Another Thursday, another morning full of thought-provoking conversation. As much as I'm yearning for break -- my thoughts are overly-provoked! -- I can only say that we are on a roll, people!
First, a shout-out to President Travis, who was so generous with his time, expertise and responses to your excellent questions (second shout-out). I'd like for the blog this week to be a space for you to reflect on yesterday's discussion or to continue last week's blog discussion, or even to make connections between things said yesterday and things said last week.
What I've been thinking about since yesterday, and this may be an occupational hazard, is how much language and ritual are part of the re-entry (and indeed broader criminal justice) conversation. From calling an ex-con (what we called them in my day) a "formerly incarcerated citizen" to graduation ceremonies from parole, the "softer" or more "meta" or extra-legal (? now all my language choices seem subject to critique) concerns in the criminal justice process seem to be central ones. But I am someone who pays professional attention to symbol, language, and ritual. What are you all noticing "on the ground" in your internships? Do people pay careful attention to language? Is the importance of symbolic gestures something you see factored into the decisions your agency makes?
Feel free to take this in a different direction. What struck you about our conversation with President Travis yesterday? What questions would you have wanted to ask in a second hour? I know I would have asked him about the choice to put an anti-apartheid anthem as the epigraph to his book. What connections does he want the reader to make between America's prison system and apartheid in South Africa?
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Thank you to the Professors for setting this up and thanks to President Travis for a great conversation! When I first skimmed through the reading the issue of how we address people who have been incarcerated jumped out. As I mentioned in class, I’m currently working on a paper for CEO Academy and I’ve used the incorrect terms about a billion times so far. Though I understand the idea behind using different terminology, I wonder how that will affect society. My first instinct is that using a different name will not make much of a difference – people in society have certain ideas about who you are and those ideas will prevail no matter what you call yourself. That applies to everyone, regardless of whether or not you have been incarcerated.
Is changing the title or the way in which you address someone else an effective method of changing the perception of society? I think that while the name can be a great start to changing that perception I don’t think it will go very far. Most of the people I’ve interacted with already have ideas about incarcerated people and switch between calling them people who have been incarcerated or ex-convicts. How can we change ideas and stereotypes that have been imbedded for years?
I enjoyed all the stimulating topics that were brought up, and revel at the vast body of information possessed by President Travis, as well as his access to so many influential people like Herb Sturz.
Taking into consideration that this is my last semester, I want to acknowledge the wonderful experience I have had at John Jay. This last year however, has solidified my sentiments thanks to the Vera internship, which has afforded three knowledgeable and congenial educators at the fellows’ disposal. I will forever remember the highly intellectual minds I had the privilege to interact with every Thursday, and to top it off, a close and intimate discussion with President Travis, an expert in his field, about social justice issues that affects our lives everyday.
One of the underlying principles in cognitive therapy is the belief that if you can change the way someone thinks you can change their behavior. I believe it is important, especial when there is an important goal to achieve, that a conscientious attitude to intricate details is applied. Language is extremely important and I see this at my internship at the Vera Institute of Justice, especial when it comes to preparing grant proposals, where getting funding has a lot to do with how the language is written in the proposals.
Placing an emphasis on the terminologies referring to people who are in and out of prisons should be no exception! If the intention is to make real changes to the lives of people who were previously incarcerated, then using what they believe are derogatory terms, such as ex-convict, ex-prisoner… is counter productive. An important factor to keep in mind for everyone who works toward any kind of change is that Rome was not built in a day and that consistency matters.
The philosopher Nietzche said that what caused him the greatest difficulty was that "unspeakably more depends on what things are called than on what they are." Ridhi underlines the oh-so-human need to nominalize things, to organize people, places, and things in simple straight categories, and then reify those categories as if they represented a truth. Thus does a childhood I.Q. test ask: "What doesn't belong in the group: Apple, Orange, Orangutan? (Maybe a really smart kid would pick “apple” because the other two begin with the same letter sequence. But that kid would fail.) So, what doesn’t belong in this group: American, Citizen, Ex-Convict? Who is likely to be excluded?
Even more powerful is the idea of how labels are intertwined with perception and, necessarily, self-perception and identity (Remember how Kenneth and Mamie Clark’s interviews with African-American children growing up in the segregated South demonstrated that Black children ascribed greater beauty to White dolls than dolls with skin their own color? This stuff gets inside us.) But I would like you to consider even another insidious way that naming things effects the social environment. The theory of
"dynamic nominalism” discussed by Goodin, Hacking, Fisher, and others, posits that the category creates the group; human thought and behavior arises in response to our invention of the categories that label them. In such a theory, the range of available labels even determines the range of things a person can be. Wow.
The kind of systemic support that a category receives determines its ability to self-perpetuate and, thus, its stability in the lexicon. So, for instance, prior to 1976, I believe, there was no legislative or colloquial category “sexual predator”. Over time, many people committing a variety of types of sexual offenses are re-categorized as sexual predators, and a cottage industry of doctors, lawyers, politicians, therapists, corrections experts, journalists, and academics arise to study, help, or control them. In order to maintain their legitimacy, and get funding for their activities (see Kerryann’s post) they have to make sure that “sexual predator” is a “real” category in the public mind. And you better keep finding more people to keep in that category so that your own services stay necessary.
