>> i'm mary snow in for ali velshi. "on target" tonight. the cost of injustice. thousand the president wants to show mercy to people he says are just like him. plus an exonerated death row inmate learning just how little his life is worth. president obama went to prison this week to make his case for reforming the u.s. criminal justice system. he visited the el reno correctional institution near oklahoma city, becoming the first sitting president to visit the federal prison. the president met with inmates and walked past cells with big gray doors, to address the social and financial cost that incarcerated millions of americans, many of them latino

an black. why contractual justice reform has attracted bipartisan mowms. firsmomentum. first though, look at pictures that have helped exacerbate the prison problems, five times high are than nation's prison population in 1980. the surge mostly flks changes in sentencing laws in the 1980s and 90s, those laws are a key reason that although the united states accounts for less than 5% of the world's population it now has more than 20% of the globe's prison population. president obama this week said the $80 billion the united states spends every year on incarceration comes at the expense of more effective ways of deterring crime. he challenged congress to pass a bipartisan spending proposal, of

course that's not going to happen but there is broad support for doing something to reduce how much america spends on lock up nonviolent prisoners. what's especially unique about the president's proposals is that many republicans actually support them. let's go now to our chief white house correspondent mike viqueria in washington. mike this is an issue you wouldn't expect democrats and republicans to in agreement on is it? >> well it is a unique issue in that sense mary i'm glad you brought that up. we have seen a few issues that have come across the radar where we've reached that cultural tipping point on marijuana laws on pot laws on gay marriage on the confederate flag but the distinction of those issues is those are issues that the republican leadership doesn't want to deal with it, they know they're on the wrong side and they know rank and file is against what's happening in society and the loose 96 of laws and taking down of the

confederate flag. those are issues republican leadership doesn't even wand to get in the middle of. americans have always been for free trade, they're joining barack obama as they did with bill clinton to try to push that through song. closest is immigration, where the republican leaders want to do more as does president obama but rank and file republicans won't do that. the so-called war on drugs in the 1980s during the crack epidemic really tying the hands of judges and prosecutors forcing mandatory minimum sentence is around those drug laws of ten years and 20 years and life imprisonment for many of them. much has been said about the racial disparities lock up a disproportionate number of earn americans, with the laws geared towards possession of crack and other controlled substances.

you have a moment where you have no one less than john boehner the republican speaker of the house that says it's not only too expensive, an average of $37,000 a year to lock someone up in a penitentiary but he says quote unquote flimsy reasons. >> mike viqueria, thank you so much for joining us, mike viqueria the chief white house correspondent on al jazeera. included commuting sentences of 46 mostly nonviolent drug offenders. the president has issued more than 90 commutations while in office, including one man who was serving sentence at the same prison president obama is visited this week. heidi zhou-castro has the story.

>> i'm a 40-year-old inmate, i was given had sentence to distribute crack cocaine and other controlled substances. >> jason hernandez's last hope. he was 15 when he began selling drugs in mckikinney texas. he said it was easy money in the '90s. >> when i was 17 i was buying every week a kiloof cocaine, a pound of weed and 50 pounds of methamphetamine. >> he never used the drugs himself he said, but by age 21 he became the king pin of a drug distribution network. at the time did you think how you were destroying your community by feeding your community all around you?

>> at the time no, it didn't cross my mind once, i'll be honest, it didn't and again that's how sick i was at that time. that's how corrupt my mind was. >> reporter: then in 1998 hernandez was indicted. he had no previous offenses, but when his sentence was over crack he received life without parole. the sentences for crack cocaine were 100 times more severe than for powder. congress would reduce the disparity in 2010. but the change had no impact on offenders already serving a sentence and by then hernandez was into the seventh year of his lifelong term. >> how often did you think this was the last place you would see? >> i thought about it finally every day. i just think this is my life i righright here, i'm going to die

right here. >> it was here in el reno, oklahoma, that hernandez decided to petition the president. >> i thank you for you your time mr. president and i hope that after you read my me, you will come to the conclusion that i'm not a bad person but a person who made bad decisions. >> he responded. >> be it known that i barack obama, president of the united states of america, in consideration of the -- other premises, of good, and sufficient reasons be thereunto move be grant the state application. >> the executive grant of clemency commuted hernandez'

life sentence to 20 years. hernandez was released last november. he now lives with his parents in texas and has two jobs using the wemedding certificate he earned in prison to fix cars and putting his experience in the prison kitchen at work in this nonprofit cafe. >> why should we believe that you won't make the same mistake again? >> because president obama, he's kind of like a father to me. i see him as a father. he basically gave me life again. and like any son who wants to obey his teart father, wants toe his father proud, that's what i want to do. >> heidi zhou-castro, al jazeera, dallas. >> next up, what did he get for

it, not even an apology, his story when we come back. >> and more understanding... stay with al jazeera america.

