El Reno Federal Prison in Oklahoma gets a visit in July 2015 from Barack Obama, the first sitting president to walk into a federal prison, with VICE News cameras following him inside. The film uses that visit as its spine, cutting between Obama's conversations with inmates and the wider story of American mass incarceration, a policy that took hold roughly fifty years ago and now holds more than two million people, disproportionately black and Hispanic men serving long mandatory-minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. Interview subjects include former Attorney General Eric Holder, a federal judge, and a law enforcement whistleblower, each weighing in on sentencing law, policing, and the near-total absence of rehabilitation programs inside the system. Inmates describe how addiction or the lack of legal work pushed them toward drugs, and how a felony record makes return to prison likely after release. The film also tracks the bipartisan push for reform in Washington and how little of it has actually passed into law, leaving the people it profiles waiting.