To bring in Prof. Waterston’s reminder to always ask “who benefits?” from something, we should ask: to whose benefit does it redound to keep the various labels we affix to people in the criminal justice system, and how could we empower the labeled through a new set of categories? (Being old enough to have lived through the conversion from Miss or Mrs. to Ms., I can testify to the entire reworking of identity that happened when women no longer had to define themselves through marriage.) Still, I’m not sure that I like the notion of the “redemption” narrative (as Maureen brought up in class, that might be a rather naïve, simplistic kind of designation that confirms the assumptions of those in power about those who have been deprived of liberty.) I don't know what language will be the most productive, but it is certain that we need to resignify people leaving prison in order to allow them to inhabit the same categories in which we dwell.
I want to thank the professors for setting up this class discussion with Jeremy Travis. President Travis, I want to thank you for attending this discussion and so eloquently answering all our questions and concerns with prisoner re-entry.
I have been interning at Center for Employment Opportunities since we began the Vera Fellowship. When I first began at C.E.O, I was doing basic research and then sort of maneuvered my way into client contact. Client contact has been my passion because I believe that by building a successful rapport these citizens are able to construct a network of staff that is willing to fully commit to their needs.
The staff at C.E.O is full of enthusiasm and commitment for their clients. Every Friday, for the majority of the day, I do assessments for the young adults. This process is done to accurately place the clients. While doing their assessments, I have been exposed to their lifestyles and their rationale for committing these acts. I strongly agree with President Travis that it is not simply programs that reduce these young teens from being arrested.
What needs to change is the sense of community, educational system, and strong familial ties. Is this inevitable in communities that lack the proper funding, or parents that are forced to work more than one job? How can we create these strong familial ties when families living in deprived neighborhoods are forced to choose between their families and means of survival?
I believe that sometimes these things are inevitable and we as a community have to involve ourselves. Just simply acknowledging every human being as being equal contributes to the respect we have for one another. Things of this sort can help reduce violence within our communities. Just as President Travis mentioned, eliminating these titles such as "ex-offender, ex-convict" etc can help minimize these citizens from being continuously stigmatized and aid to their successful process of re-integration.
In Wildcat's BTW program (where I was) I didn't see any thought go into language.
In URI's LEAP (where I am), language plays a critical role in the workings of the agency.
The populations served are different, but so are the values and mission of the organization. As for me, I think:
Language is huge, especially in the communities I am a part of. The words we use to discuss and label race, gender, sex, immigration status, age, "differing"abilities, socioeconomic status, religion...on and on... is something I keep questioning and changing.
HOWEVER, there is nothing worse than bulky, ugly words for the sake of being PC. (the first example that comes to my mind is all of the letters that have been attached to LGBT/Q so that it ends up looking like LGBTQQATSIASPSPCD and you still have just as many people scratching their heads trying to find a letter to call their own)
This is especially frustrating when you have [often good-intentioned] outsiders creating this swollen awkward language.
But the MOST frustrating thing of all is when we get so caught up on language we forget that the words even mean anything at all. Like someone I met who got so tripped up when he couldn't decide whether to use "African American" or "Black" in a really racist inappropriate joke he thought he'd share with me. (Uh, at that point it doesn't matter to me what word you use)
My professor told us last semester how some knuckleheads had followed her and her friends home one time saying "Faggot! Faggot!" Her friend got mad and yelled to them "We're Dykes- not Faggots". And progress was made! They changed their language, now they started chanting "Dykes! Dykes!"
Three more words that pop to mind: Community Policing, restorative justice (we love saying those two words- but a new changed mission statement does not a changed organization make) and caucasian ('ll accept white, but caucasian? really? My family is not from Caucasia.) What about the word "sex offender"?
Here's the summary of my rambling:
1. If folks are going to be labeled, they should be doing the labeling
2. The public will let you know if the label works or not. If it's awkward, scrap it. That's what's great about language.
3. Labels that we already have that don't make sense we toss too. At the end of the day, it's just words.
4. Nietzche's insight is important. As educated people we need to be able to recognize how image and language influence our perception of 'things'.
I really enjoyed the quiet setting for our discussion with President Travis. In my internship, I noticed that people paid close attention to language. In my previous semester at CASES we named the individuals we work with clients and not offenders. When I started to work at CJA, the one think that was brought to my attention was how we call the people we work with. They are called defendants and not offenders. The line between them is very fine. However, if a defendant was not yet convicted, is considered innocent until proven guilty. I believe that language is a very powerful tool and it can be used to influence somebody in a negative or a positive way. I experienced this on my own. I don’t like people referring to me as an immigrant. I believe that this is not what defines me and therefore I should not be viewed from that perspective. I am sure that it is the same case with people that have been formerly incarcerated. Incarceration was a step in their lives, a transition, but it is not what defines them. Use of some words can have collateral damages and we are trying to avoid that in our effort to help individuals who have been incarcerated to reintegrate into society.
