VIDEO: John Legend Petitions Fans and Obama to Support BAN THE BOX Campaign
Since I began the #FREEAMERICA campaign, I’ve heard first hand from people in prisons, jails and juvenile detention centers about the barriers they face when they try to re-enter “the world.” The past forty years of criminal justice policy have yielded crowded prisons and broken lives. The sentences have gotten longer and harsher, and too often we’ve chosen criminalization and incarceration over investment in our communities and human development. As a result of these policies, nearly 1 in 3 Americans have a criminal record that shows up on a routine background check, permanently shutting them out of the workforce. Please sign the Color of Change petition asking President Obama to sign an executive order to Ban the Box here: http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/tell-obama-ban-the-box
Posted by John Legend on Saturday, October 10, 2015
Earlier today, musical artist and social activist John Legend released a video to his over 8M Facebook fans asking them to sign a petition urging President Obama to do more for formerly incarcerated individuals, including the 6,000 inmates who will be released from federal prison later this month. Check out the video!
Specifically, Mr. Legend called on the President to issue an Executive Order "banning the box" (aka removing from their hiring applications the check box that asks if applicants have a criminal record) for positions offered by federal contractors.
With the video, John Legend included a link for interested fans to support Ban the Box, "Please sign the Color of Change petition asking President Obama to sign an executive order to Ban the Box here: http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/tell-obama-ban-the-box."
John Legend also serves as the Honorary Chairman of the My Brother's Keeper Alliance, launched with support from the White House earlier this year.
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