It appears from the article, “State Dept. of Corrections find the term ‘offender’ offensive” that our government employees really don’t have enough useful work to keep them busy, and I find that offensive! I would think that in corrections, there would always be “work” in trying to actually improve the programs offered to those incarcerated among other things, rather than trying to force corrections workers into learning a new vocabulary.
Offenders, felons and those incarcerated should know and it should be reinforced in programs — there is a civil/legal penalty to pay for causing harm to society as well as a social penalty. If the state really wanted to replace the word “offender,” then why not use the word that describes the “student’s, patient’s, individual’s” actual felony? How about convicted murderer, rapist, thief or domestic violence assaulter? It isn’t society’s job to pretend they barely did anything wrong!
The word “stereotype” means a word which is a conventional (widely accepted) word(s) relaying a concept, opinion or image. So where one word would do, as in “offender,” the state Department of Correction., and the U.S. Department of Justice programs would like people to use four or five words to say what one word adequately stated previously?
The phrase “people in our care” is usually meant to be children in day care or at school, patients in hospitals of people in nursing homes not felons! As Marge Fairweather said, aren’t these people supposed to be “in your custody?”
Rather than force corrections workers to label an ex-felon, or offender, what they are not, why doesn’t the state focus on programs that teach ex-felons to not re-offend and to show society by actions that they have become more than just an “offender”?.
Catherine Paxton
Arlington
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