>> a growing number of voices say the u.s. legal system doesn't value everyone's life equally. especially the lives of minorities. injustice is especially hard to take when it comes to men and women who have been wrongly sent to prison. even when the truth is revealed, some falsely accused be men and women receive very little, even

money. duarte geraldino has the story. >> first it didn't seem real, actually being on death row as a kid. >> it's been more than 15 years and sharif can't brief the sharpness of lfns prison life, the size of the cell where he lived for years on death row. >> i need space. i don't like to be closed in. >> reporter: he was in high school when he first made headlines. charged with first degree murder, 16 when he learned he was to be strapped into a cot and, in front of state selected witnesses, injected with a lethal cocktail that would kill him. the attorney for sharif kuzan says he uncovered proof that he couldn't have committed the murder. >> sleesharif remembers the

prosecutor who seemed to positive. >> this is an afternoon mall, he doesn't deserve to liver, we need to kill him, return a verdict of death. >> reporter: in 1999, sharif was exonerated of first degree murder but because he pled guilty to another charge he spent several years in prison before being eventually released. >> i was free maybe two years before louisiana enacted a compensation bill. >> reporter: that's when he learned being compensated required lot of lawyers, special classifications, luck and a lot more time than he could afford. $. >> 15,000 a year and you average it out like 7 and some cent an hour. $7 an hour, what am i going to do with $7 an hour is that all my life is worth?

$7 an hour? that's not worth it, i'm going to get my own life together. >> sharif is 36 years old now, is a father and has a job helping newly released prisoners. >> abcdefg. >> but sometimes has a time to quiet his inner demons. >> where i can get some of the mental health services that you know, that i think i need. >> sharif is just one of hundreds of exonerees with no compensation or any state spowrs. thsupport. the innocence project represents 320 former detainees. >> some sort of compensation by the way this is often after protracted litigation. >> to sharif the battle to get what louisiana says people like

him deserve speaks to a broader problem pf. how little american society values lives like his. >> it wasn't any or we're going to lock sharif up. it wasn't me. i was a young black kid whose life didn't mean anything to the system. >> there are 1624 known exonerees, they are overwhelmingly male, come from low income families, most were convicted before they were 28 and are disproportionately black or hispanic. >> i was 13 i got arrested for a simple burglary charge, stealing video games. >> 17 states and the federal government pay exonerees, the same amount for imprisonment. the almost a middle class wage but not enough to jump start a life.

>> while i was in prison i wasn't able to get a trade. >> 20 states are no compensation laws. after looking through the bars and fences the exonerated must file civil lawsuits. the barriers between exonerees and the public are numerous. they have to prove that prosecutors intentionally committed misconduct. if he is partially responsible for the charges, he gets nothing. they settle hoping for leniency. >> these statutes assume you contributed to your own imprisonment and are therefore not entitled to exoneration. >> laws are applied unevenly.

>> it is evidence of a system that is picking and choosing who they want to apologize to. >> the state law make are wesley t. bishop helped raise louisiana's compensation to $25 a year but not much else. >> particularly here in louisiana when we're trying to choose moneys to educate our kids, money for our health care and our seniors, money for our economic centers money for our senior citizens, there's never enough money to do what we need to do. >> reporter: for sharif it's never been about just the money. he seize the value of his own life in his infant son's life. but a world that discounts his potential his intellect and humanity as much as it did his father's. >> see it's all better. >> well duarte geraldino joins us now. duarte, an extraordinary story. you mentioned what got him into trouble was pleading to an

unrelatecrime which he says he didn't commit. why did he plead guilty? >> he was pleading guilty, in custody when this unrelatecharge came up and his lawyer told him, why why don't we plea-bargain this one to get this one out of the way to focus on the murder trial and also hopefully to get some goodwill from the judge. well the prosecutor used that guilty plea as a point of evidence against him and ultimately he was sentenced to death. >> this seems like a extreme case that went to death row but what do we know of the cases like this where people might be pleading guilty to crimes they didn't commit just because they don't have the proper attorneys or just don't know what to could? >> it often boils down to money, oftentimes, he pled guilty because he couldn't deal with what happens when i'm convicted twice? ultimately he was.

the overwhelming majority of cases are settled with a plea deal and often the include clus, the plea deal makes more perfect sense to me. i heard one person put it very succinctly. if you boils down to what you think your own life is worth, and you only make $10,000 a year, you can get this over with. it's sad when you think about it. >> pleading guilty when people don't have the means to fight these, it follows you forever right? >> it follows you forever. these are one of the things that are particularly troubling. when we think of the exonerations, people are often

charged with very, very serious crimes, facing death or decades behind bars. that's because there's very little money out there to actually fight the battle to exonerate them so you have a lot of people who have been wrongfully convicted but only serving one year and nobody has the money to fight that case. what happens? they get out of prison and sunlt you have a history, a record and that record makes it more likely for police to come after you if a crime has been committed, like in his case. >> and how many people are going to hire somebody with a record. >> that's the trouble. >> thank you duarte geraldino. next recording justice, body cameras that can hold police to account, be warneddists a two-way street, those cameras can expose much more of your life than you ever bargained for.

