By Matt Patterson
The Oklahoman
OKLAHOMA CITY — President Barack Obama’s historic visit to the federal prison in El Reno is highlighted in a special episode of “Vice” premiering at 8 p.m. Sunday on HBO.
The visit to Federal Correctional Institution, El Reno was the first time a sitting president visited a working federal prison.
Beyond that milestone, the trip was used to examine the problem of stiff prison sentences for nonviolent offenders in the federal system.
The program was given special access to Obama’s visit by the White House including the time he spent talking with inmates.
“Vice Special Report: Fixing The System” makes a convincing case for reform in part by the use of statistics that have become disturbing to both Democratic and Republican politicians in recent years.
The United States accounts for about five percent of the world’s population, but also has 25 percent of the world’s inmates, “Vice” founder Shane Smith noted in the film.
There are 2.2 million people behind bars in the U.S., a 700 percent increase from 1970.
Words from the prisoners themselves are the heart of the film. Bobby Reed went to prison 19 years ago for selling drugs to pay back a loan he got from a drug dealer. Reed said he needed the money to prop up his failing business. He was given life without the possibility of parole.
“It doesn’t take five years or 10 years for a person to be rehabilitated,” Reed says. “And it surely doesn’t take 20, 30, 40 or 50 years because your life is gone. Your life is completely gone.”
David Shaw took a 15-year plea deal to avoid a long sentence for a drug offense even though he was already in prison for another crime at the time the drug sale was supposed to have been committed.
“If it went to trial and I lost, my attorney told me I was looking at life,” Shaw said.
The plea deals have become common. Sgt. Michael Wood of the Baltimore Police Department spoke about his squad’s reputation as one of the best in the city because it had the most arrests.
“I couldn’t go into a gated community and arrest a judge’s 16-year-old son for pot, but if I do that to someone in a low income neighborhood they get fed into the system,” Wood said. “They become a nice stat for the officer and the prosecutor that was nice and easy.”
United States District Court Judge John Gleeson said the federal drug trial is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. He said fewer than three percent go to trial with most choosing a plea deal over rolling the dice with a judge and a jury where stiffer sentences are a possibility.
“Sometimes they (prosecutors) use their power to compel an outcome that is unjust,” Gleeson said.
Striking a hopeful tone in the end, the documentary finishes with the efforts of those on both sides of the aisle to move toward reform. Comments from Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee on the Senate floor are among those featured.
“We are all unified in saying common sense reforms need to be enacted,” Cruz said.