A crime wave is sweeping the country, Save Jerseyans, and the Murphy Administration is focused on what we call the criminals once they’ve landed behind bars. Yes, there’s nothing wrong with your smart phone or computer monitor. You read that correctly.
In case you missed it, the New Jersey Law Revision Commission met on March 17th and, among other business, advanced a plan to replace “inmate” with “person-first” language wherever it appears (which is over 1,000 places in New Jersey’s body of laws).
“A shift to person-first language has begun in the field of criminal justice, with advocates recommending a change from terms characterized as “dehumanizing” and “stigmatizing” to those that focus on an individual’s identify and their capacity for growth.6 In New Jersey, the use of person-first language to refer to persons who are incarcerated can be found in the statutes, but its use in this context has not been uniform,” the Commission’s report explains. “In light of the increased focus in recent years on descriptive terms contained in statutes, the presence of the term “inmate” in more than 250 individual statutes may support consideration of its elimination from the statutes.”
Here’s one example provided in the appendix:
Ground-breaking stuff, Save Jerseyans!
Public comment – which would be retitled “public laughter” in a more sane time – wraps up on May 16th.
The proposed changes come as the Murphy Administration continues to release inmates from New Jersey’s jails and prisons (some of them convicted of violent crimes) all in the name of Covid-19 despite the fact that the declared health “emergency” has ended. So far, around 6,200 have been released and an estimated 9-10% have subsequently been picked up for a new alleged offense.
