President Obama sat down this week with David Simon, creator of HBO’s The Wire, to discuss the United States’ war on drugs and whether the nation’s criminal justice system could be reformed.
Before beginning the discussion, Obama told Simon that not only was The Wire one of the greatest television programs of all time, but one of the greatest “pieces of art” in the last few decades, and he said he was a huge fan. The show centers on the drug trade and police officers in Baltimore, Maryland.
Obama and Simon’s twelve-minute discussion focused on the need to reduce lengthy prison sentences for nonviolent offenders, as well as the impact of recidivism on the national labor participation rate.
The video was shown at Thursday’s Bipartisan Summit on Criminal Justice in Washington, D.C. Watch the full discussion between Obama and Simon below:
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