A Choice of Words: Prisoner, Inmate or Offender

The words we use to refer to people held in our prisons can say a lot about our commitment to reform.

I want to write today about why I prefer to use the word ‘prisoner’ to refer to incarcerated people on this blog, rather than ‘inmate,’ ‘offender,’ ‘convict’ or other terms.

It’s all in the connotation. The labels we use for our prisoners can show a bit about how we intend to treat them. Now, this isn’t cut and dry. Most people and media outlets use the word ‘inmate,’ and we can’t blame anyone for using the world’s accepted term.  But I want to do what I can to move away from that term.

'Inmate' was first used in 1589 to mean someone allowed to live in a house rented by someone else, something like ‘subletter.’ Three centuries later, it popped up as a reference to someone confined to an institution, and that’s the common usage today. But the word’s ring is something closer to a patient in a hospital than to someone confined against their will for a crime against society.

The word ‘prisoner’ is exact. It doesn’t carry the negative connotation, and it’s only the slightest bit activist: it reminds us every time we see it (or me at least) that the person is in prison, one of many prisons, that prisons are harsh. Inmate is too gentle of a word for such an ungentle place.

Offender is even worse than inmate. The word of choice for many prisons and state systems doesn’t hesitate to remind a prisoner that he or she broke the rules.

I talked about this recently with a friend who works with prisoners, and she mentioned that she is often corrected by corrections officers (no pun intended). She calls and asks the location of a prisoner, they say ‘that offender is in X unit.’  The connection to the word offender shows that some institutions, and some state corrections agencies , are committed to reminding the prisoner what they did wrong: they offended. Rather than looking forward, or even focusing on the present, the label keeps past crimes alive and handcuffs an offender to his or her crime.

I think the word convict has the same problems, but I know that a lot of prisoners themselves prefer this term, so I’m less adamant that this one be deleted from the dialect.

Inmate and offender, though, they can go.

This discussion flared up in the U.K. last year, with officials ordering corrections officers to use ‘prisoner’ instead of ‘inmate.’ The reaction was predictably harsh from some circles, with the head of a corrections union calling for an end of the “namby pamby attitude” that has made the prisons soft. Several commenters in this article called the move politically correct nonsense. I disagree, as I explained above.

I’d like to know what you all think of the choices we make in labeling our prisoners. I’ll write a bit more tomorrow on the words we use after a person is released.

Photo Thomas Sly