POTUS Announces Executive Orders on Criminal Justice Reform

NEWARK, NJ— Students were surprised to receive a message from Chancellor Nancy Cantor on Friday evening announcing President Barack Obama’s visit to the Rutgers University—Newark campus to speak about criminal justice reform. In her message, Cantor informed students that the Center for Law and Justice would be the center of the President’s visit and would therefore be closed to the public, along with several local streets.

When students arrived to campus this morning, preparations for the President’s visit were underway. Sanitation trucks blocked Bleeker Street, University Avenue, Warren Street, and Washington Street. Parking lots were closed. K9 units patrolled university grounds and police officers were seen on every corner. In anticipation of high volumes of traffic, some professors canceled class. Senior Vice Chancellor Peter Englot described the event as “[a] landmark day in the history of our university.”

For hours before the President’s arrival, the lower level atrium of the Rutgers Center for Law and Justice was crowded with politicos, Rutgers administrators, members of the press, and state officials, among them Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Senator Cory Booker, and Congressman Donald Payne Jr. Students stood on University Avenue to watch the fleet of cars and motorcade and perhaps grab a glimpse of the President as he entered the university.

“It’s wonderful to have the President of the United States talking about something we care so deeply about,” Cantor, one of the key organizers of the event, said. “It’s just a really great support for the kind of work that we do here at Rutgers in Newark.”

At approximately 4:20PM, a roar of applause and an orchestra of camera shutters greeted the President of the United States as he made his way to the podium.

“It is good to be in Newark,” the President began. “Over the course of this year, I’ve been talking to people all across the country about reforming our criminal justice system to be fair, to be smarter, to be more effective.”

President Obama announced two executive orders during his speech, the first for an increase in grants for non-profits that help returning citizens reintegrate into society by providing or aiding with housing, job training, and education. The second executive order was to “ban the box”, referring to the check box on job applications asking about previous criminal history.

“We can’t dismiss people out of hand simply because of a mistake that they made in the past,” the President said. He hoped that like Walmart, Target, Coke, and Home Depot, other corporations would follow through and ban the box on their own as well.

Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo expressed support for the announcement.

“We’re dealing with the largest jail in the state of New Jersey—the Essex County Corrections Facility,” DiVincenzo said. “There’s no question that there are people in our jails that shouldn’t be in our jails. They should all be given a second chance.”

With more than 600,000 inmates being released each year, and more than 70 million Americans with a criminal record, the President repeatedly emphasized the need for prison and reentry reform.

“A lot of times, that [criminal] record disqualifies you from playing a role in our society, even if you’ve already paid your debt,” he said. “It means millions of Americans have difficulty even getting their foot in the door to get a job, much less than to keep the actual job.”

The President cited three different examples of how former inmates were able to reintegrate into society when given the proper help. Derrill Rose, who was charged with drug-related crimes in 2013, is now a member of Integrity House and working towards reintegrating into his community. Ashley Sinclair, who had spent the first 21 years of her life involved in street crimes, joined Project Hope and later earned a job with the Newark Department of Sanitation. DeQuan Rosario, who was 17 when he was first arrested and 27 when he received a ten-year prison sentence, found a support group within his community after being released from prison and moved on to become a certified EMT in Essex County, saving lives as opposed to destroying them.

In making a conscious effort to reintegrate prisoners, the President emphasized that “it’s good for everyone”: crime rates decrease as well as recidivism, less taxpayer money is spent on incarceration, police officers aren’t arresting the same people over and over, and young people are seeing role models in their community.

“That, in turn, creates economies in those communities that are legal, not just illegal, which creates redevelopment for everybody,” President Obama said. “And now suddenly businesses have more customers, which means they’re hiring more. You get a virtuous cycle.”

“The goal is to prevent crime, to make sure that folks are fairly punished when they break the law, but the ultimate goal is to make sure that folks are law abiding, self sufficient, good citizens, and everything we do should be designed towards that goal,” the President said. “If we’re doing a good job there, then crime will go down and stay down.

Published by The Observer

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