Incarceration nation its inside story. Woil to inside story, im ray suarez. There was a mass shooting thursday at a Military Reserve center in chattanooga, tennessee. Four u. S. Marines were killed, along with a gunman who has been identified as 24yearold mohammed. Mohammod youssuf abdulazeez. He was not on the radar of law enforcement. The fbi is looking at his motive. Al jazeera will follow that. Tonight we focus on what we call incarceration nation. Palay was the first sitting president to visit a federal prison, going to a Correctional Institution in oklahoma, where he noted the role on the war on drugs began in the 60s, in the inmates. A primary cif of this mass incarceration phenomenon is the drug laws. We have to consider whether this is the smartest way for us to control crime and rehabilitate palestinianers prisoners. Governments at all levels are taking a closer look at sentencing, though it comes a little late for sum. In 2004, this man was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The unintended target of an fbi sting. The stuj told him it was judge told him it was a stroke of bad luck leading to his conviction of carrying 50 grams of cocaine. I needed to sit down saying you did the wrong thing, you need to get your life together. I didnt need that much time. Reporter wade who was 25, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, and will be freed on july 28th of this year, not 2024. I have an email saying that the president decided to commute the sentence of 22 individuals. Im going through the list to see if there was anybody on it i know. Mine. In march president obama commuted wades. He and others, charged with drug offenses were serving life. Their punishments didnt fit the crime. If they were sentenced under todays laws nearly all would have served their time. I made clear to them that reentering society was a responsibility on their part, and hard work and smarter choices the latest commutations brings the total to 89, more than the last four president s. Part of a push to reverse the tough on crime measures enacted since the 1980s as part of the war on drugs. There are republicans and democrats behind the drive. Including bill clinton, putting his name to some of the sentences when he was in office. Up. Long. More reduced sentences pay come as the nation grapples with overcrowded prisons. More than 2 mill were in prison. Up from 500,000. More than 3,000 served life without parole for nonviolent drug crimes, costing the u. S. 80 billion to keep people locked up. Our system goes beyond that and is a system of mass incarceration that needs to be reigned in. With 18 months left in office, president obama, at a speech to the n. A. A. C. P. Agenda. Our criminal Justice System is not as smart as it should be, its not keeping us as safe as it should be, its not as fair as it should be. Mass incarceration makes the country worse off. It. That includes, according to the president , abolishing or reducing mandatory sentences, or nonviolent drug crimes. Even allowing future excons to vote and block employers from asking about their histories. Its a hard stance on lets get tough on crime is not working. It creates a one size fits all solution to a problem that i dont think they really understand. You cant just incarcerate the problem away. Joining me now the professor from the school of law. Is the programme driven by the war on drugs. Its laying on a rush. Absolutely. In the 1990s, something called the bill clinton law, what is known as the crime though. In the crime belt. You have to remember that at this time, in the early 1990s, that it was really when crack cocaine, and the urban areas in the country. Crime was rampant than it is today. And democrats, republicans and the like were responding and the reality that there was a crime problem those policies, in addition to increasing mandatory minimums, increasing laws on the books, all combined. What they did was capture more and more people in the system. From the early 1970s. We quarantined many. We have a dubious destinks of being the prison capital world. We imprisoned more people in this country than any other nation on the planet. The president was this a federal penitentiary. His range of movement was limited. If you look at prisoners across the country, a small are in federal lockup, arent they . Only a little more than 200,000 are in the federal system. 90 are in state prisons. How far, the president has down a lot in terms of he recently announced clemency, initiative, and has worked with former attorney holder to enact the smart on climb initiative. The president has done a lot in his administration over the last few years to focus the americans and improve the dialogue. It is part of the discussion, you have those running for president talking about how to improve the criminal just system. And the candidates running for president is talking about how to end mass incarceration, how to reduce the criminal incarcerations. The president is limited in a certain respect because so much of the population is in another state. He is the leader of the country, and is getting out there and giving speeches. No president visited a federal prison in this country. Hes setting you know, hes setting the bar here, and hes letting americans know that we have a real problem in the country. Mass incarcerations impacts 2. 3 million americans, but impacts their families. 2. 