I liked how precise President Travis defined “reentry”. I also liked his attention to detail in addressing every question. But, I still want to talk a little about communities. I have noticed in both of my internships that community plays an important role. At CASES, most youths were asked if they can go back and live with their families if released. At CJA, families ties is one of the variable measures in the defendant’s risk of not showing up in court if released on his/her own recognizance. If you have strong family ties, most probably you will go back to live with your family when released. However, in most cases this means going back in a community that has a high level of crime. Therefore, communities play an important role in the life of the defendant upon release. A specific neighborhood carries the same stigma as a derogatory term for a formerly incarcerated person. Some people get scared when they hear the name of a specific neighborhood. I just try to imagine what people think when they get job applications and have the applicant residing in a “not so good” neighborhood. I think it is necessary to do something to change the perception of some communities in order to ease the transition of people coming home from prisons/jails.
Thank you President Travis for such a thought provoking discussion! I as well would like to focus on the importance of language. It brings me back to my internship at The Legal Action Center where my mentor was talking about how they wanted so badly to change the name "alternatives to incarceration" because it contained "incarceration”. If the whole idea behind these alternatives is rehabilitation, then why should its title reflect a term used to punish?
Since then, I have only continued to learn more about languages profound impact. Language is not one dimensional; it also involved body language. At my internship at NDS, I discussed with my supervisor the fact that he stood much closer to his clients and made physical contact with them while in front of the judge (unlike many of the other attorneys). We talked about how this subtle body language has the ability to make great differences.
Back to psych 101, language can contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy; the psychological repercussions that can result out of terminologies like “ex-convict” do nothing to aid in their reintegration. Even if not found guilty, just being indicted for a crime can cause people to lose their job, children, public benefits, etc. This does not reflect the values of a country that preaches “innocent until proven guilty”.
This semester I had the opportunity to take a forensic linguistics course. It has opened me up to many areas of thought; one lesson I found particularly interesting is how the people who transcribe forensic interactions (court stenographers, those recording police interviews, etc.) will often add “higher registers” (proper grammar, less hesitations, etc.) to people in power like police or judges, but make sure to include slips in witnesses and suspects. Language can be used in countless ways to either benefit or harm someone.
Renee, I couldn't agree with you more: there is nothing worse than getting so caught up in correct terminology that we lose sight of our message. I think sometimes people become so worried about being policitally correct (or should I say they are worried about being incorrect) that they avoid talking about certain people/issues altogether. THAT becomes a problem.
It is important to note not only the shift in our language used to address people, but in reference to places: we don't say the mental ward, we say psychiatric facility; we don't say the half-way house, we say supportive housing; etc. Are the names changing because the facilities and services have changed? Or can these name changes facilitate changes in program/facility missions? Or is nothing but the name changing?
Kind of odd how language can have such a huge impact (I think), but I also think it can be to our detriment if we pay too much attention to it.
First of all thank you to the Professors and President Travis for speaking on such an important topic of reentry. I was truly impressed by the careful attention to which Pres. Travis talked about reentry. In addition, such a simple senternce, "But they all come back" and yet it has such a powerful meaning and resonance. That is a lesson that I think all Vera Fellows can take with us. How do we create language that encompasses the problem and is unthreatening.
In regards to labels and language. I remember Prof. Stein said how do we create language? If inmates, ex-con, ex-felon, felon alienate important individuals that we want to help and have their voices heard, then how do we create the language? I think that is a huge and important project that someone should take on. Finally re-creating and re-inventing language terms.
While these language issues reflect our particular cultural moment -- the things that sound appropriate these days will not down the road (think of how odd the term "colored" sounds and yet that was a progressive alternative in its day) -- it is good to remember that language is and has always been alive. How language reflects and shapes reality has been something that has concerned writers as long as there has been writing. I think the very best thing ever written about this is George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language." His point is very Renee-esque: be careful to say what you mean, because fuzzy language leads to fuzzy thinking. If I can find a copy on the web, I'll put a link to the essay in our Check It Out section.
Well, kudos to all of you for another rich blog. I would like to add my thanks along with all of yours to President Travis for sharing his great knowledge and insights.
I love the discussion on language—how language helps construct reality, shape perception, and reproduce extant social relations—including and especially those dynamics marked by social inequality. I agree that we need to be conscious of how words are used and how/why meanings are attached to them. At the same time, I wonder how far alterations in language go in terms of changing the material conditions that give rise to the social problems in the first place!! Put another way, how deep can linguistics really go in terms of substantive social change (i.e., not remain at the level of symbolism, at the level of appearances)?
For Professor Reitz: Yes! Bring on Orwell. From him I learned the true meaning of such political terms as “pacification” and “population transfer”—and therefore how to read the daily newspaper! I learned from him how power uses language to generate consent and complicity (suppress resistance) among a populace.
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