The Pennsylvania prison system is joining the U.S. Department of Justice in doing away with “loaded” terms used to describe their residents. No longer will the state’s Department of Corrections refer to inmates as “offenders” and felons.” Instead, it will instead stick to the more innocuous (yet infinitely more confusing), “re-entrant,” or “justice associated individuals.”
The DOJ announced their new policy last month, and plans to use “substitute language” to describe federal offenders have since gone into effect. The impetus, at least, is kind: The program is designed, ostensibly, to reduce the “physical and… psychological barriers” to rejoining the world following incarceration, since labels like “ex-con” can prevent former Federal felons from obtaining gainful employment — among other needed things, like housing.
The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections is using the same rationale, but they also claim that they’re creating an “inspirational narrative” about prison that will “respect inmates’ humanity” and “create significant change” in the way society views former offenders.
But while the words to describe criminal offenders may change, it’s not clear how either the DOJ or the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections will keep the new vocabulary from adopting the same connotations as the old vocabulary. It’s only a matter of time before society assigns a definition to the word “re-entrant” or is sufficiently confused by “justice affiliated individual” (that could be anyone from a lawyer to a cop to a death row inmate) before the terms themselves become useless (or worse, as loaded as their predecessors). A “returning citizen” will still have a verifiable criminal record they will be legally required, in most cases, to disclose.
The DOJ and Pennsylvania DOC both also contend that they are “in no way” condoning criminal behavior by refusing to label criminals as criminals. However, by creating no meaningful distinction between any returning citizen and a “returning citizen” they’re certainly sending a mixed message.
