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Karla Benitez
Benjamin Dudley
ENG 112-12
26 November 2016
Ban the Box
Many of us know someone that has been in jail, is in jail, or has chances of heading that
way because of wrong decisions. Criminal records follow these individuals even years after they
have paid debt to society. In some cases, the felony committed was not similar to a homicide or
murder. It is said that because of this record, many inmates that have been released are being
denied to start a prosper life. Many will want a second chance at life and desire a new start.
Many citizens may be in favor of this issue and others will simply go against with hiring any
person who has ever been in jail for the safety of the employees. The argument itself has a lot of
controversy. This has been an issue that has not yet been brought to everyones attention, until
this day when president Barrack Obama gave his side of things. President Barrack Obama is an
educated fifty four year old man who has been running the United States, as the 44th president,
for almost seven years. Throughout his many years of presidency, he has made many remarks
and suggestions on how to better our country. Obama adequately debates banning the criminal
record box from the employment applications, to give people with criminal record a chance in
society by providing sufficient organizational structure and appeal.
President Obama addresses the issue stating the benefits on giving people the opportunity
to slowly rehabilitate themselves with job opportunities after serving jail time. This speech was
given on November 2, 2015 in Newark, NJ in Rutgers University by president Barrack Obama.
He deliberately strikes on carrying his message especially to federal agencies, law enforcements,

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and citizens who can relate to this issue in any way. Also, many can argue that one of his main
audience groups would be any individual who owns any type of business. He avoids centering
his message to those citizens who cannot relate to this issue nor have interest in watching
politics. Although Obama was filmed during this presentation, he uses a written script in which
he bases his speech off of. It is a video that anyone can find by simply searching it up. Over a
thousand people have taken the time to watch it through the media, YouTube. It is a seventeen
minute long presentation but gets across all his main points and takes advantage of the time
given. He maintains a good body posture, while trying not to lose eye contact with his audience.
This reassures the importance of giving equal opportunities even to those who have done wrong
in the past but want to rehabilitate their life. His main argument revolves around an equal
opportunity for past inmates.
President Barrack Obama does not initiate his presentation immediately with his topic;
instead he quickly hooks his audience by starting his presentation with an interesting fact. He
states that there are currently 2.2 million people behind bars. He then continues the way to his
main point by listing many important statistical facts. He applies a lot of logic at the beginning of
his speech. By listing these facts he makes a solid and strong background to reinforce his
argument. He successfully switches persuasive strategies to appeal to his audiences emotions
and knowledge. He mentions that most of inmates are disproportionally Blacks and Latinos. He
seeks support from his audience as he proceeds into narrowing down his topic. He explores all
aspects of this issue and discusses on how it will not only affect communities, but also economy
as a whole. He addresses the audience by pointing out real people from in between the audience,
discussing how they went through this issue. He includes real life scenarios to support his central
idea. This technique brings out the importance of the issue by making it realistic and relatable to

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real life experiences. He calls out two people from the audience and uses them as witness to
support his central idea. All of his witnesses are of genders, male and female. This adds to his
credibility.
Obama then begins outlining actions and steps to work toward his goal. Some of his
contributions are providing enough funds for past inmates to have education, and to pass a law to
ban the criminal record box. He uses a very organized technique in this part of his presentation.
This technique helps put his main points in chronological order. He lists his present actions that
he is making to meet his goal, following his future actions. He then explains each action fully. He
mentions congress and legislation a couple of times during this section of his presentation.
Adding expert credibility influences more people to agree with his standing point. Immediately
after explaining his steps towards his goal, he jumps into giving a clear example of some
departments such as Wal-Mart, and Home Depot who have already taken the initiative to work
along with him in this process. Besides these department stores, he also mentions nineteen states
working along with his process. Including this type of information pushes his argument a step
forward by persuading the audience to take initiative as well.
President Obama goes into clarifying his main point overall to make a conclusion. He
briefly mentions that is not suggesting ignore the criminal record once and for all, but to not
ignore a persons working skills by a checked box in the application. This would include still
making background checks as security. This suggestion goes into giving his argument more
emotional sense. This again appeals to the audiences logic. He is saying that it would not make
sense to ignore the safety of the citizens completely, but to not ignore giving past inmates a
second chance either. Almost ten minutes into the speech, Obama uses humor to catch his
audience. He brings out both political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. These parties

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were mentioned and used to emphasize that some will not be in favor of him because of the
political differences. They are a way of also distinguishing both sides of the argument. After
going through all his main points that structured his main argument, president Obama decides to
go back and briefly touch on topics he used in the beginning. He goes back into giving another
real life example about a young man named Daquan Rosario. This time, he goes more into depth
about his personal life. Just like in the beginning, he points this gentleman out from the crowd. In
this part of the presentation, we learn many things from Daquan. Daquan was first arrested with a
drug charge at age seventeen. Once he was out of jail, at age thirty seven, he was homeless and
without a sustainable job. President Obama then takes advantage of his life story to reinforce the
importance of giving past inmates a second chance. He goes deeper into pointing out that Mr.
Rosario was now a completely different person and now successfully working his way back up in
society. He uses other witnesses such as Daquans probation officer to prove this event. In the
background, we can hear many cheers and applause from the audience. President Obama
includes this story as a way to work again inside the audiences emotions and feelings.
Before concluding, Obama once again restates the problem and the solution to the
problem. He also goes over all his goals and ideas. He uses a lot of ethos in his conclusion. Also,
he then again goes back to giving recognition to the people he used as examples. His
organization in the conclusion is topically, meaning he only goes over those most important
points made throughout the presentation. He is making a brief summary of his speech to give the
audience one more recap of what was said so they can retain the important points. President
Obama uses many techniques throughout his overall presentation to get his goal across. His
organization was structured and made many different approaches toward the crowd present and
to his audience. Its not too late, there are people who have made mistakes but with a little bit of

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help, they can get back on the right path and with this final quote, he gives thanks and ends his
presentation here.

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Works Cited

Barrack Obama-Ban the box. 2 November 2015. YouTube. Web. 9 February 2016.

Cris Barrish, The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal. "Study: 8 in 10 Released Inmates Return
to Del. Prisons." USA Today. Gannett, 31 July 2013. Web. 09 Feb. 2016.

Cris Barrish, The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal. "Study: 8 in 10 Released Inmates Return
to Del. Prisons." USA Today. Gannett, 31 July 2013. Web. 09 Feb. 2016.