7 million children have a parent. So many that on sesame street there is a character alex whose parent is incarcerated. 4 million of those people cant vote because of the criminal record. The speech that he gave the past week, it really shows that of the president unders that mass incarceration is hurting our country, and that there are real Racial Disparities in the criminal Justice System, that we addition. If the law changes around a penalty for which you have been convicted, and you are going time, you dont automatically admit your sentence reduced, do you . Absolutely not. It depends on the law and the sentence. Some laws are past retroactively, meaning that if you are in prison currently, while the law is passed, you might receive the benefit of that law. Not all laws actually function that way. Retroactive. You have to begin a legal release . You would, yes. Certain laws are passed retroactively. The sentencing act that may be reduced, the crack cocaine disparities. There are people who will receive a retroactive benefit for some of those sentences. But there are some laws that are changed, unfortunately, while someone is serving, and they may not reap the benefit. Lauren, a senior counsel in the Brennan CenterJustice Programme where her work focuses on legal reform. Thank you for joining us. There may be growing recognition that locking up more people than any country on earth has its flaws, its not clear how you undo that approach. What do you do with ageing men that have not been free for decade, to you how do you design ali veslshi brings you a rare firsthand glimpse inside iran. Im trying to get a sense of what iranians are feeling. The effects of international sanctions. Rampant inflation. This is workth 100. Three years ago this was worth 250. What the nuclear deal means for the country, the region and the world. Iran doesnt want the agreement to be blown apart by the next u. S. President. A real look at life in iran. The galleries and the art and the parties. Everything, its getting better. Everyone has a story. And the only way to see all of america, is to see the human stories. One at a time. Get to know the people, their struggles, their hardships and their triumphs. It gives me a lot of pride. Our american story is written everyday. Its not always pretty but its real. And we show you like noone else can. This is our american story. This is america tonight. Mark, is there a longtail problem, because new people are coming in at the front end all the time, and the people sentences a long time ago still in. Mass incarceration is a function. They are sending more people to prison. We lead the world in incarceration and parole possibilities. Numbers are stacking up, suggesting that, yes, we need to divert people from prison if we want to reduce numbers, and look at how long we keep people in prison, and is that a smart way to go. If you put two grafts, one over the other, one shows crime going down during the same period as the number of inmates are going up. Why wouldnt americans conclude that putting a lot of americans in gaol could help the crime rate go down. Our legal culture, pilot call and social culture normalized human caging. When you cage so many humans, you are addicted to it. A lot of people clzs by virtue of the commonsense assumption that when you are looking up so many people, crime must be going down. That assumption is false. Theres not a single shred of evidence that locking human being in cages for minor offences reduces the crime that happens, theres an antiseatent question that is important to answer, to what degree was crime a problem when the laws were passed. Its less of a prab and fewer death are are caused by what we thing of as crime and criminality than are caused by inequality in Financial Markets and traffic accidents and dui. Many are causing death. We didnt rush to cage people who produce secrets or a small segment of the population. Millions belong in the segment. Its poor racial minorities. The reason people concluded that was because of who it was happening to, to the most people. If you change the sentencing formulas tomorrow and faxed every judge in the country, wouldnt we lie with a high rate time . Very high rates. There are proposals saying we should have a 50 reduction in prison population. If we did that, our rate of incarceration would still be that of westernized nations. Unless we do saying about people serving time many long past the point in which they could be the threat to safety. Reduction. Will it take an argument to be made to society that the money saved could be spent on keeping them being criminals. We need a social movement that changes the way we think. We have to understand and tell the stories of human being. They are dangers places full of rape and infectious disease. Until we understand what we subject people to, and understand theres not a threat of evidence subjecting people to those actions, until we understand that, i dont think arguments about cost will help the public make the changes that mark suggested are needed, even to bring us in line with other countries. Stay with us. Its all well and good to support in prince approximately. Is there the political will and the money. Is there the money to help them reintegrate in society. The iran nuclear deal. Every pathway to a Nuclear Weapon is cut off. For more depth. The narrative has shifted here in tehran. Iranians want the sanctions ended. More perspective. Every iranian