One way United States President Barack Obama is fulfilling his stated goal to reform the U.S. criminal justice system is by granting presidential pardons to prisoners.

On March 30, President Obama announced 61 grants of clemency to inmates. More than a third of those prisoners were serving life sentences.

Speaking at a luncheon with formerly incarcerated individuals, the outgoing president remarked:

I am going to continue to emphasize the importance of pardons and commutations going forward. Today, we commuted 61 additional individuals who are deserving and who I believe will be looking at the people sitting here at this table as models and inspiration for what is possible in their lives. That will mean that, at this point, I will have commuted [248] sentences, which is more than the previous six presidents combined.But we’re not done, and we’re going to keep on working on this until I leave.

On July 14, 2015, the day after he shortened the prison sentences of 46 people convicted for nonviolent drug crimes, President Obama told the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (naacp) in Philadelphia that “the people in our prisons have made some mistakes—and sometimes big mistakes.” But, he added, “they are also Americans.”

But giving more rights to the prisoners doesn’t only radically transform the justice system, it drastically reshapes society!

The 248 sentences which Obama commuted include 92 life sentences. The rap sheets of some of the prisoners pardoned by President Obama include crimes such as possession with intent to distribute cocaine, illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, and using/carrying a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking offense.

(Listen to the Trumpet Daily Radio Show discussing this subject here.)

At the naacp meeting, President Obama said:

By just about every measure, the life chances for black and Hispanic youth still lag far behind those of their white peers. …Part of this is a legacy of hundreds of years of slavery and segregation, and structural inequalities that compounded over generations. It did not happen by accident. Partly it’s a result of continuing, if sometimes more subtle, bigotry—whether in who gets called back for a job interview, or who gets suspended from school, or what neighborhood you are able to rent an apartment in …. [W]e can’t be satisfied … until the opportunity gap is closed for everybody in America. Everybody. But today, I want to focus on one aspect of American life that remains particularly skewed by race and by wealth, a source of inequity that has ripple effects on families and on communities and ultimately on our nation—and that is our criminal justice system. …[O]ur criminal justice system isn’t as smart as it should be. It’s not keeping us as safe as it should be. It is not as fair as it should be. Mass incarceration makes our country worse off, and we need to do something about it.

Two days later, President Obama visited the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in Oklahoma, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit a federal prison. During his visit, the president said in a brief question-and-answer session that what struck him most during his visit was that many of the inmates “are young people who made mistakes that aren’t different than the mistakes I made, and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made.” He explained: “The difference is that they did not have the kind of support structures, the second chances, the resources that would allow them to survive those mistakes.”

But some of those prisoners are repeating the same mistakes that got them incarcerated in the first place. This is especially so among illegal immigrants.

On June 15, 2015, the Washington Times reported on government data which attributed 121 murders to illegals released by the Obama administration.

In his Trumpet article “The Worst Prison Break in American History,” Jeremiah Jacques wrote:

During the six years Mr. Obama has been in power, the Department of Homeland Security (dhs) has knowingly released some 195,900 criminally convicted illegal immigrants onto America’s streets. That averages out to about 85 convicted criminals released per day.

The administration has not only knowingly released these criminals, it has diligently worked to cover up these facts!

Meanwhile, many of America’s big cities are experiencing huge spikes in violent crimes. High demand for dangerous drugs like heroin among people living in suburbs is fueling violence between gangs selling drugs in the cities. Gangs are being supplied with drugs from Mexican cartels that have been exploiting America’s open southern border.

The mix is toxic, and it’s leading to the fulfillment of biblical prophecies that forecast violence in our major cities.