From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is the Daily.

Today, the President's son-in-law, Badley Wonson,

his attorney general, bitterly opposes him.

The highly personal battle inside the White House over prison law.

It's Monday, April 2.

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.

For Barack Obama and certainly for his attorney general at the time, Eric Holder,

their administration was a moment to really reconsider the way the United States has been fighting crime for a long time.

America spends $80 billion a year keeping folks locked up.

We represent 5% of the world's population, 25% of its inmates.

That's not an indicator that we want to be the leader in.

The big issue here, right, is that the United States has the largest prison population in the world.

Madapuzo covers national security for the times.

So what Obama and what Eric Holder started to do is say, what's driving that?

We need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish, to deter, and to rehabilitate, but not merely to warehouse and to forget.

Are there unfairnesses in the system? And can we reverse that?

Can we actually reverse the trend of where every year the prison population is higher than the year before?

This is our chance to bring America's criminal justice system in line with our most sacred values.

This is our opportunity to divine this time, our time, as one of progress and innovation.

This is our promise to forge a more just society.

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