This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, December 25, 2015, and Caleb Brown.

For those in prison, a holiday visit from a family member can mean everything,

and for families compelled to drive as many as 500 miles to visit a

father, a mother, a son or daughter, well it could be a very expensive and taxing

endeavor. I spoke with Molly Gill of families against mandatory minimums about the burden of

distance when family members are imprisoned and about President Obama's record

thus far on commutations and pardons. Many prisoners, especially at the federal level,

they are kept in facilities that are oftentimes many hundreds of miles away from their families which for any attempt to visit them

can be quite an expensive and time-consuming ordeal. That's correct in the the Bureau of Prisons, they have a policy generally speaking that they try to place prisoners

within 500 miles of their families where they will be released. Now 500 miles is still an awfully long way

to go in traffic in bad weather. The people who are incarcerated often come from

poorer communities.

It's a full day drive at any rate.

Exactly.

And they may not have families that have vehicles that can make that distance. Prisons are often in rural locations,

so sometimes you're talking about a flight plus a rental car,

which of course increases the costs even more

for these families.

So it's very, very hard to get to a prison sometimes

to visit a loved one during the holidays.

Why does that matter though?

I mean, if I'm a get tough on crime kind of guy,

...