Obama at Federal Pen: Inmates ‘Made Mistakes Not that Different from Mistakes I’ve Made’

BARACK OBAMA, at El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in Oklahoma: “Visiting with these — with these six individuals, and I have said this before, when they describe their youth, and their childhood — these are young people who made mistakes that aren’t that different than the mistakes I made, and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made. The difference is they did not have the kind of support structures, the second chances, the resources, that would allow them to survive those mistakes.

"And you know, I think we have a tendency sometimes to almost take for granted or think that it is normal that so many young people end up in our criminal justice system. It is not normal. It is not what happens in other countries. What is normal is teenagers doing stupid things. What is normal is young people making mistakes. And we have to be able to distinguish between dangerous individuals who need to be incapacitated and incarcerated versus young people who are in an environment in which they are adapted by — if given different opportunities and different vision of life, could be driving the way that we are. That’s what strikes me; but for the grace of God. And that I think is something that we always have to think about.”