will be happy. Iran cannot be trusted. More insight. Iran is actually trying to build trust with the international community. And more understanding. Stay with Al Jazeera America. I think were into something thats bigger than us thats the pain your mother feels when you disrespect her son. Me being here is defying all odds they were patriots, they wanted their country back Al Jazeera America presents the passion. Onward pain. Its too much though. And triumph. Inspirational real life stories. All these labels the world throws at you, thats what drives me to push. Of ordinary people i tasted the american dream. I liked it. Living extraordinary lives. If we could multiply this program, we could change the world. From the best filmmakers of our time, i give al jazeera tremendous credit, because its not traditionally what broadcast journalism does. The new home for original documentaries Al Jazeera America presents only on Al Jazeera America inside story. Welcome back to story. Im ray suarez. President obama visited a inmates. The first sitting president to do so. Hes been fielding requests for clemency, pardons, and has been speaking out about unfairness in the criminal Justice System. 89 commutations dont represent a dent when we look at ways to reform a system keeping mon than 2. 4 million behind bars. Incarceration nation. This time, alec and mark are with me. You heard what alec said before the break. If we change the way we handle this part of common life, dont we have to make a solid argument to the public that elects the procedures, and the elected officials who make sentencing guide lines . We need to make a broad Public Education argument. Its true, we have seen public movements throughout history. Most are not won on Cost Effective arguments, or dollar ground. Table. I think its a growing interest in evidence based bream work. We are kauking about better ways to treat human being, behaviours when its prison that promotes public safety, one doesnt harm it, what else could you do. Effective. Is it a time that introduce the kinds of reforms at a time when crime is low, when public fear around the issues is not as amped up as it was in the late 80s, and early 90s. There was a lot of effort to make the public think that they were constantly in fear and danger. It was a propaganda effort for people that wanted to for various reasons, wanted to increase the prison and gaol population, and we are a little more sophisticated. We have seen them do that, and we have the wherewithal to respond in ways we hadnt before. We havent mobleized an mobilized an engage public that is understanding of the issues sold to us on the promise that it will make us better. We have seen that it is a cruel joke. It is a time where we have learnt from our mistakes, we let them do this to us before, and will not let them do it again. It happens to be a time of reduced crime rates. I think they are dangerous statistics to rely on because of people that prepare them. They drive public sentiment. And im thinking about the political blow back, the first time a prominent prosecutor has to face a public that nose someone that got out early, has committed a crime, its inevitable. Those things will happen. The more we institutionalize different ways of approaching the problem, people have sense that we can take a certain level of risk in doing something. Its not like the system is performing at peak efficiency, it is performing miserably. As we get judges, prosecutors and communities invested in saying lets put people with a drug problem into treatment, lets have people do Community Service instead of sending them to the local gaol. The more connected, we can situations. Can you put muscle behind public sentiment to build a little protection around people that take a chance. I think theres a lot of goodwill. When political leaders get up and speak from the heart and research. I think a lot of people will say its an american thing. I dont like what hes saying, but i can understand what hes doing, and i respect him for it. Mark and alec, thank you both. Ill be back in a minute with a final thought about the punish the fitting the crime. You are watching inside story. For a crowdpleasing politician, theres rarely been much traction in promising voters to gaol fewer poem, and when you must, do it for less time. Sentencing laws are sticky. Once you seat high laws, in practice they come down more slowly than they arise. That is true as urban neighbourhoods were less scary. And remained so, high rates of longterm incarcerations in many communities, it starred to be less true when more and more cashstrapped states started to take the steadily climbing cost of imprisonment seriously, especially as more members start to enter their most expensive years of care. What do you know . Its easier to think clearly about equal justice under law when theres serious dough on the table. If politicians are not scrambling like bidders at an auction, it may not be important how they got there. Im ray suarez, thats the nds story inside story. This is al jazeera. Hello from al jazeeras headquarters in doha. This is the news hour. I am jane dutton. In the next 60 minutes, yemens exiled government says the city of aden is under itschrome. Memorial Services Held around the world to mark one year since flight mh17 was shot down over ukraine. Just hours after a double bombing at a Business Market in nigeria killed 50, northeast is hit by