* Center Square…
Illinois legislators set to change ‘offender’ to ‘justice-impacted individual’
House Bill 4409 would add Illinois Department of Corrections representation to the Adult Redeploy Illinois oversight board, but it also changes the word “offender” to “justice-impacted individuals.” Republicans on the Senate floor said the name change could cost taxpayers thousands of dollars.
* CWB ran the Center Square story with the headline: “Apologizing for the criminal? Illinois set to change ‘offender’ to ‘justice-impacted individual’ in state laws.”
* Paul Vallas…
* Fox News…
Illinois Democratic state lawmakers are aiming to change the word “offender” to “justice-impacted individual” with a new bill.
House Bill 4409 will amend the Illinois Crime Reduction Act of 2009 to change “references from ‘offenders’ to ‘justice-impacted individuals,’” among other changes, according to a summary of the bill.
* Elon…
Twitter went wild.
* WGN tried to clear things up…
The proposed change blew up on social media, with some people mistakenly thinking that people who commit crimes would get a rebranding. Instead, it would only apply to participants in one program meant to rehabilitate people and keep them out of prison.
The specific proposed law, House Bill 4409, would remove the term “offender” and replace it with “justice impacted individual” for men and women in the state’s “Adult Redeploy Illinois” program, commonly referred to as A.R.I.
A.R.I. is an initiative that aims to keep some offenders from going to prison by connecting them to rehabilitation programs.
* This is a county-run program. Here’s DuPage’s description…
DuPage County was one of the first ARI sites, initiated in January 2011 to create a program that provides intensive supervision and community-based resources and support services to participants exhibiting probation-violative behavior that could otherwise result in a prison sentence. DuPage County ARI uses motivational interviewing, individualized case plans, and a coaching model which strives to create collaborative, strengths-based relationships with participants to tailor services to the needs of each participant and connect them to community-based treatment and support.
DuPage County ARI provides participants with access to in-house evidence-based group treatment including Thinking for a Change, Moral Reconation Therapy, and the Moving On program; in-house individual and small group sessions; community-based substance use and mental health disorder treatment; recognition ceremonies and incentives to support positive behavior and growth; and recovery coaching. DuPage County ARI is responsive to social determinants of health by providing participants access to transportation assistance; educational opportunities (GED testing, vocational certificates, and training); vital records assistance; rental and temporary housing assistance; and emergency supplies (e.g., clothes, hygiene products, toiletries) using ARI funding.
The DuPage County ARI program is a partnership between the 18th Judicial Circuit’s Probation and Court Services Department; the DuPage County Public Defender and State’s Attorney’s Offices; community-based treatment providers; local businesses that provide employment opportunities to participants; the Path to Recovery Program; the JUST DuPage Program, which provides recovery support, education/vocational services, and reentry and life skills programming; and DuPage PADS, which provides support to individuals experiencing homelessness.
It’s such a minor thing. But, I mean, I can easily see why people could be irritated by the phrase. It’s just so egg-head. People don’t talk that way.
- Bob - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 8:10 am:
It’s not far off the mark. Recently, IDOC rebranded them “Individuals in Custody”. They are no longer to be called “Inmate” or “Offender”
- TNR - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 8:34 am:
== People don’t talk that way. ==
Yep. We Dems can complain about the phony right-wing outrage machine all we want, but that’s the bottom line. And we wonder why we’re losing ground with working class folks, including the slow erosion of working class Black and Hispanic voters.
- Amalia - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 8:35 am:
from the site of the dupage description linked: “The Crime Reduction Act (Public Act 96-0761) was amended in 2018 to allow Adult Redeploy Illinois funds for services to individuals with any probation-eligible offense (previously only non-violent)” so not just language creep in the past?
- Flyin'Elvis'-Utah Chapter - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 8:38 am:
My experience, people will use terms they have used for years, despite re-branding. Try renaming a stadium, arena, or hospital. Bantera Center at SIU will remain the Arena for those of us a certain age until we die.
As far as outrage from the right, the sun will set in the west this evening. I’m thankful I have enough going on in my life not to get upset at every little thing.
- Elijah Snow - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 8:38 am:
“People don’t talk that way.” Counterpoint: the law isn’t written in colloquial English. But agree: this is the kind of thing that one uncle you can’t stand to talk to at parties fixates on.
- Stephanie Kollmann - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 8:51 am:
==people will use terms they have used for years, despite re-branding==
Human beings are not the Sears Tower.
A lot of phrases considered perfectly acceptable to call people during my childhood, especially people with disabilities, are now either virtually gone or recognized as slurs.
“Offender” isn’t in that phase yet. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to refer to people this way, or that language can’t or won’t change.
- Stephanie Kollmann - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 8:53 am:
Also, not to pile on, but I personally don’t care for the phrase “justice-impacted individual.”
I just don’t see how my aesthetic preferences for new terminology are relevant. It’s harmful to call people “offenders” and that’s a lot more important.
