Washington State: Inmates Will No Longer Be Referred to As ���Offenders��� or ���Convicts���

Political correctness clearly has no boundaries.

Now, it matters what convicted, incarcerated criminals think about how it is to which they are referred.

According to reporting by KOMO, the state of Washington will no longer be referring to those in prison as ���offenders,��� ���convicts,��� or even as ���prisoners.���

Nope.

Instead, they will now be called, at worst, ���incarcerated persons.��� However, if inmates (I am permitting myself to use that word, if it is OK with all of you) happen to be in some sort of class while they are in prison, then they will be called ���students.��� If they happen to be laid up in the prison infirmary, they will be known as ���patients.���

The change comes at the order of a memo from Richard Morgan, Secretary of Corrections. Morgan���s spokesman, Jeremy Barclay, said, ���Secretary of Corrections Richard Morgan has put out a memo to staff requesting the alternation of vocabulary.���
According to Barclay, it is of great importance to Secretary Morgan that any negative implications or connotations associated with the manner in which ���incarcerated persons��� are addressed���are erased.

The Department of Corrections says the change is being made not only for the benefit of the prisoners (here I go again, using a pejorative), but for their families, as well. Speaking about the perceived struggles faced by families with respect to this issue, spokesman Barclay said, ���When they enter a facility to visit their loved ones, they���re referred to as ���offender families,��� instead of a family just coming to visit a loved one.���

Are we living on Mars now, and I just didn���t get the message?

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large