>> the high-profile deadly confrontations between police and civilians the last two years have increased the calls for police to wear body cameras. police believe it will hold them accountable for their action he and but each encounter with the public raises the question of everything provocative that ends up on youtube. libby casey reports. >> this small device weighing just three and a half ounces could revolutionize policing in america. body cameras will hold police account annal for their actions. one study report they'd when officers wore body cameras there was a 60% drop in use of force

and 80% drop of citizen complaints. but they reveal the dangers police face every day on the job. >> turn it off. >> the officer was shot three times in his bullet proof vest and once in the leg but he survived and the suspect was later caught. since the death of michael brown, a black teenage are killed by a white officer in ferguson, missouri, police across the nation have rushed to equip officers with body worn cameras to document their actions. and the department of justice announced a $20 million program this year to help police departments purchase the cameras. it's boom times for the companies that sell the cameras, too. taser international is known for its controversial nonlethal weapons but it's also become the leading manufacturer of body

worn cameras used by police. went from $3 million in 2012 to more than $57 million in 2014. how many cameras have come out of the factory? >> pretty many, since the first quarter of 2014. >> you make hundreds a day? >> we can make hundreds a day and get thousands out in a week. >> reporter: police body cameras are now in more than 5,000 of the nation's 18,000 police departments, including new orleans, los angeles and in chest cheschesapeake, virginia. they are worn by every officer who walks the street takes a call or makes a traffic stop. >> did you have reservation about bringing body cameras into the police force here? >> no i didn't. since we went full on into deploying the scam last on everyone who works in the field our complaints have gone down

about 44%. >> from citizens. >> from citizens. >> complaints about police officers? is. >> that's correct. >> when i went on patrol with officer albert farr goa, an 11 n 11-year-old veteran, i asked him about the camera. >> you turn it on at any time you're in the car? >> i can press the button and it records. >> do you tell people that you're filming them and the camera's on. >> occasionally i do. a lot of times people don't see the camera. it's very small on my shoulder. if they're not paying attention at looking at me, looking in my eyes they won't see it and they're not going to remember, they will not remember they're being recorded, i will not tell them. >> why not? >> i want them to continue to talk to me and tell me

information i need. >> you're not obligated to tell them? >> absolutely not. >> that raises questions about individual privacy and police body cameras. >> cameras have a lot of potential to invade people's privacy. be a lot of police calls are for domestic violence. they're seeing people at the worst point of their lives, they're seeing people in cars as they die. there is a lot of things that police see that you don't want to end up on youtube. >> yet, the aclu is in favor of arnlg police with bodarming pol. >> there's good reason to believe if they're done right body cameras can really help this very serious widespread problem we have of police abuse. >> but one prois that because this is such a new be problem is

policies vary from department to department about who can access the videoless i videos. in seattle, washington, police post most of their video after blurring the image. d.u.i. incident videotapes by an officer. >> your neighbor wants to see the video. does your neighbor have a right to see what took place in your house? i'm not so certain that they do. >> a sobering thought and as body cameras become standard issue for police officers around the country we're only beginning to understand the consequences of what it means to record everything. >> unfortunately, police officers are people. and they don't always make the right decisions. we just don't because we're not perfect. and there's probably going to be a time where the officer makes a bad decision, it's on camera and it's going to protect the

citizens. and there's going to be times when the citizens don't cooperate or act like they should with the officer and it's going to protect the officer. it's just the case. >> it's on your shoulder, sit that powerful. >> i think it is. >> libby casey, al jazeera. >> al jazeera will spend more time examining the criminal justice system o this weekend. imran garda will examine this on sunday. and this weekend ali velshi will bring you an inside look at the nation and the people who call it home and hopefully sheart some stereotypes along the way. that's this sunday night. that's our show for today. i'm mary snow, thanks for joining us.

>> flames on a free way. a brush fire jumps a major california highway burning dozens of vehicles, and forcing hundreds of people to walk to safety. looking for answers. a day after a gunman killed four marines in chattanooga, investigators in the community try to make sense of the voyages. high level talks. president obama tells saudi officials why the nuclear deal with iran is good news for their country and their region.