Abstract
This brief think piece considers the uses of “people first” language in the context of incarceration, both from a historical and contemporary perspective, and offers some thoughts about the use of this language by prison researchers. It focuses on the uses of such language in the context of disability studies and rights, and the focus on language by activists working to challenge systemic racism and abuse in prison systems in the 1960s and 1970s. It makes an argument for prison researchers to work intentionally with their use of language in keeping with broader disciplinary concerns around meaning making in prisons.
Highlights
The meanings of language change over time
American social theorist George Herbert Mead (1913) advanced some of the earliest claims about how the self is formed in interaction with others; his work arguably birthed the symbolic interactionist
Email: alexandra.cox@essex.ac.uk tradition, which had a significant influence on the study of stigma, the stigma of criminality (Goffman, 1963)
Summary
An argument for the use of person-centered language is that it is a generally destigmatizing approach to people who face innumerable consequences—politically, socially, and psychologically—as a result of being affixed with a label that identifies them as ‘‘criminal.’’ For example, a recent statement by activists advocating for person-centered language points to these stigma: The mass incarceration system has relied on the same kind of dehumanizing language to sustain and legitimize its abuses. Convict, criminal, prisoner, offender, and perpetrator create a paradigm where the person is removed from the equation and individuals are defined by a single experience. These labels ignore the social, economic, and political drivers of mass incarceration and deprive people of their complex identities. They make reentry into society increasingly difficult due to stigmas and prejudices associated with these labels. (George and Mangla, 2019) These advocates argue that the stigmatizing effects of language can negatively affect a person’s ability to participate fully in social life and that they deprive people of their full personhood. In the American Journal of Epidemiology, the authors suggest that ‘‘inclusive’’ language about offending may have positive benefits for the ‘‘social, emotional, and physical well-being of individuals, families, and communities’’ (Bedell et al, 2018: 1141)
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