Highlights
Calling a violent white supremacist a justice-involved person seems racist to me. Calling a sexual predator a returning citizen seems sexist. Does the #metoo movement exist?
You can’t split hairs. Either the terms apply to everyone caught up in the justice system or they apply to no one.
If you care about the welfare of marginalized people, how can you dismiss crime victims as collateral damage?
Author
Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.
Retired federal senior spokesperson. Thirty-five years of award-winning public relations for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed multiple times by every national news outlet. Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former Adjunct Associate Professor of criminology and public affairs-University of Maryland, University College. Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime” national media campaign. Certificate of Advanced Study-Johns Hopkins University. Aspiring drummer.
Introduction
There is a movement across the country to lessen the burden for those returning from prison by renouncing the terms “criminal” or “ex-offender.” Reformers want to call them “justice-involved individuals,” or “returning citizens.”
My question is how your daughter will feel after learning that her rapist is now a returning citizen.
Do ex-offenders really gain anything from the sanitized terminology?
Examples
Is Jeffrey Epstein a justice-involved individual, or is he a sexual predator? Is Dennis Rader (the bind-torture-kill serial killer) a returning citizen? What about David Berkowitz (Son of Sam)?
What about the person who raped your child or the predator minister or priest who abused hundreds?
What do we call the men who hold women in psychological bondage by threatening their jobs if they don’t comply with sexual demands?
What happens to the person shot or stabbed (especially children) who will never fully recover from her physical or psychological wounds?
What about the person who tortures or abuses their children or elderly family members or pets?
Are school shooters returning citizens?
What do we call white supremacists who terrorize African Americans or Jews or Hispanics or the rest of us when released from prison?
Questions
So you don’t like the prospect of referring to outrageously destructive people as returning citizens or justice-involved people? Is it a matter of degree? Is it OK to refer to an armed robber or burglar as a returning citizen because they seem to be less impactful than the examples above?
Do you understand that 65 percent of the current prison population is there because of violent offenses and that the great majority of the rest either have violent backgrounds or repeat victimizations or both, Bureau of Justice Statistics?
There are no first or second or third-time offenders in prison unless they have committed a very violent act. The great majority of people convicted of felonies do not go to prison. The majority of violent offenders serve three years or less, Released Offenders.
If we want to lessen the psychological burden of people returning from prison and prompt their successful reentry into society, is softening their history destructive to the people they victimized?
Are the gentler terms welcomed by offenders?
Victim Advocate
I had years associated with the national and state crime victims movement, and I listened to dozens of victims telling me that their lives had become almost unlivable. I could go on endlessly describing the psychological trauma people experienced.
Criminal victimization is insidious, destroying the lives of endless numbers of people because of their violent and property victimizations. Yes, people spent tens of thousands of dollars escaping their old neighborhoods due to property and violent crimes.
So how do they react to cities and advocates calling their victimizers, “justice-involved people,” or “returning citizens?”
San Francisco (direct quotes)
Crime-ridden San Francisco has introduced new sanitized language for criminals, getting rid of words such as “offender” and “addict” while changing “convicted felon” to “justice-involved person.”
The Board of Supervisors adopted the changes last month even as the city reels from one of the highest crime rates in the country and staggering inequality exemplified by pervasive homelessness alongside Silicon Valley wealth.
The local officials say the new language will help change people’s views about those who commit crimes, Fox News.
But the truth is that there are plenty of entities beyond San Francisco that use the same language. This includes federal agencies and the US Department of Justice (Google the terms).
Conservative VS Liberal
It’s a shame that it’s the conservative media bringing this discussion to the table when there are millions of people who feel the same way regardless as to their political affiliation.
This includes the mainstream media who routinely use harsh terms such as ex-con, criminal, felon, habitual offender, violent criminal and many others. They don’t want the endless social media comments making them look out of touch with the people they serve.
Most of us see crime as cancer or any other disease because we see first hand how destructive criminal events are. Crime destroys people, neighborhoods, communities, cities, metropolitan areas, jobs, schools, and economic welfare. If you care about the welfare of marginalized people, how could you dismiss crime victims as collateral damage?
I could be mean and suggest that the great majority of people advocating for softer terms for offenders have never spent time with victims of crime. But that would be unfair, right?
Advocating For Offenders
There are few who have spent more time and effort advocating for people caught up in the justice system than me. I support forms of sentencing reform and suggest that not everyone who commits a crime needs to go to prison or go there for so long. We tend to over-criminalize an array of acts, which includes marijuana possession.
I have asked for prisons to be turned into educational and vocational centers mentoring to the mental health and substance abuse needs of offenders.
These services should transfer seamlessly to community supervision.
I don’t do this because I’m liberal or sympathetic to the plight of offenders. I do it for pragmatic reasons and the belief that I would like to lessen their burden on society, make us all safer and reduce our tax burden. I’m also concerned about those who genuinely try not to return to crime.
Unfortunately, the data to date is that rehabilitation efforts are uniformly failures and that the rearrest and reincarceration rate is outrageously high. Research efforts need to be a priority, Prison Intakes.
What Offenders Think
After talking extensively with hundreds of offenders, I believe that the terms create more harm than good. The ones dedicated to doing well simply don’t care what you call them as long as they have a fair shake at a job and other assistance.
They understand that descriptive terms are a suckers paradise; something advocates and governments do when they are out of ideas and unwilling to spend money on programs and research. If I had a dollar for every offender who rolled his eyes as to insincere descriptive terminology, I would be a rich man. They understand when they are being played.
Conclusion
But after being intimately involved in the lives of crime victims for decades, I believe that the terms of “justice-involved individuals” or “returning citizens” convey a sympathy and concern most crime victims never received.
Calling a violent white supremacist a justice-involved person seems racist to me. Calling a sexual predator a returning citizen seems sexist. Does the #metoo movement exist?
You can’t split hairs. Either the terms apply to everyone caught up in the justice system or they apply to no one.
There is a point where terminology is harmful to everyone, from victim to offenders. We have bigger fish to fry; more important things to do. It’s time to move on to more productive issues.
See More
See more articles on crime and justice at Crime in America.
Contact
Contact us at leonardsipes@gmail.com.
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