San Francisco board rebrands ‘convicted felon’ as ‘justice-involved person,’ sanitizes other crime lingo
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.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, from now on a convicted felon or an offender released from custody will be known as a “formerly incarcerated person,” or a “justice-involved” person or just a “returning resident.”
A juvenile “delinquent” will now be called a “young person with justice system involvement,” or a “young person impacted by the juvenile justice system.”
And drug addicts or substance abusers, meanwhile, will become “a person with a history of substance use.”
“We don’t want people to be forever labeled for the worst things that they have done,” Supervisor Matt Haney told the newspaper. “We want them ultimately to become contributing citizens, and referring to them as felons is like a scarlet letter that they can never get away from.”
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I appreciate the sentiment, but the only one of those nomers that’s really scrubbed is “returning resident.” Step in the right direction, I suppose.
Wow! Rational, forward thinking and compassionate. Definitely not the mentality here in Florida! Here in the Sunshine State it’s life long state sponsored character assassination, fear mongering, humiliation, ostracism and revenge!
uhm..let them learn from their mistakes and start over with out registry’s and with out branding them for life as any type of criminal would be a more intelligent and successful method…Well if you really wanted to solve the problem that is….
Just because you put your boots in the oven….it don’t make ‘em biscuits. Just more gutless useless words that try and sugar coat the issue without a meaningful attempt to solve the problem let alone a real solution to the problem. There is as much use for this as Bernie Sanders does for a comb.
This is great. We’re evolving. It’s good to see them leading the way.
So, What are they gonna call a Sex Offender ??. Because the label is INCORRECT !!!. Sex OffendER means a person who is Commiting a Sex Crime !! Like a SpeedER Law BreakER !!! If anything, They/We should be called EX-Sex OffendERs !!!. I’m glad things are starting to change, But like Florida, The changes seem to Forget the Ex-Sex OffendERs !!!. ……
Why can all ex felons be called and Ex-offender and not need an additional label. Everyone from law enforcement to jobs and apartment leasers can find out your past with the click of a button.
Calling us offenders mean we are out committing more crimes. Although a murderer did kill someone, is he or she still killing people? You cannot take back your offense but if we cannot move forward, what is the reward other than being in fear we will be re-arrested because we worse a blue short on green shirt day? Took me a year to get them to stop trying to arrest me because they had they kept changing the color of my vehicle in my registration. Can you imagine someone going to jail for having a red car and they have mauve listed an now you are a very bad man.