- West Side the Best Side - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 8:59 am:
The usual suspects are out there running around like their orange hair is on fire because of the change in language, but that is the kind of egg head thing that will will be used to hurt the Dems as TNR noted. I happen to think American democracy is at stake in November and worry that more people are getting their misinformation from social media than real information from WGN. (Didn’t read Twitter comments, just don’t want to do anything that encourages the car salesman.)
- western sun - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 8:59 am:
we can go with what Rich calls incarcerated individuals……..Perps.
- sulla - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 9:00 am:
Can justice-impacted individuals eat freedom fries at the prison cafeteria?
I’m sorry, “prison” is probably a non-inclusive term these days. I should probably have used “secured and sequestered public rehabilitation domicile” instead.
I apologize for being an antiquated language impacted individual.
- Siualum - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 9:06 am:
Garbage man or sanitary engineer?
- North Sider, CTA Rider - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 9:23 am:
== People don’t talk that way. ==
Agreed. Why didn’t they just change the term to “participant”. That’s the term DuPage County uses in their description of the program.
- Excitable Boy - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 9:46 am:
- But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to refer to people this way, or that language can’t or won’t change. -
Fine, but justice impacted individual still sounds incredibly silly. The right wing outrage machine is going to do what they do, it doesn’t help when liberals in a bubble write their jokes for them.
- Annonin' - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 9:47 am:
Garbage man or sanitary engineer?
How about non-recycable matter remover?
- Donnie Elgin - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 9:55 am:
=justice-impacted individual=
The statute may be the only place that protracted phrase will be commonly used.
- Jerry - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 9:59 am:
It costs $30,000.00 to $60,000.00 a year of tax payer dollars to incarcerate prisoners. It’s not free. So what DuPage County is doing is to save some money.
- Election-impacted individual - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 10:05 am:
The big hyphen lobby wins again.
- ZC - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 10:06 am:
Meh. It’s a weird-sounding phrase, granted, but you can’t really mollify the right-wing outrage machine. If you messaged everything they want, they’d define new ways to be outraged. They don’t get money / clicks unless they find a way to position themselves to the right of wherever you are.
- We've never had one before - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 10:19 am:
Newspeak by any other name…
- Hannibal Lecter - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 10:29 am:
=== Yep. We Dems can complain about the phony right-wing outrage machine all we want, but that’s the bottom line. And we wonder why we’re losing ground with working class folks, including the slow erosion of working class Black and Hispanic voters. ===
Hit the nail on the head right there.
- SWIL_Voter - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 10:31 am:
In my experience this has nothing to do with how people talk conversationally and everything to do with defining who the population actually is. And it can be different program to program. Nobody is trying to change what you call them. They just need buttoned up definitions for purposes of administering the program. All the terms being thrown around have specific meanings in the law, regardless of what you conversationally call somebody with a conviction. Like incarcerated individual means somebody behind bars and not somebody with a conviction who is on probation. Justice impacted individual likely includes everybody who has been impacted in some way by the criminal justice system. Many of these changes are just about having precise definitions people can actually use to administer the programs. Just a guess based on experience. Do we know WHY they’re doing this?
- Sad - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 10:32 am:
==People don’t talk that way.==
See also: Birthing people (formerly known as “mothers”)
- James - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 10:35 am:
Liberals love tinkering with language. It lets them feel like they are doing something…without actually doing anything…
- Liz - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 10:39 am:
see also: “returning citizen.”
You might think that refers to veterans who are reintegrating to civilian life after being discharged from military service, as I initially did.
No, it refers to programs to help parolees from prison.
- SWIL_Voter - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 10:43 am:
“ see also: “returning citizen.”
This term, unlike “incarcerated individual” includes a time component to clarify it’s likely referring to people who are soon to be released. All these terms have meanings specific to the programs they’re for and the purposes the law is trying to carry out
- Liz - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 10:46 am:
“=justice-impacted individual=
The statute may be the only place that protracted phrase will be commonly used.”
No, that euphemism is well-established as a means of obscuring the crimes these individuals have committed by implying their challenges are because the criminal justice system “impacted” them.
- JoanP - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 10:49 am:
= individuals with any probation-eligible offense (previously only non-violent)” so not just language creep in the past? =
That’s not “language creep”. Because some violent offenses are probationable, that’s an actual change in eligibility.
- SWIL_Voter - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 10:52 am:
“ obscuring the crimes these individuals”
Incorrect. It is intentionally broad to include people who may not have served time behind bars but are otherwise impacted by some aspect of the criminal justice system. Spending the weekend in jail for a crime you are ultimately acquitted of can still impact a person
- Don't Believe The Hype - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 10:54 am:
==People don’t talk that way.==
See also: Birthing people (formerly known as “mothers”)
It’s my understanding that “menstruators” is the proper term for pregnant people once they are no longer pregnant.
- Anonymous - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 10:58 am:
This is a whole lot of Republican nonsense for a simple edit to a couple of words in an act.
- Politix - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 10:58 am:
That’s me at 10:58
- Poltiix - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 11:03 am:
“…a means of obscuring the crimes these individuals have committed by implying their challenges are because the criminal justice system “impacted” them.”
