Language

“What we need is a criminal justice policy for *people* who commit crime—incarcerated *people*, *people* with felony convictions, *people* on parole, even *people* who have caused great harm and should be held meaningfully accountable. Any truly effective policy solutions will make central the humanity of everyone directly impacted by crime—including those who commit it.”

--Danielle Sered, Director, Common Justice, excerpted from The Marshall Project’s Inmate. Prisoner. Other. Discussed.

For many years, Osborne has joined with fellow criminal justice organizations to promote the use of humanizing, neutral, person-first language for individuals involved in the criminal justice system. We are at a turning point in the national conversation on criminal justice. For individuals and organizations working to dismantle mass incarceration and support the people it affects, there is clear value in respecting and believing in human dignity: to offer opportunities that honor all of our capacities to change.

Yet this goal—and our mission to create a safer and more just world—is undermined when we use language that emphasizes incarceration over personhood. If we accept—as individuals, organizations, or passive consumers of media outlets that promote our work—the use of marginalizing language, we fail to uphold these values and miss the opportunity to align our thoughts, words, and actions for an impact toward safety and justice for all.

The Opportunity Agenda offers a creative framing of this call through their Tips for Talking Criminal Justice Reform Issues. Their toolkit includes a comic book personification of their mission—the superhero Helvetika Bold. Bold uses inspiring and hopeful stories to confront Mindset, a cartoon villain who embodies “the dominant narrative, which focuses people away from the true causes of inequality by laying blame on the people most affected by it.“ Language that relegates people as “ex-cons,” “criminals,” or “felons” neatly serves Mindset’s work.

For many, it feels reasonable to accept “ex-con” or “inmate” as common parlance. And some formerly incarcerated people claim these words as their own and use them in their own speech, but we also know the effect that such language has, because we work with people every day who are rebuilding lives of responsibility and contribution. We ask you to join us in using thoughtful language when working with or speaking about people who have some prior criminal justice involvement. Here’s why: too often, people who come home from prison are all-too-accustomed to being called strongly negative terms that easily and often evoke precisely the dehumanizing and demoralizing effect desired by those who speak them. Words such as these negate the fuller identity of the person, who may be a child, a parent, a student, a teacher, an advocate, and more. They hurt the individuals who hear them and the families of people who are in prison. Osborne joins with other organizations to say that this language is no longer acceptable in a society that believes in second chances.

In his TED Talk, “We Need to Talk About an Injustice,” Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, asserts there is a relationship between identity labels on human dignity, and its protection under law. He said:

ultimately, our humanity depends on everyone’s humanity… I’ve come to understand and to believe that each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. I believe that for every person on the planet. I think if somebody tells a lie, they’re not just a liar. I think if somebody takes something that doesn’t belong to them, they’re not just a thief. I think even if you kill someone, you’re not just a killer. And because of that there’s this basic human dignity that must be respected by law.

Creative resources like The Opportunity Agenda’s toolkit and comic book build on work such as The Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions (CNUS) Language Letter Campaign, and there are now many communications resources available to inform the ongoing national dialogue. The Marshall Project’s public discussion on language reveals how nuanced and personal our language preferences can be. The Advancement Project and The Opportunity Agenda’s Social Justice Phrase Guide call for accurately and respectfully talking about people’s identities, not only by dropping ableist and culturally inappropriate idioms, but by eliminating terms that label people by past or current convictions posed against them.

These resources—and several others from our community listed below—promote humanizing, neutral, person-first language for individuals involved in the criminal justice system. We encourage you to share the resources with your network, and to let us know if there are resources you have found helpful that we should include. The New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents is working to lift the voices of children affected by parental incarceration in this conversation, and you can get involved in their effort by emailing ahollihan@osborneny.org. We invite you to connect with us via twitter and facebook to amplify calls to action on social media.