incarceration in the U.S. by signing a tough crime bill in 1994

Back then: Clinton, then in his second year of office, is pictured above signing the bill, which he described as 'this great law, the toughest and smartest crime bill in our history'

Clinton: A lot of minor criminals were locked up for too long

'In that bill, there were longer sentences. And most of these people are in prison under state law, but the federal law set a trend. And that was overdone. We were wrong about that.' 

At the time, Clinton held an open-air event attended by hundreds of congressmen and officials to usher in the new bill, which he promised would 'restore the line between right and wrong'.

At the signing ceremony on the National Mall, Clinton called the bill 'this great law, the toughest and smartest crime bill in our history', and emphasized that 'people who commit crimes should be caught, convicted and punished.'

However, at his latest speech Clinton also defended the bill as the response to 'a roaring decade of rising crime'.

He said: 'We had gang warfare on the streets. We had little children being shot dead on the streets who were just innocent bystanders standing in the wrong place.'

'The good news is we had the biggest drop in crime in history. The bad news is we had a lot people who were locked up, who were minor actors, for way too long'. 

Clinton's mea culpa, to the NAACP convention, echoes the views of President Barack Obama and candidate Hillary Clinton, both of whom have recently spoken about a problem of 'mass incarceration'.

The day after Clinton spoke, Obama made the first-ever presidential visit to a federal prison, and pledged to do more to help nonviolent inmates, many of whom are behind bars for drug use.

He recently commuted the sentences of 46 convicts who were jailed for drug use.

Hillary's latest stance is also a marked change of heart. When her husband was preparing to sign the bill, she was specifically in favor of the harsher new prison terms.

Changed her tune: Hillary Clinton, above on the campaign trail, took a tough line on repeat offender before - but now says that large jail populations are crippling America

According to CNN, at the time of the signing Hillary Clinton said: 'We will finally be able to say, loudly and clearly, that for repeat, violent, criminal offenders: three strikes and you're out. We are tired of putting you back in through the revolving door.'

Her tone on the issue is now very different.

At a speech in April in the wake of riots in Baltimore, she said that the high prison population was perpetuating poverty in the U.S.

She said: 'One in every 28 children in our country now has a parent in prison. They're not there to look after their children or bring home a paycheck, and the consequences are profound.

'Without the mass incarceration that we currently practice, millions fewer people would be living in poverty.

'We need a true national debate about how to reduce our prison population while keeping our communities safe.'

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