Get back to us when the disproportionate number of black and brown people sitting in Illinois prisons right now evens out. Black communities in Illinois have been decimated by the generational overuse of incarceration.
- JS Mill - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 11:04 am:
The whole thing seems a bit silly in a way that Bill Maher often talks about.
Yes, some terms can be derogatory and change over the years. But some changes obscure the meaning and make things less clear. Cognitively disabled, for instance, is a more accurate description of someone’s disability versus older terms. Justice impacted is unclear as that could be a victim or a criminal.
Either, it seems like a mole hill in search of a mountain on all sides.
- Candy Dogood - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 11:05 am:
===“justice-impacted individuals.”===
I’ve only been a native English speaker my whole life, but this sounds like it is describing a victim of injustice.
- Just Me 2 - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 11:06 am:
What is with the Republican Party, both state and national, embracing disinformation so much recently? If you have to lie to me to get me to support you, then you don’t deserve my support.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 11:08 am:
===a simple edit to a couple of words in an act===
True. They’re basing their silly outrage on their willingness to believe a half-fact. And it’s a silly phrase that doesn’t really matter.
- Hannibal Lecter - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 11:11 am:
=== Get back to us when the disproportionate number of black and brown people sitting in Illinois prisons right now evens out. ===
Why do you think that is? Because of the titles people are assigned in state statutes? Or could people be helped avoid prison altogether through structured programs to lift people out of poverty? Like I said - stop with the PC nonsense and get to work on a budget.
- Steve - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 11:11 am:
If very , very Maoist. Anyway, drug dealers could become “unlicensed pharmacists”.
- Don't Believe The Hype - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 11:18 am:
“If very , very Maoist. Anyway, drug dealers could become “unlicensed pharmacists”.”
Bernie Madoff was an unenlightened entrepreneur.
- Peoria Man - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 11:23 am:
Did we have the same degree of hand wringing when we changed “prisons” to “correctional centers”?
- zer0number - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 11:25 am:
Am I the only one who likes it? It gives me the image of the fist of that blindfolded naked justice lady impacting an individual, causing them to say “Owiee. I won’t do that again!”?
Seriously, as a GenXer, I do find some of these language changes weird, but in the end, I don’t care.
- Politix - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 11:32 am:
=stop with the PC nonsense and get to work on a budget=
You may consider it nonsense, but the corrections and criminal justice communities have recognized that language matters.
- NonAFSCMEStateEmployeeFromChatham - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 11:38 am:
Some of the same MAGA types hand wringing against the “justice-impacted” terminology will be quick to relabel and rewrite the misdeeds of Len Small, George Ryan, Orville Hodge and Bill Cellini (plus MSI under Edgar) as “Essential for the Economic Well Being of Illinois.” (and in the case of Cellini, essential for the City of Springfield’s pocketbooks).
- Wowie - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 11:41 am:
@ Don’t Believe The Hype
Comedy is hard, isn’t it?
- Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 11:47 am:
===Did we have the same degree of hand wringing when we changed “prisons” to “correctional centers”?===
I dunno. A facility with “correctional center” on the sign still looks ominous, with all those towers and razor wire, and a place you don’t want to go to get corrected out of your own free will. Maybe the word association has gravitated over time where “prison” and correctional center” have reached equity status.
- Anyone Remember - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 12:00 pm:
As much as a train wreck the Mayor’s Office in Chicago has been, events like this convince me it’d be worse with Vallas. He should know better.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 12:30 pm:
===Liberals love tinkering with language===
Yep, and conservatives love their own goofy overreactions to it. Grievances. Yum.
- SWIL_Voter - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 12:46 pm:
Are these changes not just to clarify how the program should be run? In my work we’re constantly seeking clarification on the definitions of words used. Switching to “justice impacted” simply broadens the pool of people. Doesnt exclude people who never served time but who have suffered some hardship due to the criminal justice system. Doesn’t seem to have anything to do with making you talk a different way. Seems like they just want to broaden the pool of people this would apply to. Am I missing something?
- ArchPundit - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 1:17 pm:
BTW, offender itself was a change in language away from convict, prisoner, etc because it added clarity but faced some opposition to using it initially.
- Amalia - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 3:40 pm:
@JoanP yes, I noticed when I went to the site that they had also recently changed the eligibility from just non violent individuals to anyone convicted of an offense that is probationable. that is more concerning than the language creep. SO someone who is probationable but was convicted of a violent crime can now be termed justice impacted individual. Ridiculous.
- Politix - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 5:50 pm:
@amalia: Violent offenses are rarely probationable, but you keep up the o u t r a g e…
- Amalia - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 6:15 pm:
@Politix, Joan P said some violent offenses are probationable, they changed their program to probationable from non violent offenses, so, yeah, outrage.
- JS Mill - Thursday, May 23, 24 @ 8:01 pm:
=Doesnt exclude people who never served time but who have suffered some hardship due to the criminal justice system.=
I am not sure being convicted of a crime and/or serving time qualifies as “suffering a hardship due to the criminal justice system”.