Obama’s Going to Jail! He'll Make History as First Sitting US President to Visit Federal Prison

President Barack Obama will make history on Thursday by becoming the first sitting US president to see the inside of a federal prison. Obama is set to visit El Reno Federal Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison for male offenders near Oklahoma City, in a push to create a fairer justice system.

The effort is part of a weeklong focus on inequities in one of the most crowded and expensive criminal justice systems in the world.

"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 a speech at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's annual convention this week. "But you don't owe 20 years. You don't owe a life sentence. That's disproportionate to the price that should be paid."

Obama says taxpayers are the ones left footing the $80 billion annual cost of locking up people who otherwise could be rehabilitated for less money. He says overly harsh sentences, particularly for nonviolent drug crimes, are to blame for doubling the prison population in the past two decades. Half a million people were behind bars in 1980, that's since quadrupled to more than 2.2 million inmates.

Obama is scheduled to meet separately with law enforcement officials and nonviolent drug inmates, reports the Associated Press.

The President is looking for an alternative to the lengthy incarceration of people convicted of crimes he says did not fit the punishment. Fourteen of the convicts whose sentences he commuted earlier this week had been serving life in prison.

He also wants to restore voting rights to felons who have served their sentences, and for employers to "ban the box" that asks job applicants about their criminal histories.

Obama hopes that Congress will send him legislation to address the issue before he leaves office in 18 months.

As for Obama's safety while inside El Reno prison, White House press secretary Josh Earnest says "unique steps" will be taken to protect the President but did not elaborate.

Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary said "comprehensive security screening" will be conducted but says that's standard practice.