NARSOL: People First Language
The following was circulated to all affiliates by Cindy at NARSOL. I think it’s a very useful message. When dealing with others, you might want to suggest they re-phrase their labels.
Hello friends,
I’m sharing the following text and link with you on person first language. I don’t know how quickly this change will occur however I tell you it made a difference within the committees. The biggest challenge is getting people to stop saying Sex Offender Registry. I personally like Emily Horowitz’s suggestion calling it a Sex Offense Registry.
If you have examples to add to my short list please send them along.
Thanks.
I recently participated as a co chair of a work group, Advocacy and Legislation, and a member of the larger Reentry Housing Workgroup co chaired by Representative Brandon McGhee (Hartford and Windsor Locks) and the Commission on Equity and Opportunity.
I sent out the communication below requesting that the workgroups refrain from using labels publicly at hearings and in the written report. I’d like to now ask you the same. Person first language only. It starts with me, you.. it’s a work in progress but I promise change if we all adhere and refrain from harmful labels. Thank you.
Excerpt by Cindy Prizio:
I have been seeking changes to policies and statutes governing sexual offenses for 3+ years. Every time the label “sex offender” is used someone is being hurt. I am, my loved one is ..the family sitting next to me..Restorative justice is about making people whole. If we help with one hand and vilify with the other, how is this helping?
“Why are we calling people what we don’t want them to be?” Person-first language identifies the person apart from the behavior.
I’ve included a link below to a blog written by Drs. Alissa Ackerman and Gwenda Willis and David Prescott LICSW on person-first language. While it is written primarily for treatment providers of people who commit sexual offenses it applies to all of us.
Excerpt:
Labels are commonplace in every day communication, and when self-selected they can aid communication. However, assigned to us, labels have potential to stigmatize and harm. As highlighted by Brene Brown
“The sorting we do to ourselves and to one another is, at best, unintentional and reflexive. At worst, it is stereotyping that dehumanizes. The paradox is that we all love the ready-made filing system, so handy when we want to quickly categorize people, but we resent it when we’re the ones getting filed away”
Judge Stefan Underhill, a Federal Judge for the district of Connecticut, insists that people who are being prosecuted in his court be called by their names.
A prison warden outside of CT has mandated his corrections staff call people who are incarcerated by their names.
I don’t believe there is malintent on most people’s part. The label sex offender is used by the legal system however to the person who wears the scarlet letter it brings shame and stigma. What comes to mind lately based on the conversations we’re having on re entry: if you could walk in his shoes, if you could walk in my/our shoes.. you would know why I ask this of you. Less harm to all.
It starts with us.
A heartfelt thank you,
Cindy Prizio, One Standard of Justice
*Suggestions:
.A person who has committed xx offense..
.A person on the registry
.A sex offense registry
.Returning citizen
.A registry for the publicly convicted
.A person who has been convicted..
.A person who is incarcerated
person first language
https://sajrt.blogspot.com/2018/05/person-first-language-establishing.html
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Along those same lines what makes the drug dealer that deals that poison to out children and causes all that death from overdoses. Are they on a registry? No! What about the habitual drunk driver that has had an accident or accidents with serious injuries or death. Are they on a registry? once again no! Might as well include murderers. No registry for them either. I believe it was two years ago when a man from I believe Massachusetts had killed someone in that state and did his time and came t Florida and murdered his roommate. Could this been prevented with a registry. I kind of doubt it.. This is just one of the many terrible things that have happened and will continue to happen whether there is a registry for them or not. Registries are not the answer.
I don’t understand why we have various levels of murder convictions ( manslaugter, first, second degree, premeditated, etc), and subsequently different prison terms and outcomes but there can’t be the same consideration for sexual offenses (non-violent, possession of cp, and on up). Why do the courts have to lump them all together? Especially after they’ve paid their debt to society. Is there any progress in the courts to date in changing the registration laws in florida?
A tiered registry would be a step in the right direction, but there is nothing proposed in the legislature to take us there.
Let’s think about this.
I was caught cheating on an elementary school spelling test (this is true), but I don’t constantly carry the label of “cheater” around with me, and I definitely don’t appear on a school-sponsored “cheaters’ registry”. I once tripped and dropped a library book, accidentally damaging it, but when I walk back in to the library nowadays, I don’t see a big poster saying “Beware of this clumsy book-damager! He broke the spine on Tom Sawyer in 1995!” Many people I know have quit smoking, and once they quit, they no longer carry the label of “smoker”.
The real challenge, then, is to show that people CAN get better. Why don’t people believe this? One of the big things that keeps the term “offender” in use seems to be the idea of incurability. According to 12-step theory, people with alcoholism (i.e. “alcoholics”) cannot be cured – their greatest hope is not to be cured, or to return to normal, but only to become “recovering alcoholics”, fearful that one drink would send them back down the tubes. The same attitude is found in much of sex offender treatment, which is largely built on an addictions model anyway (e.g. SUDs, lapses, stinking thinking, etc.). That is, you can quit smoking for good, and then you are no longer a smoker. You can turn in your helmet, and then you are no longer a football player. You can quit committing sexual offenses, but you will never no longer be a sex offender, because sex offenders are for life.
Robert C is on to something here — particularly with the analogy to smoking. Once smokers quit, wouldn’t it be ridiculous if we still referred to them as smokers? They should be respected — just like those who have learned healthier ways to deal with problem sexual behavior.