The Department of Justice just announced that people who serve prison time after being convicted of a crime will no longer have to bear the emotional pain of being called convicts or felons.
Instead, DOJ officials say released prisoners will now be referred to as a “person who committed a crime” and “individual who was incarcerated.”
The change comes after DOJ officials heard from convicted criminals who said “that no punishment is harsher than being permanently branded a ‘felon’ or ‘offender.’”
Assistant Attorney General Karol Mason explained in a post Wednesday in The Washington Post:
We will be using the new terminology in speeches, solicitations, website content, and social media posts, and I am hopeful that other agencies and organizations will consider doing the same.
Adjusting language in no way means condoning criminal or delinquent behavior. Those who commit crimes must be held accountable. But accountability requires making amends, an objective that is much harder to achieve when a person is denied the chance to move forward. The people who leave our correctional facilities every year have paid their debts. They deserve a chance to rebuild their lives. We, all of us, can help them by dispensing with useless and demeaning labels that freeze people in a single moment of time.
Our words have power. They shape and color our estimations and judgments. They can build up or tear down. The hundreds of thousands of people who come out of our prisons on an annual basis and the millions more who cycle through local jails need to hear that they are capable of making a change for the better. And with that message of inclusion, that we are holding them to the expectation that they become productive contributors to our communities’ safety and success.
It’s no secret that there are a massive number of people who shouldn’t be incarcerated serving time in our nation’s prisons. But there are plenty who do belong there.
So maybe a better thing for Justice officials to spend time on would be dismantling the prison/industrial complex and eliminating the incentive for laws that put low-level drug offenders and perpetrators of victimless crimes behind bars for years.
As for the rapists, robbers and violent thugs… yes, we do want them permanently branded.
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